Lethal Heating: 02/04/21

04/02/2021

Surge In Global Action Highlights Australia’s Stance On Climate Change

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley

International action on climate change has surged with General Motors announcing it will cease making petrol and diesel cars by 2035 and the United Nations secretary-general calling for wealthy nations to abandon coal and set net-zero emissions targets.

US President Joe Biden is putting climate change action front and centre of his administration. Credit: AP

It followed the Biden administration announcing a slew of climate initiatives in the US, including executive orders to create a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and a National Climate Task Force, end fossil fuel subsidies, suspend oil and gas exploration on federal land, and place climate change at the “centre of our national security and foreign policy”.

The measures suggest the administration is determined to follow through on the ambitious climate agenda it laid out during the campaign.

Tennant Reed, the principal national adviser at the Australian Industry Group, the peak industry association, said “it is remarkable how much genuine investments of political capital, organisational effort and of personnel the Biden administration – and the Biden campaign before it – has made on climate”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says rich nations must play their part. Credit: AP

“They’ve assembled a very strong team, and not just of people who have ‘climate’ in their job title. They are prioritising climate in staffing a range of key policy and economic roles. It is a very big deal,” Mr Reed said.

He said GM’s announcement not only to abandon the manufacture of light internal combustion vehicles but to pursue net-zero emissions by 2040 in its own right suggested that American industry is taking notice of the Biden administration’s ambitions.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on wealthy nations to reach key milestones by the time the COP25 climate talks begin in Glasgow in November during an address early on Friday morning, Australian time.

He said nations that were responsible for 65 per cent of global emissions had announced plans to reach net-zero by 2050 and by November he hoped that figure would be 90 per cent.

‘Either way we win’: Labor’s plan to get the upper hand in climate wars

He said no new coal-fired power plants should be built and wealthy nations should abandon coal by 2030, and all nations aim to end its use by 2040. A carbon price should be embraced and an end date for financing all fossil fuels, starting with coal, should be introduced.

Mr Reed said Australia risked reputational damage if it was seen to be not acting, but he said the government’s funding of new technologies announced last year should not be discounted.

“Ultimately the motivator here should not be about how we are seen; we need to ask … is Australia going to prosper in a world that is successfully acting on climate?

“With such a huge number of customers for thermal coal, metallurgical coal and natural gas, committing to net-zero emissions by 2050 and 2060, we have a lot of adjusting to do.”

A spokesman for Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said Australia is playing its part in the global response to climate change by meeting and beating our international commitments.

“As the PM has said: ‘Australia’s policies, when it comes to reducing emissions, are set here in Australia, in Australia’s national interests’. And our responsibility is to set that in a way that is consistent with the demands and needs and views of the Australian people and the science that supports that. And we have got a great track record.”

Links

G.M. Will Sell Only Zero-Emission Vehicles By 2035

New York Times - Neal E. Boudette | Coral Davenport

The move, one of the most ambitious in the auto industry, is a piece of a broader plan by the company to become carbon neutral by 2040.

Credit...General Motors Company, via Associated Press

The days of the internal combustion engine are numbered. General Motors said Thursday that it would phase out petroleum-powered cars and trucks and sell only vehicles that have zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a seismic shift by one of the world’s largest automakers that makes billions of dollars today from gas-guzzling pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

The announcement is likely to put pressure on automakers around the world to make similar commitments. It could also embolden President Biden and other elected officials to push for even more aggressive policies to fight climate change. Leaders could point to G.M.’s decision as evidence that even big businesses have decided that it is time for the world to begin to transition away from fossil fuels that have powered the global economy for more than a century.

G.M.’s move is sure to roil the auto industry, which, between car and parts makers, employed about one million people in the United States in 2019, more than any other manufacturing sector by far. It will also have huge ramifications for the oil and gas sector, whose fortunes are closely tied to the internal combustion engine.

A rapid shift by the auto industry could lead to job losses and business failures in related areas. Electric cars don’t have transmissions or need oil changes, meaning conventional service stations will have to retool what they do. Electric vehicles also require fewer workers to make, putting traditional manufacturing jobs at risk. At the same time, the move to electric cars will spark a boom in areas like battery manufacturing, mining and charging stations.

Electric cars today are the fastest-growing segment of the auto industry, but they still make up a small proportion of new car sales: about 3 percent of the global total, according to the International Energy Agency. Sales of such cars jumped last year in Europe and China, but they remain niche products in the United States. They are bought primarily by affluent early adopters who are drawn to the luxury models made by Tesla, which dominates the business, and by environmentally conscious consumers.

A spokesman for Ford Motor declined to directly comment on G.M.’s move but said his company was “committed to leading the electric vehicle revolution in the areas where we are strong.” Several other automakers, most of them European, have previously pledged more modest steps in the direction that G.M. says it is headed. Daimler, which makes Mercedes-Benz cars, has said it would have an electric or hybrid version of each of its models by 2022, and Volkswagen has promised an electric version for each of its models by 2030.

G.M. said its decision to switch to electric cars was part of a broader plan to become carbon neutral by 2040. “General Motors is joining governments and companies around the globe working to establish a safer, greener and better world,” Mary T. Barra, G.M.’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “We encourage others to follow suit and make a significant impact on our industry and on the economy as a whole.”

G.M.’s announcement comes just one week after Mr. Biden signed an executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department to quickly reinstate tough auto fuel-economy rules put in place during the Obama administration, and one day after he signed a follow-up order directing the federal government to purchase all-electric vehicles. He is also pushing for a new economic recovery package to include funding to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations, and to create a system of rebates and incentives for purchasing electric vehicles.

On Thursday, a White House spokesman, Vedant Patel, welcomed G.M.’s new commitment. “We applaud efforts by the private sector to further embrace renewable and clean energy technologies,” he said. “As the president and many others have said, efforts like this will help grow our economy and create good-paying union jobs.”

G.M.’s move appears to follow a pattern by Ms. Barra of responding quickly to changes in the White House. It was Ms. Barra who, in the early days of the Trump administration, met with the new president in the Oval Office and asked him to roll back the tough Obama tailpipe pollution rules.

Four years later, her company’s evident about-face has won her the good will of those working to put those rules back in place.

“This move by G.M. is a big deal,” said Margo Oge, a former Obama administration official who played a lead role in developing the tough fuel economy standards and now informally advises the Biden administration and auto companies. “This helps the Biden-Harris administration to focus on long-term decarbonization of vehicles rather than just cleaning up the Trump mess.”

The chief executive of Audi, the luxury car company owned by Volkswagen, said customers would ultimately determine the speed of the transition to electric cars. “Ten years ago, nobody would have been able to foresee the enormous speed of change,” Markus Duesmann, the chief executive, who is also head of technology for Volkswagen, said in a statement.

Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a veteran industry analyst, said that even if European carmakers had not put a date on internal combustion’s demise, there was a consensus that electric cars would dominate within 10 or 15 years. “Mary Barra is a good C.E.O.,” Mr. Dudenhöffer said. “She has the right strategy.”

Mr. Biden made clear on his first day in office that he intends to make tackling climate change one of the driving forces of his agenda. Chief among them are the federal standards on auto tailpipe pollution, which is the nation’s single largest source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The Obama-era standards had required automakers to achieve an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which would have eliminated about six billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles, and required a large-scale transition to hybrid and electric vehicles. The Trump administration rolled back the standard to about 40 miles per gallon, essentially eliminating the need for companies to invest in such technology.

The Biden administration is expected to announce by April that it will introduce rules requiring cars to reach an average of about 51 miles per gallon by 2026. The proposal is also expected to include additional provisions aimed at boosting the production and sales of electric vehicles.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil and gas companies, said automakers would do what they felt was right for their businesses. But the group’s senior vice president, Frank Macchiarola, said policymakers ought to protect the right of consumers “to choose what kind of car they want to drive.”

The vision of an all-electric future represents a dramatic shift in thinking at G.M. Just over 20 years ago, it developed an experimental electric car called the EV1 and leased it to a select group of customers. The car was praised by environmentalists. But seeing little profit potential in the EVI and American tastes shifting toward S.U.V.s, the automaker ended the effort. It even went so far as to take cars back from customers and destroy them, an episode chronicled in the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?”

G.M.’s reputation was further damaged in environmental circles in the 2000s as it produced larger and larger S.U.V.s. None engendered more scorn than the hulking Hummer H2, introduced in 2002. It weighed more than 6,600 pounds — twice the weight of a Honda Accord — and had a fuel economy of just 10 miles per gallon.

But by 2008, gas prices were rising and G.M.’s focus on trucks and S.U.V.s left it especially vulnerable just as the financial crisis hit. Its lack of fuel-efficient cars was a contributing factor in the troubles that led the company into a government-backed bankruptcy.

That history continues to dog G.M., and some experts said they were not convinced that the company would make the transition to electric cars as quickly as it had promised, in part because Ms. Barra or her successors could simply change their minds.

“To borrow a phrase from Thomas Edison, what consumers and the climate need are commitments that are 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” said David Friedman, a vice president of Consumer Reports. “Strong aspirations are important and inspirational, but firm production plans and strong policies are what move the market and the climate.”

But some in the environmental movement said they trust G.M. The company is working with the Environmental Defense Fund to develop a “shared vision” of leaving internal combustion vehicles behind. “E.D.F. and G.M. have had some important differences in the past, but this is a new day in America,” the group’s president, Fred Krupp, said in a statement.

G.M. said it would increase the use of renewable energy, and would eliminate or offset emissions from its factories, buildings, vehicles and other sources.

The company plans to spend $27 billion over the next five years to introduce 30 electric vehicles, including an electric Hummer pickup truck that it expects to start delivering to customers this year. Currently its main fully electric offering in the United States is the Chevy Bolt, a small car. The company sells several electric models in China.

“This is a guardedly bold move,” said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan who follows the auto industry. “It’s not that risky. Fifteen or 20 years from now, who knows where we might be? Mary Barra won’t even be C.E.O. But right now it’s hugely symbolic. This is very forward-looking.”

G.M. stock jumped after its announcement and closed up 3.5 percent, reflecting a growing consensus among investors that electric cars represent the future, and that Tesla and other electric carmakers will eventually dominate the auto industry, while businesses that do not make the transition to electric vehicles will do poorly.

Of course, even if G.M. and other automakers are able to move to an all-electric fleet by 2035 or 2040, combustion engine cars and trucks are likely to be on the roads for at least several decades to come in the absence of a huge government program designed to encourage people to replace them more quickly. There are more than 250 million vehicles on U.S. roads; the vast majority burn gasoline or diesel, and are on average about 11 years old.

Links

(AU) Climate Change Puts Regional Communities At Risk, Better Regional Planning Needed: Experts

Domain - Jack Needham

The risk of fires in Australia's south east is set to intensify, according to a new report. Photo: iStock

Regional communities anywhere near the bush are at increased risk of fire as the climate changes, and better planning is needed to avoid building in danger zones, experts warn.

A recent study found climate change made last year’s Black Summer bushfires worse, and predicted climate change would intensify the risk of similar events occurring in Australia’s south-east.

“There’s a whole range of ways that climate change is acting in south-east Australia to increase fire risk and that is something that will continue in the years ahead,” study lead author and ANU climate scientist Professor Nerilie Abrams told Domain. The review paper was published in the Communications, Earth and Environment journal.

Professor Abrams said communities located “anywhere near bush areas” would be at increased risk as a result.

“Those places are lovely to live in but there is an increased risk,” she said.

She warned Australians not to become complacent as a result of this year’s milder conditions following the devastation of the Black Summer bushfires.

“One of the takeaways from these studies is it would be very dangerous to write off what happened last summer as a freak, one-off event. This is a consequence of climate change and we would expect these events to become more frequent in the future.”

The comments come after a wave of city dwellers sought a tree-change during the pandemic, moving to regional towns in search of more space.

Stating that bushfires are something Australians will have to “learn to live with”, Professor Abrams said steps could be taken to improve community resilience, including the adoption of recommendations from the Bushfires Royal Commission, which handed down its final report in October 2020.

“[We should be doing] the type of things that we saw coming out of the royal commission into how we make our communities more resilient in the future,” she said.

“[That includes] planning as to where are the safe places to build new communities, looking at entry and exit points in communities – a major danger is communities with only a single entrance point.

“There’s a whole host of adaptions that we are going to need to put in place and improve from, making sure that people have bushfire survival plans, making sure they are bushfire ready and making sure that there isn’t fuel around the house.”

Andrew Gissing, general manager – resilience at risk management consultancy Risk Frontiers, said recent development trends meant an increasing number of Australians were likely living in areas of high bushfire risk.

“We’re building more and more into bushland. In a lot of ways it’s unavoidable because we have greater population,” Mr Gissing said.

He identified areas such as Macquarie Park and Ryde in Sydney as areas of the city where new development had seen urban areas encroach on bushland.

Proximity to bushland had been a key factor in whether homes were affected by fire during the NSW south coast fires in 2020, according to Mr Gissing.

He said 45 per cent of buildings destroyed during those fires were 10 metres from bushland and 80 per cent were within 100 metres of bushland.

But while “risk avoidance” was always preferable, Australia’s growing population meant that placing outright bans on development was unrealistic.

“As [the] population grows greater, there’s greater demand to accommodate [it] and greater pressure to develop into areas at risk,” he said.

“Sometimes people don’t necessarily have an option of whether they can live in a bushfire area or not.”

Instead, authorities should be doing more to ensure that new buildings – already built to stringent fire safety standards – remain compliant with building codes after their initial approval, as recommended by the Bushfires Royal Commission.

“For example, one of [the] conditions of approval may not have been to have wooden structures around the home but in later years when the home may have passed ownership, structures have been added,” he said.

“As a principle, we really need to ensure our building code measures are maintained over time.”

There are also steps homeowners in bushfire-prone areas can take to mitigate risk.

“Simple things like cleaning up the fuel [that] exists there, the vegetation around the home, making sure there’s space around the home [and] making sure that gas bottles are not located right on the side of the property,” Mr Gissing said.

Links