'Sleeper Issue' Of Leaking Coal Seam Gas Fields May Blow Hole In Emissions Goals

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Gas has long been touted as cleaner than coal and marketed as a "transition" fuel until the mass take-up of renewable energy becomes viable.
But a growing chorus of voices from Australia and overseas is warning that any perceived benefits could easily be lost with just small leakages.
Professor Peter Rayner from the University of Melbourne says it takes just 1-2 per cent of gas leakage for any advantage to be lost.

Queensland's coal seam gas industry now has more than 7000 wells. Photo: Saah Moles, Wilderness Society

Australia's coal seam gas industry claims its leakage is just 0.02 per cent but increased detection of leaks in the US – triggering a flurry of studies – suggest some big changes are in the winds.
US regulators this year lifted their estimate of America's annual emissions of methane – the potent gas that makes up most of natural gas – by 13 per cent with leakage from the oil and gas industry largely blamed.
While methane clouds have been detected near gasfields, it took a huge leak starting last October from a gas storage site near Los Angeles to grab media attention.

CSG has its protesters now – before fugitive emissions are known. Photo: Andrew Quilty

Thousands were forced to evacuate their homes, with the leak venting almost 100,000 tonnes of methane over 16 weeks. Methane has as much as 100 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and the release was akin to adding 500,000 cars to the roads during the event, local media reported.
While Australia's gas boom, particularly for coal seam gas, is of a much smaller scale than the US shale bonanza, many of the issues are identical. These include the lack of baseline studies to distinguish the impacts of drilling and fracking of wells from natural methane seepage.

Closer to the surface

The industry says just 0.02 per cent of the gas developed vents as methane to the atmosphere. Photo: Glenn Hunt

The uncertainties around CSG in particular "are really very large", Professor Rayner said.
"It's closer to the surface [than conventional gas] ... it's more dispersed, and the chances for something to go wrong are much higher," he said.
CSG operators such as Santos, Origin Energy and BG Group, say they have every incentive to limit leakage of the lucrative commodity from their lattice of CSG wells and pipelines.

LNG exports were worth $16.9 billion in 2014-15, APPEA says. Photo: Stephanie Kelly

According to Santos' environmental impact statement (EIS) for its $25 billion Gladstone LNG project, fugitive emissions would only be 0.1 per cent for the CSG gasfields themselves. Total emissions were just 20,000 tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent last year across its entire business.
"Santos meets all its regulatory requirements around emissions," a spokesman said. "We monitor, independently audit and make this data publically available in our annual Sustainability Report."
But a spokesman for Queensland's Department of Environment and Heritage Protection conceded that Santos's EIS "does not include provisions for a formal auditing process". However, the proponent is required "to document its proposed operations and how these will impact on the environment, which the department uses to "to inform the relevant permit conditions and requirements".

Chinchilla community members said the Condamine River has never bubbled with such frequency before CGS mining came to the region. Photo: Max Phillips

Even without unanticipated leakage, the surge in CNG and its processing for export markets is set to play a big role in a forecast jump Queensland's greenhouse gas emissions. The government estimates that the state's emissions will surge 35 per cent between 2014 and 2030 even as Australia is aiming to cut them.

Migratory emissions
Researchers, though, say little is understood about how drilling and fracking may create conditions for leakage through the soil long after a well has been decommissioned.
With more than 7000 CSG wells in Australia and headed towards tens of thousands, "the long-term, post-production fugitive [emissions] are certainly a sleeper issue," Professor Rayner said.
Dimitri Lafleur, a former geoscientist at energy giant Shell, said the industry has little idea of how much "migratory emissions" are making it to the surface.
"With such a vast network and thousands of wells, it is very difficult to come up with an accurate number if you don't monitor on a regular basis," said Mr Lafleur, a PhD student at Melbourne University under Professor Rayner.
"And given it is not a requirement to minimise fugitive emissions, why would you?"
Mr Lafleur is part of a team commissioned by The Australia Institute to examine how big a problem such leakage is and how it might affect Australia's national emissions targets given the industry's rapid expansion.
"No one knows what the baseline emissions are – from natural emissions from seeps, bores, for example – but I believe there is a chance that these emissions will become larger, with continued water extraction," he said. Companies remove huge amounts of water to get to the gas, depressurising the aquifers in the process.

'Social licence issue'
Political opposition to CSG has come mostly from the Greens. Labor and the Coalition generally back developments in Queensland, but have mixed views of the sector in other states such as Victoria and NSW.
NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham became an internet sensation when he set the Condamine River in Queensland alight in April. Deputy Greens leader Larissa Waters, along with independent senator Gleenn Lazaus, has helped lead senate inquiries into CSG.
"Coal seam gas and fracking wells and pipes leak like a sieve, and they could be just as bad for the climate as burning coal," Greens Senator Larissa Waters said.
"As disused gas wells age and concrete casings break down, we risk further leaks for decades to come," she said. "No studies have systematically examined the deteriorations of old wells."
Fairfax Media sought comment from Environment Minister Greg Hunt and his Labor counterpart, Mark Butler.
Gas produces as much as 77 per cent more energy per molecule of CO2 than coal.
Professor Rayner said emissions issues with CSG had the potential to diminish public support for an industry already dogged with problems such as salt disposal, access to farmers' lands and interference with ground water.
If CSG is not cleaner than coal, "the whole social licence issue is brought into question," Professor Rayner said. "It becomes quite serious."

'Rivers shouldn't do that'
Locals say the bubbling of the Condamine River, which was highlighted when Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham set fire to it on Friday, is caused by a nearby CSG operation.

Links

• Australia's environmental peril revealed in five charts
• 'Largest community-owned' solar farm in Australia taking root in Canberra vineyard
• Canberra weather: Rainy start to July follows wettest June on record
• Antarctic ozone hole has finally started to heal, scientists report

Climate Change: Big Four Banks' Lending To Australian Renewables Projects Falls

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

Market Forces finds only two financing deals closed in first half of 2016 despite banks' purported support for sector

The National Australia Bank lent money to a windfarm in South Australia and both NAB and Westpac helped finance one in New South Wales. Photograph: Angela Harper/AAP

Australia's big four banks' lending for Australian renewable energy projects has tumbled in the first half of 2016, despite all of them spruiking their continuing support for the sector.
Based on public announcements from the banks and their customers, the activist group Market Forces has found only two financing deals were closed this year in the Australian renewables sector.
The National Australia Bank lent money to a windfarm in South Australia and both NAB and Westpac helped finance one in New South Wales.
Although more financing could be revealed in the second half of the year, the figures seem to show the banks have slowed their flow of money to the renewables sector in Australia.
"This is what you see when you have years of stagnation and cutting into renewable energy policy," said Julien Vincent from Market Forces.
The group has been collecting the data on financing for Australian renewable energy projects for the past eight years.
The first six months of 2016 have seen the big four banks lend only $162m to renewable projects. That is less than half the average amount loaned in all previous six-month periods since 2008 and the fifth-worst half-yearly figure in the dataset.


So far this year, according to public announcements, both the Commonwealth Bank and ANZ have not closed any deals for renewable energy projects in Australia.
Market Forces data previously showed the big four banks lent $5.5bn to the Australian fossil-fuel sector in 2015 and that the amount lent to the fossil-fuel sector was six times more than lent to the renewables sector since 2008. One bank had a ratio of 13 to one, favouring lending to fossil fuels over renewables.


When approached in February and then again in May to comment on their continuing lending to fossil-fuel projects in Australia, all four banks responded to the Guardian's questions by emphasising their lending to the renewables sector.
But Vincent said the lack of local investment wasn't entirely the banks' fault.
"This is what you get when you have years of debate about whether the renewable energy target should be cut and you have a carbon price that is cut and then you have a billion dollars taken out of the [Clean Energy Finance Corporation] to paper over cracks, trying to protect the reef," he said. "There is so little going on and so little to invest in now."
That analysis was confirmed by a spokesman for the Commonwealth Bank, who told the Guardian: "The limited number of renewable energy developments, and therefore financing opportunities in Australia, has resulted in the majority of CBA renewable financings being offshore in the last year and we have been active in both Europe and North America."
However, Vincent said the banks all had commitments to invest in renewable energy and, if government policy wasn't allowing them to do that, they should be publicly calling for change.
"They're getting credit and applause for carbon reduction and renewable energy – so where are they in the public debate?" Vincent said. "Why aren't they saying 'hey we're doing our best but there aren't enough opportunities being created'?
"They're four of the biggest and most powerful companies in Australia and if they want policies that would let them unlock this finance – which is in the tens of billions of dollars ready to deploy – then they could get them."
Vincent said it was bad news for the Australia economy, because this money was flowing overseas, with the big four banks lending to overseas renewable projects more than they were to local ones.
"We're missing a trick, where there is a huge amount of funds sitting there that the banks would certainly be able to get a lot of benefit from, in terms of reputation, if they were able to deploy that in Australia," he said.
In 2015, global investment in renewable energy grew to more than twice that in coal and gas-fired power generation, according to UN environment program figures.
In the 2014-2015 financial year, an all-time record of about US$320bn was invested in renewable energy worldwide but in Australia investment fell by 31%, with government plans to cut the renewable energy target blamed.
The Market Forces database was built from public statements and could be missing deals. But Vincent said the group had spoken with key players in the renewables sector and nobody had found financing deals that had been missed.
The banks all said they were unable to comment on specific deals that could be in the works, due to client confidentiality.
Westpac emphasised their lending to a broader category called the "CleanTech and environmental services sector", to which it lent $6.3bn in the six months to March 2016. They also pointed to their work on climate bonds and discounted loans offered to business seeking to improve their energy efficiency.
NAB told Guardian Australia they would continue to work towards their commitment "to invest $18bn over the next seven years to support the transition to a low-carbon economy".
ANZ declined to comment.

Links

• Australia's biggest banks pump billions into fossil fuels despite climate pledges
• Global coal and gas investment falls to less than half that in clean energy
• Climate change: John Hewson accuses Coalition of 'national disgrace'
• Climate change: Victoria aims to generate 25% of electricity via renewables by 2020
• Peabody's Australian mines in jeopardy despite minister's advice, says lawyer
• Climate change: Australia's big banks urged to reject new loans for coal projects
• Saving Great Barrier Reef from climate change should be central election issue, says Tim Flannery
• Labor proposes two emissions trading schemes costing $355.9m
• Malcolm Turnbull risks Australia's economy with inaction on climate change
• Australia's leaders 'wilfully blind' about climate change, says former NAB chief

Stem CTO: Lithium-Ion Battery Prices Fell 70% in the Last 18 Months

Greentech Media - Stephen Lacey*

"There are new markets opening up because of what we've seen in battery pricing."

Tesla's battery factory gets a lot of attention.
When completed, the so-called Gigafactory will manufacture more lithium-ion batteries each year than were produced globally in 2013.
That will help push prices further downward.
But a few other large producers -- LG Chem, Panasonic and Samsung -- are already making batteries at unprecedented scale.
 There are numerous giga-scale factories producing cells and battery packs for electric cars and stationary applications throughout Asia. And the recent wave of capacity is already impacting pricing in a big way.
According to Larsh Johnson, the chief technology officer of Stem, the company is paying 70 percent less for lithium-ion batteries than it was 18 months ago.
"It's happening. The capacity is out there," said Johnson in an interview. "The momentum continues."
Stem has installed 68 megawatt-hours of batteries for commercial and industrial applications, mostly to shave demand charges for customers that consume a lot of power in the middle of the day. Johnson said the improvement in pricing is allowing Stem to think beyond traditional demand charge management.
"There are new markets opening up because of what we've seen in battery pricing," he said.
Traditional demand management typically requires systems that discharge for 1 to 2 hours. Stem is now getting customer requests for systems that can provide 4 or more hours of storage to support grid management services, such as frequency regulation or load-shifting to support renewable energy integration. The company is also looking at a broader geographic range, which includes Texas, Germany and Ontario.
The energy density of lithium-ion batteries continues to improve as well, helping vendors improve performance without adding new costs. "Double-density batteries are important," said Johnson.
As battery costs go down, more hours of storage can be packed into the same battery.
"I'm not surprised that customers are asking for 4-hour duration systems," said Ravi Manghani, director of GTM Research's storage practice. "As soon as you start using storage for something beyond demand-charge management, you're looking at a multi-hour project."
Many utilities looking to aggregate behind-the-meter storage services in New York and California are requiring more than 4 hours of discharge. And it's getting cheaper to provide that level of service every month.
There are a couple of reasons for the 70 percent drop in pricing. Expansion of worldwide production capacity played a role. Since much of the new capacity was designed for electric vehicle demand that never materialized, stationary storage vendors are getting a better deal.
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, there was a total of 53 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion cell production capacity in 2015 -- but only 40 percent of that was utilized.
Stem's large purchase orders give it an advantage as well. Of the 70 percent price improvement reported by Stem, Manghani estimates that roughly 40 percent comes from oversupply, and another 30 percent comes from bulk ordering.
Johnson said that Stem is expecting a similar drop in pricing over the next 18 to 24 months. He wouldn't give any exact numbers on pricing, however.
"We're trying to balance our purchasing decisions with this continuing price decline," he said.
By 2020, GTM Research expects average lithium-ion battery costs to hit $217 per kilowatt-hour. "But we're already starting to hear numbers in the $200 to $250 per kilowatt-hour range," said Manghani. And Tesla may already be well below those numbers, say some analysts.

*Stephen Lacey is the Managing Editor at Greentech Media, where he reports on energy efficiency, solar and grid modernization. He is also host of The Energy Gang podcast, a weekly audio digest of cleantech news.

Links

• Breaking: EV and Battery Builder Tesla Offers to Acquire PV Leader SolarCity for ~$2.5 Billion
• Tesla Discontinues 10-Kilowatt-Hour Powerwall Home Battery
• The Benefits and Drawbacks of Tesla's Plan to Acquire SolarCity

Bionic Leaf Turns Sunlight Into Liquid Fuel

Harvard Gazette - Peter Reuell

New system surpasses efficiency of photosynthesis

A new "bionic leaf" system uses solar energy to produce liquid fuel. Jessica Polka/Silver Lab

The days of drilling into the ground in the search for fuel may be numbered, because if Daniel Nocera has his way, it'll just be a matter of looking for sunny skies.

Co-creator of the new system Harvard researcher Daniel Nocera. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer 

Nocera, the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy at Harvard University, and Pamela Silver, the Elliott T. and Onie H. Adams Professor of Biochemistry and Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, have co-created a system that uses solar energy to split water molecules and hydrogen-eating bacteria to produce liquid fuels.
The paper, whose lead authors include postdoctoral fellow Chong Liu and graduate student Brendan Colón, is described in a June 3 paper published in Science.
"This is a true artificial photosynthesis system," Nocera said. "Before, people were using artificial photosynthesis for water-splitting, but this is a true A-to-Z system, and we've gone well over the efficiency of photosynthesis in nature."
While the study shows the system can be used to generate usable fuels, its potential doesn't end there, said Silver, who is also a founding core member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University.
"The beauty of biology is it's the world's greatest chemist — biology can do chemistry we can't do easily," she said. "In principle, we have a platform that can make any downstream carbon-based molecule. So this has the potential to be incredibly versatile."

Co-creator of the new system Harvard researcher Pamela Silver. Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer

Dubbed "bionic leaf 2.0," the new system builds on previous work by Nocera, Silver, and others, which — though it was capable of using solar energy to make isopropanol — faced a number of challenges. Chief among those, Nocera said, was the fact that the catalyst used to produce hydrogen — a nickel-molybdenum-zinc alloy — also created reactive oxygen species, molecules that attacked and destroyed the bacteria's DNA. To avoid that, researchers were forced to run the system at abnormally high voltages, resulting in reduced efficiency.
"For this paper, we designed a new cobalt-phosphorous alloy catalyst, which we showed does not make reactive oxygen species," Nocera said. "That allowed us to lower the voltage, and that led to a dramatic increase in efficiency."
The system can now convert solar energy to biomass with 10 percent efficiency, Nocera said, far above the 1 percent seen in the fastest-growing plants.
In addition to increasing the efficiency, Nocera and colleagues were able to expand the portfolio of the system to include isobutanol and isopentanol. Researchers also used the system to create PHB, a bio-plastic precursor, a process first demonstrated by Professor Anthony Sinskey of MIT.
The new catalyst also came with another advantage — its chemical design allows it to "self-heal," meaning it wouldn't leach material into solution.
"This is the genius of Dan," Silver said. "These catalysts are totally biologically compatible."
Though there may yet be room for additional increases in efficiency, Nocera said the system is already effective enough to consider possible commercial applications, but within a different model for technology translation.
"It's an important discovery — it says we can do better than photosynthesis," Nocera said. "But I also want to bring this technology to the developing world as well."

Working in conjunction with the First 100 Watts program at Harvard, which helped fund the research, Nocera hopes to continue developing the technology and its applications in nations like India with the help of their scientists.
In many ways, Nocera said, the new system marks the fulfillment of the promise of his "artificial leaf," which used solar power to split water and make hydrogen fuel.
"If you think about it, photosynthesis is amazing," he said. "It takes sunlight, water, and air — and then look at a tree. That's exactly what we did, but we do it significantly better, because we turn all that energy into a fuel."

Note: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The Harvard University Climate Change Solutions Fund is supporting ongoing research into the bionic leaf platform. 

Links

• A leap for 'artificial leaf'
• Clean energy pioneer brings lab to Harvard
• Tackling carbon emissions in China
• Discovering soil-less farming
• Targeting the ills of climate change

Politics For The Planet: Why Nature And Wildlife Need Their Own Seats At The UN

The Conversation - Anthony Burke | Stefanie Fishel

Should killing too many fish be dealt with in the same way as war crimes? Bob Williams/Wikimedia Commons

Whether we consider wild weather, unprecedented Arctic melting and global temperatures, or the Great Barrier Reef, the global environment is generating alarming news. Predictions of multi-metre sea level rises, the collapse of marine biodiversity and food chains, and global warming far beyond 2℃ are equally concerning. Is our system of global environmental law and governance adequate to this crisis?
Our short answer is "no", but what should be done? We believe new international institutions and laws are needed, with one fundamental purpose: to give a voice to ecosystems and non-human forms of life.
We say this knowing that the current global system is inadequate to respond to many human crises, but with the conviction that environmental justice often overlaps with social justice.
It is tempting to believe that we can muddle through with the existing system, centred on the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change and Convention on Biological Diversity. But these are not integrated with each other, and are also kept separate from global economic and trade institutions like the World Trade Organisation, the G20 and the World Bank, and from global security institutions like the UN Security Council. The latter has never passed a resolution about the environment, despite growing warnings from military strategists of the potential for climate-catalysed conflict.
Global trade and security are each governed by global agencies. But there is no comparable global authority to protect the environment.
The climate agreement negotiated at last year's Paris summit was a great diplomatic achievement, but the euphoria was premature. Current national pledges to cut emissions will fail to keep global warming below 2℃, let alone the 1.5℃ that climate scientists and many nations in Paris have argued is the safer limit.
The Paris deal's predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, actually saw global emissions rise by 60% to 2014.
Three months before Paris, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals and its mission to "heal and secure our planet". The gap between ambition and ability could scarcely be greater.

A new manifesto
We and our colleagues have published a "Planet Politics" manifesto, which argues that the current architecture of international society is failing to see and address the global ecological crisis. Our global governance is too focused on interstate bargaining and human interests, and sees the environment as an inert backdrop and resource for human societies. Yet the reality is that the fates of society and nature are inextricably bound together – and the planet is letting us know that.
In response, we propose three key international reforms: a coal convention, an Earth system council, and a new category of "crimes against biodiversity".

A coal convention
Every year toxic air pollution from coal burning causes death and disease. Coal is responsible for 43% of global greenhouse emissions and 80% of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration since 1870.
We already have UN treaties banning the use of chemical and biological weapons, on the basis of their threats to human health and security. Based on the same principles, we suggest a similar international convention to outlaw the mining and burning of coal.
This would create a common legal framework in which states can transform their energy economies without fear of "free riders". It would also add to the pressure already being felt by the coal and energy industries to curb their damaging pollution.

An Earth system council
An Earth system council would function much like the UN Security Council – it would, in effect, be an "ecological security council".
Its mandate would be to preserve, protect and repair global ecosystems. It would respond to immediate crises while also stimulating action on systemic environmental degradation and ecosystem repair. Its resolutions would be binding on all UN member states, although we do not envisage that it would have the same coercive powers (such as sanctions). The council would be able to refer issues to the International Court of Justice, or create ad hoc international criminal tribunals relating to major environmental crimes.

Street artwork in Sydney reminds us to think about how much we depend on the planet. Stefanie Fishel, Author provided

This is significant reform that would require the revision of the UN Charter, but our proposals for membership go even further. Every meeting would be briefed by the head of the UN Environment Program and by Earth system scientists or ecologists.
We suggest it could have 25 voting seats, 13 of which would go to state representatives elected for fixed terms, allocated among the major world regions. The other 12 would be permanent seats held by "eco-regions": major ecosystems that bind together large human and non-human communities and are crucial to the planetary biosphere, such as the Arctic and Antarctic, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Amazon Basin, tropical Africa, or major river systems like the Mekong and Congo. Alternatively, following WWF's Global 200, eco-regions could be based on major habitat types.
Each eco-region would be represented by a democratic assembly and have a constitution focused solely on the preservation and repair of its ecology. It would appoint a representative to the Earth system council and have the power to make recommendations for ecosystem protection to regional governments. Each state with territory that overlaps that eco-region would have one seat. Other seats would be elected democratically from communities (especially indigenous peoples) within those regions.

Crimes against biodiversity
A "crimes against biodiversity" law would act like a Rome Statute for the environment. It could add much-needed teeth to efforts to preserve global biodiversity and prevent large-scale environmental harms. Ecological damage should be criminalised, not just penalised with fines or lawsuits.
We envisage that this law would outlaw and punish three kinds of activity:

• actions that contribute to the extinction of endangered species, such as poaching, illegal whaling or destruction of habitat;
• actions that involve the unnecessary large-scale killing or death of species groups, as happened in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster;
• activities that destroy ecosystems, such as the dumping of mine tailings or toxic waste into rivers.

It would not criminalise the farming of animals or the catching of fish, but could apply if these practices involve the mistreatment of animals or large-scale collateral damage to biodiversity – for instance, by overly extractive fishing methods. Such global-level regulation will augment enforcement at local levels.
Unlike international laws that punish genocide, our suggested law would not require proof of intent to commit the crime, but merely a strong link between the activity and the destruction of biodiversity or industrial and systemic harm to animals. There are potential legal precedents in the US legal doctrine of "depraved heart murder" in which individuals are liable for deaths caused by wilful indifference, rather than an express desire to harm.
It is easy to see how this kind of legal reasoning could be used to help deter dangerous industrial, mining or agricultural activities.
Readers might ask how the destruction of biodiversity is as morally appalling as genocide or other crimes against humanity. The philosopher Hannah Arendt has argued that the distinct evil of crimes against humanity lies not simply in mass murder but in the destruction of human diversity; an attack on humanity's peaceful coexistence on our planet.
Now, as we become ever more aware of the complex enmeshment of human and non-human life in the planetary biosphere, the human-caused extinction of species is likewise an attack on our common ecological existence. It is time for this truth to be recognised in international law.
We are aware that these are radical ideas that raise significant political and legal complexities, but the time to start debating them is now. Planet Earth needs unprecedented politics for these unprecedented times.

Links

• Worrying about global tipping points distracts from real planetary threats
• Why it makes sense to build ecosystem restoration into economic growth plans
• Hurrah for Mars, but why not more curiosity about life on Earth?
• The long reach of the past: did prehistoric humans shape today's ecosystems?

Stop Spreading Misinformation On Coal Demand

The Guardian - Ian Dunlop

Politicians are misrepresenting International Energy Agency's projections in their election campaigns. Fossil fuels aren't benign, they will wreck the planet

Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Above, coal operations at the Port of Newcastle. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

In their book Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations, published prior to the Paris climate change meeting last December, Chris Wright and Daniel Nyberg highlighted how the dominance of neoliberalism in recent decades has locked the global economy on to a path of "creative self-destruction", built around the oxymoron of "green capitalism". Events since Paris have confirmed their thesis.
Just before Paris, the New York state attorney general, via the US Securities and Exchange Commission, secured undertakings from the world's largest coal company, Peabody Energy, for violating state laws prohibiting false and misleading conduct in regard to Peabody's public statements on risks posed by climate change. In part by misrepresenting the projections of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
For the past two decades, major companies, industry bodies, media and governments have been guilty of similar disinformation in Australia, a practice which is again evident in this election campaign.
Long ago, the IEA recognised the risks posed by human-induced climate change. It accepted that climate and energy were inextricably linked and dangerous climate change could only be avoided with fundamental change to the global energy system. Specifically by rapidly weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and transitioning to low-carbon energy supply.
The IEA has become a leading authority exploring this transition, regularly quoted by governments and business alike. It is subjected to great pressure by them to lean in suitably accommodating directions.
It handles this pressure by publishing, in its annual World Energy Outlooks (WEOs), its perspectives on the energy sector over the next 25 years. These explore the implications of taking alternative climate and energy pathways. Key scenarios are: current policies (CP) which assumes business-as-usual, new policies (NP) which extends CP with policy governments have committed to but not yet implemented, and the 450 scenario which is the pathway to keep global average temperature increase below 2C.
These scenarios are highly influential in justifying investment decisions. For Australia, global coal demand is one of the factors of greatest interest. In the WEO 2015 released last November, under CP assumptions demand would increase by 43% by 2040 compared to current levels, under NP by 12%, but under 450 scenario it declines by 36%.
The IEA takes NP as their central scenario as this is where we are headed if governments implement their commitments. However the IEA make it clear that NP is not a sustainable future. In its report (pdf), executive director Fatih Birol says: "We look to the negotiators in Paris to destroy our projections in our central scenario, which we show to be unsustainable, in order to create a new world in which energy needs are met without dangerously overheating the planet." The Paris meeting agreed to keep global average temperature below 2C and pursue efforts to limit to 1.5C.
Warming would see global population and economic growth in steep decline or stalled. Poverty would massively increase as poorer countries are disproportionately hit by climate extremes. This is already happening.
As with Peabody, Australian organisations, through the Minerals Council, regularly misrepresent the IEA's position. Typically they publicise the CP or NP outcomes and ignore the 450 scenario despite the fact that they publicly support the 2C limit. These inflated coal demand figures are then claimed to be IEA "forecasts", justifying further coal investment and government support.
These organisations participate in IEA advisory committees and should be aware that scenarios are not forecasts. Scenarios demonstrate the outcome of certain choices and the IEA make it clear that CP and NP are choices we must not make. To suggest otherwise is blatant disinformation of the worst kind given the potentially catastrophic implications of distorting the IEA's advice.
The Minerals Council of Australia has been one of the worst offenders, even in the current election campaign inconsistently using NP outcomes while claiming to support the 2C limit. The Minerals Council represents companies like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, who vehemently proclaim leadership on climate change and the urgent need to follow a 2C path, yet this disinformation is allowed to continue from the Minerals Council.
This propaganda is parroted by ill-informed politicians, such as energy minister Josh Frydenberg, claiming that,"The IEA tells us that 40% of today's electricity demand is met by coal and by 2040 it will still be 30%", and trade minister Steve Ciobo: "Global demand for coal is still going through the roof". NP figures again, which imply an absolute increase in coal use of 23%. However the 450 scenario, to which the government supposedly committed to in Paris, shows coal's share of electricity demand falling from 40% to 12% by 2040, an absolute reduction in coal use of 57%, which certainly requires no new coal mines.
Parts of media also to be blamed. The Australian has been an offenderbut even the more balanced Fairfax press falls into the same trap. Not surprisingly, it still features prominently on coal company websites.
The government and opposition, who accept donations from fossil fuel interests which Wright and Nyberg refer to, both sing the praises of the Adani Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin, Shenhua's Watermark Mine on the Liverpool Plains, Kepco's Bylong Valley adventure and Hume Coal in the Southern Highlands. All based on ill-informed premises and substantially contributing to increasing global temperatures well above 2C.
The cost to Australia, if this irresponsible misallocation of resources proceeds, would be enormous. Among other things, stranded assets as these mines are forced to shut down as climate impact intensifies; the lost opportunity of not investing in low-carbon future; the loss of agricultural productivity as mining disrupts prime farming land and water supply; and the social disruption caused to regional communities from abandoned operations. Plus, the full impact of potentially catastrophic climate change in a country more at risk than any other.
In the national interest, Australian regulators, including federal and state attorney generals, ASIC, the ASX and the Press Council urgently need to stamp out this misinformation as their overseas counterparts are doing. Particularly if we are serious about promoting "innovation, jobs and growth".

Links

• The truth behind Peabody's campaign to rebrand coal as a poverty cure
• The best thing a business could do for the environment is shut down
• Coal executive turned climate change activist fights for seat on BHP board
• Climate change: communities and councils fill void on zero emissions targets
• Garbage in, energy out: creating biofuel from plastic waste
• Does the Great Barrier Reef's death haunt the dreams of coal's company directors?
• Climate change: Melbourne renewable energy project provides global blueprint

Climate Change, Not Humans, Killed Off Megafauna

Fairfax - Bridie Smith

Tom Rich, curator for palaeontology at Museum Victoria. Photo: Jason South

It's a contentious question. Why did the giant kangaroos and rhino-sized wombats that once roamed Australia die out?
Scientists agree there are two contenders: climate change and humans. But they are fiercely divided over which caused the continent's megafauna to go extinct.
Now, fresh results of a study at a renowned Victorian fossil site in the Macedon Ranges town of Lancefield 73 kilometres north of Melbourne has provided an answer.

The diprotodon was a rhino-sized wombat that weighed about 2.8 tonnes. Photo: Peter Trusler

Lead author of the research Joe Dortch from the University of Western Australia said climate change appeared to be the culprit in the mass deaths of megafauna living in the Lancefield region 50,000 years ago. "Drought was very severe around Lancefield at that time and we are starting to see more evidence of massive climatic changes in this period in south-eastern Australia," he said.
Dr Dortch conceded the study's findings would be considered a piece of the puzzle that would add to, rather than settle the debate.

Scientist Peter White and student Jon Lushey with an excavator at the site. Photo: Joe Dortch

He said even among the six study authors, opinion was divided about the cause of megafauna extinction globally.
There was agreement that the Lancefield Swamp site represented "a drying environment" and that climate change was the major factor in the death of the megafauna that once called the area home.
Scientists say the evidence of this is that among the fossilised remains of giant kangaroos there were no juveniles or elderly animals found at the swamp, the area's last surviving waterhole.

A student working at one of the excavated bone beds at Lancefield. Photo: Joe Dortch

"That tells us that the most vulnerable members of the mob have perished somewhere else already ... and these were the healthiest and the last of the group," Dr Dortch said. "If it was a site where humans had been hunting, you would see a range of animals there."
Thousands of fossils recovered from Lancefield are housed at Museum Victoria. The museum's curator of palaeontology Tom Rich said the site was valuable to researchers internationally because it contained evidence of humans and megafauna co-existing. Key to this was the discovery of a stone artefact in 1974.
"It's a very extensive, rich site," he said. "It has drawn scientists back for decades, hoping to answer this contentious question."
Deakin University's Sanja van Huet​ didn't participate in the study, though she specialises in what happens to an organism between death and when it is discovered as a fossil.
Dr van Huet argues evidence of abrasions and weathering have been found on the fossilised bones – evidence that they were exposed to the elements at another site before being moved.
"I don't think that the animals died in the swamp, I think they died in the surrounding area," Dr van Huet said. "Heavy rainfall later washed bones into the swamp."
Overall Dr van Huet believes a combination of climate change and disease led to the extinction of Australia's megafauna. She said she was open-minded that humans could have "tipped them over the edge".
"I don't agree with 100 per cent of it but I think it's a great paper," she said.
The Lancefield Swamp fossil deposits are between 80,000 and 50,000 years old – the latter date coinciding with humans' arrival in Australia and with an extremely severe drought.
"There would have been a series of massive droughts lasting decades – perhaps over millennia," Dr Dortch said.
Discovered in 1843 by well-digger James Mayne who was searching for water, the Lancefield Swamp site has been studied by archaeologists since the 1970s.
"A carpet of fossils covers the site, which is spread over a few hectares," Dr Dortch said. The layer of bones is 10-20 centimetres deep.
The dominant animal found at the site is a giant kangaroo that would have stood up to two meters tall and weighed in at an impressive 200 kilograms. Fossilised remains of a diprotodon, a rhino-sized wombat which would have weighed about 2.8 tonnes, have also been found.
Fieldwork during the drought years of 2004-2005 uncovered a 70-centimetre-long jawbone of a diprotodon.
The findings will be published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews in August.

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