China Set To Surpass Its Climate Targets As Renewables Soar

New Scientist

"The latest figures confirm China's record-breaking shift toward renewable energy, away from coal" 

China's future: who needs coal? Xu Yu/Xinhua Press/Corbis

CHINA is surging ahead in its switch to renewables and away from coal – a move it claims will allow the nation to surpass its carbon emissions targets.
The country's solar and wind energy capacity soared last year by 74 and 34 per cent respectively compared with 2014, according to figures issued by China's National Bureau of Statistics this week.
Meanwhile, its consumption of coal dropped by 3.7 per cent, with imports down by a substantial 30 per cent.
The figures back up claims made last month by Xie Zhenhua, China's lead negotiator at the UN climate talks in Paris last December, that the country will "far surpass" its 2020 target to reduce carbon emissions per unit of national wealth (GDP) by 40 to 45 per cent from 2005 levels.
"The latest figures confirm China's record-breaking shift toward renewable power and away from coal," says Tim Buckley of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an energy consultancy in Cleveland, Ohio.
"It's a really positive signal, a perfect example of an emerging economy trying to shift the way it develops," says Ranping Song of the World Resources Institute think tank in Washington DC. China is due to issue its next five-year economic plan this month. "So it's a perfect time to see how serious they are about tackling emissions," Song says.

Global Warming May Be Far Worse Than Thought, Cloud Analysis Suggests

The Guardian - Oliver Milman

Researchers find clouds contain more liquid – as opposed to ice – than was previously believed, threatening greater increase in temperatures

Under a blanket of clouds, tourists watch a meltwater waterfall on an icecap. Photograph: Ralph Lee Hopkins/National Geographic Society/Corbis

Climate change projections have vastly underestimated the role that clouds play, meaning future warming could be far worse than is currently projected, according to new research.
Researchers said that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere compared with pre-industrial times could result in a global temperature increase of up to 5.3C – far warmer than the 4.6C older models predict.
The analysis of satellite data, led by Yale University, found that clouds have much more liquid in them, rather than ice, than has been assumed until now. Clouds with ice crystals reflect more solar light than those with liquid in them, stopping it reaching and heating the Earth’s surface.
The underestimation of the current level of liquid droplets in clouds means that models showing future warming are misguided, says the paper, published in Science. It also found that fewer clouds will change to a heat-reflecting state in the future – due to CO₂ increases – than previously thought, meaning that warming estimates will have to be raised.
Such higher levels of warming would make it much more difficult for countries to keep the global temperature rise to below 2C, as they agreed to do at the landmark Paris climate summit last year, to avoid dangerous extreme weather and negative effects on food security. The world has already warmed by 1C since the advent of heavy industry, driven by CO₂ concentrations soaring by more than 40%.
A lack of data and continuing uncertainty over the role of clouds is to blame for the confusion about warming estimates, said Ivy Tan, a graduate student at Yale who worked on the research with academics from Yale and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
“Models have been systematically underestimating the amount of liquid in clouds, meaning that we aren’t fully appreciating the feedback,” she said. “It could mean our higher limit of warming is now even higher, depending on the model, which means serious consequences for us in terms of climate change.
“This is one of the largest uncertainties left in climate change. We need to understand these feedbacks a lot better.”
Scientists have been trying to get to grips with the extent clouds and water vapor will influence the warming already under way. A paper published last year found that short-term fluctuations in clouds have large impacts on the net rate of heat gain by the Earth.
One of this paper’s authors, Dr Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said research has already shown “major errors in climate simulations associated with clouds”.
Trenberth said there is “some art” to working out the role of clouds, given their annual cycles and distribution, with uncertainty over whether climate sensitivity is significantly changed.
“I think the paper is fine as a first step but it is not the last step, and much more is needed to establish how clouds change as the climate changes,” Trenberth said of the Yale study.

Links

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Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching Labelled 'Major And Significant' As Attenborough Warns Of 'Grave Danger'

ABC News - Stephanie Smail | Kerrin Binnie

'Twin perils threaten its very existence'

Sir David Attenborough says the Great Barrier Reef faces twin perils from climate change. (Supplied)

Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef is "major and significant", federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt says.

Key points: Full severity of bleaching not yet clear, Minister says Global warming 'threatens reef's existence': Attenborough Some reef growth observed in southern areas

Mr Hunt was commenting after he received his latest briefing from the Reef 2050 Independent Expert Panel about the current bleaching.
The Minister's latest remarks come as prominent naturalist Sir David Attenborough declared the reef to be in "grave danger".
"The event is still unfolding and the full extent and severity of bleaching may take several weeks to manifest," Mr Hunt said.
He said the most severe bleaching had been observed between Cape York and Cooktown on the far northern part of the reef.
It has increased between Cooktown and Tully with moderate to severe bleaching listed.
"If major disturbances such as bleaching events occur more regularly, this will affect the reef's ability to recover," Mr Hunt said.
Coral bleaching occurs due to increases in water temperature.
Bleaching can kill or stunt the recovery of the coral.

Sir David Attenborough says the Great Barrier Reef could be gone within decades. (ABC News)

In a documentary being aired on the ABC this weekend, Sir David said while the reef had proven itself to be resilient, it was in "grave danger".
"The twin perils brought by climate change, an increase in the temperature of the ocean and in its acidity threaten its very existence," Sir David said.
"Do we really care so little about the Earth on which we live that we don't wish to protect one of its greatest wonders from the consequences of our behaviour."
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is expected to release an update on the state of the reef in coming days.
Australian Institute of Marine Science chief executive John Gunn said while there had been bleaching across the northern reef, there has been some growth elsewhere.
"In the south, we've seen an almost doubling in the amount of coral that we last saw in 2012," Mr Gunn said.
"From a really low base, it's the worst conditions for the reef previously but it has rebounded quite excitingly.
"The centre of the reef has rebounded as well."
But Mr Gunn said coral cover had dropped across northern sections of the reef.
"Largely we can see this is the result, as in 2012, of storms, bleaching and crown of thorns that are the primary killers of the Great Barrier Reef," he said.

Part one of David Attenborough's Great Barrier Reef can be seen from 7:40pm this Sunday on ABC TV.

Links

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7-Year-Old Files Climate Change Lawsuit with the Supreme Court of Pakistan

EcoWatch

A 7-year-old girl, Rabab Ali, through her father and pro bono environmental attorney Qazi Ali Athar, and on behalf of all the Pakistani people, filed a climate change lawsuit Tuesday against the Federation of Pakistan and the Province of Sindh in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
The Constitution Petition asserts that, through the exploitation and continued promotion of fossil fuels, in particular dirty coal, the Pakistan and Sindh governments have violated the Public Trust Doctrine and the youngest generation's fundamental constitutional rights to life, liberty, property, human dignity, information and equal protection of the law.

"The protection of these inalienable and fundamental rights is essential if we are to have any chance of leaving our children and future generations with a stable climate system and environment capable of sustaining human life," said Qazi Ali Athar, public interest environmental attorney representing his daughter as youth petitioner in the case.
"Pakistan is rich in renewable energy resources such as solar and wind, more than enough to meet the energy needs of current and future generations of Pakistanis.
Yet the federal and provincial governments of Pakistan, along with the vested interests in the country and the region, are exploiting Pakistan's most environmentally degrading and carbon intensive fuels—low-grade coal from the Thar Coal Reserves—in violation of the Pakistani people's constitutionally protected fundamental rights."
The petition details how the Pakistan government has acknowledged the particular vulnerability of Pakistanis to the effects of climate change, including the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, flooding and cyclones.
The government has also recognized, in the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) and the Framework for Implementation of Climate Change Policy (Framework), Pakistan's "role as a responsible member of the global community in combating climate change … giving due importance to mitigation efforts."
And in Pakistan's Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submitted in December 2015 prior to the climate talks in Paris, the government admitted, "Potential for mitigation exists in all sectors of [Pakistan's] economy" and made the commitment that "Pakistan will promote and support low-carbon, climate resilient development."
Yet, completely antithetical to these statements and in violation of the fundamental rights of the people of Pakistan, the government, in its own climate change policy documents and Pakistan's INDC, promotes and plans for a significant increase in Pakistan's CO2 emissions through the exploitation of large untapped low-grade coal reserves.
Ali hopes that by bringing this petition, her government will start doing its share "as a responsible member of the global community" in reducing atmospheric CO2 and achieving global climate stabilization and that the Supreme Court will order the government to develop and implement science-based mitigation actions, tiered to achieving such a goal, as part of the NCCP, Framework and INDC.
The petition includes the prescription for achieving global climate stabilization from the renowned climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, which says that to restore a stable climate system, the dangerous levels of CO2 currently in our atmosphere must be reduced to below the maximum safe level—350 ppm atmospheric CO2—by the year 2100.
"Last year, to celebrate 'World Earth Day,' I pledged allegiance to the Earth and to the flora, fauna and human life that it supports, with safe air, water and soil, economic justice, equal rights and peace for all," said Youth Petitioner Ali.
"I want my government to take a similar pledge, by creating a plan that will allow me and future generations a safe environment to grow up in."

Youth global legal action
"Youth are rising up globally and taking their governments to court to seek protection of their inalienable rights to a stable climate system," said Julia Olson, executive director for the nonprofit organization Our Children's Trust and lead counsel on a climate lawsuit brought by 21 young people against the U.S. government.
"This case filed today in Pakistan builds on similar cases brought by young people in Uganda, Ukraine and the U.S. Our Children's Trust is working in partnership with young people around the world to elevate their voices and provide them with legal and scientific support, including youth who are mobilizing in India, Canada, France, England, Australia and elsewhere. This youth legal movement is growing."
"This bold action is indeed evidence of a global movement of citizens demanding science-based climate action from their governments, which the Paris agreement did not achieve," said Roger Cox, attorney for URGENDA who recently secured a court order in the Netherlands ordering the Dutch government to decrease emissions.
"Like the court found in our Dutch case, governments have a duty to safeguard the climate for present and future generations.
"Valuable legal precedents are being set that will hopefully become an avalanche of successful climate change court cases against governments worldwide.
"In the absence of sufficient political action to tackle the climate crisis, courts have the authority and the constitutional duty to prevent and protect society from climate change related damages, casualties and infringements of fundamental rights and civil liberties.
"What courts do in these cases will have implications for the rest of the world and for the degree of climate change we will all face in the years to come."

Links

• 6 Colorado Teenagers File Appeal in Fracking and Climate Lawsuit
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Record Patch Of Warm Waters Point To More Global Heat Records Being Smashed

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

From hot oceans to shrinking Arctic ice and glaciers, the evidence of a warming planet has gone into overdrive in the first three months of 2016.
Sydney on Wednesday posted its hottest April day on record, with the 34.2-degree reading beating a mark that had stood for 30 years. Suburbs from Camden in the south-west to Richmond in the north-west topped 36 degrees.
Australia has also just posted its hottest March in more than a century of reliable data after a scorching heatwave to start the month that the Bureau of Meteorology said in some areas approached "record levels for any time of the year".

The planet hasn't been this hot since reliable records began about 130 years ago. Photo: Jeff Williams, International Space Station, via Twitter

NSW blew away records that had stood since 1940 and Victoria eclipsed the previous hottest March for mean temperatures, set in in 1974. US climatologists are among the first to call March as being the hottest on record, globally, with a 0.63-degree departure from the norm for the 1981-2010 period, using preliminary data that will firm up in the next fortnight or so.
Others, including Alaskan climatologist Brian Brettschneider, have been reworking official data to come up with other signals of the unprecedented warmth.
Dr Brettschneider said he used the "go-to bible of sea surface temperatures" compiled by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to show almost one-tenth of the world's ocean surfaces were at least 30 degrees as of the end of March - a breadth of heat not seen previously.

'Human-caused'
For Australian counterparts, the record warmth is attributed to natural events such as the monster El Nino event now winding down in the Pacific but also a "substantial" contribution from "human-caused" climate change, scientists from the Bureau of Meteorology said this week in an article for The Conversation.
They noted that waters around Australia during summer were the hottest in records going back to the 1950s.
David Jones, a senior climate scientist at the bureau, said the background warming, a lack of rain and weakened winds across northern Australia had contributed to the significantly higher sea-surface temperatures around the nation.
"We've emphatically broken the sea-surface temperature record for March which was set just last year," Dr Jones told Fairfax Media.

Among the changes under way is the East Australian Current that brings warm waters from the tropics down the east coast, which has extended further south, part of a longer-term shift.
"This current is ... getting stronger, transporting larger volumes of water southward over time," the bureau scientists said. "This is due to the southward movement of high pressure systems towards the [South] Pole."
Those relatively warm waters have also triggered the coral bleaching now at record levels in the Great Barrier Reef, with the unusual sustained warmth causing the stressed corals to expel the tiny marine algae that gives them the colour and energy to grow.
The bureau chart below shows highest sea-surface temperatures on record now plague many of the areas with reefs around the world.

And there is no let-up soon.
"Surface temperatures over the entire Indian Ocean and coastal Australian waters will very likely continue to remain well above average for the next few months," the bureau scientists said.
"There are currently signs that surface currents are moving warm El Nino waters from the eastern Pacific over to the western Pacific, towards Australia."
'Crazy winter'
NOAA's National Snow and Ice Data Centre last month declared the Arctic's sea ice set a record low area for a second year in a row.
Almost all regions in the planet's far north were 2-6 degrees above average for the first two months of the year, with total sea ice reaching an average 14.52 million square kilometres at its peak on March 24.
"I've never seen such a warm, crazy winter in the Arctic," Mark Serreze, NSIDC's director said in a report carried on its website. "The heat was relentless."
Both 2014 and now 2015 were the hottest years on record and 2016 has started considerably warmer than both.
As NOAA's chart (see below) of warmest years shows that the bulk of the Earth's surface has had its hottest years on record since 2000 - with much of that since 2011.

Australia's famously variable climate means some long-standing records are hard to break.
Still, last month beat the record set in 1986 and seven of the warmest periods for each month have come since 2000.
"At the seasonal time scale, where natural climate variability gets smoothed out a bit, the warm extremes are more concentrated at the later end of the period," Blair Trewin, the bureau's senior climatologist, said.
"Winter, in 1996, is the earliest, with the others all occurring in the last 12 years - autumn 2005, summer 2012-13, and spring 2014," he said.

Links

• CSIRO cuts: Union claims jobs cut swells to 450 as formal complaints lodged
• No 'science for science sake': emails show CSIRO plans to cut climate research
• Bureau of Meteorology plan to take over CSIRO climate change research
• Record patch of warm waters point to more global heat records being smashed
• Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching more widespread than first thought, surveys reveal
• Humanity's impact on Earth opens Anthropocene epoch, scientists say

Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels

Bloomberg - Tom Randall

Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1.

Photographer: Kimimasa Mayama

Wind and solar have grown seemingly unstoppable.

While two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.
One reason is that renewable energy is becoming ever cheaper to produce. Recent solar and wind auctions in Mexico and Morocco ended with winning bids from companies that promised to produce electricity at the cheapest rate, from any source, anywhere in the world, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

"We're in a low-cost-of-oil environment for the foreseeable future," Liebreich said during his keynote address at the BNEF Summit in New York on Tuesday. "Did that stop renewable energy investment? Not at all."
Here's what's shaping power markets, in six charts from BNEF:

Renewables are beating fossil fuels 2 to 1

Investment in Power Capacity, 2008-2015 Source: BNEF, UNEP

Government subsidies have helped wind and solar get a foothold in global power markets, but economies of scale are the true driver of falling prices: The cost of solar power has fallen to 1/150th of its level in the 1970s, while the total amount of installed solar has soared 115,000-fold.

As solar prices fall, installations boom

Source: BNEF

The reason solar-power generation will increasingly dominate: It’s a technology, not a fuel. As such, efficiency increases and prices fall as time goes on. What's more, the price of batteries to store solar power when the sun isn't shining is falling in a similarly stunning arc.

Just since 2000, the amount of global electricity produced by solar power has doubled seven times over. Even wind power, which was already established, doubled four times over the same period. For the first time, the two forms of renewable energy are beginning to compete head-to-head on price and annual investment.

An industry that keeps doubling in size

Renewables’ share of power generation. Scale is shown in doublings. Source: BNEF

Meanwhile, fossil fuels have been getting killed by falling prices and, more recently, declining investment. It started with coal—it used to be that lower prices increased demand for fossil fuels, but coal prices apparently can't fall fast enough. Richer OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries have been reducing demand for almost a decade. In China, coal power has also flattened. Only developing countries with rapidly expanding energy demands are still adding coal, though at a slowing rate.

Coal phases out in wealthier countries first

What does that look like on a country-level basis? The world's first coal superpower, the U.K., now produces less power from coal than it has since at least 1850.

Canary in the coal mine: U.K.

Source: BNEF

More recently it's the oil and gas industry that's been under attack. Prices have tumbled and investments have started drying up. The number of oil rigs active in the U.S. fell last month to the lowest since records began in the 1940s. Producers—from tiny frontier drillers to massive petrol-producing nation-states—are creeping ever closer to insolvency.

"What we're talking about is miscalculation of risk," said BNEF's Liebreich. "We're talking about a business model that is predicated on never-ending growth, a business model that is predicated on being able to find unlimited supplies of capital."
The chart below shows independent oil producers and their ability to pay their debt.¹ The pink quadrant at the bottom right represents the greatest threat to a company's solvency. By 2015, that quadrant starts to fill up, and Liebreich warned, "It's going to get uglier."

U.S. oil patch heads to the insolvency zone 

Source: BNEF

Oil and gas woes are driven less by renewables than by a mismatch of too much supply and too little demand. But with renewable energy expanding at record rates and with more efficient cars—including all-electric vehicles—siphoning off oil profits at the margins, the fossil-fuel insolvency zone is only going to get more crowded, according to BNEF. Natural gas will still be needed for when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, but even that will change as utility-scale batteries grow cheaper.
The best minds in energy keep underestimating what solar and wind can do. Since 2000, the International Energy Agency has raised its long-term solar forecast 14 times and its wind forecast five times. Every time global wind power doubles, there's a 19 percent drop in cost, according to BNEF, and every time solar power doubles, costs fall 24 percent.

And while BNEF says the shift to renewable energy isn't happening fast enough to avoid the catastrophic legacy of fossil-fuel dependence—climate change—it's definitely happening. 

Links

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Bureau Of Meteorology Plan To Take Over CSIRO Climate Change Research

Fairfax - Adam Morton  |  Peter Hannam

The Bureau of Meteorology has offered to save climate research that CSIRO plans to axe under a plan that would see long-term programs and dozens of jobs transfer between the two national science agencies.
The proposal, discussed at a meeting convened by chief scientist Alan Finkel​ last month, is the most concrete of several ideas thrown up by the scientific community in a bid to retain internationally respected climate researchers and data collection.

The Bureau of Meteorology would take over CSIRO climate programs, including the Cape Grim greenhouse gas station in Tasmania, under a plan to save research and jobs.

Scientific agencies were taken by surprise when CSIRO chief Larry Marshall announced in February that the organisation would stop climate data collection as it re-positioned itself as an "innovation catalyst", focusing on work that was financially attractive to government or private partners.
The recasting of the century-old Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, initially linked to about 350 job cuts including up to 100 climate scientists, has drawn criticism from some research institutions in Australia and overseas.
It is understood the Bureau of Meteorology put forward two proposals that would see it hire either 40 or 50 CSIRO scientists as it took on more climate measurement and modelling – but was contingent on additional funding to pay for them. CSIRO is yet to respond in detail.

CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall. Photo: Pat Scala

Asked about the plan, Dr Finkel would not go into specifics but said he had helped organise talks between climate research groups in a bid to find a solution. He rebuked CSIRO for taking too long to finalise its restructure, and said Australia needed to maintain its climate modelling capacity.
"I am deeply concerned about the time it is taking to develop a transition plan," Dr Finkel told Fairfax Media.
"Many options have been put forward and we are waiting for the CSIRO planning process to advance. I remain optimistic about finding a way forward, but time is of the essence."
It is understood the Bureau of Meteorology drew up lists of the names of the CSIRO scientists it would hire.
Under its larger proposal, which would see it take on 50 scientists, it would take responsibility for all remaining climate science programs in the oceans and atmosphere division, including the Cape Grim greenhouse gas monitoring station in north-west Tasmania which the two organisations currently run in partnership.
Internal emails between CSIRO senior managers released this week showed they had discussed the need for the organisation's oceans and atmosphere division to stop doing "science for science sake", and getting rid of all "public good/government-funded climate research" as focus shifted to work that would bring in money. CSIRO spokesman Huw Morgan said they were options considered during early planning.
Dr Marshall, a former venture capitalist and trained physicist, told Senate estimates in February that the organisation planned to cut climate monitoring and measuring staff by about half. He has said that all culled jobs would be replaced over the next two years by appointments in new areas, including research to help combat climate change.
On Tuesday night, Mr Morgan said CSIRO was in ongoing discussions with the Bureau of Meteorology and other organisations about a number of options, and consulting with affected staff. "CSIRO is working within a responsible and considered framework and will continue to do so," he said.
The Bureau of Meteorology declined to comment.
Andy Pitman, director of the University of NSW's Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, said CSIRO had put itself in an untenable situation.
"The email exchange reported by Fairfax Media made perfectly clear to anybody in oceans and atmosphere that senior management doesn't value them," he said.
Professor Pitman said the bureau proposal made some sense if there was money for it. If not, there was the potential for "a downward spiral" in which it would be increasingly difficult to retain staff  and attract the world's best scientists.
Dr Marshall is scheduled to give evidence to a Senate inquiry into the CSIRO cuts on Thursday.

Links

• Emails show CSIRO plan to cut climate research
• CSIRO emails reveal new directionNo 'science for science sake': emails show CSIRO plans to cut climate research
• Climate change is a grave threat to public health, White House warns in report
• Giant Queensland coal mine will carry hidden cost, US investor predicts