13/11/2018

Where Cheap Power Matters More Than Environmental Armageddon

Bloomberg -   | 

‣ Australia lags behind in energy transition away from coal
‣ Lack of policy clarity hurting investment in new power sources
An aerial view of Abbot Point, north of Bowen, Queensland, Australia, in 2013. Source: Greenpeace via EPA
Few places better illustrate the tension between pursuing profit and tackling climate change than Australia’s Abbot Point port in northern Queensland.
It’s here, 30 miles from the Great Barrier Reef, that Adani Enterprises Ltd. wants to increase capacity so it can ship more coal from a new A$2 billion ($1.4 billion) mine nearby. The expansion faces opposition from environmentalists, who say it will endanger the health of the reef, one of the seven wonders of the natural world, but has been backed by the government along with the new mine.
It’s emblematic of Australia’s dilemma: blessed with some of the world’s richest natural environments, from Kakadu wetlands in the Northern Territory to the primordial Tarkine rainforest in Tasmania, yet reliant on mining and exporting one of the most ecologically-damaging fossil fuels to keep its economy ticking.
Under Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Liberal-National coalition government, political and economic arguments in favor of fossil fuels are overpowering popular interest in tackling climate change for now. The coalition was keen to disburse A$1 billion in taxpayer-funded loans to help Adani build a rail link for the project, but the plan was vetoed by Queensland’s state government, which is controlled by the national opposition Labor Party.
Though one of the world’s biggest sources of coal and natural gas, a decade of political dithering and policy missteps have saddled Australia with rising power prices and at times unreliable supplies. Successive governments have failed to provide the investment certainty needed to bridge the transition to renewables such as solar and wind as aging coal-fired plants close.
The government is primarily focused on mollifying voters hit with higher electricity bills and sees coal as the solution. Yet those same voters also want more action against climate change, with 84 percent wanting the government to boost renewable power generation, according to a June poll by Australian think tank the Lowy Institute.

Power Mix Down Under
Keeping the coal fires burning
Source: Bloomberg NEF
Note: Data for 2017
“The challenge is largely political” said Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at Australian National University. “We have a range of barriers both in terms of policy, or lack of policy, to incentivize change.”
The need for change is becoming more urgent, according to a panel of scientists convened by the United Nations. The world must invest $2.4 trillion in clean energy every year through 2035 and cut the use of coal-fired power to almost nothing by 2050 to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in a report last month.
The atmosphere is already almost 1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) hotter than it was at the start of the industrial revolution and on track to rise 3 degrees by 2100, according to the report. That’s double the pace targeted under the 2015 Paris climate agreements.
“Post-Paris, the world has largely moved on toward adopting a de-carbonization pathway,” Christoph Frei, chief executive of the World Energy Council, said during a visit to Australia last month. “In Australia, we don’t have that certainty and that’s probably the worst situation you can be in.”
An increase in 1.5 degrees would pose an increased risk of coral bleaching on the iconic Reef, longer droughts on the driest inhabited continent and more intense bushfire seasons, according to Howden.
Many Australian lawmakers still find the economic argument for supporting coal more compelling than avoiding possible environmental Armageddon. The fuel is overtaking iron ore as Australia’s largest export earner this fiscal year, with taxes from more than $40 billion a year in overseas sales helping bolster government coffers. Australia generates about 80 percent of its power from coal and gas, compared with the global average of about 59 percent, according to Bloomberg NEF data.

Fossil Fuel Fetish
Coal and gas still make up bulk of Australian power generation
Source: Bloomberg NEF
Note: Data for 2017
 That looks unlikely to change under the current government. Morrison, who in 2016 brandished a lump of coal in parliament to show his support of the fuel, is considering using taxpayer dollars to subsidize new coal-fired plants. Following the IPCC report, Morrison said he was confident Australia would meet its Paris emissions-reduction target -- a minimum 26 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2030 -- “at a canter.”
“The government is committed to drive down power prices for Australian businesses and families, while we keep the lights on,” Energy Minister Angus Taylor said in a written response to questions sent by Bloomberg. “There are already record levels of investment in Australia’s renewable energy sector,” and the nation is on track to meet its emissions reduction and large-scale renewable energy targets, he said.

‘No Effective Policy’
Not everyone is convinced. Tim Flannery, perhaps Australia’s best known environmentalist, said the country’s Paris targets were underwhelming compared with developed world peers and “even those targets look unachievable.”
“The government has no effective policy to achieve them,” Flannery said in an interview.
Unlike the Trump administration, Australia has not formally withdrawn from the Paris framework. But Morrison’s government is refusing to legislate or regulate measures to ensure the targets will be met. The nation is the world’s number one carbon emitter on a per-capita basis and its renewables capacity is among the lowest in the developed world.
The policy vacuum makes it difficult for energy companies to make investment decisions needed for the transition to cleaner power.
“It’s hard to decide to invest in long-life assets when you don’t know what the rules of the game are around carbon constraint,” said Sarah McNamara, chief executive officer of the Australian Energy Council, which represents companies in the wholesale and retail energy markets.
ANU’s Howden says Australia’s lack of action on climate change is perplexing to many of his international colleagues.
“When other countries look at us,” he said, “they wonder why we’re not aligning ourselves with what they see as our own self-interest.”

Links
at No comments:

Fighting Climate Change: How Emergency Services Are Battling Changing Conditions

ABC - Kate Doyle

Fire seasons in the United States and Australia are getting longer. (Reuters: Gene Blevins)
Infographic: Californian fires are projected to increase in (a) number, (b) size and (c) burn area, with an extended season in the future (2040-2060) compared to the present (1980-2000) (based on high emissions scenario). (Supplied: Yufang Jin et al. 2015 Environmental Research Letters)
California has been battling the most destructive fires in its history and the death toll is rising.
Meanwhile in Australia, there was a heat event recently that smashed early season temperature records in the south-east, and fires threatened Canberra.
It is still spring.
Attributing individual events to climate change is complex, but observing the overall trend is not.
The California fires are happening during the period of the Santa Ana winds, which blow across the continent bringing hot, dry winds from October through to April.
November fires are not unheard of, but historically the Santa Ana fires peak in October, before things cool down as the northern hemisphere heads into winter.
Because of climate change, fires are getting more intense and fire seasons are extending to the point where the northern and southern hemisphere fire seasons are overlapping.

Tactics will need to change
Climate change is a reality emergency services are dealing with, and fire is not the only problem, with warming oceans resulting in heavier rain and the potential for increased flooding.
Tasmanian Fire Service chief officer Chris Arnold does not back away from the issue.
"We have to look at what the impact of climate change is in the community and how we're going to change our strategies and our tactics, and then ultimately invest in new approaches to deal with climate change," he said.
Mr Arnold is involved with an emergency services climate change initiative to research and respond to climate change issues in the sector.
"Certainly we have been aware of climate change coming and the Bureau of Meteorology has long been warning of those impacts. The next thing to decide is what do you do about that?" he said.


Bad fire seasons are becoming the norm
Bureau of Meteorology climate services manager David Jones said the impacts of climate change were already being felt in Australia.
"In southern Australia we've seen rising temperatures and declining rainfall and that's increasing the fire danger, particularly in states like Victoria, parts of New South Wales, western New South Wales, southern New South Wales, across south-west WA," he said.
Summer fire danger has been getting worse for the south and east since the 1950s.
  (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)
Dr Jones said in Victoria there had been about a 50 per cent increase in the forest fire danger index season severity.
"When you look at the past, we would get a bad fire season maybe once every 10 years or thereabouts," he said.
"Now the norm is actually a bad fire season."
What can be done about that?
New South Wales Rural Fire Service planning and predictive services manager Simon Heemstra is on the frontline of trying to work out how to adapt to climate change in the emergency services sector.
One of the challenges he faces is not being able to share resources, such as the big American firebombing aeroplanes, when seasons cross over.
Sharing resources is a challenge when states and countries are battling fires at the same time. (Supplied: DELWP)
"With the lengthening season, there may be competition for those sorts of resources, and we're going to need to look at what are the most effective alternatives, and also how else can we better mitigate and prepare for events," Dr Heemstra said.
"The American water bombers are only a part of how we manage fires."
Dr Heemstra said an increased emphasis on better hardening infrastructure, preparing communities, as well as all the mitigation works on fire trials and hazard reduction, would hopefully reduce the increasing risk and impact of climate change-induced natural disasters.

Not just fire that is an issue
Dr Jones said the changing climate was not just impacting fires — the ice is melting and the warming ocean is expanding, impacting on flooding.
"What we're seeing is a quite general increase in sea level. It's about 4 millimetres a year at the moment, 3–4 millimetres, and it's going on year on year. It's actually starting to add up," he said.
A few centimetres could change how natural disasters play out.
Warm waters in May 2016 coincided with record rainfall in Tasmania. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)
"For example, earlier in the year in Brisbane, we saw floods on perfectly fine sunny days and that was because of these higher sea levels," Dr Jones said.
Warmer oceans can also lead to heavier rain, especially when combined with a warmer atmosphere.
"The amount of moisture the atmosphere can hold increases by nearly 10 per cent for each degree of global warming," Dr Jones said.

When it comes to climate, nothing happens in isolation
"The other thing we're noticing with the heating globe is that the things that caused these disasters also have other cascading and coalescing events," Dr Heemstra said.
For example, fires during heatwaves can stress electricity supply.
"There's a whole public health issue that also goes with multiple disasters you might need to be responding to," he said. 
Dealing with firefighter fatigue is an issue emergency services will have to tackle as fire seasons get longer. (Supplied: Wallcliffe Volunteer Fire Brigade, file)
 There are many aspects for emergency services to consider, particularly if there are going to be more frequent events.
"How do we deal with our workforce, and fatigue, and managing the increased expectation of how we're going to work?" Dr Heemstra said.
"How do we look at infrastructure, and are our design levels appropriate for a changing climate?"

How bad could it get?
Most climate modelling focuses on how the averages are going to change over time.
If you're reading this article, it's possible the answer is yes. Then why not join the ABC-facilitated Weather Obsessed group on Facebook — thousands of others are already going troppo for the troposphere!
"The thing that we're missing out of the climate models is they don't really look at the extremes, and that is where we operate in the emergency services space," Dr Heemstra said.
"We actually need to do some more work looking at the amplitude or the amount which those extreme events vary from those averages, stay the same, or will that actually increase."
According to Dr Heemstra, there needs to be an investment in projecting the extremes so we can better understand the sort of challenges we might face because of climate change.
Dr Jones's data demonstrates that things are already different from how they were in the past.
"What it means is really the past can no longer tell you the limits of what you can see," he said.
"So you start to have to prepare for events which are perhaps beyond what you're seen before, perhaps starting to really test your imagination."
For Dr Jones it is not about hope or options. As a scientist he studies these things objectively.
"We study really to make people's life better … enable them to take the opportunities that climate change will present, but also adapt so the impacts of climate change are less bad."

Links
at No comments:

Ten Ways Climate Change Is Making Wildfires Worse

SBS -  Yuri Kadobnov, AFP

As deadly wildfires threaten thousands in northern and southern California, scientists have identified 10 ways climate change can make wildfires worse.



Deadly wildfires such as those raging in northern and southern California have become more common in the US state and elsewhere in the world in recent years. AFP talked to scientists about the ways in which climate change can make them worse.
Other factors have also fuelled an increase in the frequency and intensity of major fires, including human encroachment on wooded areas, and questionable forest management. "The patient was already sick," in the words of David Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania and a wildfire expert.
"But climate change is the accelerant."

Fine weather for a fire
Any firefighter can tell you the recipe for "conducive fire weather": hot, dry and windy.
No surprise, then, that many of the tropical and temperate regions devastated by a surge in forest fires are those predicted in climate models to see higher temperatures and more droughts.
Heavy smoke blankets the forest where the Camp Fire is burning heavily near Paradise, California, on Nov. 11, 2018. AAP
"Besides bringing more dry and hot air, climate change - by elevating evaporation rates and drought prevalence - also creates more flammable ecosystems," noted Christopher Williams, director of environmental sciences at Clark University in Massachusetts.
In the last 20 years, California and southern Europe have seen several droughts of a magnitude that used to occur only once a century.
A group of U.S. Forest Service firefighters monitor a back fire while battling to save homes on Nov. 8.  © Stephen Lam/Reuters
More fuel
Dry weather means more dead trees, shrubs and grass - and more fuel for the fire.
"All those extremely dry years create an enormous amount of desiccated biomass," said Michel Vennetier, an engineer at France's National Research of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA).
"That's an ideal combustible."

Change of scenery
To make matters worse, new species better adapted to semi-arid conditions grow in their place.
"Plants that like humidity have disappeared, replaced by more flammable plants that can withstand dry conditions, like rosemary, wild lavender and thyme," said Vennetier.
"The change happens quite quickly."
In the last 20 years, California and southern Europe have seen several droughts of a magnitude that used to occur only once a century. © Provided by AFP


Thirsty plants
With rising mercury and less rain, water-stressed trees and shrubs send roots deeper into the soil, sucking up every drop of water they can to nourish leaves and needles.
That means the moisture in the earth that might have helped to slow a fire sweeping through a forest or garrigue is no longer there.

Longer season
In the northern hemisphere's temperate zone, the fire season was historically short - July and August, in most places.
"Today, the period susceptible to wildfires has extended from June to October," said IRSTEA scientist Thomas Curt, referring to the Mediterranean basin.
In California, which only recently emerged from a five-year drought, some experts say there's no longer a season at all - fires can happen year-round.

More lightning
"The warmer it gets, the more lightning you have," said Mike Flannigan, a professor at the University of Alberta, Canada and director of the Western Partnership for Wildland Fire Science.
The wildfires spreading across California have so far claimed nine lives and forced tens of thousands to flee. AAP
"Especially in the northern areas, that translates into more fires."
At the same time, he noted that 95 per cent of wildfires worldwide are started by humans.

Weakened jet stream
Normal weather patterns over North America and Eurasia depend heavily on the powerful, high-altitude air currents - produced by the contrast between polar and equatorial temperatures - known as the jet stream.
But global warming has raised temperatures in the Arctic twice as fast as the global average, weakening those currents.
"We are seeing more extreme weather because of what we call blocked ridges, which is a high-pressure system in which air is sinking, getting warmer and drier along the way," said Flannigan.
"Firefighters have known for decades that these are conducive to fire activity."

Unmanageable intensity
Climate change not only boosts the likelihood of wildfires, but their intensity as well.
"If the fire gets too intense" as in California right now, and in Greece last summer - "there is no direct measure you can take to stop it," said Flannigan.
"It's like spitting on a campfire."

Beetle infestations
With rising temperatures, beetles have moved northward into Canada's boreal forests, wreaking havoc - and killing trees - along the way.
"Bark beetle outbreaks temporarily increase forest flammability by increasing the amount of dead material, such as needles," said Williams.

Positive feedback
Globally, forests hold about 45 per cent of Earth's land-locked carbon and soak up a quarter of human greenhouse gas emissions.
But as forests die and burn, some of the carbon is released back into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change in a vicious loop that scientists call "positive feedback."

Links
at No comments: