Lethal Heating: 06/07/21

07/06/2021

(AU New Daily) SA Leads On Climate Change Action As States And Territories Pick Up Federal Government’s Slack

New Daily - Cait Kelly

South Australia is leading the way on transitioning to renewable energy. Photo: Getty

In lieu of a national policy to help Australia transition from fossil fuels the states and territories have picked up the slack – and one state has done a lot better than others, according to a new report.

South Australia offers vital lessons for other jurisdictions on transitioning from a fossil fuel-based electricity grid to a low emissions, high renewables grid, a report released by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) this week found.

“The proportion of South Australia’s electricity demand met by large scale and small scale variable renewable energy generation grew from 0 per cent to 60 per cent in just 14 years,” the report’s author Johanna Bowyer said.

“Coal was phased out in 2016. Today the grid is dominated by wind and solar backed up by battery storage and interstate grid connectivity, with peaking gas being used as a temporary generation technology until South Australia moves to net 100 per cent renewables.”

The IEEFA report follows last month’s announcement by the world’s largest advanced economies, the powerful G7 group of nations, that they they would stop international financing of coal projects in a bid to tackle climate change and limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The move further isolated Australia on the global stage when it comes to the Morrison government’s stance on climate change and funding and investing in coal.

SA shows the potential of renewable energy

South Australia has the largest proportion of demand provided by rooftop solar of all states in Australia’s National Electricity Market, and a staggering 40 per cent of homes have rooftop solar installed.

“But the records don’t stop there,” IEEFA report co-author Gabrielle Kuiper said.

“South Australia has shown that 100 per cent solar generation is possible during the daytime to meet users’ energy demands,” Dr Kuiper said.

There is now broad agreement across state and territory governments that Australia needs to take action to combat the threat of climate change.

All state and territory jurisdictions have adopted a target of net zero emissions by 2050 but SA has led the pack and is expected to achieve its net 100 per cent renewable energy target by 2025, five years ahead of schedule.

“SA is not just a good example for Australia, it’s a good example worldwide in terms of having a large jurisdiction move to renewables,” Australia Institute climate change and energy director Richie Merzian said.

As other countries grapple with making the transition, South Australia shows the world how it can be done, he said.

“The timing is great – the US is looking at how it can get to 100 per cent renewables in 14 years. These lessons will be drawn on, and we have them right here in our backyard,” Mr Merzian said.

But the states and territories will need more support from the federal government, he said.

“The Australian government knows its main trading partners are going to net zero,” Mr Merzian said.

“But in the meantime, they’re trying to promote and expand and sell as much fossil fuels as they can.”

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(AU The Australian) Price Is Right For Carbon Trading In Australia

The Australian - John Durie

Illustration: John Spooner

John Connor figures Australia has a carbon market architecture to match anywhere in the world but needs leadership to fill in the gaps and allow business to drive volume harder.

The chief executive of the Carbon Market Institute has spent much of the past 30 years working for not-for-profit organisations dedicated now to the goal of helping business and government achieve the net zero emissions goal.

He doesn’t think the present policy is necessarily optimal but “it’s one that can easily evolve”.

“One of the dirty little secrets in this whole debate in Australia is that it already has an effective working system to establish a carbon price but it’s largely set by government action through the Emissions Reduction Fund reverse auctions,” he said.

“What we want is to have business driving the market and for that we need proper guidelines and clear pathways to decarbonisation, clear signals for investment to reinforce what we already have, and the level of business enthusiasm for the process,” he added.

State governments have made valuable efforts, including NSW’s electricity road maps and Queensland’s land restoration projects.

The Climate Market Institute has the simple aim of helping “business manage risks and capitalise on opportunities in the transition to a net-zero emissions economy”.

The Carbon Market Institute’s John Connor. Picture: Supplied

The second leg is the important one because Connor is a firm believer that the transition represents a huge opportunity for the Australian economy. The missing link, he argues, is federal leadership to bring the private policy engine together with public policy.

Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor will address the institute’s Emissions Reduction Summit in Sydney on June 25, so he has the opportunity to explain where his government is coming from.

The previous day his state colleague, NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean, will speak, with a chance to outline his plans for electric vehicles in the state.

The institute aims to speak for business leading the transition to net zero emissions by sharing knowledge, building capacity and looking for opportunity.

It claims to be “the stewards of Australia’s carbon markets and related effective policies”.

The Australian market, Connor argues, has integrity but is missing liquidity and hasn’t exploited the linkages.

As someone who has worked on climate policy for his entire career, Connor thinks “net zero emissions” is one of the great motivating phrases that has helped drive both private and public policy.

The institute’s base highlights the degree of business interest, with membership growing by 36 per cent last year alone to more than 100 including BHP, Aurizon, Qantas, Wesfarmers, Westpac, AGL, Coles, ANZ and Ampol.

The institute is aiming to help development by improving the market’s operation through modifications like the recent industry code of conduct.

Connor said “this increases trust, accountability, transparency and consumer protection in the sector”.

The sector is 10 years old with 971 carbon farming projects around Australia registered with the Clean Energy Regulator, while 94 million Australian Carbon Credit Units have been issued, offsetting Australia’s entire transport emissions.

Transport is Australia’s third-largest source of emissions.

“Australia’s domestic carbon industry must at least triple by 2030 to help keep global warming to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Connor says.

The industry is seeking government changes to its rules to make it easier to measure soil carbon creation and project stacking to allow different methods on the one project, among other developments.

The Carbon Markets Institute was established a decade ago formally by Ted Baillieu, the then Victorian premier, after leadership from his predecessor John Brumby.

Connor is in his third year at the helm of institute after a stint helping Pollination’s Martijn Wilder advising the Fiji government for its term as chair of the UN climate change conference in 2017.

Working with Fiji was a pivotal moment for Connor in confronting the practical impact of climate change as its land disappears.

He said it was a “powerful reminder about just what we are confronting”.

Connor was born in the NSW country town of Yass. Later the family moved down the road to Wagga Wagga for his father Vince’s job with the NSW Electricity Commission.

After school in Wagga he completed degrees in arts and law at Macquarie University. He was attracted to public law and the law school’s critical approach.

One of his first jobs was with then prime minister Bob Hawke’s roundtables on economic sustainability. Connor’s brief at the time was with fisheries.

His parents figured it was a phase he was going through and not a real job but they now realise that there is more to it than they first thought.

A stint with the then independent member for Manly, Peter Macdonald, continued his education before some time with the Nature Conservation Council landed him a job with the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Then based in Melbourne, Connor worked with Tim Costello at World Vision on its Make Poverty History campaign.

In 2007 he moved to the Climate Institute, funded by Eve Kantor and her partner Mark Wootton and aimed at economic modelling and evidence-based climate research policy.

Connor says the institute occupied what was called the radical centre of Australian politics backing a climate price.

This was a heady time in the climate debate with the election of the Rudd government and ratification of the 1998 Kyoto protocol, and many in the carbon club were prepared for the revolution.

Ironically Rudd’s election took the heat from the debate, according to Connor, because “concern dropped after the election because people thought they had voted for someone who would deal with it (climate change)”.

Connor adds: “People have lived off the red meat of climate culture wars. It took too long to get the pricing mechanism in place and the climate issue became an effective wedge issue.”

Rudd, he said, did some good things but he didn’t do well in supporting a price on carbon, and then it became a “great wedge – is your policy a carbon price?”.

The irony is “the Morrison government has such a policy, and while its safeguard mechanism is very weak, the government is spending $2.5 billion through the Emissions Reduction Fund to establish a carbon price”.

“Business has realised it’s time to change and their investors and customers are pushing them towards a carbon price, market and net zero emission targets,” Connor says. “The private policy issue is really revved up.”

For Connor it’s been three decades of policy work to get here, but now it’s time for federal leadership. The opportunity for Australia to develop a new industry is the goal.

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(AU SBS) UN Warns Of 'Point Of No Return' On Climate Change As Australians Mark World Environment Day

SBS - Rashida Yosufzai

Australians have planted trees, cleaned up beaches and streets and protested for threatened species to mark World Environment Day, as the UN launches a major new ecological campaign.

Australians marked World Environment Day with tree planting, clean up events and conservation rallies across the country. Source: SBS News

The United Nations has warned the world is reaching the point of no return on climate change, stressing that the next decade is humankind's final chance to avert a climate catastrophe.

On World Environment Day, the UN has launched a campaign calling for governments to deliver on a promise to restore at least one billion degraded hectares of land in the next decade – an area about the size of China.

"We are rapidly reaching the point of no return for the planet," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a new video message. He said the world faced a triple environmental emergency of biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution.

"We are ravaging the very ecosystems that underpin our societies. And, in doing so, we risk depriving ourselves of the food, water and resources we need to survive."

The UN chief said the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration campaign was a chance to avert a climate catastrophe.

"Science tells us these next 10 years are our final chance to avert a climate catastrophe, turn back the deadly tide of pollution and end species loss."

'Koalas on death row'

Australians marked World Environment Day with tree planting, clean up events and conservation rallies across the country.

In Sydney's Hyde Park, around 200 people gathered to call for the NSW government to strengthen legal protections for koalas.

Conservationists say NSW koala populations have plummeted in the past 30 years. Before the Black Summer bushfires that devastated habitats, it was estimated to be fewer than 20,000.

A recent NSW parliamentary inquiry found that koalas in NSW could be extinct by 2050, because of the loss of habitat, disease and climate change events.

Tree planting events were held across Australia to mark World Environment Day. SBS News

Nature Conservation Council NSW chief executive Chris Gambian warned koalas would join the Tasmanian Tiger as an extinct species unless there was a strict ban on the destruction of koala forests, and new nature reserves, habitat restoration and ecological research.

"Koalas in NSW are on death row," he said.

"Business as usual is simply no longer an option – this is an emergency that requires drastic action. Their numbers were plummeting before the Black Summer bushfires killed thousands of koalas and incinerated millions of hectares of forest.

"We will get to a point where our kids won't be able to show their kids koalas in the wild. You (would) only be able to see it in a museum or gallery."

There were also tree planting events across the country - including in western Sydney where a small group came together with the aim of planting more than 2,000 trees in the Penrith area.

Nicola Masters from Greening Australia said the initiative was important for the area, which suffers extreme heat events during summer.

"We're getting extreme urban heats and extreme weather conditions out here. The trees will act as a carbon sink, they will mitigate the effects of this increasing urban heat," she told SBS News.

Projects like this are what the United Nations wants more of.

But it says conservation efforts alone won't be enough to prevent widespread biodiversity loss and the collapse of ecosystems.

Hobart rally

Hundreds of people also came together in Hobart's city hall, calling for protections for the Tarkine Forest in Tasmania’s north-west.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown, whose Bob Brown Foundation organised the rally, said the issue was galvanising people all over the country.

"We will stop this mad-brained destructive invasion of the Tarkine forest for a toxic waste dump that the company has got alternative sites for."

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