5 Surprising Ways Major Cities Are Going Green

World Economic Forum - Douglas Broom

Eco-innovations involving cockroaches and cow dung have the potential to clean up urban life.

Image: REUTERS/Thomas Suen

What do cow dung, cockroaches, wood pellets and empty plastic bottles have in common? It’s not a trick question. The answer is that they could help us save the planet.
When the Pakistan port city of Karachi had to shut down its public transport authority, the 14.9 million people who live there were left without a formal bus service. An informal network of brightly decorated but often overcrowded private buses struggles to keep people moving.

Karachi could soon have the world's first biomethane bus fleet.
Image: REUTERS/Caren Firouz

Now the UN-backed Green Climate Fund and the Asian Development Bank have stepped in to fund a 30km zero-emission bus network that will be safe and accessible to all. Buses will be powered by methane from cow dung, making it the world’s first biomethane hybrid bus fleet.
A new plant is being built outside the city to generate methane from dung which would otherwise find its way into the Arabian Sea. The $584 million project includes 25 new bus stations, secure pedestrian crossings, cycle lanes and segregated bus lanes to speed buses past Karachi’s notoriously slow traffic.

Cockroaches to the rescue
If the idea of cow dung makes you hold your nose, how about a billion cockroaches? That’s how many they have at a plant in Jinan, capital of eastern Shandong province, China and they are eating their way through 50 tonnes of food waste every day.
The city, in common with many others, produces more food waste than can be accomodated in local landfill. So the Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology Co came up with the idea of feeding it to cockroaches, which can in turn be fed to pigs.
China bans the feeding of food waste to pigs to prevent transmission of African swine fever. By next year, the Shandong Qiaobin Agricultural Technology plans to have three more plants operating that will be capable of handling a third of the kitchen waste produced by Jinan’s 7 million people.
As well as a protein-rich food for pigs, cockroaches are also believed to provide a cure for oral and peptic ulcers and heal skin wounds and other conditions. In Sichuan, a company called Gooddoctor is rearing 6 billion cockroaches for medicinal use.

Pay with plastic
In China’s capital, Beijing, and Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, you can buy your ticket for the bus or metro with a bag of recycling plastic.
In Surabaya, a two-hour bus ticket costs 10 plastic cups or up to five plastic bottles, depending on their size. Each bus can collect up to 250kg of plastic bottles a day, helping the city towards its target of eliminating plastic waste by next year.
Plastic is a big issue for Indonesia. A study in the journal Science named the country’s archipelago of a thousand islands as a major source of plastic in the world’s oceans, second only to China.
In Beijing, ticket machines in the city’s subway system now take plastic bottles as well as more conventional payment methods. Passengers receive a credit of between five and 15 cents for each bottle and can top up their fare with cash. China’s rivers are among the 10 major sources of plastic pollution. Eight of the 10 are in Asia.

Image: Statista

World’s first carbon neutral city
As nations take action to reduce waste and their environmental footprints, one of the greenest cities in the world is on the verge of becoming fully carbon neutral. Copenhagen plans to be carbon neutral - meaning it will produce no more carbon emissions than it can offset elsewhere - by 2025, a quarter of a century ahead of the targets set in the Paris climate agreement.
It helps that the city owns its electricity generation, which is mostly wind powered. A happy legacy of the last century is that most buildings in the city are on a district heating system, where heat is supplied to homes from a single neighbourhood plant, instead of by each household having its own system.
Virtually all of Copenhagen’s 600,000 residents own a bicycle, and the city has 375km of cycle lanes. But what happens if the wind fails to blow? The city-owned energy company HOFOR is converting a coal-fired plant to burn renewable wood pellets. They will still emit some carbon but the city expects to be 95% carbon neutral even if it has to fall back on pellet power.

Links

• Does it pay for cities to be green?
• 7 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in India
• Climate change is a disruptor. Here’s how to harness it for innovation
• Four Ways Our Cities Can Cut Transport Emissions In A Hurry: Avoid, Shift, Share And Improve
• More Than 100 Cities Now Mostly Powered By Renewable Energy, Data Shows
• This Is How Climate Change Will Shift The World’s Cities
• How To Fix Climate Change: Put Cities, Not Countries, In Charge
• These Six Utopian Cities Of The Future Will Help You Re-Imagine Life On Earth
• Taking Up The Slack: When Governments Don’t Act On Climate Change
• How 300 Years Of Urbanization And Farming Transformed The Planet

Fed Official: Climate Change Is An ‘International Market Failure’

Grist - Eric Holthaus

U.S. Federal Reserve official: Global warming is an international market failure – “Climate-based risk could threaten the stability of the financial system as a whole”

Floodwaters surround office buildings on September 5, 2017 in Houston, more than a week after Hurricane Harvey hit Southern Texas. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Climate change was already worrying enough — now a report from the U.S. central bank cautions that rising temperatures and extreme storms could eventually trigger a financial collapse.
A Federal Reserve researcher warned in a report on Monday that “climate-based risk could threaten the stability of the financial system as a whole.”
But possible fixes — using the Fed’s buying power to green the economy — are currently against the law.
Glenn Rudebusch, the San Francisco Fed’s executive vice president for research, ranks climate change as one of the three “key forces transforming the economy,” along with an aging population and rapid advances in technology.
Climate change could soon hit the banking system “by storms, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme events” making it harder for businesses to repay loans.

Rudebusch warns that crops and inundated cities have already started to hurt the economy: “Economists view these losses as the result of a fundamental market failure: carbon fuel prices do not properly account for climate change costs,” he writes.
“Businesses and households that produce greenhouse gas emissions, say, by driving cars or generating electricity, do not pay for the losses and damage caused by that pollution.”
A hefty carbon tax alone wouldn’t be enough to fix the problem — what he calls an “intergenerational and international market failure.”
Since Congress has yet to take sufficient action, Rudebusch says that the Fed could, in theory, take matters into its own hands by encouraging a shift away from fossil fuels.
The problem is, the Fed’s only official job is to keep inflation tame and unemployment low. And its tools are limited to buying and selling government debt to tweak interest rates.
That means it can’t help companies make a shift to a low-carbon economy by, for instance, lending them money in the bond market.
By contrast, the European Central Bank has been buying “green” bonds since 2016. An ECB research note last July found that those purchases have helped boost the market for these kind of investments, helping spur environmental improvements.
Along with a report last week from the insurance industry saying that climate change could eventually make insurance unaffordable for most people, Rudebusch’s report is part of a growing body of evidence that climate change poses an existential threat to the world economy as it currently exists.
Last month, Fed chairman Jerome Powell told legislators that asking why the Fed doesn’t currently consider the risks of climate change was a “fair question.”

Links

• Climate Change and the Federal Reserve
• Report: Climate change could make insurance too expensive for most people
• Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?
• In blow to climate, coal plants emitted more than ever in 2018 – “We are headed for disaster, and nobody seems to be able to slow things down”

Climate Change Denial Is Evil, Says Mary Robinson

The Guardian - Damian Carrington

Exclusive: chair of Elders group also says fossil fuel firms have lost their social licence

Mary Robinson: ‘I believe that climate change denial is not just ignorant, it is malign, it is evil.’

Photograph: Johnny Savage/The Guardian 

The denial of climate change is not just ignorant, but “malign and evil”, according to Mary Robinson, because it denies the human rights of the most vulnerable people on the planet.
The former UN high commissioner for human rights and special envoy for climate change also says fossil fuel companies have lost their social licence to explore for more coal, oil and gas and must switch to become part of the transition to clean energy.
Robinson will make the outspoken attack on Tuesday, in a speech to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London, which has awarded her the Kew International Medal for her “integral work on climate justice”.
She also told the Guardian she supports climate protests, including the school strikes for climate founded by “superstar” Greta Thunberg, and that “there is room for civil disobedience as a way of communicating, though we also need hope”.
Robinson is chair of the Elders, an independent group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela that works for human rights. She will say in her speech: “I believe that climate change denial is not just ignorant, it is malign, it is evil, and it amounts to an attempt to deny human rights to some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.”
“The evidence about the effects of climate change is incontrovertible, and the moral case for urgent action indisputable,” she will say.
“Climate change undermines the enjoyment of the full range of human rights – from the right to life, to food, to shelter and to health. It is an injustice that the people who have contributed least to the causes of the problem suffer the worst impacts of climate change.”
Robinson, a former president of the Republic of Ireland, told the Guardian her angry words were the result of seeing the impact on people’s lives. “In Africa, I saw the devastating impacts on poor farmers, villagers and communities when they could not predict when the rainy season was going to come.”
She also attacks big oil, gas and coal companies in her speech. She is expected to say: “We have entered a new reality where fossil fuel companies have lost their legitimacy and social licence to operate.” She says exploration for new reserves must end, given that most of existing reserves must be kept in the ground if global warming is to be tackled.
Robinson condemns the UK government for the £4.8bn support given by its export finance body for fossil fuels from 2010-16. “It stirs painful memories of past exploitative behaviour to see the UK and other rich, industrialised countries proclaim their good intentions and act in a progressive way at home, whilst effectively exporting their emissions to poorer foreign countries and leaving them to pay the price socially and environmentally.”
The US president, Donald Trump, is also criticised by Robinson for his “egregious act of climate irresponsibility” in withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. “Bad leadership has consequences now that are really bad for the people in the poorest communities, including in the US,” she told the Guardian.
Robinson says as well as taking personal action – she has given up meat – people need to get angry with those who have more power and are not meeting their responsibilities, saying: “Just as the suffragettes needed to embrace militant tactics to win the fight for female emancipation, so today we need to be fiercely determined to challenge vested interests, especially in the fossil fuel sector.”
There have been several strong attacks on climate change denial in recent months, with critics saying that proposals in the US for a new national security council panel of climate change deniers are “Stalinist”.
In November, the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said: “Smoking kills people, and tobacco companies that tried to confuse the public about that reality were being evil. But climate change isn’t just killing people; it may well kill civilisation. Trying to confuse the public about that is evil on a whole different level. Don’t some of these people have children?”
The BBC accepted in September it gets coverage of climate change “wrong too often” and told staff: “You do not need a ‘denier’ to balance the debate.”

Links

• Humans need to become smarter thinkers to beat climate denial
• Is it socially acceptable to challenge climate denial?
• BBC apologises over interview with climate denier Lord Lawson
• Let's expose everyday climate denial. Here's how
• Climate change sceptics are 'headless chickens', says Prince Charles
• Climate change study forces sceptical scientists to change minds
• Climate change arguments incite 'weird religiosity', says Greg Barker
• Weatherwatch: should TV forecasters talk about climate change?
• G20 nations still led by fossil fuel industry, climate report finds
• BBC admits ‘we get climate change coverage wrong too often’

The Young Minds Solving Climate Change

BBC - Chad Frischmann*

Factory billowing smoke. Credit: Getty Images

Global warming, and its effect on climate, is one the most pressing issues facing the world today. It is a metaproblem that exacerbates most other challenges that keep us up at night – from sea level rise or the loss of natural resources to increased conflict, poverty, and gender inequality.
Despite much already having been written on the urgency with which we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, pull carbon out of the air, and redesign our social-environmental systems towards new ways of doing business, most decision makers, from individual consumers to world leaders, have been excruciatingly slow to take action.
What seems to be lacking is an understanding and consensus of real, workable technologies and practices to solve the crisis of growing concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
Younger generations, however, seem to be clued in to the reality that there are indeed climate solutions to this global problem.
"The climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change,” said Nobel Prize nominee Greta Thunberg in her 2018 TED talk.
Her bold, decisive, and informed rhetoric has inspired a global movement of school strikes for climate called #FridaysForFuture, orchestrated by students the worldwide. On 15 March 2019, 1.5 million young people and their allies hit the streets, striking in 2052 locations in 123 different countries.

The planet’s remaining forests will have to be protected, as they do vital work to soak up excess carbon.

While they are marching for a future they want, the endless debating over the different technologies needed to halt rising temperatures delay the necessary change. Climate solutions already exist and are scaling. There is no technology or economic barrier; rather, it is a lack of will and leadership to move farther and faster than the future of upcoming generations demand.
I lead a team of researchers from around the world, and together we map, model, and detail the world’s most impactful solutions to try and reverse global warming. Our research at Project Drawdown shows that there are better technologies and practices for electricity generation, transportation, buildings, industry, the food system, land use, and overconsumption. Climate solutions exist for nations, municipalities, businesses, investors, homeowners, so that consumers can shift towards a system that benefits all.
This is already happening across the globe through existing solutions that promote social justice, equity, and economic development, while restoring the planet’s natural carbon cycle. It is in younger generations that we will find the inspiration and courage for this change.

Adopting regenerative practices on current cropland, grassland and degraded land can restore soil health and fertility

Solutions abound, both scientifically proven and financially feasible. They are interventions that can shift the way the world does business. The global economy is based on extractive and exploitative growth models, spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion, land conversion, and excessive consumption of everything – but the economy does not need to be.
Instead, renewable energy options, such as solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and geothermal plants, can produce clean, abundant access to electricity, which currently accounts for approximately 25% of global emissions. Along with enabling technologies like energy storage and grid flexibility, renewable energy systems can fully replace coal, oil, and gas-fired power plants.
A plethora of options are available to moving people and goods from Point A to Point B that reduce or avoid burning fossil fuels from the tailpipe. Hybrids or electric vehicles are a good choice for medium or longer distance travel, but biking, using public transport, or walking are better options for emissions and human health for most people’s daily lives.

As consumers, we have to take more responsibility about how our actions affect the planet – like how much our food travels, and how it is processed

By reducing food loss and waste and moving towards a healthy, plant-rich diet, all the extra emissions and energy associated with producing, processing, packaging, distributing, cooking, and decomposing of food left uneaten or overconsumed could be avoided, while also providing sustenance to populations in need. These are some of the most impactful decisions every individual can make every day to help solve the climate crisis
Rather than cutting down forests and degrading wetlands to supply our rapacious appetite for meat, timber, and energy, protecting ecosystems can safeguard, expand, and create new carbon sinks. Adopting regenerative practices on current cropland, grassland and degraded land can restore soil health and fertility, increase yield and provide the same abundance of materials without destroying the natural systems.

We do not need an economy based on exploiting fossil fuels; instead we can create a new economy that is based on restorative and regenerative growth

Taken together, implementing regenerative practices for agriculture and livestock management, adopting a plant-rich diet, and reducing food waste, could result in enough food being produced on current farmland to feed the world’s growing population, now until 2050 and beyond. Taking actions to change the food system from supply through demand can prevent the need to cut down forests for food production, with enough existing cropland to produce biomass to supply feedstocks for other materials such as bioplastics or alternative concrete.
Accomplishing all this, however, requires individuals to make different decisions every day on what is produced, purchased, and consumed. These decisions can be hard for some, but when the results help to solve global warming, food insecurity, human health, and deforestation, they become what might be called the solution ‘duh-factor’. With enough cascading benefits, or ‘win-win-win-wins’, implementing climate solutions simply become common sense.

Non-polluting forms of power like solar can replace those which burn fossil fuels – if the will is there to make the change.

The growth of these interventions needs to accelerate at a much faster rate. Young people know this, perhaps because it is the only future worth fighting for. Along with the world’s poor, women, and indigenous peoples, younger generations will disproportionately experience the worst effects of climate change if nothing is done; or too little is accomplished too late. Acting now is essential for everyone and everything on this planet; however, as a motivating principle, ensuring that future generations can live healthy, meaningful lives should be humanity’s highest priority.
Like Greta Thunberg, Lauren Howland is not waiting quietly for adults to figure it all out. A 23-year-old indigenous woman from the Jicarilla Apache Nation, Lauren is a co-founder of International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC), which received the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2018 for its continued work on environmental issues.

Older people who hold the reins of political, economic, and intellectual power today must listen to these voices of change

A voice for young indigenous peoples worldwide, Howland says: “Young people are more connected and in tune with each other and this planet than any other point in humanity's existence. We realise we are fighting to save humanity from literal extinction, and we need the policymakers of this planet to collectively realise this also. It is here, climate changed. We need climate policies enacted and enforced across the globe now, that include the solutions we are already implementing in our own local communities."
Other young people are jumping to into the solution space, actively working on potential game-changing innovations. Aäron Claeys, a self-taught young entrepreneur based in Antwerp, Belgium, works on developing nanotech solutions for sustainable materials with the aim of “reversing global warming, improving the health, energy efficiency and quality of life, while restoring the planet's biosphere”.
He and his team have already marketed products that can double the lifetime of textiles, leather, and footwear to the fashion industry, which may account for up to 10% of global greenhouse gases. He is now working on developing self-cleaning, air-purifying, and carbon-capturing building materials.

The recent climate strikes show how younger people are being galvanised over climate change.

The crisis we all are facing together is an opening to bring young people into the conversation. Creating the future we all want requires older and younger generations to work together for the change we need. Young people are hungry to take part. Older people who hold the reins of political, economic, and intellectual power today must listen to these voices of change, support new ideas and innovation, and rethink assumptions about the way the world works, because the world will not be ours forever. No discussion of our younger generations’ future should take place without them sitting at the same table.
“It is not enough to prepare youth to eventually assume the roles you [adults] currently hold. Youth are prepared to be impactful as we are right now. We need those above us to mentor us now, so that we don’t have to wait to have your jobs; so that when we are in your positions, we can be even more successful,” said Silas Swanson, a second-year student at Columbia University during a youth panel at the Omega Institute ‘Drawdown Learn’ event held last year in Rhinebeck, New York. Silas woke me up to this truth, and we have been in contact ever since.

Greta Thunberg launched a legion of young climate strike organisers around the world who are waking people up to the need for change

Every climate-motivated scientist, policymaker, engineer, architect, lawyer, city planner, investor, business person, activist, economist, environmentalist, thought leader, and every other interested professional should carve out time in their week to mentor at least one young person. Five would be better, and worth the effort.
Mentoring is not simply teaching in classrooms or offering advice during office hours. It is about committing to give to and learn from others; to do whatever one can to support, empower, and lift up others to achieve their fullest potential. It does not cost too much in time, and the potential rewards are incalculable.

Poorer people will bear a disproportionate burden of the worst effects of climate change, such as flooding.

Greta Thunberg launched a legion of young climate strike organisers around the world who are waking people up to the need for change. There are many other young unsung voices across the globe working to create the future they need. We older generations must look to youth for inspiration, motivation, and courage.
Rather than seeking the courage to “fight” climate change, we need to find the courage to see the common-sense solutions right in front of us. The youth of today can help us all find the way, and together we can create the future we want.

*Chad Frischmann is the vice-president and lead researcher of Project Drawdown, an organisation seeking to find ways the global community can help mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change. He is also a willing mentor, with two spots open.

Links

• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming
• BE.Hive: A day filled with hope, solutions, and the unexpected
• 25 badass women shaking up the corporate climate movement
• Project Drawdown Fellow Adrien Salazar named in Grist 50 2019
• Women hold the key to curbing climate change
• How This New Refrigerator Could Help Prevent the World From Getting Warmer
• As Awareness Grows About Food’s Role In Climate Change, What Solutions Exist? 
• Why Investing in Women Is the Next Step in Funding Sustainability Solutions 
• Launching K-12 Climate Science Literacy to Scale in Washington State 
• Global Warming Solutions, Explained
• How Empowering Women and Girls Can Help Stop Global Warming
• Optimistic readings on climate change strategies 
• Reversing Global Warming Through Our Food Choices

Climate Change: Top Lawyer Says Councils May Soon Be Liable For Climate Damage

Stuff - Eloise Gibson Newsroom.co.nz

Councils might find themselves liable for climate damage - for example if they let people build in the path of storms, floods and rising seas. Photo: Lynn Grieveson

Local authorities that fail to prepare for climate change might find themselves in court, a top lawyer has warned.
The umbrella group for councils, Local Government New Zealand, has warned local government politicians it "may only be a matter of time" before councils face claims for damages for failing to adapt their communities to climate change.
Just as the government was found negligent for leaky buildings and for letting the kiwifruit virus PSA in the country, councils might find themselves liable for climate damage - for example if they let people build in the path of storms, floods and rising seas, according to a paper prepared for LGNZ by a leading barrister, Jack Hodder QC.
The legal opinion was presented to all councils earlier this month, Newsroom understands, and later circulated to some elected leaders by email.

Councils might find themselves liable for climate damage - for example if they let people build in the path of storms, floods and rising seas. ANDY JACKSON/STUFF

The warning comes as a minority of councils decide whether to sign up to LGNZ's Local Government Leaders' Climate Declaration stating there is an urgent need to address the threats of climate change.
Most councils have signed but others remain skeptical of the value of joining.
Thames-Coromandel mayor Sandra Goudie has refused to say whether she believes climate change is real, while West Coast Regional Council – the area projected by climate models to be most at risk from more extreme rainfall – has rejected the government's proposed Zero Carbon Bill and asked for more evidence to prove climate change is happening.
Newsroom reported in late 2017 that Thames-Coromandel council was still approving multi-million dollar housing developments on the waterfront after considering as little as 0.49m of sea level rise.
Guidance at the time was to consider 0.8m and newer guidance is to consider up to 1.9m, however, a 73-unit apartment block for the elderly, expanding the retirement village Richmond Villas, was approved based on a 2001 flood hazard assessment, then 16 years old.
 A year after Newsroom's special inquiry was published, and 18 months after approving the new development, Thames Coromandel District Council put a warning notice on the Richmond Villas title saying the land it was built on was considered at risk of flooding, overland flow, storm surge and tidal effects.

On bad days you can see, hear and feel the gravel, rocks and sand being clawed back to the water in Haumoana, Hawke's Bay. RENE FISCH

In January 2018, six months after the council approved the new apartment block, Radio NZ reported that a storm surge came over the seawall and flooded the entrance to the existing units.
LGNZ sent Jack Hodder's opinion to elected officials with a note suggesting they discuss the implications.
"Up until now, it perhaps has been unclear whether councils may be liable for failing to provide climate change adaptation measures, or allowing developments to proceed in at risk areas, particularly where those decisions have physical and economic consequences for individuals/communities," said the letter.
"LGNZ's view has been that councils are exposed to legal risks, and that local government in New Zealand will not be immune from the growing international trend of climate change litigation by individuals and groups against larger organisations.
"To test whether LGNZ's thinking was on the right track, and to clarify the position for councils, LGNZ engaged Mr Hodder to prepare a paper addressing whether there are climate change litigation risks for councils."

Colac Bay, Southland, where the sea is causing coastal erosion. Robyn Edie

Until now, court cases against councils have been led by affected homeowners unhappy that risk notices had been slapped on their titles, warning future buyers about climate risk. Homeowners in Kapiti and elsewhere argued the risk was not well-enough supported by evidence.
Hodder's opinion suggests the longer-term risk may be the opposite - legal action by homeowners who are at risk and wish councils had done more. But any decisions to take defensive action or place restrictions on development would need to be very carefully weighed up, and backed up by information and evidence to stand up in court, he said.
Hodder concluded that climate changes cases around the world were getting more numerous, and creative. Unless central governments stepped in to properly tackle climate change risks, judges would likely step in, he wrote.
"There has not yet been any large damages claims in relation to failure to implement adaptation measures in New Zealand. However, it may be only a matter of time," noted LGNZ in its note to local politicians.
"We encourage you to discuss Mr Hodder's paper with your council, to start thinking about how you can prepare for the likely changes and the steps that you can take to reduce your council's exposure to litigation risk."
The local government group also noted that private insurers were already starting to price in increasing coastal hazards into policies, with possible implications for property prices.
"If the Government does not move, they will effectively be saying: let the courts, commercial insurers and banks set the rules." (The Government has previously said it is working on updated sea level measures to help councils, however the process is taking some time).
Hodder cited the Kiwifruit growers' case against MAF (now part of MBIE), where the High Court concluded that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was negligent in issuing an import permit for kiwifruit pollen in 2006/07, saying MAF's regulatory power to maintain biosecurity gave it a duty of care to kiwifruit growers who were devastated by the PSA outbreak.
That case is now heading to the Court of Appeal. Hodder has been representing the government.
Hodder also mentioned the leaky building cases, when New Zealand courts found territorial authorities were meant to "ensure" that building work complied with the Building Code, giving them a duty of care owed to residential home-owners (including future owners).
That ruling imposed huge costs on councils and years of litigation. His paper concluded that handling climate litigation would be difficult but "doing nothing requires a surprising level of bravery".
Newsroom has sought comment from LGNZ on the legal opinion.

Links

• The NZ council leading the way in determining who pays for climate change
• Environmental Groups Take France To Court Over Climate Change Inaction
• Trump’s Climate Policies Face 6 Big Legal Battles This Year
• Support Is Surging For Teens’ Climate Change Lawsuit
• Climate Change In Court
• Climate Change-Related Litigation Was Once Seen As A Joke, But It Could Soon Become Business Reality
• These Residents Stopped A Coal Mine, Made History And Sent Ripples Through Boardrooms Around The World
• Australia's Coal Future Under Threat As More Changes Hit Fossil Fuels Globally
• As Lawsuits Over Climate Change Heat Up, Oil Industry Steps Up Attacks On Its Critics

'Great Concern': World Meteorology Agency Reports Bad Climate Tidings

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

People pass through a section of the road damaged earlier this month by Cyclone Idai in Nhamatanda in Mozambique. Credit: AP

World Meteorological Organization 2018 State of the Global Climate Key points: 2018 was the fourth warmest year on record 2015–2018 were the four warmest years on record as the long-term warming trend continues Ocean heat content is at a record high and global mean sea level continues to rise Artic and Antarctic sea-ice extent is well below average Extreme weather had an impact on lives and sustainable development on every continent Average global temperature reached approximately 1°C above pre-industrial levels We are not on track to meet climate change targets and rein in temperature increases

The world's ocean heat content reached a record high last year and extreme weather events affected the lives of about 62 million people, displacing more than two million of them, the World Meteorological Organisation said.The agency's annual State of the Global Climate report, launched at the United Nations in New York on Thursday, reported a slew of impacts attributed to climate change, including the melting of 3600 cubic kilometres of Greenland ice since 2002.
Last year was the world's fourth hottest on record based on surface temperatures, with each of the years between 2015 and 2018 among the four hottest years since standardised records began more than a century ago.
“The data released in this report give cause for great concern," Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, said in a statement, noting average surface temperatures are about 1 degree above the pre-industrial level. “There is no longer any time for delay [on action to curb greenhouse gas emissions].”
A measure of the build-up of warming in the biosphere -  as those gases trap more of the sun's radiation - is the record ocean heat levels for a second year in a row.
As the waters warm, the oceans are also expanding, lifting sea levels at an accelerating rate. Adding in the effect of melting ice sheets and glaciers, the global mean sea level last year reached a record 3.7 millimetres in 2018. That pace was quicker than the average 3.15mm annual increase during the 1993-2018 period.
For Australia, 2018 was the third hottest year on record for data going back to 1910. For day-time temperatures, last year was the second hottest, the Bureau of Meteorology said in January. 
The heat has continued into 2019, with Australia's summer the hottest on record by a substantial margin, particularly for maximum temperatures.

Australia's summer maximum temperature anomalies

Compared with the 1961-90 baseline

Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Much of the WMO report looks at the impact of extreme weather events, particularly for developing nations.
It noted that food security was undermined in many places, with world hunger resuming its climb "after a prolonged decline".
Up to September last year, more than two million people had been displaced by disasters "linked to weather and climate events", with drought, flood and storms including cyclones leading culprits.
Heatwaves were also raising "alarm bells for the public health community" as they are expected to worsen in intensity, duration and frequency as the planet continues to warm.
"Between 2000 and 2016, the number of people exposed to heatwaves was estimated to have increased by around 125 million, as the average length of individual heatwaves was 0.37 days longer, compared to the period between 1986 and 2008," the report said. "In 2015 alone, a record 175 million people were exposed to 627 heatwaves."

Firefighters work on a wildfire on Winter Hill near Bolton, England in June 2018. Credit: PA via AP

Last year, 281 weather and climate events recorded by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters affected almost 62 million people. Of those, floods topped the peril list, affecting 35 million people.
The impacts were not restricted to poorer nations, though, with the US alone reporting 14 "billion dollar disasters" last year.
Major storms also included super typhoon Mangkhut, that affected more than 2.4 million people and killed at least 134 people, mainly in the Philippines, the report said.

Links

• WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2018
• 'Peak coal in sight' as new power stations drop and retirements jump
• New UN Global Climate report ‘another strong wake-up call’ over global warming: Guterres
• Climate change: Global impacts 'accelerating' - WMO
• Experts demand action after 'staggering' climate report
• Extreme weather affected 62 million people last year, UN climate change report says

Greens Set 2030 Cut-Off For Coal Exports And Coal-Fired Power Stations

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Party’s climate policy also proposes a new public authority, Renew Australia, and a government-owned energy retailer

The Greens’ new climate and energy policy lays down markers for the bartering that could play out after the federal election. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The Greens will propose 2030 as the cut-off point for thermal coal exports, and the shutdown date for Australia’s fleet of coal-fired power stations, in the party’s new climate and energy policy heading into the federal election.
With Labor expected to unveil the remaining elements of its climate policy before next week’s budget, the Greens will on Thursday open the bidding on ambition, laying down markers for the policy bartering that could play out after the federal election in the event Labor wins power and the Greens remain significant crossbench players.
The new Greens policy proposes the creation of a new public authority, Renew Australia, to lead the transition to low emissions, and a new government-owned energy retailer with a mandate to deliver cheaper power.
The party is proposing to phase out thermal coal exports by setting a yearly limit on coal exports from 2020, a set of procedures that would require resources companies to secure permits at auction in order to export product.
The Greens say Renew Australia will determine the timetable for shutting down the coal fleet, but the policy scenarios accompanying its policy puts the cut-off point at 2030.
The policy also advocates for vehicle emissions standards “that lead up to a complete ban on new internal combustion vehicles by 2030”, and a 17% tax on “luxury fossil fuel cars” to help cover the costs of scrapping registration fees, import tariffs, GST and stamp duty on electric vehicles, “reducing the cost of electric vehicles by around 20%”.
The Greens policy comes as the Investor Group on Climate Change will also on Thursday release a new policy document setting out what institutional investors such as the major super funds see as the climate policy priorities for the Australian and New Zealand governments between now and 2022.
The IGCC says from an investor perspective, three areas require action over the next four years. The first is developing durable policies that will create a pathway to a net zero emissions economy.
The second is creating structures that allow the transition to be managed, including implementing stable policy, “using public sector finance to crowd in private sector investment” and pursuing mechanisms that allow a just transition for workers and business in carbon-intensive industries.
The third is implementing national climate change adaptation strategies and strengthening the governance regime, including mandating climate-related disclosure requirements for companies and investors.
Reflecting the impatience now endemic in the business and regulatory community after a decade of rancorous partisan warfare on climate change, the IGCC warns that investors are currently “exposed to systemic, climate-related physical, transition and litigation risks” – a message that also echoes a recent intervention by a deputy governor of Australia’s central bank.
Guy Debelle issued a stark warning in the middle of March that climate change poses risks to Australia’s financial stability, and he argued that warming needed to be thought of by policymakers and business as a trend and not a cyclical event.
The IGCC says a carbon price – implemented by Labor during the time of the Gillard government, and repealed by Tony Abbott in 2013, and still the epicentre of the partisan war – needs to be reinstated. “Pricing carbon embeds climate risk into the lifeblood of investment decisions,” the group says.
“If carbon is priced, the cost of pollution can’t be ignored. Development of a carbon market that is transparent, liquid – many participants and free flowing trade – and focused on achieving net zero emissions will enable investors to better anticipate and plan for future carbon risks”.
Labor has already released its policy for reducing emissions in the electricity sector and in the first instance will attempt to persuade the Liberals to revive their now abandoned national energy guarantee in an effort to achieve some bipartisanship. If that fails, it will pursue other measures.
Shortly, the opposition will unveil the rest of its climate change policy, expected to include a trading scheme for liable entities – big polluters emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon a year; new vehicle emissions standards to bring down pollution in transport; and its final position on the use of international permits and Kyoto credits.
The Greens have disavowed using Kyoto credits, which is an accounting system that allows countries to count credits from exceeding their targets under the soon-to-be-obsolete Kyoto protocol periods against their Paris emissions reduction commitments for 2030.
The Morrison government will bank a 367-megatonne contribution from carryovers as part of its recently released carbon budget, which details the emissions reductions from various programs that will be required to meet the Paris target.
Labor has sent a number of public signals over recent weeks that it is unlikely to use Kyoto credits, but the opposition is expected to deploy international permits to help with the abatement task.

Links

• What Are Major Parties’ Climate Change Policies?
• Greens pressure Labor with pre-election push for two new environmental agencies
• Labor edges away from using Kyoto credits to reach Paris target
• Government accused of fibbing about carbon emissions after tense Insiders interview
• Extraordinary claim that night-time sport could be at risk if Labor wins federal election
• Barnaby Joyce says he remains the ‘elected deputy prime minister of Australia’
• Morrison Government seeks interest from those wanting to build large-scale energy projects
• What is the National Energy Guarantee and will it reduce power prices?
• Scott Morrison’s busy morning announcing the ‘Climate Solutions Fund’
• ‘Groundbreaking’ Snowy Hydro 2.0 project gets the go-ahead

The Green Building Council's New CEO Signals A New Broader Focus

AFR - Lucas Baird

Australia is entering its "critical decade" for fighting climate change and construction standards must be brought up to speed to arrest its "catastrophic" consequences.
This was the assessment of the Green Building Council's incoming chief executive Davina Rooney, who will start in the role from June 11 after spending more than a decade heading up Stockland's sustainability initiatives.

Green Building Council's incoming chief executive Davina Rooney. Louie Douvis

She said it was time for the Council to look beyond its current remit as the "shining beacon for one part of the industry" and look to raising the minimum standards across the board.
"This is the critical decade that we have to take our asset communities and line them up to take them down to net zero [carbon emissions] so we can avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change," Ms Rooney said.
Key to this would be increased focus on long-term planning for the GBCA's initiatives, according to Ms Rooney, and she flagged her interest to start this with the Council's in development "Future Homes" policy.
The policy, which is in consultation with GBCA members at the moment, touts a new holistic approach to a housing development that takes into account numerous environmental factors.
For example, a house would be verified under the program based on its carbon-neutral performance through renewable energy generation like rooftop solar panels and its ability to adapt to future challenges that stem from climate change.
The "Future Homes" policy development is set to near its end in the latter half of 2019 when a first draft of the policy would be released, and the first pilot projects that use the rating system would begin.
As a voluntary rating tool, Ms Rooney was keen to note that "Future Homes" would not touch all of the construction industry but would instead provide the leadership in standards.
"[Rating tools] can provide the thought leadership that helps to work with rising minimum standards, which will raise all of the boats," she said.
"We do have to recognise that voluntary tools are one lever. Increasing minimum standards so that it is what's delivered on any project big or small anywhere is necessary for the overall trajectory change we need."
Ms Rooney said broadening this policy to touch mid and lower tier operators would be a "critical aspect" of her leadership as she sought to ensure the nation's construction sector played its part in reducing emissions heading towards 2030.
"If you look at the latest [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports they're actually saying we are going to have to move to net zero [emissions] sooner than we thought," she said.
"We are really excited to work with new partners as we go into the critical decade as we seek to deliver against the Paris agreements."
The renewed focus on broader topics marks a significant change between Ms Rooney and her predecessor, Romilly Madew, who was often criticised for a singular focus on just the "Green Star" rating tool.
Used on commercial office spaces, apartment complexes, and shopping centres the GBCA uses the tool to rate large scale developments.
Ms Madew, who was the chief executive from 2006 until her resignation earlier this year, even drew fire from the GBCA's founders for watering down the standards to capitalise on the popularity of sustainability rating systems.
Ms Madew announced her intention to step down in January after she was appointed to the role of chief executive of Infrastructure Australia.
Ms Rooney congratulated Ms Madew on her new position, which she starts in April, and hoped the previous connection would lead to a better working relationship with government.

Links

• Climate Change Threatens Property And Lives, But Politicians Fail To Work Together
• Building Code Not Ready For Climate Change
• Australian Institute of Architects
• Assessing the climate change adaptability of buildings
• Australia’s policies on climate change
• Adapting to climate change
• Current and future impacts of climate change on housing, buildings and infrastructure

Copenhagen Wants To Show How Cities Can Fight Climate Change

New York Times - Somini Sengupta | Photographs Charlotte de la Fuente

The beginning of a ski run on the roof of Copenhagen’s new trash incinerator, which will help heat buildings in the city.

COPENHAGEN — Can a city cancel out its greenhouse gas emissions?
Copenhagen intends to, and fast. By 2025, this once-grimy industrial city aims to be net carbon neutral, meaning it plans to generate more renewable energy than the dirty energy it consumes.
Here’s why it matters to the rest of the world: Half of humanity now lives in cities, and the vast share of planet-warming gases come from cities. The big fixes for climate change need to come from cities too. They are both a problem and a potential source of solutions.
The experience of Copenhagen, home to 624,000 people, can show what’s possible, and what’s tough, for other urban governments on a warming planet.
The mayor, Frank Jensen, said cities “can change the way we behave, the way we are living, and go more green.” His city has some advantages. It is small, it is rich and its people care a lot about climate change.
Mr. Jensen said mayors, more than national politicians, felt the pressure to take action. “We are directly responsible for our cities and our citizens, and they expect us to act,” he said.
In the case of Copenhagen, that means changing how people get around, how they heat their homes, and what they do with their trash. The city has already cut its emissions by 42 percent from 2005 levels, mainly by moving away from fossil fuels to generate heat and electricity.

Wind turbines along the strait that separates Denmark from Sweden, seen from the Amager Strandpark in Copenhagen.

A suburban commuter train. A new subway line, scheduled to open this year, will put most residents less than half a mile from a station.

Politics, though, is making it hard to go further. A municipal government can only do so much when it doesn’t have the full support of those who run the country. Mr. Jensen, 57, a left-of-center Social Democrat, for instance, has failed to persuade the national government, led by a center-right party, to impose restrictions on diesel-guzzling vehicles in the capital. Transportation accounts for a third of the city’s carbon footprint; it is the largest single sector and it is growing.
By contrast, the national government, in a move that its critics say encouraged private car use, has lowered car-registration taxes. The transportation minister, Ole Birk Olesen, said the government wanted to reduce what he called “the over-taxation of cars,” though he added that, ideally, Danes would buy only zero-emissions cars in the coming decades.
And so, Copenhagen’s goal to be carbon neutral faces a hurdle that is common around the world: a divide between the interests of people who live in cities and those who live outside.
Many opposition politicians and independent analysts say they doubt Copenhagen can meet its 2025 target, and some critics say the plan focuses too much on trying to balance the city’s carbon books rather than change the way people actually live.
“We run around in fossil fuel burning cars, we eat a lot of meat, we buy a hell of a lot of clothes,” said Fanny Broholm, a spokeswoman for Alternativet, a left-of-center green party. “The goal is not ambitious enough as it is, and we can’t even reach this goal.”
Mr. Jensen, for his part, is bullish on what he calls the capital’s “green transformation.” City officials say this is only the start.
A new Metro line, scheduled to open this year, will put the vast majority of the city’s residents within 650 meters, a bit less than half a mile, of a station. Bicycle paths are already three lanes wide on busy routes for the whopping 43 percent of Copenhageners who commute to work and school by bike — even on wet, windy days, which are plentiful.

Recycling bins in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen. The city requires residents to sort recycling into eight separate categories.

All that wind helps generate the city’s electricity. Buildings are heated, in part, by burning garbage in a new high-tech incinerator — what garbage there is to burn, that is, considering that every apartment building now has eight separate recycling bins. For every unit of fossil fuels it consumes, Copenhagen intends to sell units of renewable energy. The city has invested heavily in wind turbines.
In big cities, you have the money and the scale to change things, Mr. Jensen said as he led me on a bike tour from City Hall, where excavations for a new Metro station recently turned up the remains of two Vikings. We crossed a bicycle bridge that led to a once-industrial district, now home to trendy restaurants.
As we rode, Mr. Jensen talked about parliamentary polls set for this spring. “Elections will come up in the next few months, and a lot of people living in the suburbs still have diesel cars,” he said. “It’s a political challenge. It’s not a technological challenge.”
For Copenhagen, the path to carbon neutrality is paved with imperfect solutions.

Frank Jensen, the Copenhagen mayor, at City Hall. 

Some of the city’s power plants have switched from coal to wood pellets, shipped in from the Baltics. That’s carbon neutral, in principle, if more trees can be planted in place of those that are cut down, and that has helped the city bring down its emissions significantly. But burning wood produces emissions; a lawsuit filed in the European Court of Justice argued that wood pellets should not count as renewable energy. Critics contend that big public investments in biomass only compel the city to use it for years to come.
Then, there’s garbage. The city recently opened a $660 million incinerator, 85 meters tall, or about 280 feet, resembling a shiny half-built pyramid, with an even taller stack. It’s just a short walk from one of the city’s most popular restaurants, Noma. Designed by one of the country’s best-known architects, Bjarke Ingels, it comes with a year-round ski slope to attract visitors (and recoup some of the expenses). The mayor was one of the first to take a test run.
Every day, 300 trucks bring garbage to be fed into its enormous furnace, including trash imported from Britain. That has a carbon footprint, too. But the chief engineer, Peter Blinksbjerg, pointed out that instead of going into a landfill, the rubbish of modern life is transformed into something useful: heat for the city’s long, cold winters.

The Arc incinerator, right, with its year-round ski slope visible on the roof. The stack releases steam, not smoke.

Inside the Arc, which burns 300 truckloads of garbage each day, including imported trash. 

Scrubbers remove most chemical pollutants before releasing steam into the air. By summer, a cafe is set to open in the shadow of the stack.
Pedaling through the city these days, it is difficult to imagine what Copenhagen once looked like. There were factories in the narrow streets and ships in the oil-stained harbor. Coal-fired power plants brought electricity. The air was smoggy. A generation of city dwellers moved out to the clean-air suburbs.
Today, even on wintry, wet days, commuters move along a busy bike highway that connects the warrens of the oldest part of the city, where some buildings date to the 1400s, to the northern neighborhoods, whizzing past the stately apartment blocks that overlook the lake. The bike lane is slightly elevated above the car lane, which feels safer than just a white line that demarcates bike lanes in many other cities.
Inside a cozy neighborhood cafe, a medical student named Mariam Hleihel said she welcomed Mr. Jensen’s efforts to reduce the number of polluting cars in the city. “If we don’t do anything about it now, the consequences could be irreversible,” she said.

Morning commuters on the Dronning Louises Bro, a bridge in central Copenhagen.

She reflected a widespread sentiment among Danes. A 2018 survey by Concito, a think tank, found that addressing climate change was a top issue for voters. Slightly more than half of those polled said they would need to change their way of life to tackle global warming.
Simone Nordfalk, a cashier at a bountiful outdoor vegetable market, considered the prospect of changing eating habits for the sake of climate change. Figs had been shipped in from Brazil. Strawberries from Spain. It would be tough to return to how Danes ate a generation ago. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” she said. “It sells.”
Copenhagen is girding itself for the impact of climate change, too. The rains are more intense, and the sea is rising. In the most vulnerable neighborhoods, the city is creating new parks and ponds for water to collect before it can drain out. There are new dikes by the harbor, and a proposal to build a new island in the northeast to block storm surges.
Politically speaking, public apprehension about climate change may be the strongest wind in the mayor’s sails.
“People are honestly concerned about it,” said Klaus Bondam, a former politician and now head of a bicyclists’ lobby. “You are an extremely tone deaf politician if you don’t hear that.”

A tough climb on the morning commute.

Links

• These 8 Cities Are Taking Bold Steps To Get Rid Of Cars
• Four Ways Our Cities Can Cut Transport Emissions In A Hurry: Avoid, Shift, Share And Improve
• More Than 100 Cities Now Mostly Powered By Renewable Energy, Data Shows
• This Is How Climate Change Will Shift The World’s Cities
• How To Fix Climate Change: Put Cities, Not Countries, In Charge
• These Six Utopian Cities Of The Future Will Help You Re-Imagine Life On Earth