Lethal Heating: 08/26/20

26/08/2020

(AU) Australia's Chief Scientist Is Wrong On Gas, Say Leading Experts

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley

A group of leading Australian scientists has taken the unusual step of writing to the Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, saying his support for gas as an energy source "is not consistent with a safe climate".

"We are making a definite and profound statement that the advice the Chief Scientist is giving is in opposition to the evidence the Australian scientific community has gathered about the climatic system and the way it is changing," Professor Will Steffen, the founding director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, said of the decision to write the letter.

Scientists have taken the rare step of speaking out about Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel's support for the use of gas as a transition fuel to a cleaner energy system. Credit: Attila Csaszar

The letter's signatories include many world-leading Australian experts and lead authors with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They include professors John Church, Matthew England and Steven Sherwood from the University of NSW's Climate Change Research Centre, Professor Mark Howden of the Australian National University and Professor Graeme Pearman of the University of Melbourne.

"We are writing to you as Chief Scientist with our concerns about your strategy for dealing with climate change, and to offer any scientific advice that you might find useful on climate change issues," begins the letter, which is signed by 25 scientists.

Professor Steffen said the scientists' decision to take the unusual step of speaking out about the Chief Scientist was prompted in part by elements of Dr Finkel's address to the National Press Club in February, as well as other public comments he has made about gas.

Professor Steffen said more would have signed the letter but could not as they were employed by government agencies such as the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.

In the speech Dr Finkel outlined how Australia needed to electrify its energy system to meet Paris climate goals.

He said that as renewable energy generation, storage and transmission technologies are scaled up to decarbonise the economy, gas would play a "critical role", and that the transition could take decades.

The speech, made shortly before the government embraced a gas-led economic recovery from the economic crisis caused by COVID-19, caused concern among elements of the scientific community who see gas as an increasingly destructive global warming agent.

"He seems to be speaking in ignorance of or [to be] ignoring the overwhelming amount of evidence gathered by his own scientific community about the impact of the gas industry on the climate," said Professor Steffen.

Professor Steffen said that Australia's Paris climate targets were weak, set politically and had no scientific basis; that even if they were to be met Australia would still not be doing its fair share to mitigate global warming under the agreement, and that the use of gas as a transition energy source was quickly making the situation worse.

In the letter the scientists applaud Dr Finkel's support for a transition to renewable energy, but take issue with his support for the government's advocacy for an ongoing role for gas.

"Our concern ... relates to the scale and speed of the decarbonisation challenge required to meet the Paris Agreement, and, in particular, your support for the use of gas as a transition fuel over ‘many decades'," they write.

"Unfortunately, that approach is not consistent with a safe climate nor, more specifically, with the Paris Agreement. There is no role for an expansion of the gas industry."

"The combustion of natural gas is now the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the most important greenhouse gas driving climate change.

"On a decadal time frame, methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

"In Australia, the rapid rise in methane emissions is due to the expansion of the natural gas industry. The rate of methane leakage from the full gas economy, from exploration through to end use, has far exceeded earlier estimates."

Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor as well as the National COVID-19 Coordination Commission support gas as an energy source that is less carbon intensive than coal and that can quickly be ramped up or down to support renewable energy sources in the grid.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Chief Scientist said Dr Finkel was considering his response and would comment in due course.

A spokesman for Mr Taylor said that the International Energy Agency has estimated that coal-to-gas switching has avoided more than half a billion tonnes of emissions between 2010 and 2018.

"A separate CSIRO assessment of Queensland LNG production found that gas alone can reduce emissions from electricity production by up to 50 per cent. When gas backs up solar and wind, the emissions savings are even greater.

"Australia's gas exports are reducing emissions in importing countries overseas where they displace more emissions-intensive alternatives or backup renewables.

Dr Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project and a chief research scientist at the CSIRO said greenhouse gas emissions from the gas industry in Australia were "skyrocketing".

"They are not taking Australia in the direction it needs to go."

Links

AU) Corporate Climate Risk Disclosures Must Show More: IGCC

Financial Standard - Annabelle Dickson

Investors using companies' climate change risk disclosures to manage investment decisions and portfolio risk want more changes to understand how the risk information translates into action.

The latest report by the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), Full Disclosure: Improving corporate reporting on climate risk, found that improvements are needed in climate risk disclosure to make it more useful for risk assessment and portfolio management.

Since the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure released its recommendations in 2017, there has been increased reporting on climate-related risks however gaps remain between the information provided and that required by investors.

IGCC surveyed 50 investors from 22 organisations in Australia and New Zealand with more than $1.1 trillion in collective funds under management.

The investors are calling for companies to discuss how climate change risk informs strategy and planning, evidence the board understands climate-related risks and assessment of the impact of actions taken to manage these risks.

Furthermore, investors want companies to provide data evidence for claims they make about climate-related risks such as evidence of relevant expertise in executives and board, discussion of input and assumptions made in scenario analysis and disclosure of the assumptions underpinning a business model.

Australian Ethical head of ethics research Stuart Palmer said: "Improved disclosure is needed for investors to manage climate change risk in their portfolios and make accurate assessments of the performance and prospects of companies."

"Critically, investors want companies to show not just that climate risk is being assessed but how this is informing and changing their strategies and decision-making from board governance to capital expenditure to future business opportunities."

Just over half the respondents represented asset/fund managers and a third represented institutional investors.

The majority consider climate change a financial risk in investment analysis and around 40% use climate disclosures on a daily or weekly basis.

Nearly all investors (84%) use disclosures as a basis for engagement with companies, followed by using them as a part of environmental, social and governance integration (76%).

IGCC chief executive Emma Herd said: "Around the world different jurisdictions are working out how to ensure consistent, clear and investable climate risk disclosure that translates to action in capital markets."

"Some markets are using voluntary guidance developed by regulators. Others, like New Zealand and Canada, are moving to mandatory disclosure regimes, something which should now be considered in Australia given the systemic risks climate change poses to our economy."

Links

(AU) Consumers Push Corporate Agriculture To Move Quickly On Zero Emissions, Leaving National Farmers Federation Target Behind

ABC Rural - David Claughton

Livestock are responsible for 70 per cent of greenhouse emissions from agriculture but changes to feed, management and genetics is helping to reduce the impact. (Supplied: Jon Wright, Blue-E)

The National Farmers Federation (NFF) has announced its support for zero carbon emissions from agriculture by 2050, but is it too little, too late?

Corporate agriculture is acting with greater urgency, while the red meat industry has adopted a much more ambitious deadline of 2030.

There have been a series of big announcements on emissions from large agricultural corporations in recent weeks, driven by changing consumer demand around the world.

US retailers are reporting a doubling in demand for plant-based food during the pandemic and that trend is being replicated in Australia.

Brazilian giant JBS has established a plant-based range of food products to go alongside its massive abattoir business to improve its credentials and respond to growing demand for alternatives.

Woolworths, along with billionaire pastoralist Andrew Forrest, is backing a $15-million CSIRO project to put seaweed into cattle feed which can reportedly reduce emissions by more than 80 per cent.

Despite that, farm lobby groups like the New South Wales Farmers Association have announced only conditional support for the NFF target of net zero emissions by 2050.

They want clarity on how farmers will be expected to do it, and a guarantee it will not cost them more to comply.

Queensland lobby group Agforce abstained over its concerns about the lack of work underpinning the NFF target.

Meat industry facing the biggest challenge

Agriculture is responsible for 14 per cent of Australia's emissions and cattle make up the 70 per cent of those.

When cows burp and fart, they convert grass into methane which is a potent greenhouse gas.

The most effective way to bring those emissions down is to change what the animal eats and to improve the animal's ability to convert feed to protein through breeding and genetics.

Cattle breeder Jon Wright has cut methane emissions from his cattle by 30 per cent through genetics and management systems. (ABC News: Tim Fookes)

NSW grazier Jon Wright has been breeding "low-emission" cattle for decades but he is sceptical about the industry's ability to achieve that goal.

"To actually set some goals is a huge, huge challenge and if you want me to put money on when will we get there, I'm probably not going to," he said.

Mr Wright said the problem for the industry is that most of Australia's meat supply comes out of rangelands in Queensland and the Northern Territory and he does not think it will be easy for those graziers to change their practices or access low emissions food and genetics.

He said retailers may need to reconsider sourcing beef from those areas.

"Now that's pretty horrible to say and pretty hard to think about, but people up in those areas have to prove how they can produce a lower emissions product if they're going to stay in business," Mr Wright said.

Changes to nutrition could help significantly reduce emissions from cattle in feedlots but it may be much harder on the rangelands of inland Australia. (ABC Rural: Matt Brann)

Nuffield scholar Ellen Litchfield, from Wilpoorinna Station in South Australia, travelled the world looking at ways to reduce emissions in the rangelands grazing areas.

She believed they were actually much better placed to reduce emissions and care for the planet generally than livestock in feedlots or other production systems.

"We're still in the process of doing a carbon footprint for the station and I think there needs to be some research into the carbon footprint of extensive grass fed systems, but the emissions from these cattle are so much lower and we're not using grain that could be used for something else," she said.

Changing cattle feed a big part of the solution

Global animal nutrition company Alltech signed up to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and started its own initiative to reduce emissions, called the Planet of Plenty.

It set benchmarks to monitor its progress on lowering greenhouse gas emissions and reducing energy and water consumption.

Alltech produce and distribute animal feed to 120 countries, including Australia, so they are in a position to make a difference with low emissions feed.

Global animal feed company Alltech have conducted more than 9,000 farm assessments and found that environmentally efficient farms are often the most profitable as well. (Supplied: Alltech)

They are focussing on rumen modifiers that can directly reduce methane emissions by altering the biochemistry of the rumen to inhibit methane-producing microbes in the rumen.

Vice president Matthew Smith said livestock emissions are going down globally, even though beef and dairy production is going up and that is because animal production is becoming more efficient.

"If a cow produces more milk or if a beef animal is heavier, has higher daily live weight gain, there are more kilos to divide that methane across," he said.

Genetics could drive emissions in cattle down

Jon Wright thinks it is possible to reduce emission by about 30 per cent, using genetics and cattle management systems.

He has been breeding cattle that need less feed to gain weight and his focus is on early weaning his calves.

That gives his cows time to put on weight before they get pregnant again and then his focus is on halving their usual rations in order to halve their emissions.

"They will eat 15kg day if you let them, [but] they will maintain weight and maintain their condition in pregnancy on half that."

Are Australian targets ambitious enough?

Alltech vice president Matthew Smith says Australia is on track to meet the Paris Accord target for agriculture, other countries have more ambitious targets. (Supplied: Alltech)

Australia is on track to meet the Paris Accorde to reduce emission from agriculture to 26 to 28 per cent of 2005 levels, according to Matthew Smith from Alltech

"In 2020 Australia is on track to do that, levels have dropped 5-6 per cent," he said.

While some countries were not so successful, Mr Smith still believed a much more ambitious goal was achievable for Australia.

"New Zealand isn't far away from you, they have a bold target, and there are many countries in Europe looking at 40 and 50 per cent reductions," he said.

But Mr Smith said measurement systems still varied and that was a problem.

"Unless there is one clear system in place to do that measurement it becomes really difficult to say 'what system do I use?'" he said.

Links