31/10/2020

(AU) Australia Must Prepare For Future Shaped By Extreme Climate, Bushfire Royal Commission Report Warns

The Guardian - 

Report into the apocalyptic 2019-20 bushfires says Australia must radically change its approach to fighting fires under new climate conditions

The summer bushfires around the Victorian town of Mallacoota. The royal commission report has found Australian must change its disaster management practices to deal with climate extremes caused by global heating. Photograph: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Australia’s bushfire disaster last summer was just a glimpse of what global heating will deliver to the country in the future, with major changes needed to the way the nation responds, according to the final report of the royal commission.

The royal commission has made 80 recommendations, including calls for a more co-ordinated approach and new legislation to allow the prime minister to declare a national state of emergency.

The wide-reaching recommendations cut across national and state-based responses, and say there needs to be standardised and consistent approaches. A national cabinet approach is also recommended.

Global heating that was driving more catastrophic fire weather could compromise traditional firefighting techniques and make models used to predict bushfires less effective, the report says.

The chair of the commission, retired air chief marshal Mark Binskin, wrote in the report’s foreword: “Every state and territory suffered fire to some extent. The fires did not respect state borders or local government boundaries. On some days, extreme conditions drove a fire behaviour that was impossible to control.”

The remains of burnt-out buildings along the main street of Cobargo on 31 December.
The commission’s 80 sweeping recommendations include:

  • Formation of a new disaster resilience and recovery agency to champion resilience across the nation

  • Review of Commonwealth’s Fair Work Act to make sure employers don’t discriminate against volunteer firefighters

  • Speed-up development of a nationally consistent fire danger rating system

  • Create nationally consistent air quality advice and develop forecasting capabilities

  • More support for people suffering mental health impacts from disasters

  • Better engagement with Traditional Owners that leverages indigenous knowledge of fire management

  • Create a single national scheme to regulate charitable fundraising

  • Improvements to the way data on Australia’s flora and fauna is collected and integrated into disaster responses

Natural disasters would become “more complex, more unpredictable, and more difficult to manage,” the report says.

Australia was likely to see national-scale “compounding disasters” where impacts such as fire, flood and storms hit simultaneously.

These disasters had cascading effects, the report says, threatening lives and homes “but also the nation’s economy, critical infrastructure and essential services, such as our electricity, telecommunications and water supply, and our roads, railways and airports.”

“The summer of 2019-2020 – in which some communities experienced drought, heatwaves, bushfires, hailstorms, and flooding – provided only a glimpse of the types of events that Australia may face in the future,” the report said.

Australia’s bushfire disaster broke out during the country’s hottest and driest year on record, with the fire danger levels at their highest on record.

The royal commission was formally requested by the government in February after fires that started in July 2019 spread across much of the east coast and parts of South Australia, burning between 30m and 40m hectares for more than six months.

The commission was chaired by Binskin, with former federal court judge Annabelle Bennett and climate policy expert Prof Andrew Macintosh making up the panel of three.

The federal emergency management minister, David Littleproud, said 14 of the recommendations were for the commonwealth, 23 related to the states and 41 covered areas of responsibility shared.

He said the government was “committed to responding to and actioning many of the recommendations as soon as possible.”

He said the report contained lessons for governments, essential service providers, insurers, charities, communities and individuals. All the recommendations were “pragmatic” he said, and he could see no issues with any of those that related to the federal government.

There needed to be a “single source of truth” for data on bushfires, he said, and work on this had started.

Some 270 witnesses gave evidence and more than 2,000 documents were provided in evidence, as well as more than 1,700 submissions.

During the fires at least 33 people died, more than 3,000 homes were destroyed and major cities, including Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, were choked with smoke.

It has been estimated at least 400 people died from the effects of the smoke, with about 4,500 needing hospital treatment.

A tree burns in the Gondwana rainforest in November 2019. Photograph: Darcy Grant/The Guardian
Conservationists estimated that 3bn animals were killed or displaced, with fears the fires across a range of different landscapes could send some species to extinction.

Some 119 animals, 486 plants and 191 invertebrates were identified by a government-appointed science panel as being severely impacted by the fires, which also affected 37 already-threatened ecosystems.

The commission was given a wide brief and was asked to look at how Australia was prepared for bushfires, how responses were coordinated and how communities were recovering.

Bushfires are annual events across Australia, but the scale, length, and severity was on the rise, the report said.

The commission also looked at how resilient the country was to the increasing risk from global heating and how impacts could be reduced.

The commission did not make any recommendations relating to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, but said the level of risk would rise as global emissions continued to climb.

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(AU) Japan's Net Zero By 2050 Pledge Another Warning To Australia On Fossil Fuels, Analysts Say

The Guardian - 

The Morrison government is urged to prepare for a shift in the global economy as major trading partners move to cut emissions

Coal waiting to be loaded on to ships in Gladstone. Japan’s net zero announcement is further evidence that demand for fossil fuels will fall, climate analysts say. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

A pledge by Japan to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 underscores the risk facing Australia if it fails to prepare for the inevitable shift in the global economy and falling demand for fossil fuels, analysts say.

The new Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga announced the target in his first policy speech to national parliament since taking office last month. He said responding to the climate crisis was no longer a constraint on growth, and proactive measures to change the country’s industrial structure would expand the economy.

Japan is the biggest market for Australia’s thermal coal and gas exports, buying more than 40% of each. Suga’s announcement follows China saying it would reach “carbon neutrality” no later than 2060.

He did not provide details of how net zero would be reached, but said he would promote renewable energy, prioritise safety while seeking a bigger role for nuclear power and “fundamentally change Japan’s long-term reliance on coal-fired energy”.

Its national energy plan is due to be revised next year. Scientists with Climate Action Tracker have previously found the country’s climate plans, including its short-term commitments over the next decade, were “highly insufficient”.

Australian climate analysts said it was further evidence a shift was under way and the Morrison government – which has resisted calls to set a mid-century target and prepare fossil fuel communities for life after coal – should take notice.

Howard Bamsey, Australia’s former special envoy on climate change, said Japan’s pledge illustrated major trading partners were changing their industrial profiles.

“It’s another signal to Australia that we need to get our act together and have a real strategy, not another of these roadmaps that don’t offer direction,” he said. “What matters here is the economic pressure. The world is changing and we need to be part of that change.”

Erwin Jackson, the director of policy with the Investor Group on Climate Change, said Japan’s announcement confirmed what “we’ve known for some time” – that the transition to net zero emissions would happen. He said the 2050 goal had been backed by business groups, investors and the community.

“The core reason Australia isn’t prepared for that is the toxic politics around climate change over the past decade,” he said.

Jackson said major investors were already “running an aggressive carbon-risk ruler” over investment decisions, and the announcements by east Asia’s largest economies would only accelerate that.

More than 60% of Australia’s two-way trade was now with countries pushing for net zero emissions by or near mid-century. That would rise to more than 70% if Joe Biden became US president, he said.

“It’s a really great opportunity for Australia that we should be grabbing,” Jackson said.

The US’s direction on the climate crisis hinges on next week’s elections. Biden has promised $2tn over four years for clean programs and to set the country on a course of net zero emissions by 2050. A Donald Trump victory would lock in his abolition of climate programs and the US’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement for at least another four years.

Europe, Australia’s other major trading partner, signalled earlier this month that it would escalate its climate commitments when the EU parliament supported a goal of a 60% cut below 1990 levels by 2030 on the way to net zero by mid-century.

The Morrison government’s central commitment under the global climate pact is a minimum 26% cut in emissions below 2005 levels by 2030 – less than the 45-60% reduction recommended by scientists. A government forecast last year suggested it was not on track to meet its goal without using controversial carbon accounting measures.

Labor’s climate spokesman, Mark Butler, said Japan’s commitment was “hugely significant” and “great news for global action on climate change.

“The list of groups who don’t support net zero by 2050 gets smaller and smaller and at the top of the list is Scott Morrison’s government,” he said. “It’s up to Scott Morrison to explain why he won’t commit to a climate target that every state and territory government in Australia, over 73 other nations and now Japan have adopted.”

A spokesperson for the emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, said the government’s policy was to achieve net zero emissions in the second half of the century. They said this was consistent with the Paris agreement.

Many climate experts, and a growing number of national governments, disagree on the basis the agreement also says countries will pursue efforts to limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and that commitments should be informed by the latest science.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change subsequently found, in a report commissioned in Paris, that global emissions needed to be 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5C. It found staying within 2C heating would require net zero by 2070, but the impact of that would be far worse.

Taylor’s spokesperson did not directly answer a question about what Japan’s shift could mean for Australia’s exports, but said technological progress was the only way to achieve the Paris goals while keeping economies strong.

They said Australia and Japan were taking practical action to accelerate new technologies, such as hydrogen. “Australia’s ambition is to be a global leader in low emissions technology solutions,” they said.

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South Korea Vows To Go Carbon Neutral By 2050 To Fight Climate Emergency

The Guardian - 

South Korea relies on coal for about 40% of its electricity generation, with renewables making up less than 6%

South Korea’s Green New Deal will invest in green infrastructure, clean energy and electric vehicles. Photograph: Kim Chul-Soo/EPA


South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, has declared that the country will go carbon neutral by 2050, bringing it into line with other major economies.

In a policy speech in the national assembly on Wednesday, Moon said South Korea, one of the world’s most fossil fuel-reliant economies, would “actively respond” to the climate emergency “with the international community and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”.

He vowed to end its dependence on coal and replace it with renewables as part of its Green New Deal, a multibillion-dollar plan to invest in green infrastructure, clean energy and electric vehicles.

South Korea is the latest major economy to commit to zero emissions. The European Union set itself a similar target last year, with Japan following suit this week. China said in September it would achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

Moon’s announcement is in line with a proposal made by his ruling party before April’s national assembly elections.

Its Green New Deal calls for an end to financing of overseas coal plants, and the introduction of a carbon tax, creating urban forests, recycling, establishing a foundation for new and renewable energy, and creating low-carbon industrial complexes.

Campaigners welcomed Moon’s announcement, but warned that South Korea – the world’s seventh-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2017, according to the International Energy Agency – would have to transform its energy policy to stand a chance of reaching the zero-emissions milestone.

“South Korea is finally one step closer to aligning itself with the reduction pathway compatible with Paris climate agreement goals,” Joojin Kim, managing director of the Seoul-based NGO Solutions for Our Climate, said in a statement.

“However, there is much to be done to make this declaration actually meaningful. The most urgent tasks are enhancing its 2030 emissions reduction target, presenting a clear roadmap to phase out coal by 2030, and putting a complete stop to coal financing.”

Jude Lee of Greenpeace East Asia said Moon’s pledge was “another important step forward. We expect that this important pledge leads the Korean industry to swiftly shift from fossil fuels to a 100% renewables-based system.”

South Korea relies on coal for about 40% of its electricity generation, with renewables making up less than 6%. It still has seven coal power units under construction. It is also one of the top three public financiers of overseas coal power projects, mostly in Asia, Solutions for Our Climate said.

The country will struggle to achieve net-zero emissions “without fundamental changes in energy policy”, Kim said. “South Korea must immediately stop the construction of new coal power plants, and begin replacing the existing coal fleet with renewables.”

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