Lethal Heating: 06/04/21

04/06/2021

(AU SMH) The Sleeper Election Issue That Could Bite Morrison And Albanese

Sydney Morning Herald - John Hewson

Author

Dr John Hewson AM is an honorary professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and is a former leader of the Liberal party.

Scott Morrison has rightly followed the science and medical advice in responding to COVID-19. If his government hadn’t closed our borders, and the states hadn’t enforced lockdowns and social distancing, imagine the catastrophe.

The Prime Minister quantified it recently when he said Australia had avoided 30,000 COVID deaths. That compares with the 910 deaths caused by the pandemic to date. “I’m not going to take risks with Australian lives,” Morrison said.

Australia’s Black Summer is cited as a warning on the costs of inaction on climate change. Credit: Nick Moir

His government is not treating the hard climate science with the same urgency, although it has been developed over many more decades than the more rudimentary medical science it relied upon in responding to the pandemic.

Last month, the International Energy Agency, a long-time mouthpiece for fossil fuels, called for a global halt to new coal and gas ventures. At the same time, the Morrison government committed to spending $600 million of taxpayers’ money on a new gas-fired power plant in NSW’s Hunter Valley.

Inaction on climate change presents us with real costs – in lives, livelihoods and the lost economic growth that would come with sustainable industries and jobs.

Economist Nicki Hutley has summarised some of the likely consequences of inaction: “The cost of extreme weather disasters in Australia has doubled since the ’70s, reaching $35 billion over the decade to 2018-19. Economic damages per person are around seven times the global average.”

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The recent Black Summer fires are estimated to have cost about $100 billion – 14 times the economic and social costs of the 2009 Black Saturday fires.

Health costs are just starting to be recognised and counted. Hutley reports that the 2011 heatwave “saw a 14 per cent rise in ambulance call-outs and a 13 per cent increase in excess deaths”.

Particulate emissions from dirty petrol have been reported to kill multiples of the road toll each year.

Research from the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne suggests economic losses from climate change in a few decades could be like a COVID-sized economic shock every year. A similar prognosis has been suggested by modelling for the NSW government.

Australia also runs the genuine risk that, as a global climate laggard, significant trading partners will levy carbon border taxes on our exports, costing billions in lost revenue and thousands of lost jobs.

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The benefits of an effective and just transition, meanwhile, are supported by Deloitte, Beyond Zero, the Climate Council and many more in Australia, and by strategies adopted globally, including in the United States, Canada, Britain and Europe.

While Joe Biden and Boris Johnson push for greater emissions reductions, investor pressure mounts on fossil fuel companies.

Shell was ordered by a Dutch court to slash its emissions; 61 per cent of Chevron shareholders backed a resolution to force an emissions reduction; and an activist hedge fund won two seats on the ExxonMobil board.

Australia’s Federal Court found, in assessing a new coal mine, that our Environment Minister had a “duty of care” to younger people to avoid causing them personal injury from climate change. Expect more class actions against governments on climate.

Disturbingly, Australia’s two major political parties are engrossed in a race to the bottom on climate change, seeing who can be less specific about targets and commitments.

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With the prospect of an early federal election this year, there is growing interest in running independents in key seats, focusing heavily on climate issues.

In an online independents’ convention in March, 80 electorates were represented. In 38 electorates there are community-based groups under the banner of Voices, and movements such as “Vote Angus Taylor Out”.

Clearly, independents will not be elected in all these seats, but they may well claim enough seats to swing the balance of power.

As the philosopher Karl Popper said, the party system robs individual politicians of responsibility, “makes [them] a voting machine rather than a thinking feeling person … what we need in politics are individuals who can judge on their own and who are prepared to carry personal responsibility”.

Scott Morrison will no doubt attempt to keep the election focus on his handling of the pandemic and the economy, capitalising on his poll superiority to Labor leader Anthony Albanese.

The sleeper election issue of climate may have to be carried by the independents.

The Prime Minister would be wise to remember the Wentworth byelection.

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(UK BBC) Major Project Aims To Clear Clean Energy Hurdle

BBC - Roger Harrabin

image copyright Reuters

A major project aims to overcome a barrier to electricity grids that are entirely supplied by renewable energy.

Output from wind turbines varies because wind speeds fluctuate; output from solar cells changes according to cloud cover and other factors.

This is called variability, and overcoming it is crucial for increasing the share of renewables on the grid.

A group of leading nations will invest $248m over the next decade to solve the issue by 2030.

The effort has emerged from a clean-tech research programme called Mission Innovation (MI).

Environmentalists say the sum’s a fraction of the many trillions of dollars of damages that climate change is projected to wreak on society, unless it’s curbed.

But the 23 member governments involved in the programme are spending US$5.8bn per year more than in 2015 – and they say they’ll commit more public funds to clean tech if they can afford it.

Solutions to the variability problem will include energy storage; for example, smart power systems which respond to changes in demand; advanced controls and artificial intelligence.

Those behind MI say that half of the global emissions reductions required to achieve climate targets by 2050 depend on technologies that exist today, but are only at demonstration or prototype phase.

These include hydrogen power, advanced battery storage and zero-emission fuels.

Solar power and wind power are already widely affordable, but the statement says nations need to develop whole energy systems to match.

The other main areas of the group’s research will be hydrogen power, shipping, long-distance transportation, and carbon dioxide removal from the air.

Members of the partnership include the US, UK, the EU and China.

Each member has agreed to open three “hydrogen valleys” - clusters of industries powered by clean hydrogen fuel.

image copyright EPA

A few of the partners want to produce some of this hydrogen by splitting it from natural gas, and seizing the CO2 emissions by carbon capture technology.

Environmentalists say this fossil fuel hydrogen is an inefficient technology being promoted by the oil and gas industry. They want to derive all hydrogen from renewable electricity.

The project also says it will help develop ships capable of running on zero-emission fuels such as green hydrogen, green ammonia, green methanol, and advanced biofuels.

Tom Burke from the climate think tank E3G told BBC News: “John Kerry, Bill Gates, et al. are wrong about the importance of R&D [research and development]. Deployment of what we already have is what matters and for which we need big bucks.”

Jennie Dodson, head of secretariat at MI, told BBC News: “There’s recognition that more investment is still needed – but all the countries in MI are committing to maintain and seek to increase wherever possible."

She said R&D investment levels were always smaller than infrastructure spending, but act as a catalyst for investment.

She gave two examples. One is a $5m prize for cooling buildings which produced technologies delivering cooling that's five times more efficient.

The other is the announcement, in 2016, that the Swedish government would work with industries to pilot fossil fuel-free steel manufacturing.

“They've provided around 50 million euros for pilot scale plants, with additional funding from industry", she said. "The Swedish government’s support has provided political backing and financial de-risking of the initial demonstration phases of these projects.

“This is now leading to billions of dollars investment by the industry - and influencing other steel manufacturers and companies to develop fossil-free steel manufacturing.”

Mission Innovation was first launched in parallel with the 2015 Paris agreement on climate.

A recent analysis from the development charity Tearfund, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Overseas Development Institute showed that G7 nations were still channelling more cash to fossil fuel firms than to renewables.

This included Covid-19 grants to the aviation and car industries, which received $115bn from the G7 countries. Of that, 80% was given with no attempt to force the sectors to cut their emissions in return for the support.

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(AU The Guardian) Western Australia Gas Project ‘Would Create More Emissions Than Adani And Damage Indigenous Rock Art’

The Guardian - Adam Morton

Woodside’s proposed Scarborough development is equivalent of 15 coal-fired power plants, environment experts say

Part of the LNG projects in the north of Western Australia. Woodside’s Scarborough to Pluto LNG development is on the cusp of being approved without a full environmental impact assessment from state or federal authorities, according to a new report. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

A proposed gas export development in northern Western Australia could result in more than 1.6bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions across its lifetime and damage Indigenous rock art, environment and climate campaigners say.

A report by two groups – the Conservation Council of Western Australia and the Australia Institute – said the Scarborough to Pluto liquified natural gas (LNG) development appeared on the cusp of being approved without a full environmental impact assessment from state or federal authorities.

Released on Thursday, the report suggested the development could lead to lifetime emissions equivalent to that released by 15 coal-fired power plants. The project includes the development of a new gas field more than 400km off the coast, piping infrastructure and an expanded processing facility in the Pilbara.

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In annual terms, it found the project would release about 4.4m tonnes within Australia – adding the equivalent of nearly 1% to national emissions. The vast bulk of the emissions would occur in the countries that bought and burned the gas.

It would increase WA’s annual emissions by about 5% as the McGowan Labor government says it plans to help transition the state economy to reach net zero emissions by 2050. WA is the only state to have increased its emissions since 2005, largely due to the booming LNG industry.

Piers Verstegen, the conservation council’s director, said if fully realised the Scarborough project would be responsible for more emissions than the Adani coalmine in Queensland.

“It is an international outrage that any government would support a project which would result in over a billion tonnes of carbon pollution and cause irreversible impacts on Aboriginal heritage,” he said.

The project’s major proponent, Woodside, said there had been many opportunities for interested parties to comment on the proposal over the past two-and-a-half years. Through a spokesperson, the company said the development had been referred separately to state and commonwealth authorities as required.

The federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment found in August 2019 the pipeline works did not have to be assessed under national conservation laws, and the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Management Authority had approved the development of the gasfield in April 2020.

At a state level, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) last year approved the pipeline construction in WA waters near the shore and found the expansion of the processing facility was only a minor change to previous approval decisions and did not require a full assessment.

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The spokesperson said Woodside was awaiting final approval from the WA environment and climate action minister, Amber-Jade Sanderson. If approved, a final investment decision on the $11bn development is expected later this year.

Woodside announced on Wednesday that the former WA Labor treasurer, Ben Wyatt, who retired from politics at the March state election, had been appointed a non-executive director of the company.

Verstegen said the piecemeal nature of the assessment meant there had been no consideration of whether the project was consistent with the latest climate science and the Paris agreement, or to properly consider the potential damage to Murujuga rock art on the Burrup Peninsula. He said the EPA should be asked to carry out a full independent assessment of the entire project.

He said not to do so would be “reckless in the extreme”, citing a recent major report by the International Energy Agency that found all fossil fuel expansion should end now if the planet is to meet the goals agreed in Paris.

The conservation council’s president, former Labor premier Carmen Lawrence, said many of the circumstances that led to Rio Tinto destroying an Aboriginal heritage site at Juukan Gorge applied to the Scarborough development.

“It is now clear that pollution from gas processing on the Burrup is having a significant effect on the Murujuga rock art,” she said. “Allowing further expansion of gas processing on this site will increase both the duration and severity of these impacts and this must be assessed carefully before any further decisions are made, not as an afterthought.

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The conservation council has launched a supreme court challenge to the processing of gas from Scarborough at an expanded Pluto processing facility, and appealed the approval of the nearshore pipe development.

On the former, the EPA supported a Woodside submission that this could be approved through a change in wording to a previous approval decision in 2007. The council has argued it should receive a full, new assessment on the grounds the ramifications of the change were significant.

A state government spokesperson said the EPA’s recommendations were based “on the best available evidence and scientific advice”. “There are a range of processes under the act to ensure good environmental outcomes. The minister for environment makes decisions on these matters after considering the advice and recommendations of the EPA,” they said.

Mark Ogge from the Australia Institute said the Scarborough project and Pluto expansion were “completely contrary” to global efforts to limit global heating to 1.5C. LNG developments in WA have driven an increase in national industrial emissions since mid last decade. “This is throwing fuel on the fire,” Ogge said.

The Woodside spokesperson said Scarborough contained less CO2 than other oil and gas reservoirs, and would deliver “one of the lowest carbon LNG sources in Australia”.

They said the company was aiming to be “net zero in our direct emissions by 2050 or sooner”. It has not set a target for its “scope 3” emissions – those from its products after they are sold.

BHP, a partner in the project, referred a request for comment to Woodside.

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