Climate politics in 2018: another guide for the perplexed

The Conversation - Marc Hudson

If Jay Weatherill is returned as the premier of South Australia in 2018, he promises to once again butt heads with Malcolm Turnbull over energy policy. Morgan Sette/AAP

As I predicted a year ago, 2017 was another vicious and bloody-minded year in Australian climate politics. Yet the political bickering belied the fact that it was actually a great year for green energy.
Nowhere was that more in evidence than in South Australia, which got its big battery inside 100-day deadline, with the world’s biggest solar thermal plant set to begin construction this year. Elsewhere, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull talked up the prospects of the Snowy 2.0 hydro storage project.


Climate change drove decline of Aussie tigers and rise of devils
A new study led by The Australian National University has found a strong link between a rapidly cooling climate and the decline of Australia's marsupial tigers, triggering the rise of the Tasmanian Devil and its relatives.

Yet the politics remain as rancorous as ever. The federal government unveiled its National Energy Guarantee in November, after Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s Clean Energy Target proved too rich for some in the Coalition. Just before Christmas, the long-awaited climate policy review was released, and immediately branded as weak.
Both issues are unresolved, and are set to loom large on the landscape this year. But what else is on the horizon?

Domestic bliss
We should always expect the unexpected. But perhaps the most predictable “unexpected” event would be a heatwave, prompting one or more of our creaking coal-fired power stations to have a meltdown. Maybe the “Big Banana” (as Elon Musk’s battery has been branded) will step in again, as it already has.
If fossil fuel power stations fail again, expect to see the culture war heat up again, with coal’s defenders using ever more twisting logic to defend their dear dinosaur technology.
Barring the apocalypse, on March 17 South Australians will go to the polls. Will Premier Jay Weatherill be returned to power, to continue his long-running stoush with federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg? Will heatwaves and power outages help or hinder him? At the moment, polls have former senator Nick Xenophon as putative premier. My crystal ball is hazy on what this would mean for energy policy.
In April there will be a meeting of the COAG Energy Council at which the NEG proposal will come under scrutiny. Expect it to be bloody. State governments have demanded more modelling, so they can compare the NEG to Finkel’s Clean Energy Target that Finkel suggested, and an emissions intensity scheme.

Illustration: Andrew Dyson 

Current SA treasurer Tom Koutsantonis has raised several concerns with the NEG, arguing that it doesn’t give a big enough boost to renewables, and would do nothing to break up the power of the big “gentailers”, who generate and sell electricity.
“To proceed, the NEG would require unanimous support at COAG, so this policy is either years away, or won’t happen at all,” Koutsantonis said. Expect a long-running pitched battle if Weatherill and Koutsantonis are still about, and perhaps even if they’re not.

Funding issues
In the May budget the Turnbull government is going to have to decide what to do about the Emissions Reduction Fund, the centrepiece of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s Direct Action policy, which replaced his predecessor Julia Gillard’s carbon price.
The fund, which lets companies bid for public money to implement emissions-reduction projects, started at A$2.55bn, and there is about A$260 million left.
Connected to these decisions are questions over whether and how the fund’s “safeguard mechanism”, which is supposed to stop the system being gamed, will be modified.
Among the many criticisms levelled at the government’s 2017 climate policy review, released with little fanfare the week before Christmas, was the proposal to make the already flexible mechanism even more flexible, so as to “reduce the administrative and auditing costs” for businesses.
The government’s climate review also says that in 2018 it will start the process of developing a long-term emissions-reduction strategy, to be finalised by 2020. It has promised to “consult widely” with businesses, the community, states and territories, and other G20 nations. Time will tell exactly how wide this consultation turns out to be, although anything would be better than the Trump Adminstration’s systematic removal of the term “climate change” from federal websites.

Overseas business
The climate review suggests that the Turnbull government will push for more international carbon trading. An unlikely alliance has formed against the idea, consisting of those who view carbon credits as buck-passing, as well as Tony Abbott, who thinks Australian money “shouldn’t be going offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan”.
His stance has already been branded as nonsensical by the business lobby – who, it must be said, stand to benefit significantly from carbon trading.
On the diplomatic front, the United Nations will hold a “2018 Talanoa dialogue” process, featuring a series of meetings in which major economies will come under pressure to upgrade their climate commitments to meet the Paris target.
As Giles Parkinson notes, Australia had probably thought that they could get away with no climate target upgrades until around 2025.
In October the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release a report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5℃ – the more ambitious of the Paris Agreement’s twin goals – and the emissions pathways we would need to follow to get there. Expect climate deniers to get their retaliation in first.
The next UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (number 24 in a never-ending series) will be held in December in Katowice, in Poland’s coal heartland.

Others’ predictions and my own
So, prediction is very difficult, but most of us like to indulge. Reneweconomy asked Frydenberg, his opposite number Mark Butler, and the Greens’ climate spokesperson Adam Bandt what they thought was coming up.
Frydenberg talked up “innovative projects” like this summer’s demand response trial and Snowy 2.0.
Butler gloomily forecasted more policy chaos and renewables-blaming, while Bandt was sunnier, predicting that 2018 will be “the year of energy storage” as the economics for commercial and household batteries begin to stack up.
Bandt also thinks the public debate will heat up as extreme weather hits, and the national security implications become (more) obvious.
Well, it will be fun to watch whether the Minerals Council pulls its horns in under the threat of BHP pulling out. Early signs would suggest not.
Will other mining companies defect?
Will battery storage get a grip on the grid?
Will Adani pull the plug on Carmichael under continuing pressure from campaigners?
Well, here are some safe predictions.
Donald Trump will continue being Donald Trump. Liberal and National backbenchers will put pressure on Turnbull to do what John Howard did when George W. Bush was in the Oval Office – namely, get into the United States’ slipstream and take advantage of the lowered ambition.
There will be further stunning developments in energy storage, and the prices of solar and wind will continue to plummet.
Meanwhile, Australia’s emissions will continue to rise, as will the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide concentrations.

Links

• Scrap registration fees, taxes on electric cars, industry urges
• Is Victoria's power grid prepared for a heatwave?
• Australia's greenhouse gas emissions increase for third consecutive year
• What’s the net cost of using renewables to hit Australia’s climate target? Nothing
• A great year for clean energy in Australia ends, while bad news for coal continues

Qantas Worst Airline Operating Across Pacific For CO2 Emissions, Analysis Reveals

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

Qantas used the two most fuel-intensive aircraft and carried the most empty seats of any transpacific airline

Qantas emits more carbon dioxide per passenger-kilometre than any other airline operating across the Pacific, according to an analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation, the group that exposed the Volkswagen emissions scandal in 2014.
For each kilometre Qantas transports a passenger across the Pacific, it uses 64% more fuel than the two most fuel-efficient airlines operating across the Pacific: Hainan Airlines and All Nippon Airways (ANA).
One litre of aviation fuel was able to transport one passenger just 22km, on average, on Qantas flights, while Hainan and ANA were able to take a passenger 36km on 1L of fuel.
The wide variation between airlines provides a stark contrast to the industry’s aspirational goal of improving fuel efficiency of international flights by just 2% annually.

Fuel efficiency for different airlines

Guardian graphic | Source: International Council of Clean Transportation

 
Aviation currently accounts for about 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. But pollution from the industry is expected to increase and, by 2050, use up a quarter of the allowable greenhouse gas emissions if the world is to keep global warming at less than 1.5C – the world’s “carbon budget”.
While Hainan and ANA tied as the most fuel-efficient airlines, they used different strategies to achieve the relatively low fuel burn.
Hainan Airways, a Chinese carrier, employed more fuel-efficient aircraft, using the Boeing 787 Dreamliner for more than 80% of its flights, and the Airbus A330 for the remainder. It also avoided having excessive empty seats, further increasing its efficiency.
Meanwhile, the Japanese airline ANA achieved the low fuel-burn by carrying a lot of cargo, which the analysis treated as equivalent to carrying people.
In contrast, Qantas used the two most fuel-intensive aircraft – Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-400ER – and carried the most empty seats of any transpacific airline, filling just 74% of its seats.
Comparing all the airlines, ICCT found that how much freight an airline carried was the strongest determinant of its fuel efficiency, explaining 48% of the variation between airlines. Seating density, aircraft efficiency and passenger load were the other major factors.
Looking at specific routes, the analysis found Delta was the most fuel-efficient airline on the Sydney-Los Angeles route, flying a passenger 33km on a litre of fuel. Virgin Australia and United were not far behind on 32km, while Qantas lagged on just 24km.

Efficiency for airlines serving LA-Sydney routes

Guardian graphic | Source: International Council of Clean Transportation

 
The most competitive transpacific route was Los Angeles-Tokyo, with six airlines flying between the two hubs. On that route United was the most fuel-efficient, taking a passenger 42km on a litre of fuel. Singapore Airlines was the least fuel-efficient, taking a passenger just 26km on a litre of fuel.

Efficiency for airlines serving LA-Tokyo routes

Guardian graphic | Source: International Council for Clean Transportation

 
The report notes that Qantas is planning on using eight new Dreamliners for flights to the US, which, if operating now, would lift the airline one place from the bottom, above Korean Air and tying with Asiana in the second-bottom place.
The results follow an earlier analysis ICCT conducted on the efficiency of airlines on transatlantic routes in 2015, which found a significant but smaller variation between airlines than was found on Pacific routes.
In that report, British Airways and Lufthansa were found to have emitted 51% more carbon dioxide than the cleanest flyers, Norwegian Air.
“This research shows that there are a variety of ways that international airlines can reduce fuel use and carbon emissions,” said Brandon Graver from ICCT, the lead author of the study. “Buying new aircraft, carrying large numbers of passengers and optimising freight strategies all make a difference.”
Dan Rutherford, ICCT’s aviation program director and co-author of the paper, said: “There’s a reason airlines around the world are starting to avoid very large aircraft like the 747 and A380.
“Newer twin-engine widebodies provide the payload and range capabilities needed for transpacific flights with much lower fuel burn.”
Alan Milne, head of fuel and environment at Qantas told the Guardian that the airline ranks low in the analysis because it uses large aircraft, flies long distances and has premium cabins that leave more space between passengers.
“We’re committed to reducing carbon emissions and continually look at ways to lower them across our operations,” he said. “We are switching our 747s for more fuel-efficient Dreamliners and we have several data-driven programs in place to reduce fuel burn.”

Links

• Transpacific airline fuel efficiency ranking, 2016
• Large variation found in airlines' CO2 emissions
• Analysis: Aviation could consume a quarter of 1.5C carbon budget by 2050
• Qantas to stop using toxic firefighting foam after Brisbane river spill

The Hunt Is On For Climate Champs

Cosmos - Geetanjali Rangnekar

Conference organisers call for community nominations for outstanding climate activism.

The hunt is on outstanding climate change activists. Tobias Titz/Getty Images

Key dates Call for abstracts                      3 October 2017 Abstracts for full papers          11 December 2017 Close abstracts                        2 February 2018 Early bird registration closes    1 March 2018 Conference starts                     8 May 2018

The organisers of the premier Australian gathering of climate scientists and advocates — Climate Adaptation (CA) 2018 —have issued a call for nominations for this year’s Climate Adaptation Champions.
The conference, set to take place in the Australian city of Melbourne from May 8 to 10, is a collaborative effort between the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) and Engineers Australia.
Nominations fall into four broad categories — individual, community, business, and government. So, if you know of a teacher, neighbourhood group, local store or non-government association working tirelessly to spread the word about the need for climate adaptation, now is the time to act.
Nominate your champion by February 28 to help promote innovative and ingenious ways to tackle the impact of climate change.
The winners will have their registration and travel costs covered for the conference, where they will be presented their awards. The event will see many national and international speakers share their expertise. Attendees will hear keynote addresses from Mark Crosweller, director-general of Emergency Management Australia, and Hallie Eakin, a senior lecturer at Arizona University whose work ranges from consultation with the World Bank to working for the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Climate scientists wishing to make a presentation at the event still have time to apply. Abstracts should be submitted by February 2.
To find out how to register, click here.

Links

• CA18 - Climate Adaptation Conference 2018
• Climate Adaptation Conference 2018 website
• A Changing Climate in Coastal Australia: Build knowledge, take action
• National Adaptation Research Plans

Surging Power Bills Spark Rush For Household Solar In Australia

Bloomberg - Perry Williams

• Australia solar capacity additions in 2017 estimated at record
• Solar costs for residential users fell 44 percent since 2012

Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg

Australia, one of the world’s biggest users of rooftop solar panels, likely added the most new capacity on record last year as electricity users sought to ease escalating power bills.

A preliminary estimate by Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator of 1.05 gigawatts installed last year would be a record for the country, the government body said in an emailed statement Friday. While subsidies and generous feed-in tariffs helped boost growth earlier this decade, last year’s gains were driven by users seeking to sidestep a surge in the cost of electricity and a push by vendors into the commercial sector, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Getting Cheaper
Average cost for residential solar power system in Australia is falling

Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), Solar Choice
Note: Costs are for a 4kW system after Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) subsidy

“We are on track to have had the biggest year yet for installed small-scale solar capacity” in 2017, according to the regulator statement. “What we have seen is that homeowners and businesses continue to embrace solar panel systems, which is driving increased levels of capacity across Australia.”
The shift to solar may have quickened as power prices spiked last year on tight supplies of coal and gas, which fuel the bulk of generation capacity on the national electricity market. BNEF estimates the cost of solar systems for residential customers has declined 44 percent since 2012.

Forget The Grid

Australia will lead the world in households and businesses installing their own electricity supply

Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF)

Note: Figures show ratio of behind-the-meter electricity capacity to total installed capacity

“The payback period for residential solar is now as low as it was in 2012, when super-generous feed-in tariffs and subsidies drove a massive boom in installations,” said BNEF’s Sydney-based analyst Annabel Wilton.
Rooftop solar will account for as much as 24 percent of Australia’s electricity by 2040, according to BNEF’s 2017 New Energy Outlook. When combined with small-scale batteries and demand response initiatives, up to 45 percent of the country’s total power capacity will be located on owners’ properties -- known as behind-the-meter-capacity -- by 2040.
But fossil fuels still hold sway for traditional power producers, even as they look ahead to a less carbon intensive future. Sydney-based Alinta Energy Holdings Ltd., which completed the acquisition of the 1,000 megawatt coal-fired Loy Yang B power station on Monday, sees the purchase as a way to lock-in retail customers now to gain later in the country’s transition toward cleaner power.
“The reality is that it’s great to have a vision to be clean and green, but if you don’t have any customers you don’t have a ticket to the game,” Alinta Chief Executive Officer Jeff Dimery said in a phone interview Monday.


Coal Loses in Australia Amid Switch to Clean Energy

Links

• Why Energy-Rich Australia Suffers the World’s Priciest Power
• Why Resource-Rich Australia Can't Keep Lights On: QuickTake Q&A
• Lights Out? Now Australia's Got a Coal Shortage
• Happiness is a post-solar electricity bill (Farewell to 2017)
• Private schools go big on solar – a lesson in ethics and good business
• Queensland opens rooftop solar market to low-income and rental households

Powering Up: Rooftop Solar Installations Jump By Half To Hit Record 1GW In 2017

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australians exceeded 1 gigawatts of rooftop solar panels for the first time last year, with the market set to expand further in 2018 amid ongoing worries about electricity prices, according to Green Energy Markets.
The country added about 1.078 gigawatts of new rooftop solar capacity last year, beating the previous record set in 2012 by 14 per cent, the consultancy said.


Chief Scientist calls for greater battery storage
Chief Scientist Alan Finkel says power bills will go up and energy supply will be less reliable unless Australia develops better storage systems.

The increase over 2016 was about 50 per cent.
"The surge is happening across every state ... and across all segments of the market," said Tristan Edis, director of analysis for Green Energy Markets.
"It's heavily driven by the electricity price hikes and the media attention around them, because it's become a political issue."
The tally is based on the number of renewable energy certificates (known as STCs) created by small-scale panel installations, and excludes the rapidly increasing utility-scale solar farms.
Rooftop installations last year grew a third last year to 172,152 units, snapping a four-year drop. Consumers are shifting to larger units, with 5-kilowatt systems increasingly typical of the market.

A shortage of installers means 2018 should also be off to a solid start for new solar PV as companies try to meet pent-up demand. Photo: Joe Armao JAA

The spurt of solar orders is likely to continue well into 2018 in part because installers have struggled to find staff to meet demand in recent months.
"The market was definitely constrained at the end of 2017," said Warwick Johnston, managing director of SunWiz, another consultancy.

Sun Metals Corporation's Solar Project Manager Lance Moody inspects progress of the solar panels at Sun Metals. 

Even though electricity price rises are expected to taper this year and next, solar demand is unlikely to flag soon.
"Module prices are low, awareness of electricity prices is huge, and momentum in commercial sales keeps on growing," Mr Johnston said.



Commercial break
The revival of the small-scale end of the solar industry began around mid-2016 after wholesale prices spiked in South Australia, Mr Edis said.
Debate over electricity intensified after a powerful storm knocked out power in the state in September of that year.
The events helped to reverse a trend of falling residential demand following the removal of state support schemes and slashed feed-in tariffs paid for exports to the grid.
Business demand had picked up some of the slack – and it has continued to grow.
Mr Edis estimates commercial demand for sub-100 kilowatt systems already made up almost 30 per cent of the market last year.
He expects about a third of firms will see their power contracts expire this year and will face very large hikes in energy charges that will make solar panels appealing.
Natalie Collard, an executive for industry development with the Clean Energy Council, said rooftop solar installations had risen 50-fold in the past decade.
"Today we are seeing farmers, airports, shopping centres, apartment buildings, homes and small businesses installing solar power and storage to take the heat out of their power bills," Ms Collard said.

'Huge year' ahead
The rooftop solar industry itself could be eclipsed within a year or two by the rapid expansion of large-scale solar farms.
According to the Clean Energy Council, there are 33 solar farms under way – including two with wind turbines – totalling 2.291 gigawatts of capacity.
"More large-scale solar farms managed to secure project finance than ever before in 2017, setting up the industry for a huge year [in 2018] in terms of investment and jobs," Ms Collard said.
"With states such as Queensland providing incentives to build solar farms in locations with some of the best sunshine in the world, solar is leading the new resources boom right now."
The increasing scale of the industry globally will also likely keep the pressure on prices.
Solar energy costs will fall about 35 per cent for every doubling of installed capacity between 2010 and 2020, according to a report released over the weekend by the International Renewable Energy Agency.
That pace is faster than the 21 per cent rate forecast for onshore wind and 14 per cent for offshore wind over the period, the report said.
The report found the global levelised cost of electricity for onshore wind now sits at US 6 cents (AUD 7.6 cents) a kilowatt hour, with solar energy at US 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
Fossil fuel energy costs for new plant typically range between US 5 and 17 cents per kilowatt hour.

Links

• Battery charge sends a jolt through energy markets
• Near-record hot 2017, heat burst point to warming world
• Green Energy Markets
• Surging Power Bills Spark Rush for Household Solar in Australia
• Why Energy-Rich Australia Suffers the World’s Priciest Power
• Why Resource-Rich Australia Can't Keep Lights On: QuickTake Q&A
• Lights Out? Now Australia's Got a Coal Shortage
• Happiness is a post-solar electricity bill (Farewell to 2017)
• Private schools go big on solar – a lesson in ethics and good business
• Queensland opens rooftop solar market to low-income and rental households

1.5 C Climate Goal 'Very Unlikely' But Doable: Draft UN Report

Agence France Presse

With only a single degree Celsius of warming so far, our planet is already coping with a crescendo of climate impacts including deadly droughts, erratic rainfall, and storm surges engorged by rising seas

dpa/AFP/File / Oliver Berg

The Paris Agreement goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius will slip beyond reach unless nations act now to slash carbon pollution, curb energy demand, and suck CO2 from the air, according to a draft UN report.
Without such efforts, "holding warming to 1.5 C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the 21st century [is] extremely unlikely," said the 1,000-page report, prepared by hundreds of scientists.
"There is a very high risk that under current emissions trajectories, and current national pledges, global warming will exceed 1.5 C above preindustrial levels."
On current trends, Earth's thermometer will cross that threshold in the 2040s, said the report.
The greenhouse gas emissions guaranteeing that outcome will have been released within 10 to 15 years.
Under any scenario, there is no model that projects a 66-percent-or-better chance of holding global warming below 1.5 C, the synthesis of recent scientific studies concluded.
With only a single degree Celsius of warming so far, our planet is already coping with a crescendo of climate impacts including deadly droughts, erratic rainfall, and storm surges engorged by rising seas.
The landmark, 197-nation climate treaty, inked in 2015, calls for limiting global warming to "well under" 2 C, and "pursuing efforts" for the 1.5 C cap.
All countries made voluntary carbon-cutting pledges, running out to 2030.
At the same time, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) was mandated to prepare a special 1.5 C report covering impacts and feasibility.
The final version, vetted by governments, will be unveiled in October.

Moral hazard
Pressure for the lower temperature target and the report came from nations whose fate could turn on the half-degree difference between a 1.5 C and 2 C world.
Rising seas, for example, threaten the existence of small island states and could displace tens of millions in Bangladesh, Vietnam and other counties with densely populated river deltas.
"There is a tipping point on sea level rise" -- driven mainly by melting icesheets on Greenland and Antarctica -- "somewhere between 1.5 C and 2 C," said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
"With 2C, according to our models, sea level will just keep on rising," he told AFP.

A pregnant Somali woman sits by a tree trunk outside Dadaab. Photo: AP

The pathways that do exist for stabilising at 1.5 C would require breaching that threshold and then dialling down Earth's surface temperature by drawing CO2 out of the atmosphere and then using if for fuel or storing it underground.
None of technologies that do this exist today on an industrial scale, and some experts fear the long-shot 1.5 C target could pose problems of its own.
"Any scenario for 1.5 C stabilisation likely requires a dubious dependence on 'negative emissions' technologies, whereas 2 C stabilisation is still possible without that," said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.
The lure of silver-bullet fixes, he and others point out, could weaken resolve to reduce greenhouse emissions at their source -- an unintended side-effect known as "moral hazard".
Ensuring even a 50/50 chance of a 1.5 C world would require the equivalent of a climate change Marshall Plan, the study concluded.

Lifestyle changes
By 2050, carbon dioxide emissions would need to fall to "net" zero, meaning that any CO2 released into the air would have to be offset. Renewable energy sources -- mainly solar and wind -- would by then be the dominant energy source, and burning coal a distant memory.
Other planet-warming gases such as methane and HFCs would also have to be drastically reduced.
"Rapid and large-scale behaviour and lifestyle changes," such as a shift away from eating meat, will also be essential, the report said.
"We don’t have any margin for less than total commitment," said Chris Field, Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment in California and a former co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group II.
"Tackling climate is making serious investments more than making exactly the right mix of investments."
IPCC officials and scientists cautioned that the report -- which has already gone through three rounds of editing by scientists -- is bound to change before it is approved by governments at a meeting in October.
"Drafts are collective works-in-progress that do not necessarily represent the IPCC's final assessment," said IPCC spokesman Jonathan Lynn.
The current review cycle is the first in which government officials will submit comments.
"The final approval process is a dialogue between governments -- which have requested and will use the report -- and the scientists who have written it," he told AFP.

Links

• ‘There is a tipping point’: UN warns climate change goals laid out in Paris accord are almost out of reach
• Leaked Draft Of Landmark Climate Change Report Pours Cold Water On 1.5°C Goal
• Warming set to breach Paris accord's toughest limit by mid century: draft
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Global Warming of 1.5 °C
• For Coastal Communities, the 1.5C Climate Goal Is a Matter of Life or Death
• Study Shows Earth is Already in a Dire Warming Crisis
• By 2040, Hundreds of Millions May Be Affected By River Floods Across the World
• Marine Food Webs Are on the Brink of Collapse Because of Climate Change

How Can We Best Communicate The Impacts Of Climate Change?

Reuters - Sarah Hurtes*

How can we talk about climate without sending people into a downward spiral of depression?

A man walks through floods waters and onto the main road after surveying his property which was hit by Hurricane Harvey in Rockport, Texas, U.S. August 26, 2017. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

Between 2000 and 2016, the number of vulnerable people exposed to heat wave events has increased by approximately 125 million. This is set to get worse. Dengue fever has doubled every decade since 1990, reaching 50 to 100 million infections annually, in part because of climate change.
As I read the Lancet Countdown 2017 report sitting at my desk, with the task of having to help communicate its findings to the wider public, I can only think of one thing: basically, we're screwed. So how should I tackle my job as a so-called climate communicator, without sending those who care enough to read about this, into a downward spiral of depression?
It’s a problem many of us are struggling with. An article published in New York Magazine in the summer of 2017 entitled The Uninhabitable Earth, began: “Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: what climate change could wreck - sooner than you think”. It became last year's most widely shared article on climate change, with over 800,000 shares on social media.
Some of my friends, who never once engaged on this topic, posted it on their Facebook channel, their post was infused with panicked comments echoing my initial reaction to the Lancet Countdown report. This makes us climate communicators ask: How effective is such a piece of text in communicating climate change? It makes the issue feel more important, but on its own, it paralyses, leaving us feeling overwhelmed, disempowered.
Additionally, each and every one of us have a limited amount of concern to go round. I for one can’t think of a birthday present for my dad. For some such concerns might extend to military threats, access to contraception, or other severe daily problems that take precedence in comparison to the distant humming buzz of climate change.
This is just human nature - but climate communicators have often exacerbated the problem by focusing on events that are going to happen a long way into the future and geographically far away. When looking at NASA´s forecasts, with warnings about the Arctic Ocean likely to become ice free in the summer before mid-century, I feel concerned, but not exactly worried.
I was particularly worried when I moved to Germany, which had recently been shaken by unusual storms and flooding. That storm in Berlin which nearly smashed my window with my own plant, or those floods in the nearby area where my family lives, are a clear reality check of what's to come as extreme weather becomes the norm.
Besides, I'm only just beginning to get the extent to which extreme weather has immediate health impacts: drowning, getting injured by hitting things, catching illnesses from contaminated water and food, or mess with my own mental well-being. Such information about the potential health impacts of climate change creates a powerful way in to talking about climate change.
Health professionals are increasingly being called upon to be champions in this area, encouraged to speak out to their own patients and local policymakers on the health dangers of climate change such as asthma, allergies and the spread of certain diseases.
Organisations such as the Global Climate and Health Alliance, Health and Environment Alliance or Health Care Without Harm are important bodies that already engage with the public around such issues.
An important part of their work, however, is also to show that many of the steps we take to combat climate change have immediate health benefits. The massive increase in wind and solar energy helped prevent the premature deaths of up to 12,700 people over a nine-year period in the United States.
Despite all the interesting research out there, tweaks to language can only do so much. Even when applying the above solutions to making climate change appear relevant and urgent, it might be that the person you’re talking to just doesn't care. This is why the social science of human behaviour and communication is just as important as the science of climate change and sustainability.
In a recent book, communication experts Adam Corner and Jamie Clarke argue that using the right language is about starting a productive dialogue, not winning an argument. Using messages and telling stories that speak to people’s values.
For example in the United States, research suggests the values of ingenuity, independence, prosperity and leadership matter a great deal, while in India, togetherness, respect for nature and self-reliance are more important. Research also shows that many people intrinsically care about the wellbeing of others and the environment.
As for people like Trump, perhaps our only chance is to show them a recent report that made me laugh out loud in a meeting - “Climate Change: Good for sex, bad for sperm” - about a working paper which shows that 80 degree Fahrenheit days correspond to lowered birth rates nine months later.

*Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Links

• Talking Climate: From Research to Practice in Public Engagement
• Improving Public Engagement With Climate Change
• Five Graphics To Start A Conversation About Climate Change
• Communicating climate change: Focus on the framing, not just the facts
• What is Climate Change Communication?
• Australian Psychological Society : Climate change communication
• 12 tools for communicating climate change more effectively