23/11/2021

(CNN) Senior Pentagon Official Warns The US Military Is 'Not Ready' For Climate Change

CNN - Oren Liebermann | Ellie Kaufman

US Marines take part in an exercise with Norwegian troops in subzero temperatures above the Arctic Circle.

A senior Pentagon official warned the US military is "not ready" to handle climate change, a national security issue that touches nearly every aspect of Defense Department planning.

"We are not where we should be, and now is beyond the time when we need to get in front of that challenge," Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told CNN.

Beyond rising sea levels and extreme weather, climate change has opened up new areas of strategic competition like the Arctic and intensified the competition for scarce resources, such as the raw materials required to make the lithium-ion batteries crucial to electric vehicles.

"It's something like $750 billion of investment worldwide going on in lithium-ion batteries," Hicks said. "The challenge is most of that is happening in China. They dominate that supply chain. It's a significant national security challenge for us."

Hicks, the first woman to hold the Pentagon's number two position, leads the military's different efforts on climate change. On a recent two-day trip to Michigan, Connecticut and Rhode Island, Hicks saw work on the first generation of electric military vehicles, including an electric light reconnaissance vehicle at GM Defense.

As the civilian automotive industry goes green, the Pentagon will follow.

"If we don't follow and be part of the solution, we will be left behind," Hicks said, "and our vehicle fleets won't be able to be supported."

But electric military vehicles pose their own set of challenges. Although an electric vehicle can be much quieter and emit less of a heat signature -- critical advantages on a battlefield -- it also needs to be recharged somehow.

Refueling a gas vehicle requires supply lines to bring in the fuel, but it is still faster and more efficient than recharging an electric vehicle on a battlefield.

The temporary solution, Hicks says, is hybrid tactical vehicles. It's an interim solution to bridge the current gas vehicle fleet and the future electric fleet.

"I do see that future. It's not right around the corner, but we are definitely moving in that direction," said Hicks. "We have to."

The fight against climate change has been a cornerstone of the Biden administration's agenda.

In his first week in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that put the climate crisis at the center of foreign policy and national security.

"There is little time left to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory," Biden wrote in the order.

Huge challenge

The number of personnel days for National Guard members fighting wildfires in the Western United States has increased more than tenfold, from about 14,000 five years ago to 176,000 this year.

Climate change will be folded into the updated National Defense Strategy, due next year. In last year's budget, the Defense Department devoted $617 million to preparing for climate change and mitigating its effects. But this pales in comparison with the damage from extreme weather events.

Two hurricanes -- Michael in 2018 and Sally in 2020 -- caused $4 billion in damage at Tyndall Air Force Base and Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida, according to a Department of Defense report.

Hurricane Florence in 2018 caused about $3.5 billion in damages and repairs at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and flooding at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska caused about $500 million in damages in 2019, the report said.

But the Defense Department still lacks a thorough understanding of the threat to its roughly 5,000 military facilities around the world.

Last year, the department released its DoD Climate Assessment Tool to better comprehend the hazards of climate change based on historical data and future assessments. The department will use the tool to look at 1,400 facilities worldwide.

"Once we start to understand that we can't opt out of climate change in anything that we do - it's just a fact, a reality of how we think about the future -- then we can start to really get in front of and be productive" on climate change, said Hicks.

For all of the Defense Department's efforts related to climate change, Hicks knows it can play only a small part in addressing the huge challenge.

The Defense Department did not send a top representative to the recent COP26 conference on climate in Glasgow, Scotland. But Hicks welcomed the conference as an opportunity for key players to work together on an issue bigger than any one nation.

"The United States can do a lot to help this world problem,"she said, "but it can't do it alone."

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(AU Canberra Times) Australia's R&D Spend Too Low To Fund Future Climate Change Technology Breakthroughs: Experts

Canberra Times - Doug Dingwall

Entrepreneur and head of the Australian National University's Battery Storage and Grid Integration program, Lachlan Blackhall. Picture: Karleen Minney

Australia's scientific triumphs have a hard time entering the nation's folklore. It may be why the passivated emitter and rear cell, or PERC, isn't as widely celebrated as it should be. Unlike the Hills Hoist and WiFi, it isn't a household name among Australian-led inventions.

That seems a shame, because the solar energy technology has become one of the world's most successful. It has rapidly gained market share in the photovoltaic industry, and is mitigating 1 per cent of the world's carbon emissions by pushing out coal power. About 90 per cent of solar panels made around the world contain the PERC technology.

Cumulative worldwide sales of PERC modules have reached more than $100 billion. Andrew Blakers, who was on the University of NSW team that developed the technology, says the figure is doubling every three years, which would push its carbon reduction beyond 10 per cent of emissions.

The technology breakthrough didn't happen in a vacuum. It emerged in the 1980s when UNSW researchers looked for, and found, a more efficient way of converting energy from the sun into electricity. The PERC was later commercialised overseas.

Thirty years on, the federal government has told Australians and the world that technology will underpin the nation's efforts to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, speaking at the Glasgow summit earlier this month, said it would be "the Australian way" of reaching the target.

"It will be our scientists, our technologists, our engineers, our entrepreneurs, our industrialists and our financiers that will actually chart the path to net zero," he said.

"And it is up to us as leaders of governments to back them in.

"The Australian way is to bet on them - and we think that's a good bet."
Everyone's talking big about future zero carbon technologies. And no one's spending big, certainly not in Australia.
Professor Frank Jotzo
Climate change experts aren't so sure the federal government is living up to those words.

Australia spends less on research and development as a proportion of GDP (1.79 per cent) than the OECD average (2.48 per cent). Spending on R&D has fallen as a percentage of the Australian economy since 2008.

Universities, major incubators of pioneering research used to develop new technology, will sustain more government funding cuts over the next three years and are reeling from the COVID-induced loss of revenues from international student enrolments.

Regardless, the federal government's net zero plan bets the nation will find 15 per cent of its emission reductions through unknown, future technology breakthroughs.

Experts say Australia will need to spend vastly more on R&D if it's to make some of the necessary innovations, rather than be a spectator - and eventually purchaser - of new technology made overseas.

They also say it is governments - not the private sector - that will have to take the lead in funding the early-stage research leading to breakthroughs like the PERC.

Australian National University climate change economics professor Frank Jotzo says the nation's public spend on R&D is totally inadequate for the challenge ahead.

"Everyone's talking big about future zero carbon technologies. And no one's spending big, certainly not in Australia," he says.

"If we as a nation were to be serious about actually making a global difference on these things, and about actually positioning Australia for success on any of these things, then we'd have to go in there at a much larger scale.

"With the present amounts of money that are slated for government subsidies, you're just not going to achieve very much."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says technology will underpin the nation's carbon reduction efforts. Picture: Sitthixay Ditthavong

The PERC, one of Australia's major contributions to emissions-reducing technology, arose from research funded by Commonwealth and state organisations supporting renewable energy. The Australian Research Council also provided funding.

Professor Blakers, now an ANU engineering professor, draws two lessons from the experience for future research. First, diversity of funding sources is crucial. Second, long-term funding support lets researchers take the long view.

"There was a range of places to go and get money, and that meant that if you fell over in one area, you weren't out of business, you had another chance from some other organisation," he says.

"We had available to us long-term support that extended over years. And that was crucial to give us the leisure to go after things that were not obvious."

Researchers need access to short-term grant funding, longer-term program funding, and commercial sources of funding, he says.

Yes, it is a race

 There is a pathway to reaching net zero emissions, and upscaling clean energy sources plays a major part.

Climate change economists and technologists say that to a large extent, the necessary technology is already available. Professor Jotzo says almost all the actual emissions reductions that will be achieved in Australia will come from deploying existing technologies.

"There's not really any kind of miracle to wait for there," he says. Still, there are problems that R&D can solve and Australia can contribute to the effort.

"So the chance for Australia is to go hard, and to go fast, and to go big on those areas where Australian R&D can really make a difference," Professor Jotzo says.

Professor Blakers says the nation has the tools it needs to reach net zero at today's energy costs.

"But there is the opportunity to halve energy costs. And that's what we need more R&D to go after."

Solar technology researchers are looking for ways to make photovoltaic cells cheaper and more efficient.

Hydrogen made using electrolysis from wind and solar energy needs more R&D to achieve substantial cost reductions.

Australian National University professor Andrew Blakers, who was on the University of NSW team that developed world-leading solar technology. Picture: Dion Georgopoulos
There are other prospects: Lithium batteries with 20 times more energy per kilo; hyper-efficient electric motors; and negative emissions technologies sucking carbon out of the atmosphere.

Climate change technologists and economists say the R&D needed to bring about the next innovations for low emissions technology will need well-funded public institutions including universities and CSIRO.

Comment was sought from the office of Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor.

Entrepreneur and ANU professor Lachlan Blackhall is working to solve big picture questions for the future of Australia's electricity system.

He leads the university's Battery Storage and Grid Integration program, which is looking at new types of battery technologies that could be suited for storing energy in the electricity grid.

It is also looking at how to integrate different energy assets - including solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles - so they work together in the grid to bring reliable and secure electricity supply.

Professor Blackhall says while the private sector is an important source of funding, it will be governments that provide funding for the research into early-stage technologies with a more uncertain return.

"When you're talking about big infrastructure, like energy, we're potentially talking about a decade or more to bring new technologies to market," Professor Blackhall says.

"And so the scale of the funding that's needed is often quite significant."

There are a few different models for the federal government to consider.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency provides money for relatively mature new technologies.

Director of the ANU's Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions Mark Howden proposes a new federal agency focused on funding earlier-stage research into less mature emissions-reduction technologies.

Science and Technology Australia has proposed a $2.4 billion research translation fund channeling funding to promising technologies that need further work to reach a point where the private sector will begin investing.

The peak body's chief executive Misha Schubert says the nation will need to back the work of its scientists, engineers and technologists.

"What we know from the history of research and development, particularly technological development, is when there are those bursts of direct investment and a pipeline to bring those technologies faster along the developmental pathway, that's where you see really exciting and high paced breakthroughs in world leading technology," she says.

"What we need to do is back in the work of our scientists, engineers and technologists so that they can help us chart a pathway that is clever and swift, and makes the transitions that the climate science so clearly says need to be made."

Professor Blackhall says funding is needed for carbon emission-reducing technologies right across their pipeline from early research to the point they're commercialised and then integrated with the energy system.

In the face of the existential threat posed by climate change, and warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about looming thresholds, there is no time to waste, he says.

"More funding is going to be needed across that entire pipeline, to ensure that we can actually bring these new technologies and capabilities to scale in the timeframe that we need," Professor Blackhall says.

"Because we also need to recognise now that it's a race to ensure that we can transition in sufficient time to make sure that the impacts of global warming are mitigated."

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(BBC News Delhi) Why Schools Are Failing Children On Climate Change

BBC News - Zoya Mateen

Experts say timely education on climate change can prepare children for the future. NurPhoto

Every year, Shamayel Zaidi, a school teacher in India, gives his new senior school students the same assignment: a presentation on one of three topics - consumer awareness, social issues or environmental sustainability.

Hardly anyone picks environment, he said. Not even in recent years since the perils of climate change have become more real everywhere - temperatures are higher than ever, glaciers are melting faster, violent cyclones and wildfires have become common, and children are at higher risk because of all of this.

But in this residential school in the northern city of Varanasi, Mr Zaidi said, students are not interested because there has been no "real effort" to inform them of the severity of the climate crisis.

"Unless it's your town that's being hit by a flood or some other catastrophe, people are not aware of how bad things are," he said.

Inequality also plays a role, he added. "Some of my students want to talk about climate change. But a lot of them come from families where such subjects are never discussed at home."

When 15-year-old Greta Thunberg started a school strike in Sweden in 2018 to draw attention to the climate crisis, she kicked off a youth-led movement that quickly gathered steam. For the the first time, children and teens - pouring out on to the streets in every continent - demanded climate action.

Ever since, children have been taking centre stage in the fight against a rapidly warming world. And as they do, many are pushing for schools to add climate change to their curriculum.

Students around the world have called for action against climate change. Getty Images
"Including climate topics in school curriculum is critical for training the next generation of innovative thinkers that can become champions of climate action at local and international stages," said Dr Ayoob Sharifi, an associate professor at the Hiroshima University and one of the lead authors of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

New Zealand and Italy have already introduced climate change studies into the secondary school curriculum and Britain said at November's COP26 summit that a climate change teaching strategy was on the anvil. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently said there is a need to include "climate change adaptation policies" in the school syllabus.

India currently has no curriculum on climate change, but some aspects such as sustainability are taught under environmental studies, which is compulsory in schools and colleges.

Dr Sharifi says teaching about climate change is of "utmost importance" for India as it is "expected to experience rapid population growth and urbanisation in the coming decades".

If children are aware of the consequences of unsustainable growth, they are likely to adopt a more climate-friendly lifestyle, he said.

Some schools in India have started doing this informally. At Shri Ram school in Gurgaon city, children learn to plant trees and make projects out of recycled products as they discuss changing weather patters and the social and economic aspects of their relationship with the environment.

Some schools in India encourage students to use recycled products to teach them sustainability. Getty Images

"It may not be a separate subject per se, but there is a curriculum in place to teach children about climate change and it's graded," said Sharda Sagar, who has taught environmental studies and social studies the school.

But experts say existing teaching methods do not address the scale of the problem.

"The environmental curriculum focuses more on nature and outdoor education but doesn't touch upon how human actions contribute to climate change or how children can actually combat it," Keya Lamba said.

Ms Lamba co-founded Earth Warriors - a climate change programme for children - with Shweta Bahri, an education policy expert.

Earth Warriors offers a series of learning modules for children between three and seven years, introducing complex topics on climate change through animated characters, songs and simple activities. Lessons rely on reused and natural materials such as cardboard boxes, sticks and leaves.

Ms Bahri says the idea is to teach children important concepts but to also make them "feel like superheroes" and make them realise that individual actions can help protect the planet.

The course also trains teachers on how to approach the topic in "a non-scary positive way".

The curriculum has been piloted in about four countries, including the UK, US and Botswana, and will be launched in a few private primary schools in India in February. "This is a start but our end goal is to make this a national curriculum in India and elsewhere," Ms Lamba said.

Earth warriors uses animated characters to explain climate change to children. Earth Warriors

But not everyone agrees that Indian schools need a separate curriculum on climate change.

Anita Rampal, former dean of the Faculty of Education at Delhi University, says that instead of relegating the topic to a separate textbook, there is a need to integrate it with existing subjects "so that it runs through the entire curriculum".

"Climate change and related topics such as the biodiversity crisis and ecological justice are very important to understand, but they are also abstract and challenging," she said. "It's not enough to preach moral messages or give definitions. These concepts and issues need to be woven into whatever you teach."

There are other challenges too. Huge disparities exist between underfunded government-run schools and plush private ones, making it that much harder to integrate climate education across the board.

"It's easy to say schools should create outdoor time and practical activities, but the truth is that it cannot happen in many poor schools in India. So, more than a curriculum, schools need to be supported to be able to bridge this gap," Ms Sagar said.

But teachers also worry about the despair and hopelessness students can feel upon learning about the troubling reality of climate change.

Ms Rampal says that's a part of growing up. "Children have to address issues as they face them. A curriculum is never just transmitting information, it is about a child constructing her own knowledge."

Other experts say solutions too must be an integral part of learning about climate change.

"Only showing a dark image of the future will certainly have a negative mental impact," Mr Sharifi said. "Schools need to emphasise that there are solutions to the problem and that our individual and collective actions can make a big difference."

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