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