31/05/2019

Australia Keeps Voting For Coal, But Investors Are Quietly Abandoning Plans For New Mines

Quartz - Akshat Rathi

Numbers don't add up
Nowhere to go… for now. Reuters/Jason Reed
On May 18, Australians surprised the pollsters.
At the federal election, the expectation was for the incumbent coalition to be thumped by the pro-climate Labor party.
Instead, citizens of Queensland, Australia’s coal-rich province, swung hard to support the coalition backing the construction of new coal mines.
It was enough to ensure the coalition remains in power.
Queensland’s Carmichael coal mine lies at the heart of the debate. Many political campaigns were focused on the mine, using hashtags like #StopAdani or #StartAdani.
Adani, the Indian conglomerate that has an exploration license for the coal mine, plans to build it into one of the world’s largest.
Emissions from the process of mining at Carmichael, and the burning of the coal produced, would each separately be more than emissions produced by entire countries like Austria, Denmark, and Norway.
But Adani has struggled to first get the environmental licenses it needs, as well as the financing to pull off the project.
Last year, the company announced that it would move ahead with a scaled-down version of the Carmichael mine, producing only 10 million metric tons of coal each year of the possible annual capacity of 60 million metric tons.
Environmentalists around the world see the Adani mine, located in the Galilee basin, as a bellwether for the future of the dirtiest fossil fuel.
That’s because the basin has potential to provide a lot more coal beyond the Adani mine, at a time when Australia (and the world) is struggling to cut its emissions and hit ambitious climate goals.
Among rich nations, Australia is expected to suffer the most damages because of the climate crisis.
In the past few months, the country has experienced its hottest summer on record, extreme flooding in Queensland, and mass die-off of a million fish in New South Wales.
While the Australian elections didn’t go as environmentalists wanted, they do have something, perhaps even bigger, to celebrate.
On May 23, Australian broadcaster ABC found that investors have abandoned plans to build a much larger mine that was supposed to be located only 30 km away from the Carmichael mine.
The China Stone project, run by MacMines AustAsia and wholly owned by the Meijin Energy Group, which is China’s largest producer of metallurgical coke, was expected to produce 38 million metric tons of coal each year.
The A$6.7 billion ($4.6 billion) mine would have supported 3,000 jobs and contributed A$188 million to the Queensland government’s coffers each year for the 25 years the mining was expected to last.
All that now seems to be up in the air.
ABC revealed that MacMines terminated the process of acquiring mining leases from the government in March. Though the company wouldn’t comment on why it did that, analysts believe that the coal mine is neither financially viable nor in China’s interests any more.
“China has made it very, very clear it wants to progressively reduce exposure to highly polluting coal-fired power generation. That won’t happen overnight, it will take decades to come,” Tim Buckley of the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis told ABC.
“But if you are moving in that direction, the last thing you want to do is introduce a whole lot more expensive imported thermal coal.”
Notably, the China Stone mine’s financial viability is expected to be similar to the Carmichael mine.
David Fickling, a Bloomberg columnist, did the math on the latter.
After taking into consideration the cost to build the mine, the railway line, the operating expenses, and the interest payments on the loans taken, he found that each metric ton of coal would cost about $88.
That’s much higher than the open-market cost for the same quality of coal, which can be bought from Indonesia’s Adaro Energy for as little as $66 per metric ton.
MacMines still owns an exploration license for the China Stone project, so no other company can develop it.
That means, for now, the China Stone coal will stay in the ground.

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Australians Could Have Saved Over $1 Billion In Fuel If Car Emissions Standards Were Introduced 3 Years Ago

The Conversation -  |  | 

Legislative action regarding vehicle emissions is overdue, and needs urgent attention by the federal government. Shutterstock
When it comes to road transport, Australia is at risk of becoming a climate villain as we lag behind international best practice on fuel efficiency.
Road transport is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions and represented 16% of Australia’s total carbon dioxide emissions in 2000, growing to 21% in 2016. Total CO₂ emissions from road transport increased by almost 30% in the period 2000-16.
Fuel efficiency (CO₂ emission) standards have been adopted in around 80% of the global light vehicle market to cap the growth of transport emissions. This includes the United States, the European Union, Canada, Japan, China, South Korea and India – but not Australia.
If Australia had introduced internationally harmonised emissions legislation three years ago, households could have made savings on fuel costs to the tune of A$1 billion.
This shocking figure comes from our preliminary calculations looking at the effect of requiring more efficient vehicles to be sold in Australia.
A report, published yesterday by Transport Energy/Emission Research, looked at what Australia has achieved in vehicle fuel efficiency and CO₂ standards over the past 20 years. While Australia has considered and tried to impose standards a number of times, sadly these attempts were unsuccessful.
Legislative action on vehicle CO₂ emissions is long overdue and demands urgent attention by the Australian government.
Australian consumers are increasingly buying heavier vehicles with bigger emissions. Shuterstock
How did Australia get here?
The most efficient versions of vehicle models offered in Australia are considerably less efficient than similar vehicles in other markets.
Australia could increasingly become a dumping ground for the world’s least efficient vehicles with sub-par emissions performance, given our lack of fuel efficiency standards. This leaves us on a dangerous path towards not only higher vehicle emissions, but also higher fuel costs for passenger travel and freight.
Australia has attempted to impose CO₂ or fuel efficiency standards on light vehicles several times over the past 20 years, but without success. While the federal government was committed to addressing this issue in 2015, four years later we are still yet to hear when – or even if – mandatory fuel efficiency standards will ever be introduced.
The general expectation appears to be that average CO₂ emission rates of new cars in Australia will reduce over time as technology advances overseas. In the absence of CO₂ standards locally, it is more likely that consumers will continue to not be offered more efficient cars, and pay higher fuel costs as a consequence.

Estimating the fuel savings
Available evidence suggests Australian motorists are paying on average almost 30% more for fuel than they should because of the lack of fuel efficiency standards.
The Australian vehicle fleet uses about 32 billion litres of fuel per year.
Using an Australian fleet model described in the TER report, we can make a conservative estimate that the passenger vehicle fleet uses about half of this fuel: 16 billion litres per year. New cars entering the fleet each year would represent about 5% of this: 800 million litres per year.
So assuming that mandatory CO₂ standards improve fuel efficiency by 27%, fuel savings would be 216 million litres per year.
In the last three years, the average fuel price across Australia’s five major cities is A$1.33 per litre. This equates to a total savings of A$287 million per year, although this would be about half the first year as new cars are purchased throughout the year and travel less, and would reduce as vehicles travel less when they age.
The savings are accumulative because a car purchased in a particular year continues to save fuel over the following years.
The table below shows a rough calculation of savings over the three year period (2016-2018), for new cars sold in the same period (Model Years 2016, 2017 and 2018).
Author provided (No reuse)
As a result, over a period of three years, A$1.3 billion in potential savings for car owners would have accumulated.

Policy has come close, but what are we waiting for?
The Australian government is not progressing any measures to introduce a fuel efficiency target. In fact, it recently labelled Labor’s proposed fuel efficiency standard as a “car tax”.
But Australia has come close to adopting mandatory vehicle CO₂ emission standards in the past.
In late 2007, the Labor government committed to cutting emissions to achieve Australia’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. The then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, instructed the Vehicle Efficiency Working Group to:
… develop jointly a package of vehicle fuel efficiency measures designed to move Australia towards international best practice.
Then, in 2010, the Labor government decided mandatory CO₂ emissions standards would apply to new light vehicles from 2015. But a change in government in 2013 meant these standards did not see the light of day.
The amount of fuel that could have been saved is A$287 million per year. Shutterstock
Things looked promising again when the Coalition government released a Vehicle Emissions Discussion Paper in 2016, followed by a draft Regulation Impact Statement in the same year.
The targets for adopting this policy in 2025, considered in the draft statement, were marked as “strong” (105g of CO₂ per km), “medium” (119g/km) and “mild” (135g/km) standards.
Under all three targets, there would be significant net cost savings. But since 2016, the federal government has taken no further action.
It begs the question: what exactly are we waiting for?

The technical state of play
Transport Energy/Emission Research conducted preliminary modelling of Australian real-world CO₂ emissions.
This research suggests average CO₂ emission rates of the on-road car fleet in Australia are actually increasing over time and are, in reality, higher than what is officially reported in laboratory emissions tests.
In fact, the gap between mean real-world emissions and the official laboratory tests is expected to grow from 20% in 2010 to 65% in 2025.
This gap is particularly concerning when we look at the lack of support for low-emissions vehicles like electric cars.
Given that fleet turnover is slow, the benefits of fuel efficiency standards would only begin to have a significant effect several years into the future.
With continuing population growth, road travel will only increase further. This will put even more pressure on the need to reduce average real-world CO₂ emission rates, given the increasing environmental and health impacts of the vehicle fleet.
Even if the need to reduce emissions doesn’t convince you, the cost benefits of emissions standards should. The sale of less efficient vehicles in Australia means higher weekly fuel costs for car owners, which could be avoided with the introduction of internationally harmonised emissions legislation.

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The Environmental Aftermath Of Australia's Federal Election

Independent Australia -

In the wake of the Federal Election, not much seems to have changed with the Government's stance on climate change, writes Sue Arnold.
Cartoon by Mark David
SEMANTICS PLAYED a major role in the Federal Election. Climate change became “the environment” and “environment” was code for “greenie”, thus allowing shock jocks to crow over the “greenies vs rednecks” battles so typified by the Stop Adani convoy reception in Rockhampton.
The National Party environmental vandals were also happy to keep the message simple. In NP terms, protecting the environment means Left wing radical greenies running the country, losing your jobs and being forced to give up your ute.
The catastrophic loss of biodiversity was not discussed by Morrison, his ministers or mainstream media. Instead, the environmental focus was always on climate change, despite the release of the U.N. report indicating the looming loss of one million species and irrefutable evidence of the strong interrelationship.
The IPBES Assessment showed climate change has been identified as a primary driver of biodiversity loss, already altering every part of nature. Likewise, the loss of biodiversity contributes to climate change, for example when we destroy forests we emit carbon dioxide, the major “human-produced” greenhouse gas.
IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson, said:
‘We cannot solve the threats of human-induced climate change and loss of biodiversity in isolation. We either solve both or we solve neither.’
Also adding:
“We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

“Biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people are our common heritage and humanity’s most important life-supporting ‘safety net’. But our safety net is stretched almost to breaking point,” said Professor Sandra Diaz, who co-chaired the Assessment.
Australia is home to between 600,000 and 700,000 native species, many of which are unique to Australia. More than 1,700 species and ecological communities are known to be threatened and at risk of extinction.
Evidence of why these ongoing catastrophic environmental crises are happening in Australia is not hard to find.
The Community and Public Sector Union's (CPSU) submission to the Senate Inquiry into faunal extinction detailed extraordinary criticism of the Federal Government’s environmental record. The union employs Department of the Environment staff who are responsible for enforcing the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Australia also leads the world on mammal extinctions, with 27 confirmed extinctions since European settlement. In many cases, the follow-on impacts of extinction events are poorly understood, however, it is known that losing species out of ecosystems can have wide ranging ramifications for ecosystem function.

 Despite this, there is a lack of effective monitoring and long-term reporting on biodiversity. It has been raised in every jurisdictional report and multiple other reports and papers as a major impediment to understanding the state and trends of Australian biodiversity.

 Resources for managing and limiting the impact of key species mostly appear inadequate to arrest the declining status of many. New approaches and major reinvestments will be required across long timeframes to reverse deteriorating trends and prevent the accelerating decline in many species. This makes the role the Commonwealth plays in protecting biodiversity and conservation even more important.
Professor Hugh Possingham at a Sustainable Population Australia workshop in April at Griffith University underlined the ramifications of the Government’s failure to protect biodiversity:
“The key problem is simply that the EPBC act doesn’t work, 7 million plus hectares of habitat that contains listed species were destroyed without referral to the Federal Government.”
CPSU members were surveyed about the Commonwealth Government’s performance regarding faunal extinction.
93% thought the Government was doing poorly or very poorly in fulfilling international and domestic obligations in conserving threatened fauna.
87% believed the adequacy of Commonwealth environmental laws was poor and very poor.
Over 77.2% thought the Government was doing poorly or very poorly when it came to prioritising the protection of fauna and their habitat to prevent extinction.
In May 2018, department staff lost 60 full time staff from the Biodiversity and Conservation Division, nearly a third of the staff. Funding cuts have affected the department’s ability to support programs that protect critical habitats for threatened fauna and enforce environmental legislation.
As one CPSU member stated:
More than 1,700 species of animals and plants are listed by the Australian Government as being at risk of extinction, yet Government deems it fit to reduce the number of staff in the threatened species section of the Department of Environment and Energy. About 85% of the country's plants, 84% of its mammals and 45% of its birds are found nowhere else, yet the Federal Government does nothing to stop the incessant clear felling in Queensland. Marine Protected Areas have become ‘Marine Parks’ where bottom trawling is allowed. The list goes on.
According to the Budget Statements, program expenses for the conservation of Australia’s heritage and environment shrank from $47.740 million in 2014-15 to a projected $35.745 million in 2021-22.
The Australian Academy of Science in their submission made the crises abundantly clear:
Given the vast majority of Australian species are unique to our continent and not found anywhere else on the planet, the Academy considers that ensuring the survival of these species is the responsibility of the Australian Government and the Australian people. Indeed, several extinct or threatened species represent significant parts of the tree of life.

 The situation is especially dire for our globally unique mammals, 10% of which have become extinct since European colonisation and a further 21% now classified as threatened.

 The major threatening processes in Australia today are invasive species, broad scale ecosystem modification, inappropriate fire management, habitat clearing for agriculture and climate change.
In spite of this IPBES report being published during the campaign, together with the considerable evidence provided to the Senate Inquiry into faunal extinction, Morrison managed to ignore all the findings.
Was it because Melissa Price, his Environment Minister, didn’t brief Morrison? Or did he ignore the mountain of evidence ensuring that biodiversity loss was confined to the electoral closet? Will Morrison continue to ignore the mounting evidence?
Significant and successful efforts were made to ensure his Minister for the Environment was invisible, thus providing no target for any environmental questions. The mainstream media followed suit. Murdoch’s propaganda machine focused on creating division, eradicating wildlife and ensuring that anyone who mentioned forests, rivers or ecosystems was never given a centimetre of media space.
Not only was biodiversity a forbidden subject during the Election, a number of articles chastised any politician or member of the public who raised the issue of the PM’s Pentacostal faith. Yet his beliefs are critical to the future survival of Australia’s rapidly disappearing iconic wildlife.
In the Pentacostal statement of faith, the following can be found:
‘We believe the Bible, comprised of the Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God.’
This is what the Bible has to say about Creation:
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the Earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
There’s little doubt that the PM is doing a great job of subduing the Earth, with potential Pentacostal members lurking in Sydney and Brisbane Premiers’ offices.
But the real question remains. How can any leader of an educated Western nation ignore the writing on the environmental wall? And at what cost to our children and their future survival?
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30/05/2019

Rising Seas Threaten Australia’s Major Airports – And It May Be Happening Faster Than We Think

The Conversation - Thomas Mortlock | Andrew Gissing | Ian Goodwin | Mingzhu Wang

Sydney’s airport is one of the most vulnerable in Australia to sea level rise. Shutterstock
Most major airports in Australia are located on reclaimed swamps, sitting only a few metres above the present day sea level. And the risk of sea level rise from climate change poses a greater threat to our airports than we’re prepared for.
In fact, some of the top climate scientists now believe global sea-level rise of over two metres by 2100 is likely under our current trajectory of high carbon emissions.
This makes Cairns (less than 3m above sea level), Sydney and Brisbane (under 4m), and Townsville and Hobart (both around under 5m) airports among the most vulnerable.
Antarctica’s ice sheets could be melting faster than we think. Tanya Patrick/CSIRO science image, CC BY
In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has recommended that global mean sea level rise of up to 2.7 metres this century should be considered in planning for coastal infrastructure. This is two to three times greater than the upper limit of recommended sea level rise projections applied in Australia.
But generally, the amount of sea level rise we can expect over the coming century is deeply uncertain. This is because ice sheet retreat rates from global warming are unpredictable.
Given the significant disruption cost and deep uncertainty associated with the timing of sea level rise, we must adopt a risk-based approach which considers extreme sea level rise scenarios as part of coastal infrastructure planning.

Are we prepared?
As polar ocean waters warm, they can cause glaciers to melt from beneath, leading to more icebergs breaking off into the ocean and then a rapid rise in global sea level. This has happened multiple times in the Earth’s past and, on some occasions, in a matter of decades.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) puts sea level rise projections for Australia somewhere between 50 to 90 centimetres by 2090, relative to the average sea level measured between 1986 to 2005. But the emerging science indicates this may now be an underestimate.
Some studies suggest if substantive glacial basins of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to collapse, it could contribute at least a further two metres to global sea levels.
Most Australian airports have conducted risk assessments for the IPCC projections.
In fact, there is no state-level policy that considers extreme sea level rise for the most critical infrastructure, even though it is possible sea levels could exceed those recommended by the IPCC within the coming century.
And for airports, the planning implications are stark when you compare the current projection of less than a metre of sea level rise and the potential of at least a two metre rise later this century.
Taking the most low-lying major airports in Australia as an example, our modelling suggests a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would see their near complete inundation – without any adaptation in place.
For more elevated locations, coastal infrastructure may still be inoperable more frequently when the combined effect of storm surges, waves, elevated groundwater or river flooding are considered.

A $200 billion problem
Our airports and other forms of infrastructure near the coastline are critical to the Australian economy. The aviation industry has an estimated annual revenue of over A$43 billion, adding around A$16 billion to the economy in 2017.
While there are many uncertainties around the future cost of sea-level rise, a study by the Climate Council suggests over a metre sea level rise would put more than A$200 billion worth of Australian infrastructure at risk.
It is difficult to assign a probability and time-frame to ice sheet collapse, but scientific estimates are reducing that time frame to a century rather than a millennium.
Uncertainty generally comes with a cost, so proactive planning would make economic sense.
Adapting our most critical coastal assets while sea levels rapidly rise is not an option – mitigation infrastructure could take decades to construct and may be prohibitively expensive.
Given the deep uncertainties associated with the timing of ice-sheet collapse, we suggest airport and other critical coastal infrastructure is subjected to risk analysis for a two to three metre sea level rise.

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Australia To Achieve 50% Renewables By 2030 Without Government Intervention, Analysis Finds

The Guardian - 

RepuTex modelling suggests surge in state schemes and rooftop solar will reduce wholesale prices, making gas and coal-fired power less competitive
According to modelling by the energy analysts RepuTex, a rise in rooftop solar installations will help reduce wholesale power prices from $85 per MWh to $70 over the next three years. Photograph: Glenn Hunt/AAP 
 Australia is on track to achieve 50% renewable electricity by 2030 even without new federal energy policies, according to modelling by the energy analysts RepuTex.
The analysis, to be released on Wednesday, suggests that a surge in renewable energy driven by state schemes and rooftop solar installations will reduce wholesale prices from $85 per MWh to $70 over the next three years.
Lower prices will make gas and coal-fired power less competitive, even without a market mechanism to make fossil fuels reflect the cost of pollution or a direct constraint on emissions, although a lack of federal policy could lead to longer-term price rises, RepuTex found.
During the election campaign, the Coalition attacked Labor for its 50% renewable energy target – as well as its 45% emissions reduction target – claiming they would harm energy-intensive industries and cost jobs.
But after the Coalition won on 18 May, the Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos urged the government to use the changing energy mix to bolster its environmental credentials, and treasurer Josh Frydenberg declared that the “inevitable” transition to low-emissions sources created an opportunity for the country.
With the federal renewable energy target set to expire in 2020, RepuTex noted that state policy was now the dominant signal for new investment in the national energy market.
RepuTex projected that current policies, including renewable energy targets in Queensland and Victoria, were likely to drive about 13GW of new renewable energy capacity by 2030, in addition to 6GW of renewable capacity currently committed for development.
The head of research at RepuTex, Bret Harper, said the 6GW of renewable capacity to be installed by the end of 2020 “should begin to reduce the role of marginal gas-fired generation in the market, leading to lower wholesale prices”.
Without a plan to prepare for the exit of fossil fuel generation we forecast a return to a boom-bust investment cycle
Bret Harper
“The competitive pressure of new low-cost supply is modelled to significantly limit demand for coal-fired energy, even without a direct emission constraint,” he said.
“As a result, fossil fuel generation is modelled to be more broadly on the decline, displaced by a large volume of solar, wind and pumped hydro.”
RepuTex noted that the absence of a federal energy policy framework could force wholesale prices back up to $100 per MWh in the long term as ageing coal-fired generators are forced to close, reducing supply.
“The low price environment over the medium term is good for consumers, but not so good for inflexible generators, which will be at risk of being pushed out of the market by cheaper, more flexible technologies like wind and solar with pumped hydro,” Harper said.
“Without a plan to prepare for the exit of fossil fuel generation we forecast a return to a boom-bust investment cycle, with elevated wholesale prices and increased volatility, rather than a more orderly transition.”
The Coalition’s strong results in Queensland have emboldened conservatives who before the election demanded Scott Morrison examine whether a new coal-fired plant was needed in north Queensland and sign off on a shortlist for the electricity underwriting scheme that includes “one very small” coal project in New South Wales proposed by the coal baron and LNP donor Trevor St Baker.
The Coalition began 2019 by trying to bolster its climate credentials with a $2bn cash injection to the emissions reduction fund and government support for the “battery of the nation” project in Tasmania.
But a feasibility study for the Tasmanian interconnector proposal states the benefits are greater “when approximately 7,000MW of the national electricity market’s present coal-fired generation capacity retires”.

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Brace For Impact - Climate Change Litigation Is Fast Approaching

Canberra Times - Arthur Marusevich*

Since the late 1990s, Australian politics on climate change has been divisive. Although Australia signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, it did not ratify it until 2007.
Then, in 2011, the Clean Energy Act purporting to reduce greenhouse emissions was passed, only to be repealed in 2014.
In 2016, Australia ratified the Paris Agreement and the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol; however, any serious action on climate change remains to be seen.
Supporters gather outside of the US federal courthouse before a hearing in the landmark Juliana v. United States climate change lawsuit. Picture: Robin Loznak
At the same time, some states and territories also have emissions reduction targets.
The uncoordinated approach is a problem for at least two important reasons.
First, climate change is an ever-increasing phenomenon, with tremendous impact on corporate, social and political discourse.
Any meaningful legal framework to govern climate change requires the development of a legal consensus at the federal level, in line with international commitments.
Second, there is a rising wave of climate change-related litigation globally which is headed for Australia.
Climate change litigation 2.0 (targeting companies) and climate change litigation 3.0 (targeting governments) will sink Australia, unless drastic measures are implemented.
Under the current legal regime, company directors may only be liable if found to be in breach of their duty of care or for failing to address a foreseeable risk.
However, guidance from case law suggests that it is difficult to establish that the actions or omissions of a particular entity or director caused or contributed harm to be suffered by another. With the arrival of climate change litigation 2.0, this will all change.
There is a rising wave of climate change-related litigation globally which is headed for Australia ... it will sink Australia, unless drastic measures are implemented.
For one, litigation 2.0 will force companies to assess and report on the risks of climate change and potentially set out plans for mitigating those risks.
The recent tide of comments from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority and the Reserve Bank of Australia are a testament to this.
Companies and their directors could soon face liability (including personal liability) if they fail to assess and address risks relating to climate change.
Investors, shareholders and even communities will be able to recover losses and seek damages from companies and their directors, auditors and advisors, for failing to assess and mitigate risks.
As major climate change attribution studies emerge to assist in tracing particular weather events with greenhouse gasses, causation will be easier to establish.
It is likely that in the future, courts will rely on such studies to conclude that a particular entity has contributed, at least in some proportion, to a particular harm.
It would be interesting to see how companies and directors brace for impact as climate change litigation 2.0 approaches.
Although unprecedented and unheard of in Australia, climate change litigation 3.0 will be the next phase.
It will allow Australians to bring action against the government for failing to mitigate risks.
Claims of this nature around the world are already proving to be quite successful.
The Urgenda litigation in the Netherlands is the leading example. In that case, a Dutch NGO argued that the Netherlands Government had breached its duty of care to the Dutch people by failing to mitigate the risks of climate change and reducing greenhouse gases.
 The remedy ordered by the court was that the Netherlands Government reduce emissions by at least 25 per cent by the end of 2020.
Similarly, the Juliana case brought against the US government argued that current policies fail to satisfy their obligations to hold certain essential resources on trust for all US citizens. The case is currently awaiting a determination as to whether it will go to trial.
We can only ignore it for so long - in the coming years, we are destined to see a rise in climate change litigation in Australia.
While this may be welcome news for practitioners, it is not so much for companies and governments, who need to re-examine their approach to assessing and mitigating climate change risks now.
If not, litigation 2.0 and 3.0 will do it for them.

*Arthur Marusevich is a lawyer and writer. He is an advocate for legal reform and social justice.

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29/05/2019

Australia Plans Coalfield The Size Of Britain In Climate Change U-Turn

The Times - Bernard Lagan

Concern over jobs in coal mining at sites such as Hunter Valley have taken precedence over climate fears in Australia
Climate change was supposed to have won the Labor Party the Australian election. But yesterday, after having been routed by voters, its panicked leaders backed the mining of a coalfield bigger than the UK.
Fearing a wipeout in state elections next year amid a rise in pro-coal workers and a rebellion against its plans to halve Australia’s carbon emissions, the Labor state government in Queensland accelerated its decision on 105,000 square miles of coal-rich outback land known as the Galilee Basin.
It came days after the party lost what was dubbed the “climate election” to the incumbent centre-right, pro-coal government of Scott Morrison, suffering the most damage — with swings of up to 20 per cent — in the coal country of central Queensland and the Hunter Valley of New South Wales.
Annastacia Palaszczuk, Queensland’s premier, announced that she was overturning all attempts to block mining and all outstanding approvals would be resolved within three weeks. She said that she was “fed up” with her own government’s processes, and that the election had been a “wake-up call” on mining the basin. The move was welcomed by Matt Canavan, the federal resources minister, who said yesterday that the Galilee Basin represented a victory for the “hi-vis workers’ revolution” — a reference to the armies of mine workers in high-visibility shirts who make Australia the world’s biggest coal exporter, and seemingly a reference to the yellow-vest movement in France that has challenged President Macron on his climate policies.
The international climate action movement argues that if the Galilee Basin’s estimated 27 billion tons of coal were extracted, exported and burnt, the extra carbon dioxide released each year would be far more than Australia’s total emissions and would set back the world’s chances of keeping the increase in global warming under 2C.
Until yesterday the Labor government in Queensland had put a series of hurdles in the way of the Indian energy conglomerate Adani, which wants the basin’s coal to fuel India’s power stations. In its last attempt to block the extraction, last month the government argued that a tiny finch might be wiped out if its basin habitat were mined.
Australia’s Climate Council, an independent scientific organisation, said it believed that the election result did not show that people had become less concerned about the threat of climate change but that instead they feared that jobs in industries that contributed to climate change — such as coal mining — could not be easily replaced.
A poll conducted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of more than 100,000 voters found that the environment was the No 1 issue for most respondents, with 29 per cent rating it as their biggest concern, up from 9 per cent in the 2016 election.

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'We Now Have A Clear Mandate': Coalition Holds The Line On Climate Plan

Sydney Morning Herald - David Crowe

The Morrison government is ramping up pressure on Labor to support a bipartisan approach to energy and emissions policy as it rebuffs critics of its climate change plan in industry and the environmental movement.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor has dismissed calls from climate change groups to reach a deal on  Labor's proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, insisting his opponents recognise the will of the people and back the government's plan.
Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor has ruled out reviving the full National Energy Guarantee as a way to cut emissions. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The call came after likely Labor deputy leader Richard Marles admitted on Monday he had been "tone deaf" to welcome the end of coal, in a comment that signals an opposition rethink on its wider policy on climate change.
Mr Taylor ruled out reviving the full National Energy Guarantee (NEG) as a way to cut emissions despite a suggestion from former Liberal deputy leader Julie Bishop on election night that the option should be on the table.
"We're firmly committed to the policies we took to the election. We now have a clear mandate to implement those policies – and we'll be doing so," Mr Taylor said in an interview.
"There's now an opportunity for a bipartisan approach to energy and emissions.
"Labor should adopt our plan, which was supported by the Australian people, and I know industry wants to see bipartisanship. Now's the opportunity."
Industry groups including the Business Council of Australia backed the NEG last year when it was put forward by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and endorsed by his cabinet and party room, only for the emissions target within the policy to be scrapped at the height of the August leadership crisis.
Labor went to the election with a policy to revive the guarantee and use a market mechanism to cut emissions, a stance backed by some industry executives who were uneasy at Mr Taylor's insistence on using the existing Emissions Reduction Fund to reduce carbon.
Mr Taylor insists the public funding in the Emissions Reduction Fund will help meet the government target to reduce carbon output by 26 per cent by 2030.
Asked if the government would consider using the NEG to reduce emissions, he said: "We don't need to." He said another feature of the guarantee, a reliability obligation on electricity generators, would come into force as planned on July 1.
"Now is the opportunity for Labor to accept the policy we took to the election and create a bipartisan approach to these issues," Mr Taylor said.
While industry executives had speculated that Prime Minister Scott Morrison might appoint a new energy minister, he instead confirmed Mr Taylor in the position in the cabinet reshuffle on Sunday.
Mr Taylor's priorities include signing contracts with 12 projects shortlisted to gain government support to add new generation to the electricity grid, as well as legislating price benchmarks to start on July 1 to act on recommendations from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
"We've been clear that we'll bring as much supply and competition into the market that we need to get back to a reasonable wholesale price," he said.
"If these shortlisted projects provide us with enough, so be it. If we need more, we'll look for more."
On calls from the Nationals to support a new coal-fired power station in Queensland to provide baseload power, he said the government would take a "balanced" approach.
"Coal has a role to play in our energy mix. Renewables are playing an increasing role, so whichever way you look at it there will be balance," Mr Taylor said.
"Picking fuels is much less important than focusing on outcomes, so we'll focus on the emissions and price and reliability outcomes we want."
Ms Bishop, speaking on a television panel on election night, questioned the Coalition's decision to dump the NEG.
Incoming Labor leader Anthony Albanese said on Monday that "the science is in" on climate change and that action was needed, but he left scope to change Labor policy on the mechanism to be used to do so.
"I am neither a climate sceptic nor am I a market sceptic when it comes to action on climate change, because I have listened to business and sat down with them," he said. "But the time for the ongoing conflict over these issues surely is over."
Anthony Albanese says "the science is in" on climate change and action is needed, but he left scope to change Labor policy on the mechanism to be used to do so. Credit: Cole Bennetts
Labor has been stung by its defeat in Queensland electorates, where voters did not back the party's equivocal position on the Adani coal mine and greater ambition to cut emissions by 45 per cent by 2030.
Mr Marles accepted on Monday that the party suffered for his remarks in February that the collapse of the market for thermal coal was good "at one level" despite fears over job losses.
"The comments I made earlier this year were tone deaf and I regret them and I was apologising for them within a couple of days of making them," he told radio station 3AW.
Asked where he stood on Adani, Mr Marles said the party valued working people.
"Coal clearly is going to play a significant part of the future energy mix in Australia and it's clearly going to be a significant part of our economy," he said.
"And it's really important that we acknowledge that people who work in the coal industry need to be valued by us and that we thank and celebrate their work. That's important."
Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman will call on Tuesday for more agreement in Parliament on climate change and energy, an area where gas exporters face significant costs if a future government seeks to impose a market mechanism to reduce emissions.
"Our goal should be an approach to climate policy that is national, consistent with the Paris Agreement and which balances the environment and industries that support jobs and economic growth," Mr Coleman says in a draft of his speech to a gas industry conference.
"Once again, these are not competing goals but need to be aligned if outcomes are to be sustainable."

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Torres Strait Islanders Ask UN To Hold Australia To Account On Climate ‘Human Rights Abuses’

The Conversation - 

A king tide breaching a defence wall at Sabai Island in the Torres Strait, 2011. AAP Image/Suzanne Long
Climate change threatens Australia in many different ways, and can devastate rural and urban communities alike. For Torres Strait Islanders, it’s a crisis that’s washing away their homes, infrastructure and even cemeteries.
The failure to take action on this crisis has led a group of Torres Strait Islanders to lodge a climate change case with the United Nations Human Rights Committee against the Australian federal government.
It’s the first time the Australian government has been taken to the UN for their failure to take action on climate change. And its the first time people living on a low lying island have taken action against any government.
This case – and other parallel cases – demonstrate that climate change is “fundamentally a human rights issue”, with First Nations most vulnerable to the brunt of a changing climate.
The group of Torres Strait Islanders lodging this appeal argue that the Australian government has failed to take adequate action on climate change. They allege that the re-elected Coalition government has not only steered Australia off track in meeting globally agreed emissions reductions, but has set us on course for climate catastrophe.
In doing so, Torres Strait Islanders argue that the government has failed to uphold human rights obligations and violated their rights to culture, family and life.


Our Islands, Our Home | Torres Strait Climate Justice Case

This case is a show of defiance in the face of Australia’s years of political inertia and turmoil over climate change.
It is the first time people living on a low-lying island – acutely vulnerable in the face of rising sea levels – have brought action against a government. But it may also be a sign of things to come, as more small island nations face impending climate change threats.

Breaching multiple human rights obligations
Driving this case is an alliance of eight Torres Strait Islanders, represented by the Torres Strait land and sea council, Gur A Baradharaw Kod, along with a legal team from ClientEarth and 350.org. They argue that their way of life has come under immediate and irreversible threat.
On this basis, they accuse the Australian government of breaching multiple articles of the UN Human Rights Declaration, including the right to culture, the right to be free from arbitrary interference with privacy, family and home, and the right to life.
In the early 1990s, the Torres Strait Islands were at the centre of struggles to secure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights in Australia.
Securing these rights were made possible through the historic Mabo Decision, and these rights remain central to land and human rights debates today as Torres Strait Islanders’ land and seas are threatened by climate change.

Torres Straight Islanders are on the frontlines
Some Torres Strait Islands are less than one metre above sea level and are already affected by climate change.
Rising tides have delivered devastating effects for local communities, including flooding homes, land and cultural sites, with dire flooding in 2018 breaking a sea wall built to protect local communities.
Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. The ancestral lands of these islands are being washed away by sea level rise from climate change. Shutterstock
Increasing sea temperatures have also affected marine environments, driving coral bleaching and ocean acidification, and disrupting habitat for dugong, salt water crocodiles, and multiple species of turtle.
In the same way settler colonial violence dispossessed First Nations people from their ancestral homelands, climate change presents a real threat of further forced removal of people from their land and seas, alongside destruction of places where deep cultural and spiritual meaning is derived.

Parallel threats across the Pacific
While the Torres Strait appeal to the UN is groundbreaking, the challenges facing Torres Strait Islanders are not unique.
Delegates at the Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji last week described climate change as the “single greatest threat” to the region, with sea level rise occurring up to four times the global average in some countries in the Pacific.
Climate change is already causing migration across parts of the Pacific, including relocation of families from the Carteret Islands to Bougainville with support from local grassroots organisation Tulele Peisa.
The Alliance of Small Island States, an intergovernmental organisation, has demanded that signatories to the Paris Agreement, including through the Green Climate Fund, recognise fundamental loss and damages communities are facing, and compensate those affected.

The growing wave of climate litigation
Across the Torres Strait, the Pacific, and other regions on the frontline of climate change, there are a diversity of responses in defence of land and seas. These are often grounded in local and Indigenous knowledge.
They show the resolve of First Nations and local communities, as captured in a message from the Pacific Climate Warriors:
We are not drowning. We are fighting.
There are parallel appeals to the Torres Strait Islanders’ case. Around the world, First Nations people are calling on the UN to hold national governments to account on human rights obligations, including in the context of mining and other developments that drive greenhouse gas emissions.
In Australia, Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners have submitted multiple appeals, including last year alleging government violations of six international human rights obligations in their effort to advance Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine.
There is an array of other climate litigation underway. This includes citizens suing their governments for failing to take action on climate, such as in the Netherlands, where a judge ordered the government to take hefty action to reduce national emissions.
Similarly, a group of 21 children in the United States are pursuing a lawsuit to demand the right to a safe climate.
Given the parlous state of climate politics in Australia, further litigation can be expected. The significance of the current appeal by a group of Torres Strait Islanders lies in its potential to lay bare the adequacy or otherwise of Australia’s response to climate change as a human rights issue.
First Nations people already have a moral authority in defending their human rights in the era of climate change. Over time, they and others, including children, will also test the grounds on which they might have the legal authority to do so.

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