Lethal Heating: 07/20/21

20/07/2021

(AU SMH) Northern Hemisphere’s Awful Summer Demands Climate Action

Sydney Morning Herald - Editorial

The floods in Germany and heatwaves in North America show the dangers but the federal government makes only lazy excuses.

Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne. (AP)

The lockdowns are grabbing a lot of the headlines here in Australia but the disastrous floods, droughts and bushfires in the northern hemisphere summer should be a reminder that climate change poses an even more serious threat than COVID-19.

In Germany and Belgium, flooding from an unprecedented weather event has killed at least 170 people and devastated ancient towns that have stood untouched for centuries. Meanwhile, last month, the town of Lytton in Canada’s snow forest recorded a freakishly high temperature of 49.6 degrees shortly before wildfires burnt it to the ground. Along the west coast of the United States, wildfires of extraordinary extent and ferocity are still raging out of control. Californians have been asked to cut water use by 15 per cent because of a historic drought.

Of course in the developing world, the disasters are just as severe if less widely reported here.

Development

Why a killer US heatwave points to a stifling future for our cities

These tragedies are all consistent with decades of scientific predictions of the likely impacts of human-induced climate change. It is actually happening. Global temperatures are already 1.2 degrees higher on average than a century ago and they are set to rise 5 degrees this century on the current trajectory.

Yet in the same week that our televisions are full of this compelling evidence of the urgency for strong action to fight climate change, the federal government continues to avoid making strong commitments and to abrogate what many view as our responsibilities as global citizens.

It remains Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s “preference” that Australia adopts a target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, a goal that climate scientists say is still likely to be slower than required to hold the global temperature rise below an average of 2 degrees.

Yet he faces renewed opposition within his own government. Returned National Party leader Barnaby Joyce told The Australian Financial Review that he would lose his leadership if he even contemplated agreeing to such a target.

In an interview on ABC TV on Sunday, he added that he would not accept the target until he knows “what is involved”. This is a lazy excuse. As NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean said on Twitter, Mr Joyce “is as well placed as anyone to see ‘what’s involved’ and come up with a plan.”

Paris Agreement

Liberal MPs call for net zero by 2050 but Steggall’s climate bill rejected by committee

This week, the government also appeared to threaten to fight the next stage of the European Union’s climate policies, which include a so-called carbon border adjustment tax.

From 2026, the EU will impose a tariff on carbon-intensive imports such as steel and aluminium from countries that are not matching its climate policies, such as a carbon tax.

Even before reading the EU’s plan, Trade Minister Dan Tehan attacked the measure as “protectionist”, joining with Vladimir Putin’s Russia in opposing it. Yet his opposition will be seen as ideological, since very few Australian exports will be affected directly.

The Herald agrees with the Australian Industry Group, a business lobby group, which says the new tax is an opportunity rather than a threat for Australia.

It says the tariff has been designed to “create a level playing field by ensuring exporters to the EU are paying the same carbon price that European producers have to under the EU emissions trading scheme”. It has said that measures seem fair at first glance and has called on the federal government to talk to the EU.

The latest climate change-driven disasters in the northern hemisphere will only increase the pressure on Australia to drop the obfuscation and announce serious action ahead of the important United Nations Climate Conference, due to take place in Glasgow in November.

Australia must start taking action itself and embrace the opportunities presented on the international stage. Fighting the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels will only do further harm to our reputation at home and abroad – let alone that done to the environment.

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(AU New Daily) Alan Kohler: The Climate Change Panic Button Is Coming

New Daily - Alan Kohler

Governments need to hit the panic button on climate change, writes Alan Kohler. Photo: TND/Getty

Author

Alan Kohler writes twice a week for The New Daily. He is also editor in chief of Eureka Report and finance presenter on ABC news.

This week it’s floods in Germany, 170 dead and terrible devastation.

A few weeks ago people were dying from the heat in Canada, which reached about 49 degrees Celsius in Lytton, British Columbia.

Wildfires are now breaking out across North America.

This is from the global warming that has already occurred, which is about 1.2 degrees above the pre-industrial age.

The world is now trying to stop it going above 1.5 degrees by getting emissions down to net zero by 2050.

Even if we succeed in that, which is far from guaranteed, the extreme weather events will be significantly worse and more frequent than they are now.

But at what point will governments hit the real panic button?

Because net zero by 2050 is not it.

Weighing up risk

The reason many are still negotiating, prevaricating and putting it off is that governments and businesses are not looking at global warming in terms of risk, but are using scenario analysis instead.

For example, the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority issued a draft prudential practice guide on climate change in April, which included 4 degrees of warming as one of its two “scenarios” for banks to use in their future planning.

A 4 degree rise in the average global temperature would make large parts of the planet uninhabitable and lead to the total collapse of the banking system. No need for any planning.

The other APRA scenario was for 2 degrees of warming or less, consistent with the Paris Agreement, which should happen if all countries meet their Paris pledges, which so far they’re not.

And even under that scenario, the banking system barely survives.

There was nothing especially wrong with APRA’s guidance note – it was just a typical example of the arse-covering required by bureaucrats and corporate executives to cover their environmental, social and governance (ESG) obligations, with a paper trail to prove they did it.

But it highlights the problem with using scenarios instead of risk analysis.

The recent floods in Germany were the latest example of devastating climate change. Photo: AAP

Since most countries are now committed to net-zero emissions by 2050, even though the policies to achieve that have not been implemented, everyone can assume that the scenario of 1.5 degrees is locked in – a likelihood of 100 per cent. But that’s not correct. Even then there would still be a two-thirds risk of it being 2 degrees instead of 1.5, because of feedback loops caused by more carbon dioxide being released by the warming that has occurred.

Current policies, unchanged, would result in 2.4 degrees of warming, which would be terrible, but there would be a high risk (about 67 per cent) of 3 degrees, which would be catastrophic.

Lessons from AstraZeneca

Precise risk analysis of global warming is difficult because feedback loop tipping points are unknown and unpredictable.

It’s known that with 1.5 to 2 degrees of warming, the combination of permafrost melt in Siberia, wildfires in the world’s forests and warming of the ocean will release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which means a feedback loop could take the temperature to 2.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures – and perhaps beyond – no matter what we do.

I was reminded of the power of risk analysis by the recent reaction to the risk of blood clots and death from the AstraZeneca vaccine.

It appears to be something like one in 88,000, or 0.0011 per cent to get a clot.

If that happens, the chance of then dying is 4 per cent, which boils down to a 0.00044 per cent chance of dying from having the AstraZeneca vaccine.

On the strength of that risk, the UK discontinued AstraZeneca for under-40s and the Australian medical authorities have warned against it, and people are shunning it in droves and waiting for Pfizer.

The risk of catastrophe and even extinction as a result of global warming is a lot higher than 0.00044 per cent and yet most of us are still driving petrol cars and eating steaks and hamburgers, and governments are still talking about targets 30 years away (or not, in Australia’s case).

Climate panic button

Whatever the temperature gets to – whether it be 1.5, 2, 3 or 4 degrees of warming – it would be a global average, uneven across the planet.

Anything much more than 1.5 degrees and heatwaves in some parts of the world would make them too hot to survive for some of the year, so humans couldn’t live there at all.

Daily life everywhere else would be an unbearable succession of extreme weather events, as we are seeing in Germany at the moment.

Sea level would rise by 1.5 to 2 metres, making many coastal and low-lying areas uninhabitable.

As a result, millions, possibly billions, of people would be displaced making a mess of global borders.

Banking and insurance would become impossible. The financial system would collapse.

What’s the risk of that? 10 per cent? 1 per cent?

Even if it was 1 per cent, that would be like two or three planes a day crashing after take-off in Australia – which would lead to zero take-offs until it was fixed.

At some point well before 2050, governments will be forced to switch to risk analysis for climate change, and to publish the result.

Unless scientists say the risk is zero – which they won’t – then whatever they come up with, political leaders will be forced to hit the panic button by alarmed voters.

What does the panic button look like?

I’m not sure, but here are some thoughts: Fossil fuels would be suddenly and totally banned, or made prohibitively expensive, and oil, gas and coal would instantly go bust; physical tourism would be banned and air travel confined to essentials and rich elites so the airline industry would collapse; the lithium battery and hydrogen would suddenly boom.

And so on.

Life would change more completely than it has during the pandemic.

In short, it would look like war.

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(ICIR) Climate Change Threatens Our Survival, Women Farmers In Niger Cry Out

International Centre for Investigative Reporting - Daniel Atori

FEMALE farmers in Niger State have raised alarm that Nigeria might experience a severe food crisis beginning from this year because of the adverse effects of climate change, insecurity, and other challenges.

THE late rains have left several small-scale holder farmers in Niger State vulnerable. Therefore, they have been told to use improved seedlings to boost production, but this advice has not allayed their fears.

“We used the improved seedlings and planted early but the rain which did not come has adverse effects on our farms. We are helpless and survival is critical at this time,” a woman farmer said

In the 2020 Global Hunger Index (GHI), Nigeria ranks 98th out of the 107 countries and with a score of 29.2 per cent, an indication that the country faces a serious case of hunger.

Nigerian rural female farmers account for nearly 70 per cent of agricultural workers and 80 per cent of food producers but they are at the receiving end of the negative impacts of climate change and insecurity.

SWOFON members in Magama LGA

A tour of five local government areas – Edati, Lapai, Lavun, Magama and Shiroro – in the three senatorial zones of Niger State exposed the need for urgent intervention from the government and other stakeholders.

Mairo Abdulmumini, Coordinator, Small-scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria, (SWOFON), and 24 other women including, Dina Daniel, manage farmland at Tawale-Gwada in Shiroro Local Government Area, where they plant crops such as cassava, yam, and groundnuts.

When our reporter visited their farms, the women farmers had planted yam but they are afraid that if it does not rain on time, the yam will dry up, and eventually, they will lose their crops.

” You know now even if we do the ridges, cassava and yam require water, if you don’t have water, you can’t work on cassava and yam.

And when it finally rained, it resulted in heavy flooding that swept away our cassava farm.”

The women, therefore, appealed to the government to create more awareness and sensitisation for those of them in the rural areas so that they can have full knowledge of climate change for better and improved farming.

Michael E. Mann, one of the world’s most influential climate scientists, has noted that the world has “finally reached the point where it is not credible to deny climate change because people can see it playing out in real-time in front of their eyes”.

Mairo Abdulmumuni, Coordinator Shiroro LGA

The rising incident of security is another challenge. Many farmers can no longer go to farm.

“The bandits usually attack, steal our produce, destroy our farms and produce and even our stores,” Abdulmumini said.

According to Eunice Adeditan, SWOFON Coordinator in Lapai, most women farmers feel vulnerable and are afraid of going to their farms because of fear of attack by herders or bandits.

“Most of our women will not come out except we get men and security agents to follow us. The Fulani herdsmen used to bring their cows into our farms and eat everything and if you talk, it becomes a problem.”

The state Coordinator, Disa, said Niger State has security problems, even the SWOFON national headquarters knows about it, especially in places such as Kuta, Shiroro and Minna.

Eunice Adeditan, Coordinator Lapai LGA

SWOFON also complained about the difficulty of accessing funds in terms of the agriculture budget at the state ministry of agriculture.

“I met with the director handling Planning, Agriculture Services, he told me the state ministry of agriculture under the Mechanised Section, has something for us, but they will not give us funds directly, but use the money to buy gender-friendly machines for us.

“But till now, nothing has been given to us. We are planning to meet him soon because I told him we are coming.”

The Coordinator of SWOFON in Magama Local Government Area, Dorcas Jagaban, warned that the challenges faced by many women farmers will cause prices of food to go even higher than it already is.

But there are ways through which the government can assist the women.

Head, Women in Agriculture (WIA) under the Niger State Agriculture and Mechanisation Development Authority (NAMDA), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mrs. Rose Saba, said the government intervention through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) could be helpful.

She also said that more training should be given to farmers so that they can learn how to boost their farming during the dry and rainy seasons.

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