31/10/2021

(AU The Guardian) Podcasts: Australia v The Climate

The Guardian Podcasts - Australia v The Climate


Billed as the world’s “best, last chance” to get global heating under control, Cop26 has a big goal: to secure global net-zero emissions by 2050 and keep 1.5C within reach.

Australia’s climate report card is poor, following decades of political squabbling, policy failures, leadership coups, climate scepticism and poor planning. And yet most Australians have a lived experience of the worsening climate crisis - devastating bushfires, floods, extreme weather and loss of species and habitat.

Australia v the climate looks at how we got here, what’s gone wrong, and what can be done to change course.
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Australia v The Climate part 1: Kyoto 00:50:03

This is the story of how Australia’s behaviour across decades has made it a climate change outcast. In the first episode we hear how Australia managed to increase its emissions under a climate deal that was supposed to cut them
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Australia v the climate part 2: Copenhagen 00:46:08
After Kevin Rudd becomes prime minister in 2007 he decides to turn his full attention to helping the world tackle the climate crisis. But for all the work Australia puts in, the world takes a turn for the worst at the climate summit in Copenhagen. In the second episode in the series, we ask: what could happen if Australia decides to be a good global citizen on climate?


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Australia v the climate part 3: Paris and the fall 00:58:29

Six years after the devastation of the Copenhagen meetings, the Paris conference became a hopeful moment for action on climate change. It looked for a moment that a truly global deal would be made. Hope was short-lived for Australia, as the reins of power changed quickly from Malcolm Turnbull to Scott Morrison, a pro-coal prime minister with no real commitment to climate policy.

You’ll hear the story first-hand from the people who were there, including: former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull; former prime minister of Tuvalu Enele Sopoaga; Guardian Australia editor, Lenore Taylor; Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy; climate campaigner Erwin Jackson; climate scientist Lesley Hughes; chief negotiator on climate for Tuvalu, Ian Fry; and head of Greenpeace International, Jennifer Morgan


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Australia v the climate part four: fossil fuels 00:46:42

Year after year, parts of our country are destroyed by floods and bushfires made worse by global heating. And yet multiple prime ministers have lost their jobs when they tried to do something about it. What’s behind Australia’s weak climate targets and its lack of ambition?

In part four, we explore the powerful fossil fuel lobbies and how have they influenced Australia’s climate policy over the decades.

Including: author Clive Hamilton, former Australian Greens leader Christine Milne, former minister for climate change Greg Combet, Guardian editor Lenore Taylor, director of policy at the Investor Group on Climate Change Erwin Jackson, scientist Graeme Pearman, and Union of Concerned Scientists member Alden Meyer.


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Australia v the climate part 5: a plan for net zero? 00:32:51

This week Scott Morrison finally released what he said was a plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050. But is it? In this final episode of the series, editor Lenore Taylor, political editor Katharine Murphy, climate and environment editor Adam Morton and reporter Graham Readfearn discuss the implications of ‘the Australian way’ plan and what it means for Cop26 in Glasgow


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(AU The Age) How To Talk About Climate Change

The Age - Gay Alcorn


 
Author
Gay Alcorn is the Editor of The Age.
To say The Age is committed to excellent and thorough coverage of climate change is self-evident.

COVID-19 has occupied much of our resources and energy since the start of last year, but climate change is one of, if not the most critical challenge of our times. It will affect all of us.

Across The Age and our sister publication, The Sydney Morning Herald, we have four specialist journalists covering climate change and the environment, and our political journalists in Canberra and Melbourne focus on it too, as do our foreign correspondents. In Melbourne, senior journalist Miki Perkins covers the environment.

As Australians know, the politics of climate change has crippled our federal governments for more than a decade, and seen our political system fail in its duty to act in the interests of citizens, again and again. Our environment and climate editor, Nick O’Malley, will be in Glasgow for the critical COP26 summit starting October 31, as will chief political correspondent, David Crowe, Europe correspondent Bevan Shields and photographer Alex Ellinghausen.
Glasgow summit
How the world ran out of time

The challenge for The Age is not about our commitment to the issue, but about how we cover climate change. Since reading Rebecca Huntley’s excellent book, How to Talk about Climate Change in a Way that Makes a Difference, I have thought about this a great deal.

The news about what is happening to our planet, and what the evidence shows will happen if we don’t act quickly to slash emissions, is bleak.

I worry it can overwhelm our readers, who may feel helpless and hopeless. As the President of COP26, Alok Sharma, said in a recent speech.

“At 1.5 degrees warming, 700 million people would be at risk of extreme heat waves. At 2 degrees, it would be 2 billion.

“At 1.5 degrees, 70 per cent of the world’s coral reefs die. At 2 degrees, they are all gone.”

These are hard things to contemplate. There are few out-and-out climate change deniers now, even if they contributed to decades of inaction in Australia and across the world. Even News Corp, a media organisation that did more than any to confuse Australians about whether climate change was real or urgent, has flipped, almost comically, and now campaigns for net zero.

Our federal government has also changed its approach after years of bitter internal division, and will take a target of net zero emissions by 2050 to Glasgow, a big and welcome step politically, even if its plan has been widely criticised as lacking detail or serious policy.

The tension now is not about deniers, but between people and countries who are wholeheartedly committed, and those who have been dragged to act on climate change because of political and business pressure but have little genuine interest in it.

What Huntley does so well is to explain the psychology of discussing climate change, which made me think about how The Age could frame our coverage. She points out that surveys have shown that few of us talk about climate change with even family or close friends, and to discuss our worries and doubts is crucial.
Glasgow summit
COP26 newsletter

To argue about the science is mostly pointless because disagreement is not about the science; it’s about people’s identity, values and worldview, about how people see the past and the future.

To get angry about what is not being done can be useful sometimes, but it won’t convince a single person to change their mind because being told your lifestyle or values are wrong only leads to defensiveness. Relentless negative coverage is likely to cause many of our readers to disengage.

Opinion polling reveals that most of us believe in climate change and think it needs to be more seriously addressed, but most of us don’t spring to action to defend our environment. One reason, writes Huntley, is because climate change is so nebulous, has happened over many years and because of the human tendency towards “optimism bias”. Our instinct is to assume things will work out.

The idea of “technology not taxes”, which our federal government espouses, goes to this instinct that something will come along to save us, rather than having to act now on what the science is telling us we need to do, especially over the next decade, to keep warming below 2 degrees and preferably 1.5 degrees. It is an entirely human instinct.

Climate change action and mitigation will cost us, and the price of acting on climate change now is off-putting. “Put simply, we’re highly sensitive to losses in the present which feel more certain, than losses in the future, which feel less certain,” writes Huntley.

So what does this mean for our coverage? If you want a backgrounder on COP26, I recommend this explainer by Nick O’Malley. If you are interested in analysis of the federal government’s plan, try this by the Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood. This is a revealing piece by David Crowe about how ‘small l’ liberals lobbied for a 2050 target.

If you want to know what you can do as an individual, Henrietta Cook ranked the most useful actions we can take. And this multimedia piece shows graphically how the world is warming, and the catastrophic results. During the summit, we’ll be taking questions from our readers on climate change, and getting our reporters and analysts to answer them. You can see the start of that here. And there is lots more here, and do sign up for our environment newsletter.

Towards the end of her book, Huntley suggests tips for how to talk about climate change that are as relevant for a news organisation like The Age as it is for individuals.

They include focusing on local issues to make it personal for people (the Great Barrier Reef, Victoria’s coastline); highlighting what we have to gain from action and not just what we’ll lose; getting rid of the language of blame; being honest about the threat but avoiding catastrophic or extreme language and encouraging “active hope” no matter what the science tells us.

She writes that when we say we care about climate change, we are not really talking about the science. We are talking about the things we love and the fear of losing them. If we start from there, we’ll get somewhere.

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(AU The Guardian) The Coalition’s Net Zero Policy Is Merely A Plan To Freeload Off The Rest Of The World

The Guardian - 

Scott Morrison’s government is counting on businesses and households to reduce emissions almost entirely as a result of their own voluntary initiative

The minister for energy and emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, and the prime minister, Scott Morrison, discuss the net-zero emissions target during a press conference at Parliament House. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Author
Tristan Edis is the director of analysis and advisory at Green Energy Markets.
The Morrison government has now confirmed that it will target net zero emissions for Australia by 2050.

But, unlike Europe, the US and China, the Morrison government believes we’ll manage to reduce emissions to zero without implementing any legislation that either requires businesses to reduce their emissions or that of their products; or provides funding to pay these businesses to reduce their emissions at mass scale.

Instead the government has a plan for “technology not taxes”. Underpinning this three-word slogan is the argument that Australian businesses and households will reduce emissions almost entirely as a result of their own voluntary initiative.

The government simply doesn’t need to legislate things like renewable energy targets, or emission limits applying to car exhausts or smoke stacks, or even provide rebates to install batteries or buy electric vehicles.

In the government’s favour is that a range of carbon abatement technologies are managing to achieve substantial reductions in costs.

As a result both business and household demand for these products has been expanding. One in four Australian homes now have a solar system installed.

In addition, we’ve seen a range of a big corporates over the past two years make commitments to offset a substantial proportion, if not all, of their electricity consumption through the purchase of renewable energy certificates.

More recently we’ve also seen the price of Australian carbon credits traded above $30, which is far higher than the price the government has been offering to pay via its abatement purchasing auctions of around $16 to $17. Also, some of the world’s biggest motor vehicle manufacturers have indicated their intentions to move most or all of their models to be fully electric over the next 10 to 15 years.

So does this mean the government is off the hook?

Solar headwinds

While solar is now on a fifth of homes, landlords have proven to be utterly uninterested in installing solar or any other energy efficiency upgrades to their rental properties. These represent a third of all households and their share is growing.

Also by 2025 solar generation will approach the point where it will regularly exceed overall grid demand during the midday period. This will lead to increasing solar spillage and deteriorating interest in solar systems unless government can spur greater uptake of batteries.

Voluntary offset demand from the private sector remains tiny relative to overall emissions

Green Energy Markets estimates demand for renewable energy outside the legislated renewable energy target is expected to dramatically expand from 688GWh in 2018 to reach 12,662GWh by 2025, after which it stalls.

Although 3,600GWh of this is actually as a result of government policies, leaving about 9,000GWh that is driven by private sector voluntary action. That is equal to under 4% of Australia’s total electricity consumption.

Now it’s likely that further voluntary commitments to purchase renewable energy will come, but even if we doubled demand it would still be comfortably less than 10% of Australian electricity consumption.

Meanwhile total voluntary demand for Australian carbon credits in 2021 was less than 2 million tonnes according to analysts Market Advisory Group. By 2030 they expect it to grow to roughly about 4 million tonnes which is less than 1% of Australia’s total emissions.

Dramatic reductions are being achieved in Australia’s electricity emissions, but what’s really driving change isn’t so much voluntary demand as government policy.

It’s just that policy is coming from state governments. But it would be so much more efficient if this could be done nationally.

Does Australia want to be lumped with the next Betamax video tape?

Given the plans of the world’s major motor vehicle manufacturers Australia will inevitably move to electric vehicles.

However, if the Morrison government does little to expand the availability of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and refuses to upgrade our vehicle emissions standards in line with those overseas, we run the risk of becoming a dumping ground for obsolete oil-fuelled vehicles over this decade.

Consumers will initially think this is great as they get cut-price cars. But after 2030 they could find themselves with a vehicle that is the equivalent of a Betamax video tape player in a world of Netflix.

That could make keeping that car on the road increasingly expensive, while also leaving Australia with a long-term emissions legacy given how long cars last.

Don’t get too excited about cheap hydrogen

While the Morrison government doesn’t believe it needs to do much to drive adoption of renewable energy or electric vehicles, it has indicated that it will help fund technological research and development of things like hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, low emission metal production and measurement of soil carbon.

Yet even if the government was spectacularly successful in achieving its stated cost targets for these technologies, they would still remain financially unattractive. So these will remain left on the shelf without legislation that bridges this cost premium.

Freeloading off the rest of the world

The Morrison government is correct that even if they do nothing, Australia will still significantly reduce emissions from electricity and transport thanks to technological advancements driven by other nations. But for these technological advancements to transpire will require substantial investments and policies that will impose additional costs on these nations, at least in the short term.

While it might seem like it’s worth a try to see if we can get away with it through the government’s technology not taxes plan, do we really want to simply freeload off these other nations when it comes to climate change?

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30/10/2021

(AU The Conversation) Labor Doesn’t Have A 2030 Target Yet Either – What Do We Know Of The ALP’s Climate Policy So Far?

The Conversation - 

Lukas Coch/AAP

Author
is a Lecturer, Australian National University

This week, the Morrison government finally released its plan to get Australia to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese was quick to dismiss the Coalition policy, describing it as a mere “vibe” with “nothing new” in it. His climate spokesperson Chris Bowen added
I’ve seen more detail in a fortune cookie.
These are fair comments. But Labor’s climate policy is also light on detail and the party won’t announce its full climate plan until after international climate talks in Glasgow, which finish on November 12.

What do we know about Labor’s policy so far? Will it be environmentally effective and fair?

No 2030 target

Global warming cannot exceed 1.5℃ this century if we hope to avoid catastrophic climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change) predicts global warming is on track for 2.7℃. We really do need to act fast.

Labor is not due to announce its full climate plan until Glasgow is over. Lukas Coch/AAP

Yet the ALP has no current plans to increase Australia’s 2030 emission reduction target. The party took a target of 45% below 2005 levels to the 2019 election. But this was short of what scientists have been calling for.

The Climate Council’s estimate for an appropriate climate target for Australia at the time was a 65% reduction. Today, they argue we can, and should, reach for a 75% reduction by 2030.

Australia’s 2030 target is important because “net-zero” is vague in the abstract – it basically means a managed balance between sources and sinks of carbon. We need to know what parts of the carbon cycle, and which industries, technologies, and groups of people are involved, and how.

Towards a green industrial strategy

The ALP has been signalling it wants to focus on labour issues at the heart of decarbonisation. As Bowen frequently observes, “good energy policy is good employment policy”.

After the tortuous carbon price debate of the Rudd-Gillard years and Labor’s shock defeat at the 2019 election, Albanese has announced a renewed focus on policies to promote a green “industrial revolution”.

More recently, he has joined labour economists in arguing the pandemic exposes the Australian economy to fragile global supply chains.

Labor has proposed a A$15 billion national reconstruction fund for economic diversification and advanced manufacturing, including renewables.

Energy transition involves job losses in fossil-fuel based electricity generation and related mines and transport. There are significant opportunities for new employment in new green tech industries, but they don’t magically appear in the places jobs are being lost.

So any shift to a green industry policy should be meticulously planned and targeted to specific locations.

Supporting transitions in electricity and transport

Thanks to the renewable energy boom, electricity market decarbonisation is underway. Labor says it’s committed to underwriting the transition.

The ALP’s “rewiring the nation” policy commits A$20 billion to rebuild and modernise the grid, in line with a plan by the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Labor is also proposing a public institution called Rewiring the Nation Corporation that may reintroduce some public ownership in the sector.

For households and distributed energy off the grid, it promises more support for community batteries.

Labor has pledged $200 million over three years to make electric cars more affordable. Mick Tsikas/AAP

The ALP has also committed to more vocational training and a scheme for apprentice electricians to gain renewable energy skills. But we need more detail on how they propose to govern transition in the most affected regions.

It’s unclear if Labor still intends to create the Just Transition Authority announced under Bill Shorten’s leadership. These kinds of independent authorities are important for negotiating redundancy and retraining programmes and economic diversity initiatives in hard hit regions.

Transport systems are on the verge of a major transition too. The ALP has a tariff removal policy to make electric vehicles more affordable. It proposes to work with the unions and the sector to develop manufacturing capacity.

But it could be doing more, for instance, through pollution standards or mandating large manufacturers meet targets for electric vehicle sales.

What about food and fuel?

All of this makes sense. But if net-zero is to become more than just a slogan, emissions reduction is urgently needed in other sectors such as agriculture and mining.

Decarbonising these sectors will be challenging in an economic, practical and political sense.

Agriculture contributed about 15% to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. Trevor Collens/AAP

Labor’s policies to reduce emissions in the agriculture sector have focused on land carbon offsetting.

Under this approach, farmers are encouraged to maintain vegetation and adopt farming practices that lead to more carbon being stored in soil and plants. This activity could be rewarded in the form of “credits” sold to polluting firms looking to compensate for (or “offset”) their ongoing emissions.

The Gillard government established the Carbon Farming Initiative as a voluntary land offset scheme linked to the short-lived compliance emissions trading scheme. This continued under the Coalition’s Direct Action Plan as a combined competitive grant programme and way to offset emissions under the Safeguard Mechanism which which sets a (loose) limit on the most polluting firms in Australia.

Both Labor and Coalition’s approaches to land carbon are a light touch. Offsets should not be heavily relied on to reach net-zero.

Meanwhile, Labor has never properly addressed the future of our export mineral and energy industries. Australia’s coal and gas exports will be exposed as trading partners such as South Korea, Japan and China pursue net-zero emissions targets.

And Labor will be under ongoing pressure from environmentalists and Indigenous groups who have long been calling for major reforms to both cultural heritage and environmental protection laws.

Capping pollution

Labor has said it will not seek an economy-wide carbon price instrument, like it had during the Gillard government. This means it will need other ways to legislate and regulate for emissions reductions.

One possibility is to strengthen the existing “safeguard mechanism” without building a carbon market. In its current form, the mechanism has allowed big polluters to increase their emissions, but that could be changed.

If Labor went down that route, it would also need a separate policy to deal with emissions from agriculture. Effective climate policy doesn’t have to be top-down economy-wide carbon price. Sector-by-sector industrial policy and regulation could be a more realistic way to create incentives for innovation.

Looming election

The federal election due early next year is shaping up as another “climate election”.

We urgently need a government with vision for what jobs and livelihoods will look like in a decade of green industrial transformations.

Labor is offering some new industrial details, but the emissions target and plans for mining and regional communities are vague.

We need the details in Albanese’s climate policy fortune cookie soon.

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(BBC) Climate Change: Fossil Fuel Production Set To Soar Over Next Decade

BBC - Matt McGrath

Coal mining in China has increased in 2021. VCG
Plans by governments to extract fossil fuels up to 2030 are incompatible with keeping global temperatures to safe levels, says the UN.

The UNEP production gap report says countries will drill or mine more than double the levels needed to keep the 1.5C threshold alive.

Oil and gas recovery is set to rise sharply with only a modest decrease in coal.

There has been little change since the first report was published in 2019.

With the COP26 climate conference just over a week away, there is already a huge focus on the carbon-cutting ambitions of the biggest emitters.

But despite the flurry of net zero emission goals and the increased pledges of many countries, some of the biggest oil, gas and coal producers have not set out plans for the rapid reductions in fossil fuels that scientists say are necessary to limit temperatures in coming years.

Earlier this year, researchers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of the dangers for humanity of allowing temperatures to rise by more than 1.5C this century. To keep under this threshold will require cuts in carbon emissions of around 45% by 2030 based on 2010 levels.

An oil rig sets sail - oil production is set to increase over the next decade. VCG
But instead of curbing carbon, many of the biggest emitting countries are also planning to significantly increase their production of fossil fuels, according to the UN.

The production gap report finds that countries plan to produce around 110% more fossil fuel than would be compatible with a 1.5C temperature rise by the end of this century. The plans are around 45% more than what's needed to keep the temperature rise to 2C.

According to the study, coal production will drop but gas will increase the most over the next 20 years, to levels that are simply incompatible with the Paris agreement.

The report profiles 15 major production countries including Australia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the US and UK.

Most governments continue to provide significant policy support for fossil fuel production, the authors say.

Fracking has seen huge increases in oil and gas production in the US. PAUL RATJE

"The research is clear: global coal, oil, and gas production must start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5C," says Ploy Achakulwisut, a lead author on the report from the Stockholm Environment Institute.

"However, governments continue to plan for and support levels of fossil fuel production that are vastly in excess of what we can safely burn."

While countries have devoted far more of their recovery spending after the Covid pandemic towards fossil fuel activities, there are some positives when it comes to financing.

Funding for oil, coal and gas from multilateral banks has decreased significantly in recent years - and also from some of the richer nations.

"This report shows, once again, a simple but powerful truth: we need to stop pumping oil and gas from the ground if we are to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement," said Andrea Meza, Costa Rica's minister for environment and energy.

"We must cut with both hands of the scissors, addressing demand and supply of fossil fuels simultaneously. That is why, together with Denmark, we are leading the creation of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance to put an end to the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, plan a just transition for workers and start winding down existing production in a managed way."

'I care about the climate but my dad works in the oil industry'

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(The Guardian) World Is Failing To Make Changes Needed To Avoid Climate Breakdown, Report Finds

The Guardian - 

Pace of emissions reductions must be increased significantly to keep global heating to 1.5C

A coal plant near Luetzerath, Germany. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

Every corner of society is failing to take the “transformational change” needed to avert the most disastrous consequences of the climate crisis, with trends either too slow or in some cases even regressing, according to a major new global analysis.

Across 40 different areas spanning the power sector, heavy industry, agriculture, transportation, finance and technology, not one is changing quickly enough to avoid 1.5C in global heating beyond pre-industrial times, a critical target of the Paris climate agreement, according to the new Systems Change Lab report.

No indicators are on track to meet targets necessary to limit warming to 1.5C by 2030
Status of 31 key indicators by sector, nine with insuffcient data not shown.
Guardian graphic. Source: State of Climate Action 2021: Systems Transformations Required to Limit Global Warming to 1.5°C.
The dangerously sluggish pace of decarbonization, made plain just days before the start of crucial UN climate talks in Scotland, further highlights how the world is badly off track in its attempts to curb climate breakdown.

Atmospheric levels of planet-heating gases hit a new record high last year, and the UN has warned the amount of fossil fuel extraction planned by countries “vastly exceeds” the limit needed to keep below the 1.5C threshold.

“We need to pull out the stops in every sector, to transform our power generation, the diets we have, how we manage land and more, all simultaneously,” said Kelly Levin, chief of science at the Bezos Earth Fund, one of the report’s co-authors. “We need transformational change and it’s very clear the trends aren’t moving fast enough.”

From renewable electricity generation to meat consumption to public financing for fossil fuels, the report found that no indicator was showing the required progress to cut emissions in half this decade before eliminating greenhouse gases completely by 2050, which would give the world a chance to keep below 1.5C.

Coal needs to be phased out five times faster than it is now, according to the analysis, while the pace of reforestation needs to be three times faster. Coastal wetlands need to be restored nearly three times faster, climate finance needs to grow 13 times faster and the energy intensity of buildings needs to drop at a rate almost three times faster than now.

In wealthy countries across Europe and North America, the consumption of beef needs to reduce 1.5 times faster than it is now. In these countries with high meat consumption and plentiful alternatives, cutting back to the equivalent of one and a half burgers per person a week would significantly reduce demand for land and greenhouse gas emissions.

There are some glimmers of promise: the global share of electricity generated from solar and wind has grown at 15% annually over the past five years and renewables have become the most cost-effective replacement for coal in most places. Electric vehicle adoption is on the rise, reaching more than 4% of worldwide car sales last year.

The report also found there was a good chance, given proper support, of “exponential” progress in technology such as the direct removal of carbon dioxide from the air, which scientists have said will probably have to be deployed on a grand scale to reduce worsening climate disasters. But overall the picture is of a world moving too slowly to confront the climate crisis.

“While things are heading in the right direction in some areas, we are moving too slowly to avoid 1.5C,” said Sophie Boehm, a climate researcher at World Resources Institute and report co-author. “If that continues, we will fall woefully short of the goals to avoid disastrous climate change. It’s very worrying we are not on track for any of these target areas.”

While progress is lagging in most places, three areas in particular – cement production, steel making and efforts to place a fee on carbon emissions – are stagnating, the report found. A further three – emissions from agriculture, the share of trips made by cars and the deforestation rate – are moving in the wrong direction.

“We need complete u-turns from these areas,” said Levin. “With climate change you can’t just head in the right direction, you need to do it at pace. Without that, we will reach disastrous tipping points.”

There is little optimism that countries will make the required commitments to salvage this situation at the Glasgow talks, known as Cop26, with Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, admitting it is “touch and go” whether the required action will be taken. John Kerry, who is Joe Biden’s climate envoy, has said there will likely be “gaps” in emissions-cutting plans put forward by governments.

Should the world breach 1.5C in global heating, the planet will be hit by an increasing frequency of deadly heatwaves, ruinous storms, disastrous flooding and crop failures, wiping trillions of dollars from economic activity and forcing the displacement of millions of people.

António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, has warned the world is risking a “hellish future” through its lack of urgency to confront the crisis.

“We have the technology for the majority of these areas to decarbonize,” said Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, an organization that provided input to the new report. “What we need is political will, and for governments to catch up with the opportunity this transition will bring for their economies.”

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29/10/2021

(AU SMH) The Charts You Need To Understand The Climate Emergency

Sydney Morning Herald - Laura Chung

The world is getting hotter with global average temperatures increasing by more than 1.2 degrees since the late 19th century. Australia has experienced its highest annual mean temperature in 2019 and its warmest spring on record in 2020.

Climate charts Credit: Mary-Anne Lea Supplied
Climate change didn’t occur overnight. But with the COP26 conference in Glasgow imminent, here are 10 graphs which explain the crisis gripping the planet.

The world is getting hotter

Last year tied with 2016 as the hottest on record, with global average temperatures increasing by more than 1.2 degrees since the late 19th century.

Seventeen of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000, with Australia experiencing its highest annual mean temperature in 2019 and its warmest spring on record in 2020.



“Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important — the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken,” NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies director Gavin Schmidt said earlier this year.

Arctic sea ice is decreasing

Sea ice cover and thickness have declined significantly in the Artic Ocean since satellite measurements began in 1979.

The ice cover has fluctuated on the Antarctica continent, but the melt from Greenland and Antarctica has contributed about 1.4 cm of global sea level rise from 2003 to 2019.



And sea levels are increasing

Global mean sea levels have risen by about 25 centimetres since 1880, with half of this rise occurring since 1970.

Sea level rise rates across Australia vary, but the largest increase has been to the north and south-east. This poses a serious threat for coastal communities that will experience storm surges and coastal erosion. If global temperatures rise more than 1.5 degrees many of the islands will become uninhabitable.



Oil, coal and gas are still the main sources of energy globally

The US, India and Russia contributed the largest declines in energy consumption, while China saw the largest increase in energy consumption - about 2.1 per cent.


While oil was the most popular energy source, renewable energy (including biofuels, but excluding hydro) rose by 9.7 per cent.

Australia is still reliant on coal

Coal remains the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Australia, with oil second. Only the United States has a higher carbon pollution than Australia for energy use, with both tallying about 15 tonnes per person of carbon-dioxide a year.



But the energy mix is shifting

Wind and solar farms have been popping up across the country in the last few years, as Australia’s clean energy transition is tipped to accelerate to the point that most homes will have solar panels paired with batteries by 2030.



The world is trying to slow its emissions

The latest report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found if the world makes immediate drastic cuts to emissions, and reaches net zero or carbon neutrality before 2050, we can still stabilise the climate and see it slowly start to cool by the end of the century.



And use more renewables

China was by far the largest contributor to renewables growth in 2020, followed by the ‎US, Japan, the UK, India and Germany.

Saudi Arabia is one of the worst, with only 0.1 per cent of its primary energy coming from renewables. The country has announced plans to become a hydrogen pioneer and set targets to reach net zero by 2060.



And collectively hit a net zero target by 2050

More than 130 countries have set or are considering setting targets of reducing emissions to net zero by 2050. Two countries have already achieved the net-zero targets: the heavily forested Bhutan, located between India and China, and Suriname in South America.

Sweden was the first country to enshrine its net-zero target into law in 2017 and since then, five countries have followed.



But that goal won’t mean much until a more ambitious 2030 target is achieved

At the Glasgow summit, states have been asked to come forward with ambitious 2030 emissions target reductions. To keep them accountable, countries submit Nationally Determined Contributions, known as NDCs, to the United Nations every five years.

Glasgow summit ‘A matter of survival’: What’s COP26?


These contributions are plans which highlight a country’s climate action, including targets, policies and measures that a government aims to implement as their contribution to the global effort.

Commitments differ greatly across nations, making it difficult to compare progress. For example, Argentina’s most recent NDC says it will not exceed 359 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030, while Canada says it will keep its emissions 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.



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(AU Crikey) Exposed: Morrison’s Plan To Lift Emissions Under The Cover Of Net Zero

Crikey - 

The government's 2050 net zero 'debate' isn't about a lack of climate ambition. It's cover for a plan to increase coal exports that will continue to drive global warming.

(Image: Private Media)
The outline of the government’s climate policy is now clear, even if some detail remains to be filled in.

It will involve an overall increase in Australia’s total greenhouse emissions as it looks to take advantage of continuing use of fossil fuels — and coal in particular.

Documents leaked to Greenpeace from the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) process to determine options to reduce emissions show the Morrison government’s strategy for preparing for more concerted international action on emissions abatement.

During the drafting stage of the report, officials from Angus Taylor’s Department of Industry have:
  • opposed a recommendation to phase out coal-fired power stations
  • pushed for the IPCC to support carbon capture and storage (CCS)
  • supported Saudi Arabia’s efforts to block reference to phasing out fossil fuel power
  • demanded Australia be removed from the list of the world’s biggest users and producers of coal
  • tried to remove IPCC references to fossil fuel companies blocking climate action.
Along with the decision to spend at least $3 billion on a coal haulage rail line to Gladstone, and Environment Minister Sussan Ley’s now-routine approval of coal mine expansions, the strategy of Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce now seems clear.

The government will elevate carbon capture and storage as a high priority carbon abatement method — despite its complete failure as a viable technology — in order to justify an increase in Australia’s coal exports, which will be subsidised by taxpayers via the loss-making inland rail line and its extension to Gladstone.

The emissions from coal exported to other countries — Scope 3 emissions — are not counted against Australia’s overall emissions.

This will enable Morrison and Joyce to pursue an overall increase in emissions produced by Australia — including from the use of our coal in other countries — while still claiming to be working toward “net zero”.

The IPCC report is a threat to that strategy if it calls for the phase out of coal-fired power stations, which may lead to the shutdown of coal-fired power stations by Australia’s coal customers, or does not back discredited CCS technology in order to justify the continued burning of coal.

Significantly, Australia’s demand that it not be on the list of major coal producers also points to an awareness by Taylor and Morrison of the tension between pretending to support net zero by 2050 and actively pushing higher coal exports.

Being named as a major coal producer will be a reminder to the international community that whatever the government might say, it is determined to push up total greenhouse emissions by continuing to support coal.

The government’s hostility to it being pointed out that fossil fuel companies have dictated climate policy in Australia points to another sensitivity — that it’s become clear internationally how fossil fuel donors to the Liberals and Nationals control and often literally draft energy policy.

The strategy also underlines just what a farce and a pantomime the last fortnight of debate over the Nationals’ position on net zero really is: the Coalition is united on a plan to sell more coal and gas and pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, for the benefit of donors and allies like Santos, Woodside, Origin, Whitehaven Coal, Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart.

The 2050 net zero target isn’t even a too-little-too-late ticket to get into Glasgow. It’s a distraction from the real agenda of more fossil fuels.

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