21/12/2021

(AU SMH) Eyewitness To Climate Change

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick Moir

With a warming climate driving weather to new extremes, the Herald’s chief photographer Nick Moir spent much of the year battling giant hail, floods, huge waves and even tornadoes.

The photographer stopping for an active storm off the Sydney coastline in October, 2021. Credit: Nick Moir
Two years ago we were staring down the barrel of an unparalleled bushfire threat following a vicious drought.

Now we are coming out of the wettest November on record. Many of our rivers are flooding. Bureau of Meteorology alerts have been laced with tornado threats and giant hail warnings.

Giant hail North of Bourke during severe storm outbreak in September, 2021. Credit:Nick Moir
I’ve covered severe weather, droughts and fires for a quarter of a century, and in recent years it seems each season brings us new extremes.

So this year what happened?

Sharp upper level troughs which reached far north into Queensland caused instability and a developing La Nina added moisture.

Strong westerly winds which surround Antarctica appeared further south than usual, driving yet more moisture to feed into the Queensland and NSW interior, an event known as a positive Southern Annular Mode.

All this combined to cause floods and violent thunderstorms.

“All the ingredients were there this year,” says Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino.

From September on meteorologists noted an increase in severe storm activity driving across the state.

On radar screens these weather patterns appeared with a “hook echo”, the signature of the sort of strong rotation that can cause tornadoes, and sure enough tornadoes did hit towns across the state including Bathurst and Armidale.

A resident of St Georges Caravan park along the Hawkesbury River stands on a building as the remains of his home and many others are slowly swept away in March this year. Credit: Nick Moir
To cover one outbreak at the end of September I based myself in far west NSW near Bourke when atmospheric instability and wind shear (increasing winds at height) suggested strong storms were likely to hit.

I managed to place myself on the north-west edge of a violent system. At one point I found myself in the perfect position to witness the storm, but unable to move through it due to the lack of roads in the area.

After one front roared over I measured hailstones that ranged from 7cm to 11.5cm. Fortunately, for Bourke residents, the storm passed them by about 30km.

Two weeks later a very distinctive hook echo developed on a storm in western Sydney. I approached it from the north to see a tornado developing in the storm structure.

So concerned was the BOM that it declared it a “Very Dangerous Storm” and issued a tornado alert.

Wyangala Dam water release exploding downstream into the Lachlan River. Credit: Nick Moir
Sydney got off lightly compared to Coffs Harbour on October 20 when a supercell storm dumped 30cm of hail, damaging homes, businesses and vehicles.

Many other severe storms hit the Liverpool Plains and surrounds the same day, some of them lasting hours and covering hundreds of kilometres.

On October 10 another surge of activity saw lines of storms dump rain across the central west near Mudgee.

I saw a funnel appear from one and drove towards the ground before I got lost behind a thick curtain of rain.

In the United States a series of unseasonably late and historically large tornadoes devastated towns across the mid-west in recent days. With the death toll now approaching 100, scientists are investigating the impact of climate change on the storms.

A storm’s super cell structure in Sydney’s west. Credit: Nick Moir
It is thought that the warmer northern winter is causing the violent weather season to extend into what were once quieter months.

Similarly in March, NSW went through a period of record-breaking daily rainfall totals, causing the worst flooding the Hawkesbury/Nepean river had seen in 30 years.

Parts of the Hawkesbury that just over a year earlier had been hit by the largest known bushfire in Australian history were lost under metres of water.

Thousands were forced from their homes across the east of the state.

Floods are challenging events for photographers to cover. It is difficult to keep cameras going and lenses unfogged while wading through fast moving water under drenching rain.

Several photographers had expensive equipment destroyed in the March floods. All of the dealt with the discomfort of feet left wet for too long and the danger of dodging detritus and sewage in flooded streets.

Large swell rolls into Newport in July. Credit: Nick Moir
When the strong low pressure systems that caused the floods hit the coast, winds drove surf to new heights, stripping coastlines of sand and vegetation.

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Surfers braved some of the brutal waves and photographers turned to drones to capture images of offshore breaks.

As the wet summer continues NSW firefighters are nervously eyeing off the burgeoning grass and undergrowth the rains have fostered.

In the wet conditions firefighters have fallen behind in hazard reduction work.

“These grasslands are sitting there waiting to burn,” says NSW RFS Inspector Ben Shepherd.

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(AU The Guardian) As The Coalition And Labor Inch Closer On Emissions, Are Australia’s Climate Wars Ending?

The Guardian -

With big business backing Labor’s climate policy and net zero gaining bipartisan support, the climate battle is transitioning into a new phase

ALP leader Anthony Albanese and PM Scott Morrison during question time. On the issue of the climate crisis, Albanese has accused the Coalition government of being ‘frozen in time while the world warms around it’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

If a week is a long time in politics, three years is a geological age. Long-held assumptions can change dramatically in that time. Just ask the Business Council of Australia.

In 2018, before the last federal election, the lobby group representing 100 of the country’s biggest businesses described a Labor pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 as “economy wrecking”.

The Coalition’s more modest and less scientifically based goal of a 26-28% cut was deemed “appropriate and achievable”. (To its credit, the business council has chosen not to delete its incriminating tweet.)

Three years of worsening science news and a once-in-a-century pandemic later, the BCA has turned on its heel. It believes Labor’s new, fractionally reduced 2030 target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – and the policies that support it are a “sensible and workable plan”. Remarkably, given its history of opposing a national carbon price, it recently called on both major parties to do more.

The BCA is not the only establishment heavyweight to have embraced greater ambition and offered support for Anthony Albanese and his climate change shadow minister, Chris Bowen, since the ALP emissions policy was released earlier this month.

The Australian Industry Group – the country’s largest employer group – said Labor’s target could be delivered with “sensible policy reforms, greater collaboration and a close focus on industry competitiveness”.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said it offered “a pathway to achieve the economic and technological transition towards a more sustainable future”. And the Australian Automobile Association said it was a “win for consumers”.

This response is not a complete surprise. Most major corporates are persuaded the world will inevitably move on climate and that it is in their interests to do the same – or at least be seen to. But the support from business for Labor’s more ambitious stance reflects a sea change in the battle-weary world of Australian climate politics.

Some observers have wondered if this is how the “climate wars” end, having helped bring down multiple political leaders on both sides and held back policy for more than a decade. Political disagreements and attacks will continue, but will the potency of a dishonest campaign over emissions policy have diminished by the time next year’s election rolls around?

‘There’s no going back’

 Analysts mostly say: let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But they also say people should not underestimate what it means that the Coalition has promised the country will reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Scott Morrison’s net zero plan, released shortly before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, includes no new policies, largely relies on unproven technology and does not actually get the country to net zero, but the long-delayed decision to set the target means for the first time Australia’s major political parties agree on the destination. It narrows the scope for political attack.

“I think the war is over in the sense the fundamental differences about doing anything about climate change is over,” says Tony Wood, the energy program director with the Grattan Institute.

“There is a rump of people on both sides who don’t want there to be bipartisan support for climate change and who see benefit in differentiation, but I think the question is whether we’re now entering a stage of cold wars and skirmishes.”

Frank Jotzo, professor of climate change economics at the Australian National University Crawford School of Public Policy, says the centre of debate has shifted and bipartisan support for a net zero target opened “many, many opportunities and really changes the tone of the debate”.

“There’s no going back on that,” he says. “Now that a conservative government that had a ‘no-action’ point of view supports a net zero target, there’s really no room for saying we shouldn’t be doing anything.

“If you went just by what business says and what civil society says, then you would say there’s really nothing that could hold back a shift to effective and sensible climate policy in Australia. Large parts of the spectrum now agree on the fundamentals – they want ambitious targets and meaningful policies of some kind.”

Of course, things are not that simple.

“This agreement doesn’t necessarily translate into how elections are campaigned,” Jotzo says. “The preconditions for an end to the climate wars are there, but I think it’s too early to call.”

Unanswered questions about the 2022 campaign include whether News Corp newspapers, which have run misleading campaigns against the cost of climate policies and attacked the scientific consensus, have moved on since launching a “mission zero” series on climate before the Glasgow summit or will return to their old ways.

Scott Morrison during an aerial tour of the Snowy Hydro site near Tantangara Dam, NSW on 3 December. Photograph: Alex Ellinghausen/AAP
To date, the response has been more muted than some in Labor expected. There have been news stories describing the ALP policy as targeting big emitters – which is true, with the important caveat that it is gradual and has the support of business groups.

Others have raised doubts about whether it would create more than 600,000 jobs and the extent to which it would lead to a reduction in energy bills – though it was not disputed that they would be cut.

The most aggressive media attack was on the front page of News Corp’s Brisbane daily, the Courier Mail, which quoted backbencher Matthew Canavan creatively describing a plan to use an existing Coalition policy – the safeguard mechanism – to start to cut emissions from big industry as “Labor’s revenge” on Queensland.
The animosity and ridiculous scare campaigns about climate change that we’ve seen are unlikely to dominate this election
Richie Merzian
Morrison and his ministers have not gone as hard and the initial attack was quickly over, but it’s early days, and campaign lines have been tested. The prime minister claimed Labor’s policy would be bad for coal regions and manufacturing, and several MPs described the promised changes to the safeguard mechanism as a “sneaky new carbon tax”.

In reality, Labor is proposing a more gentle use of the safeguard than promised by its architect, Liberal cabinet minister Greg Hunt, back in 2015.

In response, Albanese said the Coalition was “frozen in time while the world warms around it” and that he expected the government to lie about Labor’s policy.

Closing the climate policy gap

Analysts expect Coalition criticism to be more targeted than in previous campaigns, reflecting not only the shared net zero target, but that the government is under pressure from climate-focused independents in heartland Sydney and Melbourne seats.

A differentiated campaign – trying to convince inner-city residents the government is acting, while telling some parts of Queensland and New South Wales a Labor government would be devastating for them – is not impossible, but harder to land than in the past.

Allegra Spender, an independent candidate who is running against Dave Sharma in the seat of Wentworth in Sydney’s east. Her message is that action on the climate crisis is an economic as well as an environmental imperative. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian
Labor’s policy was designed with this in mind. There is a gap between the parties on 2030 targets, but it is relatively narrow once the government’s rhetoric is factored in.

The prime minister still backs a target set under Tony Abbott six years ago, but claims official projections show the country would cut emissions by 35%.

Whether you accept this or not – and there is reason not to – it leaves Labor promising just eight percentage points more than the Coalition. Albanese accurately described the ALP’s target as modest.

The gap between the parties on renewable energy is similarly difficult to exploit. The government forecasts that 69% of electricity in the national market will be zero emissions by 2030, largely due to the tumbling cost of solar energy and incentives offered by state governments. Labor says it would lift that to 82% just by bringing forward construction of transmission lines to planned renewable energy zones.

Richie Merzian, the climate and energy program director for the Australia Institute, says Labor has gone out of its way to avoid any area where it was at risk of being wedged by the government or other opponents.

“It means the animosity and ridiculous scare campaigns about climate change that we’ve seen are unlikely to dominate this election,” he says.

If this proves correct, it may leave the biggest battleground where those who believe the debate should be led by climate science say it should have always been – over what Australia has to do to live up to its global commitment to try to limit global heating to 1.5C.

Politically, they include the Greens, who want a 75% cut by 2030 including a rapid phaseout of coal power, and some independent candidates.

Merzian, a former diplomat representing Australia at climate talks, is among those who believe this is where the debate is finally headed, saying: “The battle will not be over until we have a decent climate policy that reflects the reality of what’s needed.”

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(AU Reuters) Aussie Climate Ambition Will Restart At Ballot Box

Reuters -
Office workers walk past a mural of a drought scene in the business district of Melbourne July 1, 2008. REUTERS/Mick Tsikas

2022 Federal Election
Australia will hold a federal election by May 2022 at the latest.

The country requires a federal election every three years, and the last one was in May 2019.

A majority requires securing 76 of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives.
MELBOURNE - Expect some green shoots at Australia’s 2022 general election.

Although previous efforts to tackle global warming have foiled five prime ministers since 2007 and may have cost the opposition Labor Party the 2019 ballot, votes cast early next year will give independent, climate-savvy candidates a starring role.

Around 20 of them, mostly women, are running for federal parliament.

Clean-energy investor Simon Holmes à Court’s fundraising group, Climate 200, provides financial and logistical support.

All else being equal, winning four of the 151 House of Representatives seats would make them kingmakers.

Australia has pretty much all it needs to become an energy-transition leader, including sun and wind to displace the coal and gas responsible for 75% of the country’s electricity supply.

Magnates such as mining billionaire Andrew Forrest are pushing for action.

Moreover, severe drought, bushfires and floods, all exacerbated by climate change, have battered the country in recent years.

The ruling Liberal-Nationals coalition touts a more than 20% decline in greenhouse-gas emissions since 2005, as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg emphasised during a December discussion with Breakingviews.

The government, however, has presided over a 2% increase, excluding land-use changes, between 2013 and the start of the pandemic.

Emissions from producing fossil fuels grew 28%. The current government also has not expanded its 2015 pledge to cut 2005 levels 28% by 2030, and its net-zero 2050 plan read more is weak.

Labor’s 2030 target is a 43% decline.

A government relying on independents would have to turbocharge its plans. It shouldn’t be controversial: The Business Council of Australia, which opposed Labor’s 2019 target, wants a 50% emissions cut by 2030 and board directors are crying out for leadership on the issue. Stronger climate policy also would accelerate growth opportunities.

The country could create 1.8 million climate-related jobs, reckons consultancy Beyond Net Zero, which also estimates that exports of green hydrogen, steel and the like can be a A$333 billion ($239 billion) export market in three decades, almost triple what fossil fuels generate.

Such figures may be overly optimistic, but Australia’s A$2 trillion ($1.4 trillion) economy would nevertheless benefit from a government that acts more quickly on climate.

The 2022 ballot box will provide the spark.

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