Shareholders Target QBE Over Climate Change 'Failure'

Fairfax - Ruth Williams

QBE Insurance Group has become the latest big listed company to be hit with a demand for more transparency about potential risks it faces from climate change, amid calls by a prominent company director for boards to consider "uncomfortable questions" on the issue.
Melbourne NGO Market Forces, which last year filed similar resolutions targeting Santos, Oil Search and Origin Energy, has this time teamed up with the $10 billion Local Government Super to call for more disclosure of climate risks by the insurer.

QBE has been hit with a shareholder resolution on climate risk. Photo: Fairfax

The two groups have filed a shareholder resolution - to be voted on by investors at the QBE AGM in May - asking the company to disclose climate risks using a newly-minted set of rules endorsed by major companies and investors around the world.
LGS, which last year voted in favour of several Australian shareholder resolutions related to environmental or social issues, said climate change risks posed "very significant investment issues for the insurance industry, and these have been felt by QBE in recent years".
Market Forces said the fact that mainstream fund LSG had co-filed the resolution marked a "hardening of investor attitudes towards companies failing to effectively manage climate risk".
t said QBE had so far made "sub-standard" disclosure on the issue and had "failed" to make a commitment to improve.

The matters raised in the resolutions proposed by Market Forces and Local Government Super are important for QBE. QBE spokesman

QBE said it welcomed the dialogue and would be preparing its response to the resolution in coming weeks.
“It’s widely recognised that a changing climate is giving rise to important issues across the insurance sector," a spokesman said. "Indeed we already have a program of sustainability-related work underway across our business.
"In this context, the matters raised in the resolutions proposed by Market Forces and Local Government Super are important for QBE and its shareholders and we welcome the dialogue."

Risky business
The risks posed by climate change to the insurance industry - and the wider financial system - were highlighted by Bank of England governor Mark Carney in a landmark 2015 speech, in which he noted that the number of registered weather-related loss events had tripled since the 1980s - and that inflation-adjusted insurance losses from those events had surged from an annual average of about $US10 billion in the 1980s to about $US50 billion during the past decade.
Climate change risk among listed companies was a recurring topic at the Australian Institute of Company Directors conference in Melbourne on Thursday, where prominent director Sam Mostyn said it was among the difficult conversations that some boards had not, until recently, been having.
In a major speech at the conference, she said regulators - including the Bank of England's Carney and senior figures at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority - had been asking "uncomfortable questions" that had opened up "a new conversation about director responsibilities presented by climate-related financial risks".

Sam Mostyn says boards must consider climate change risks. Photo: Justin McManus

"If you're not thinking about climate-related risks and you're sitting in a regulated company you're running a risk," said Ms Mostyn, who sits on boards including Virgin Australia, Transurban and Mirvac. "We wouldn't need regulators to tell us this if the right conversations had been happening inside boardrooms, we'd be on to it already."
A 2016 opinion written by Noel Hutley SC found that directors risked breaching their statutory duties if they failed to consider and disclose foreseeable climate-related risks. Meanwhile, institutional investors are becoming increasingly vocal on climate change issues, especially in pushing for companies to boost their disclosure of climate risk along the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures lines.

Resolving the matter
Passive investment giant BlackRock was among those supporting climate change-related shareholder resolutions at US companies ExxonMobil and Occidental last year.
But BlackRock has not backed Australian climate-related resolutions, with its head of investment stewardship in Asia Pacific, Pru Bennett, telling the AICD conference on Thursday that its own engagement with companies had been followed by "some quite remarkable disclosures and changes in attitude" on the issue.
She said the workload created by shareholder proposals lodged by small groups of investors was "disproportionate" for boards.
Prominent director Ziggy Switkowski, during the same session, said climate change was one of several "important risks and stresses" being faced by companies, also listing political risks, technological shifts and "risks associated with activism and the reinforcement of that through social media".
He said climate risk should be acknowledged and described, but both he and Ms Bennett rejected suggestions that climate disclosure should be mandated.

Links

• None Of Our Insurers Are Keeping Pace With Climate Change
• Climate Change Driving More Risks Than Ever Before
• Insurers Paid Out $50bn For Natural Disaster Claims In 2016
• Australia Faces Rising Perils From Climate Change, Earthquakes: Munich Re Report
• Big investors backed shareholder campaigns on climate, human rights

Weather Alert

ABC - Four Corners

Weather Alert Weather Alert goes to air on Monday 5th March at 8.30pm. It is replayed on Tuesday 6th March at 1.00pm and Wednesday 7th at 11.20pm. It can also be seen on ABC NEWS channel on Saturday at 8.10pm AEDT, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.

How Australia's warming climate is changing the way we live and work.

"This is very 'now'. This isn't a future problem which is 10 or 20 or 30 years (away)."
Climate Risk Expert

Across Australia, farmers, small businesses, government planners and major corporations have stopped waiting for politicians to decide whether climate change is real. They're acting now.

"That debate can rage around us. If I say to my customers, 'Don't worry, in 200 years it will all be okay.' That's not going to cut it."
CEO

Mounting evidence suggests our changing climate is having an impact on everything - from what we grow, eat and drink, to house prices and the cost of insurance.

"If you own a home in one of those areas and you try to sell it, you may find that the buyer is saying, 'Well, I'm not going to be able to insure it.'... Or even, 'I can't even get a mortgage on this house because the bank is saying, 'Well, we don't want the high-risk properties on our books.'"
Climate Risk Expert

Four Corners has travelled from coast to coast to chart how Australians are adapting to the new weather challenges.

"The temperatures are more erratic. We seem to get frosts in the middle of summer, we've had frosts nearly on Christmas day. We're getting hot, dry weather in the middle of winter."
Cattle farmer
"We were probably sceptics... but when we saw those 10 years of drought and the impact it was having on our business... our board decided that we needed to make some significant changes."
Leading wine maker

From farm kitchens to the board rooms of our major cities, people are changing the way they do business.

"It is clear that directors do have duties to take climate risk into account as a foreseeable financial risk, and a failure to do so may expose them to liability for a breach of their duty of due care and diligence."
Corporate risk adviser

Emergency services and state health departments too, have had to significantly alter the way they operate in the face of increasing "extreme" weather.

"It is a significant hazard for us as emergency management agencies. We need to plan and prepare for it because we can get a significant number of people who will end up being very unwell."
Director of Emergency Management

This is a story that leaves the politics behind and shows what the challenges are for many people across Australia in the face of this 'new normal'.

Links

• TV Networks Did A Really Crap Job Reporting On Climate Change Last Year
• At Climate Feedback, Scientists Encourage Better Science Reporting. But Who Is Listening?
• Analysis: The Climate Papers Most Featured In The Media In 2017
• Most Popular Climate Change Stories Of 2017 Reviewed By Scientists

Why Some Conservatives Are Blind To Climate Change

The Conversation - Jiaying Zhao | Jennifer Whitman | Rebecca M. Todd

Homes are surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Spring, Texas on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

Imagine this: A young professional couple at a party mentions they’re thinking of buying a home in a popular waterfront neighbourhood that scientists have found is vulnerable to coastal flooding.
That flood risk is made extra clear by murals in the neighbourhood marking the predicted water level rise. What’s more, media headlines have warned about sea level rise daily during the past week.
So, what gives? Can the young couple just not see the evidence in front of them?
In recent years, we have been exposed to an abundance of information about climate change. This often takes the form of news articles about carbon emissions and the hurricanes, floods and forest fires bolstered by climate change.
Despite the strong evidence that human activities are contributing to climate change, a small minority of the public disagrees with the scientific consensus.
Do you see what I see?
In the face of the evidence, how can we explain this division?
As psychology researchers, we wondered whether some people are just blind to cues of climate risk.
When we’re confronted by visually crowded settings, we tend to notice emotional words and tune out others. For example, if you were presented a series of words appearing one after another in quick succession — 10 words per second — you would struggle to name all of them. But you would be more likely to catch a word like “danger” than a neutral one.
We set up exactly that kind of scenario in our study. We recruited university students, as well as people in shopping malls in the Vancouver area and in Kamloops, B.C. Then we showed each of them a rapid sequence of words and asked them to pick out two targets, such as a set of digits (555555555) and a word in green font, in the sequence.
Due to limits in our visual system, once the first target has appeared, people are unable to “see” the second target if it appears too soon after the first. This phenomenon is called the attentional blink. It’s as if the mind blinks after the first target, preventing you from seeing the second.
But things change when emotional words are used. Previous research has shown that if the second target is emotionally arousing, then people are better able to see it than if it is neutral — compare the words murder and keyboard, for example.

Smoke rises behind a levelled apartment complex as a wildfire burns in Ventura, Calif. in December 2017. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

 When we modified the test to measure people’s attention to climate change, we found people who are concerned about climate change are better at seeing climate-related words, such as carbon, right after the first target than those who are less concerned.
We also asked participants about their political orientation, income, education, religion, profession, experience with natural disasters and whether they owned a home near sea level.
When we analyzed the data, we found a pattern: Conservatives who were less concerned about climate change were less likely to see climate-related words than liberals who were worried about the issue.
In short, conservatives showed climate change blindness.

Targeted communication
Now that we know people’s political orientation affects their visual attention to climate change, this raises a possible feedback loop, where concerned liberals readily tune their attention to news headlines about climate change and become even more concerned.
But unconcerned conservatives may be more blind to the same headlines about climate change and therefore become more entrenched in their disbelief.
The visual blindness can further deepen the denial of the real risks of climate change such as flooding, hurricanes, drought and heatwaves, and consequently a lack of action to mitigate climate change.
If we’re to be successful communicating the risks of climate change to conservatives, we may need to go about it in a different way. Communications about climate change must tailor the climate-related information to the audience, especially those who are conservative or unconcerned.
We can do this by using messages that align with people’s political ideologies and personal values.
For example, we can frame climate change action as protecting our nation against climate catastrophes, advancing economic and technological development and creating a more caring and considerate society, which is an effective message to engage climate deniers. Framing environmentalism as a form of patriotism can be successful, particularly if the appeal is seen as coming from one’s in-group.
It’s always hard to get someone’s attention, but if the messaging is in line with their personal values and motivations, they will take notice.

Links

• For Earth Day, here’s how Americans view environmental issues
• Affective influences on the attentional dynamics supporting awareness
• Political orientation and climate concern shape visual attention to climate change
• Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers
• Think tank’s talking points deepen the divide over climate change
• Growing inequality in the US is bad news for climate change
• Caribbean residents see climate change as a severe threat but most in US don’t — here’s why
• Is lagging on climate change a political liability?

Arctic Warming: Scientists Alarmed By 'Crazy' Temperature Rises

The Guardian - Jonathan Watts

Record warmth in the Arctic this month could yet prove to be a freak occurrence, but experts warn the warming event is unprecedented

‘This is an anomaly among anomalies’: temperatures in parts of the Arctic have recently risen well above average. Photograph: Ralph Lee Hopkins/National Geographic/Getty Creative/Getty Images

An alarming heatwave in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.
Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.
The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month. Greenland has already experienced 61 hours above freezing in 2018 - more than three times as many hours as in any previous year.
Seasoned observers have described what is happening as “crazy,” “weird,” and “simply shocking”.
“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The Arctic has always been regarded as a bellwether because of the vicious circle that amplify human-caused warming in that particular region. And it is sending out a clear warning.”

Guardian graphic Source: Danish Meteorological Institute. Data recorded north of the 80th northern parallel

Although most of the media headlines in recent days have focused on Europe’s unusually cold weather in a jolly tone, the concern is that this is not so much a reassuring return to winters as normal, but rather a displacement of what ought to be happening farther north.
At the world’s most northerly land weather station - Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of Greenland – recent temperatures have been, at times, warmer than London and Zurich, which are thousands of miles to the south. Although the recent peak of 6.1C on Sunday was not quite a record, but on the previous two occasions (2011 and 2017) the highs lasted just a few hours before returning closer to the historical average. Last week there were 10 days above freezing for at least part of the day at this weather station, just 440 miles from the north pole.
“Spikes in temperature are part of the normal weather patterns – what has been unusual about this event is that it has persisted for so long and that it has been so warm,” said Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute. “Going back to the late 1950s at least we have never seen such high temperatures in the high Arctic.”

Melting ice on the Chilkat river near Haines, Alaska, in winter. Photograph: Michele Cornelius/Alamy

The cause and significance of this sharp uptick are now under scrutiny. Temperatures often fluctuate in the Arctic due to the strength or weakness of the polar vortex, the circle of winds – including the jetstream – that help to deflect warmer air masses and keep the region cool. As this natural force field fluctuates, there have been many previous temperature spikes, which make historical charts of Arctic winter weather resemble an electrocardiogram.
But the heat peaks are becoming more frequent and lasting longer – never more so than this year. “In 50 years of Arctic reconstructions, the current warming event is both the most intense and one of the longest-lived warming events ever observed during winter,” said Robert Rohde, lead scientist of Berkeley Earth, a non-profit organisation dedicated to climate science.
The question now is whether this signals a weakening or collapse of the polar vortex, the circle of strong winds that keep the Arctic cold by deflecting other air masses. The vortex depends on the temperature difference between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, but that gap is shrinking because the pole is warming faster than anywhere on Earth. While average temperatures have increased by about 1C, the warming at the pole – closer to 3C – is melting the ice mass. According to Nasa, Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13.2% per decade, leaving more open water and higher temperatures.
Some scientists speak of a hypothesis known as “warm Arctic, cold continents” as the polar vortex becomes less stable - sucking in more warm air and expelling more cold fronts, such as those currently being experienced in the UK and northern Europe. Rohde notes that this theory remains controversial and is not evident in all climate models, but this year’s temperature patterns have been consistent with that forecast.
Longer term, Rohde expects more variation. “As we rapidly warm the Arctic, we can expect that future years will bring us even more examples of unprecedented weather.”

Sea ice off Russia. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Jesper Theilgaard, a meteorologist with 40 years’ experience and founder of website Climate Dissemination, said the recent trends are outside previous warming events. “No doubt these warming events bring trouble to the people and the nature. Shifting rain and snow – melt and frost make the surface icy and therefore difficult for animals to find anything to eat. Living conditions in such shifting weather types are very difficult.”
Others caution that it is premature to see this as a major shift away from forecasts. “The current excursions of 20C or more above average experienced in the Arctic are almost certainly mostly due to natural variability,” said Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth. “While they have been boosted by the underlying warming trend, we don’t have any strong evidence that the factors driving short-term Arctic variability will increase in a warming world. If anything, climate models suggest the opposite is true, that high-latitude winters will be slightly less variable as the world warms.”
Although it is too soon to know whether overall projections for Arctic warming should be changed, the recent temperatures add to uncertainty and raises the possibility of knock-on effects accelerating climate change.
“This is too short-term an excursion to say whether or not it changes the overall projections for Arctic warming,” says Mann. “But it suggests that we may be underestimating the tendency for short-term extreme warming events in the Arctic. And those initial warming events can trigger even greater warming because of the ‘feedback loops’ associated with the melting of ice and the potential release of methane (a very strong greenhouse gas).”

Links

• Arctic ice melt 'already affecting weather patterns where you live right now'
• Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level
• 'Extraordinarily hot' Arctic temperatures alarm scientists
• Arctic sea ice shrinks to second lowest level ever recorded
• Arctic sea ice fell to record low for May
• Arctic sea ice extent hits record low for winter maximum
• Rapid Arctic thawing could be economic timebomb, scientists say
• Summer storm spins over the Arctic - big picture

Cities Urged To Work With Scientists On Climate Change

ANU - Newsroom

Tianjin, China. Image credit: Jakob Montraslo

An urban environment expert at ANU has warned that city councils acting alone to address climate change, in the absence of an evidence-based systems approach, can have unintended consequences.
Professor Xuemei Bai from ANU and other urban experts from around the world identified six research priorities for cities and climate change in a Nature comment piece.
They also called for a stronger collaboration between scientists, urban policy makers and practitioners, ahead of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Cities and Climate Change Science Conference in Canada next week. "Cities are open, complex, dynamic systems with a global reach," said Professor Bai, an urban environment and human ecology expert at the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society.
"Well-intended local actions can displace issues to other sectors or into the future. One city's crack-down on energy-intensive production might shift the problem to less-regulated regions, with no net effect on global emissions."

Well-intended local actions can displace issues to other sectors or into the future.

The Conference aims to develop a shared global research agenda on cities and climate change, bringing together over 700 researchers, policy makers and practitioners from more than 80 countries.
Professor Bai said cities were increasingly feeling the effects of extreme weather.
"Last year, more than 1,000 people died and 45 million people lost homes, livelihoods and services when severe floods hit Southeast Asian cities," she said.
"By 2030, millions of people and trillions of dollars of infrastructure globally will be at risk from flooding, drought, wildfires and other natural disasters."

The coastal city of San Juan in Puerto Rico was flooded after Hurricane Maria hit in September 2017. Credit: Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo/The Washington Post/Getty

Professor Bai said researchers, policymakers and city authorities needed to work more closely together to improve how cities mitigate and adapt to climate change.
"A lack of long-term studies of urban climates and their impacts makes it hard for city officials to plan decades ahead, so science needs to have a stronger role in urban policy and practice," Professor Bai said.
"A systems approach is needed to deliver on global climate change as well as the United Nations' New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals. More needs to be known about interactions, trade-offs and synergies between urban processes and their impacts elsewhere."
Professor Bai said scientific understanding of interactions between cities and climate needed to be improved.
"Climate processes are complex - more so in cities. Urban air pollution is causing heavier rainfall as fine particles influence clouds that, in turn, exacerbates flooding in cities," she said.
"We need to know how urban physical characteristics, building materials and human activities affect atmospheric circulation, heat and light radiation, urban energy and water budgets." 

Professor Bai said cities were at the forefront of addressing these challenges, with many cities experimenting with innovative measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
"Successful practices need to be upscaled. It is important that we identify, analyse and build transferable knowledge that can help cities to learn from the front runners," she said.
Professor Bai and her co-authors recommended that city councils should establish scientific advisory boards, chaired by a chief science adviser.
"These would enhance the profile of science, build capacity and leadership, and provide a point of contact," she said.

Links

• Six research priorities for cities and climate change
• The wooden skyscrapers that could help to cool the planet
• Give cities a seat at the top table
• Where to put the next billion people
• Special: A New Urban Agenda

Need To Explain To People What Climate Change Means In Daily Life: UN Environ Chief

Times of India - Press Trust of India

Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Erik Solheim.

NEW DELHI: United Nations environment chief Erik Solheim has said spouting "doom and gloom" while talking about climate change will not work and stressed that there was a need to present it in a "simpler" language that explains to people what it really means for them in their daily lives.
He also noted that plastic pollution is similar to climate change and if steps are not taken to curb it now, reversing it will be "almost impossible".
As far as India is concerned, he said, it views environmental issues very much as a moral obligation and has got what it takes to lead the world into this change.
Solheim said a lot of people find the topic of climate change "boring".
"The problem with climate change is that it's a long-term phenomenon involving some quite complex science. It does not surprise me that a lot of people find the topic boring, and frankly we are never going to bore people into action. And if we continue to spout doom-and-gloom, then people just switch off," he said.
He said that when the issue of climate change is discussed mostly the focus has been on the problem and the risks and that needed to change. "People want to see solutions, and to understand how they can contribute. It is time for a global mass movement for the environment, one that has never been seen before."
"For this to happen, we have to speak in a different language that is simpler and breaks down the science to explain to people what climate change really means for them, in their daily lives, here and now," the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) told PTI.
"We have to make it a dinner table conversation," he said, "in other words, we need to help people connect with this issue in a way that makes it personal, and not abstract."
It could be about things like house prices, the cost of insurance policies, the impact on food prices or the link to mass migration, he said.
On the issue of plastic pollution, he said it has been caused by "laziness and a failure" of imagination and innovation which needs to change. He said an astounding amount of plastic is produced every year, much of which is often used for a few seconds and discarded.
"Plastic pollution is similar to climate change. If we don't step on the brakes now, it will be almost impossible to reverse."
He pointed out that this year an estimated 360 million tonnes of plastic will be produced and one-third of this will be non-recyclable.
"So imagine where this plastic is going. It is in our oceans and water bodies. It is in landfills and on our beaches. This year World Environment Day will bring the focus on plastic pollution, calling on people all over the world to 'refuse what you cannot re-use'," he said.
Tackling plastic pollution requires one to make a big push on three fronts, he said.
Firstly, people need to know that there are many simple steps they can take to reduce their own plastic footprint like "do we really need straws or apples wrapped in copious amounts of plastic? We don't and we can change that."
"Second, 40 per cent of used plastic currently goes to landfill, when it could serve countless other uses. We need to recycle and re-use whatever we can. Thirdly, and this is where business comes in, we need to look at the whole life of a product and our consumption and trade systems."
"It is no longer possible for us to design products that are thrown away immediately after use," he said. "We need to re-think designs...and there are tremendous opportunities for businesses here."

Solheim was in India for a week where among others, he signed a letter of intent on India hosting the World Environment Day on June 5.
Talking about efforts being made in India in this direction, he expressed his delight that the country is the global host of World Environment Day 2018 and will be leading the push to save the oceans and the planet.
"India has very high rates of recycling, and in recent years, some of the biggest citizen action movements have happened in this country- for example, the Versova beach clean up in Mumbai," he said.
"So India has what it takes to lead the world into this change," he said.
"It is a booming economy with the innovation and business expertise to change the way we make and use products. And it is a country that views environmental issues very much as a moral obligation, to give back to people, nature and the world," he added.

Links

• United Nations Environment Programme
• How Can We Best Communicate The Impacts Of Climate Change?
• Which Works Better: Climate Fear, Or Climate Hope? Well, It's Complicated
• Five Graphics To Start A Conversation About Climate Change

The Art Of Climate Change Gallery 4: What Can We Do To Address Climate Change?

Environmental Graphiti

Environmental Graphiti® is a venture that uses art to dramatize the critical science of climate change in an effort to expand public awareness of this urgent issue.
ART makes the science more accessible. Science makes the art more meaningful. Together they tell the story of climate change in a unique and powerful way.
The art in this series is based on the compelling data that describes the various factors that have contributed to climate change over the last two hundred years. Click on image title to see graphic data source.

Gallery 4: What Can We Do To Address Climate Change?

Animal Vs Plant-Based Foods - Impact On Resources

Decreasing the amount of meat we eat, especially red meat, could cut in half the per capita greenhouse gas emissions relating to agriculture, help avoid further deforestation and reduce the amount of water used for agricultural purposes. This could have a significant effect - 80% of the water used in the U.S. is for agricultural purposes and the amount required for meat production is significantly more than that used for plant production. LARGE IMAGE

U.S. Electric Vehicle Sales By Model

Since 2011 sales of electric vehicles have steadily increased, except for a dip in 2015 due to low gas prices. The record-breaking growth of 2016 is expected to continue into 2017. The number of car manufacturers offering electric vehicles has also increased significantly over this measurement period. LARGE IMAGE

Falling Costs For Clean Energy Technologies

In 2015 the US Dept of Energy updated its "Revolution Now" report which highlights "four transformational technologies:  land-based wind power, silicon photovoltaic (PV) solar modules, light-emitting diodes (LEDS) and electric vehicles (EVs)."  The report shows how "dramatic reductions in cost are driving a surge in consumer, industrial and commercial adoption for these clean energy technologies..." LARGE IMAGE

Global Subsidies - Fossil Fuels Vs Renewables

Global fossil fuel subsidies totaled $544 billion in 2012, compared to only $101 billion for renewables. The International Monetary Fund estimates fossil fuel subsidies for 2015 to be $5.3 trillion - an amount equal to 6.5% of global GDP. More than 40% of this represents subsidies for coal, the most environmentally damaging of all fossil fuels. Although not good news on its face, the disproportionate funding for fossil fuels represents a tremendous opportunity to shift funding to renewable energy without an overall increase in costs. LARGE IMAGE

Wasted Food

When considered on a weight basis, about a third of our planet’s food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. The green house gas emissions attributable to the production, distribution, and disposal of this food are so great that, if considered to be its own “country”, it would be the third-largest emitter, after China and the United States. The value of this lost food on a global basis is estimated to be over $900 billion annually. Reducing this waste would be a huge victory for the environment and for the global economy. LARGE IMAGE

66%

According to a 2015 poll conducted by the New York Times, Stanford University and the non partisan environmental research group, Resources for the Future, 66% of Americans would be more likely to vote for a candidate that says:  “Global warming has been happening and we need to stop the damage. It’s time to use new forms of domestic renewable energy and manufacture cars and appliances that use less gas and electricity.” LARGE IMAGE

Green Jobs - By The Numbers

This digital painting uses a random selection of statistics about "green jobs" to create the background texture of the piece.  Some of the numbers used are: "In 2015 there were 2.5 million green jobs in the US.""(E)nergy efficient retrofits in the United States could create more than 3.3 million cumulative job years of employment." "Employment in electric power generation now totals 860,869 jobs, up 13%." "In embracing wind power, Texas created nearly 25,000 jobs." "LEED certified buildings drive 3.3 million US jobs...and are expected to generate $190.3 billion in labor earnings in 2017." "Solar technologies employ almost 375,000 workers, or 43 percent of the electric power generation work force.  (Coal, by contrast accounts for about 86,000 workers.)" LARGE IMAGE

Sources Of U.S. Non-Nuclear Renewable Electricity

Non-nuclear source renewable energy in the United States has increased from 2,978 trillion Btu in 1950 to 9,298 in 2013. LARGE IMAGE

Projected Share Of Renewable Electricity Generation

The percentage of total electricity generation from renewable energy sources in the U.S. is projected to grow from 13% (in 2013) to as much as 22% in 2040. However, the anticipated share of electricity generation is significantly affected by various factors, particularly the future price and volume of available oil and gas resources. LARGE IMAGE

ASAP

The Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 countries in December 2015, recognizes that “…climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet…” and emphasizes “…the need for urgency in addressing climate change…” Signatory nations pledged to avoid the most catastrophic impacts by keeping post-industrial age warming to 2 degrees Celsius or below, with a goal of 1.5 degrees, if possible. Certain climate models predict that if carbon emissions continue at current levels, the earth will exceed the 2 degrees Celsius threshold before the middle of this century. “Most scientists concur that two degrees C of warming …would harm all sectors of civilization—food, water, health, land, national security, energy and economic prosperity.” Michael E. Mann, “Earth Will Cross the Climate Danger Threshold by 2036”, Scientific American, April 1, 2014. LARGE IMAGE

The Politics Of Climate Change

According to PRRI, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, "... Democrats are three times as likely as Republicans to say the earth is warming and that humans are to blame." Climate change affects all of us, regardless of political affiliation. If we each work to remove the political lens through which we view the science, we can begin to address this urgent issue, together. LARGE IMAGE

Economic Damage From Temperature Increase

The cost of the struggle against climate change is expected to rise with the expected rise in global temperature. A rapid and energized response over the next few decades, could reduce that cost by half. LARGE IMAGE

The Duck Chart

First published by CAISO*  in 2013, the “Duck Chart” illustrates the challenge of “net load” – the difference between forecasted demand and expected electricity production from variable generation resources like solar and wind. “In certain times of the year, these curves produce a 'belly' appearance in the mid-afternoon that quickly ramps up to produce an 'arch' similar to the neck of a duck—hence the industry moniker of “The Duck Chart”. The risk of over-generation can be mitigated in various ways, including: increasing demand by expanding service to undersupplied areas; offering consumers incentives to use energy during parts of the day when supply is highest; improvidng efficiency ofenergy storage; and increasing power plant flextibility to respond more quickly to changing conditions.(*California Independent System Operator Corporation) LARGE IMAGE

97% Consensus

"Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position." https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ Accessed Feb 1, 2018 LARGE IMAGE

No Carbon Electricity Generation Share - Europe And US

 European countries have substantially increased no-carbon generation since 2002 by adding renewables to the energy source mix. Of the 24 countries listed in the chart, 13 generate at least 50%, 18 generate at least 33%, and the United States generates just over 30%, of energy from no-carbon sources. LARGE IMAGE

Reforestation

Tree planting on previously forested sites (reforestation) or on sites not previously forested (aforestation) is one of the carbon offset strategies that help fight climate change. Trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in biomass. Under the terms of the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests, world leaders - government, business and NGOs - pledged on a voluntary basis to cut deforestation in half by 2020, end it by 2030, and restore an area of forest and cropland larger in size than India. LARGE IMAGE

Fiscal And Environmental Gain From Removing Subsidies

According to the International Monetary fund, “The fiscal, environmental, and welfare impacts of energy subsidy reform are potentially enormous. Eliminating post-tax subsidies in 2015 could raise government revenue by $2.9 trillion (3.6 percent of global GDP), cut global CO2 emissions by more than 20 percent, and cut pre-mature air pollution deaths by more than half. After allowing for the higher energy costs faced by consumers, this action would raise global economic welfare by $1.8 trillion (2.2 percent of global GDP).” LARGE IMAGE

Links

• The Art Of Climate Change Gallery 1: Why Is Our Climate Changing?
• The Art Of Climate Change Gallery 2: How Is Climate Change Affecting Our World?
• The Art Of Climate Change Gallery 3: Who Is At Risk?