Three Reasons Why Coal Power Won’t Make A Comeback In Australia

RenewEconomy - Sophie Vorrath

While the vast majority of Australia’s energy industry gets on with the shift to renewables, the federal government continues to tie itself in knots over the future of coal-fired power.
Beholden to a powerful fossil fuel lobby, and hamstrung by a number of die-hard coal fans within its own party ranks, the Turnbull government refuses to let go of the notion that the nation’s ageing coal fleet should somehow be preserved.
It even believes  that new “clean” coal plants might be built to support the northern reaches of the National Electricity Market.
But this is not the reality. And you don’t have to take our word for it.
Rather, take it from Chloe Munro – an energy market expert whose extensive industry experience ranges from helping to “lovingly craft” the NEM more than 20 years ago, to chair of the Clean Energy Regulator, to recently advising the Finkel Energy Review, to independent chair of AEMO’s expert panel.
Speaking in a panel discussion on how to achieve 50 per cent renewables without comprising grid stability, Munro told the ABB Customer World conference in Melbourne on Thursday that by about 2030-35, half of Australia’s remaining coal power fleet would be gone. And wouldn’t be coming back.
“In my view,” she said, “It’s not likely much of it will be replaced with (new) coal. And there are three reasons for this…”

1. Coal power is expensive
“First is simply cost: A new coal-fired power station is an expensive thing to build; renewables are still coming down that learning curve … so we will see the continuing shift to renewables on the supply side,” Munro said.

2. It’s not flexible enough
“There’s certainly a role for gas in the transition (to renewables) … being able to ramp up and down quickly. But there really isn’t the demand for baseload power that just chugs along and is really only efficient if it is operating at near full capacity, consistently, 24/7. The demand for that is just (not there).
“So that’s the second reason. it’s not flexible enough,” Munro said.

3. Because it’s emissions intensive
The third reason why new coal power won’t be built on Australia’s future NEM, said Munro, is because it’s a major source of the sort of greenhouse gas emissions that we should be eradicating from our electricity sector if we are to have any hope of meeting our Paris climate targets, pledged to by the Turnbull government.
“We really need to get serious about emissions reduction and that means that there’s going to be less coal in our whole fleet going forward,” she said.

Links

• NSW Court To Hear 'Landmark' Challenge To Coalmine Over Climate Change Impact
• Natural Gas Killed Coal – Now Renewables And Batteries Are Taking Over
• Plunging Costs Make Solar, Wind And Battery Storage Cheaper Than Coal
• Banks Slash Coal Loans By 50 Per Cent As Investor Pressure Mounts
• Lloyd's Of London To Divest From Coal Over Climate Change
• A Future Without Coal-Fired Power Stations Is Inevitable
• Audit Office Slams Australia’s Dud Investments In “Clean Coal”
• NSW Coal Mines In The Pipeline Are 'Bigger Than Adani', Lock The Gate Says
• Coal-Fired Plant Shifted $1bn Offshore While Pocketing $117m From Australian Taxpayers
• One of the World's Biggest Miners Is About To Go Coal-Free

Billion-Dollar Polar Engineering ‘Needed To Slow Melting Glaciers’

The Guardian - Robin McKie

Underwater sea walls and artificial islands among projects urgently required to avoid devastation of global flooding, say scientists

The Jakobshavn fjord in western Greenland. One proposal is to build a 100-metre high wall across the fjord’s entrance. Photograph: Bob Strong/REUTERS

Scientists have outlined plans to build a series of mammoth engineering projects in Greenland and Antarctica to help slow down the disintegration of the planet’s main glaciers.
The controversial proposals include underwater walls, artificial islands and huge pumping stations that would channel cold water into the bases of glaciers to stop them from melting and sliding into the sea.
The researchers say the work – costing tens of billions of dollars a time – is urgently needed to prevent polar glaciers melting and raising sea levels. That would lead to major inundations of low-lying, densely populated areas, such as parts of Bangladesh, Japan and the Netherlands.
Flooding in these areas is likely to cost tens of trillions of dollars a year if global warming continues at its present rate, and vast sea-wall defences will need to be built to limit the devastation.
Such costs make glacier engineering in polar regions a competitive alternative, according to the team, which is led by John Moore, professor of climate change at the University of Lapland.
“We think that geoengineering of glaciers could delay much of Greenland and Antarctica’s grounded ice from reaching the sea for centuries, buying time to address global warming,” the scientists write in the current issue of Nature. “Geoengineering of glaciers has received little attention in journals. Most people assume that it is unfeasible and environmentally undesirable. We disagree.”
Ideas put forward by the group specifically target the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic because these will contribute more to sea rise this century than any other source, they say. Their proposals include:

• Building a 100-metre high wall on the seabed across a 5km wide fjord at the end of the Jakobshavn glacier in western Greenland. This would reduce influxes of warming sea water which are eroding the glacier’s base;
• Constructing artificial islands in front of glaciers in Antarctica in order to buttress them and limit their collapse as their ice melts due to global warming;
• Circulating cooled brine underneath glaciers such as the Pine Island glacier in Antarctica – in order to prevent their bases from melting and sliding towards the sea.

In each case, the team – which includes scientists in Finland and the US – acknowledges that costs would be in the billions. Construction is also likely to cause considerable disruption. For example, building a dam across the Jakobshavn fjord could affect ecology, fisheries and tourism, and large numbers of workers would have to be shipped in to complete the project.
Similarly, building artificial islands in front of glaciers would mean importing about six cubic kilometres of material, a task that would be immensely difficult in stormy Antarctic waters. And drilling through ice that is kilometres thick to pump down cooled water would also stretch the capabilities of engineers.
However, the team insists that such projects should be carefully assessed now as the likely costs appear to be compatible with those of other large energy and civil engineering works being planned across the globe. The issue is simple, they state: should we spend vast sums to wall off all the world’s coasts, or can we address the problem at its source?
“Potential risks, especially to local ecosystems, need careful analysis,” they conclude. “In our view, however, the greatest risk is doing nothing.”

Links

• How Engineering Earth’s Climate Could Seriously Imperil Life
• Geoengineering is not a quick fix for climate change, experts warn Trump
• So You Want to Geoengineer the Planet? Beware the Hurricanes
• Keystone species
• What Is CO2 Sequestration?
• Could spraying particles into marine clouds help cool the planet?
• If We Start Geoengineering, There's No Going Back
• Dimming the Sun to cool Earth could ravage wildlife: Study
• Scientists warn of 'devastating' halt to geo-engineering
• We're about to kill a massive, accidental experiment in reducing global warming
• Here's the reason we'd never halt a geoengineering project midway through
• Geoengineering could cause more harm than climate change
• The world's melting glaciers
• Melting glaciers
• Melting ice sheets are hastening sea level rise, satellite data confirm
• Drones proving useful in polar regions to study the melting of the ice
• The glaciers are still shrinking – and rapidly
• Thinning glaciers driving polar ice loss, satellite survey finds
• The world's melting glaciers
• Potentially dangerous consequences for biodiversity of solar geoengineering implementation and termination

Arnold Schwarzenegger Joins Increasing List Of Those Suing Big Oil For Climate Change

Newsweek - Dana Dovey



Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his plans this week to sue Big Oil for its contributions to climate change. Schwarzenegger joins a growing list of cities and now private citizens who hope to bring Big Oil to court.
In a Politico podcast delivered Monday, Schwarzenegger announced his plans to sue Big Oil, a term often used in reference to the seven largest oil companies. The former governor of California said he wanted to take action against the companies for “knowingly killing people all over the world,” according to CNBC.
"I don't think there's any difference: If you walk into a room and you know you're going to kill someone, it's first-degree murder; I think it's the same thing with the oil companies," he said.

Big Oil may soon have to pay several U.S. cities for damages caused by climate change induced natural disasters. 

In addition to Schwarzenegger, nine U.S. cities, including New York, have also filed lawsuits against oil, gas and coal companies, Think Progress reported. The San Francisco suburb of Richmond was the most recent city to file a civil case against Big Oil in late January. The city claimed the oil companies knew the impact their industry would have on climate change for decades and purposely kept this information from the public. The city said it wanted the companies to help pay for damages caused by rising sea levels, Reuters reported.
Gillian Lobo, a lawyer who works on the strategic climate litigation team at Client Earth, told Newsweek that despite the damaging effects of climate change, suing Big Oil is still difficult.
“Climate change is [a] very unique problem, because it covers cross-border issues,” Lobo told Newsweek . According to Lobo, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact effects of climate change in court because many have yet to occur.
Lobo also explained that it takes time to gather the information necessary to sue such a large number of powerful corporations. Still, the environmental lawyer feels that the time to take action is now and cites precedents, such as the Paris agreement, as an example of the government's ability to make environmental changes. Lobo also explained that the Paris agreement has helped the public understand the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“I think these cases are already important, because they change the profile of climate change [as] they raise awareness,” said Lobo. “It’s increased the standard and quality of the debate on climate change, who should be held responsible, and how should you go about it.”

Links

• Should Climate Change Be Called Murder? What Do You Call Knowingly Killing People?
• Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Suing Big Oil for Climate Change
• Arnold Schwarzenegger looking to terminate big oil with legal action
• Schwarzenegger to Sue Big Oil for 'Murder'
• Schwarzenegger To Sue Oil Companies, Compares Them To Murderers7 Myths Big Oil Is Using To Convince People It Can Solve Climate Change
• Oil Companies Must Pay New York City For Climate Change Impact, Lawsuit Says

How To Change The Climate Story: Paul Hawken

Eco-Business - Vaidehi Shah

Want to avoid climate disaster? Abandon the “wussy” language of climate mitigation as well as war metaphors, and develop more positive ways of thinking about the issue, said American environmentalist Paul Hawken at a recent conference in Sydney.

Paul Hawken speaks at Purpose 2018 in Sydney, Australia. Image: Purpose

To generate effective, universal action that will solve the problem of climate change, the global community needs to abandon the “wussy” language of climate mitigation and rethink the “negative” sports and war metaphors that are pervasive in discussions about the issue.
This was the advice offered by American environmentalist, author and activist Paul Hawken at the recent Purpose conference in Sydney.
Speaking to a 500-strong audience at Commune in Sydney, Hawken said that the term “climate mitigation”, which is commonly found in government policies, international negotiations in the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference, and scientific reports isn’t strong enough.
“When you are heading down the wrong road towards a cliff, the only thing that makes sense is not to slow down and go over the cliff slowly, but to stop and turn around,” said Hawken.
This is why, instead of the prevailing narrative of mitigating climate change, Hawken champions the notion of reversing global warming. Last year, Hawken co-founded the Drawdown Project, which maps, measures, models, and describes the 100 most effective, economically viable and scaleable solutions to reverse global warming.
The project has entailed a global research programme to identify and rank climate solutions, with academics from institutions around the world participating in the project; its findings were published in a book titled ‘Drawdown—The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming‘.
Drawdown is the only global initiative to focus on reversing global warming rather than mitigating it, said Hawken.

The Drawdown Project’s list of 10 most promising solutions to reverse global warming. Image: Drawdown Project

The project has identified refrigerant management—that is, phasing out hydrofluorocarbons, synthetic coolant chemicals which are extremely potent greenhouse gases—as the single most effective strategy to slash emissions. The initiative will cost some US$903 billion by 2050, but save almost 90 gigatonnes of emissions.
For Australia, regenerative agriculture is the most important solution that the country can take, said Hawken. This is a farming method that doesn’t till the soil, use pesticides or synthetic fertilisers, while practising multiple crop rotations and using cover crops to prevent the soil from being exposed to the environment.
“The land (in Australia) is so fragile, and commercial agriculture has deteriorated its condition,” he noted.

When you are heading down the wrong road towards a cliff, the only thing that makes sense is not to slow down and go over the cliff slowly, but to stop and turn around.

But globally, “the number one solution to reversing global warming is the empowerment of girls and women,” said Hawken, indicating that two of the top 10 gender-specific solutions identified by the Drawdown Project—educating girls and family planning—could together reduce about 120 gigatonnes of carbon emissions while costing very little.
When a girl gets to stay in school until high school age, she has an average of two children, whereas girls who are pulled out of education when they hit puberty tend to have about five children each, Hawken said. So educating girls not only ensures better economic outcomes and resilience for women, it also slows down population growth.
“It’s a form of family planning, but a woman has chosen that by being supported instead of being told what to do,” Hawken explained.
Giving women access to voluntary, high quality family planning can also improve their well-being and health, while addressing the population issue in a way that steers clear of problematic approaches such as governments forcing the birth rate down through policies or people in rich countries telling people in poor countries to stop having children, he added.
In addition to specific solutions and strategies, the global community needs to change the language that is common in climate change narratives, Hawken said.
“Talk of carbon war rooms, and fighting or combating climate change is so negative,” said Hawken. Worse, it positions the problem “as something out there that we have to fight and win, when in reality, we are the problem and not the climate,” he added.
The process of othering the natural world from humans is what has caused today’s environmental problems, said Hawken. “We cannot solve the problem the same way; we have to think differently.”
One way to do this may be to not talk about the climate at all, he told Eco-Business in an interview. Rather than the relatively intangible idea of addressing climate change, people are more concerned with things that affect them on a daily basis, he said. In this vein, the next project he is working on is a book titled ‘Regeneration: How to create 1 billion jobs’.
Research has shown that emerging sectors that could help address climate change will also create millions of jobs in the future. For instance, the Business and Sustainable Development Commission estimates that sustainable business models in sectors like agriculture, energy, cities, and health could create 230 million jobs in Asia alone.
“The way you motivate people is to give them meaningful, purposeful, living wage jobs that give them respect for themselves and their community,” he said. “What people want is security and jobs that are meaningful, and the outcome in terms of reversing global warming is secondary,” he said.

Links

• Drawdown—The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
• Carbon management: the next Copernican mindset shift?
• Global projections of drought hazard in a warming climate: a prime for disaster risk management
• Cities can change the fate of the world’s climate outlook: Christiana Figueres

What A Century Of Climate Change Has Done To France’s Biggest Glacier

The Conversation - Kieran Baxter

Dundee University, Author provided

Like a one-man Google Earth, Swiss aviation pioneer Eduard Spelterini flew a gas-filled balloon from the French town of Chamonix to Switzerland on August 8, 1909 – a distance of 100 miles over the Alps. While the flight was extraordinary for being the first aerial crossing of the central Alps from west to east, it now holds a special significance of which Spelterini was unaware. The balloonist was also a photographer who captured a series of glass-plate images of the Mer de Glace (“sea of ice”) glacier that descends from the Mont Blanc Massif in a dramatic sweep.
Spelterini’s interest in recording the alpine landscape was both scientific and aesthetic, and the results are striking. This collection of images survives today as a record of the glacier that is unique in its detail and antiquity. But crucially, they can be used to measure how much this landscape has changed in the intervening years. In 1909, no one could have guessed how significant these glaciers would become to environmental science, or just how rapidly they would be affected by rising temperatures in the century that followed.

Digital analysis
The flight over the Mer de Glace was unusual because Spelterini’s aerial photographs rarely focused on the glaciers, instead more often framing the peaks and other geological features. He was also unaware that the distribution of his photographs along the balloon’s flight path, pictured below, would make excellent material for digital analysis more than 100 years later.

The flight path of Eduard Spelterini’s balloon in 1909. James Gentles, Author provided

By identifying common features in the photographs, which can in turn be linked to surveyed features in the landscape, a 3D representation of both the balloon flight and the historical topography can be reconstructed using photogrammetry – the science of taking measurements from photography. While the oblique angle of the photographs limits the measurable accuracy of the resulting data, compared to the vertical mapping photographs taken in the decades that followed, they still provide a unique and compelling glimpse into a past landscape.
In Spelterini’s image below, the oblique aerial view taken at a sideways angle towards the horizon gives a sense of place that is part way between the familiar ground level view and the high vertical perspective like that of a map. In the foreground the newly completed Montenvers cogwheel railway is visible, perched over the voluminous Mer de Glace glacier which leads the eye to the spires of the Mont Blanc Massif in the background.

The Montenverscog railway in the foreground was recently completed when Spelterini took this photograph. Eduard Spelterini, Author provided

The photographs are carefully composed, designed to serve as both record and artwork. Their oblique angle makes them less abstracted and more relatable, despite their height above the ground and the scale of the landscape they depict. All of these factors make them an ideal point of reference for visualising the changing nature of the alpine landscape.

Follow that balloon
In October 2017, a team of photographers and researchers from the University of Dundee returned to Chamonix to replicate the path of the historic flight and recreate the sequence of photographs using a helicopter. Spelterini’s balloon rapidly ascended to around 2,000m above the Chamonix valley before passing Mer de Glace. Such heights are virtually inaccessible to unmanned drones, meaning that a manned aircraft was needed.
The results are documented in The 100-year Time-Lapse Project. GPS coordinates derived digitally from Spelterini’s photographs were used to return to the same locations to capture current-day equivalents of both his individual photographs and the 3D surface reconstruction. While the rate of change in the Mer de Glace glacier has been studied in great detail, using digital technology in this way allows for a visual comparison of the landscape then and now to reveal the staggering reduction in the ice surface that has taken place over the last century.

Kieran Baxter and Kieran Duncan/YouTube.

Today, visitors alighting at the Montenvers railway station are no longer confronted with the Mer de Glace at close range, but instead look down upon a largely empty valley and debris-covered glacier far below. Here the ice surface has dropped around 100 metres compared to its height in 1909. Scientists have calculated that, overall, the glacier has lost around 700m cubic metres of water since the beginning of the 20th century.While the facts and figures alone should be enough to narrate the impact that the previous century of greenhouse gas emissions have had on our climate and environment, images like these help drive the point home. Eduard Spelterini was not just a pioneer of aviation but also of aerial photography as a way of better understanding the natural world. His images capture an emotive sense of place while providing insights into aspects of the landscape that are not available from the ground.

Kieran Baxter/YouTube.

Today, despite the heavy carbon footprint that comes with manned aviation, we continue to rely on aerial views to interpret our environment, from Landsat satellite imagery to low-level drone photography. By repurposing archival aerial photographs and continuing the legacy of photographers like Spelterini, with the help of current technology, we can explore new and compelling ways to visualise our rapidly changing glacial landscapes.As well as serving to convince hearts and minds in the present political debates surrounding climate change, these images will also form a poignant record of magnificent landscapes that will no longer be around for future generations to experience.

Links

• Burning fossil fuels is responsible for most sea-level rise since 1970
• Has Everest’s iconic Hillary Step really collapsed? Here’s the science
• Antarctic glacier’s unstable past reveals danger of future melting
• New Zealand’s Southern Alps have lost a third of their ice

Climate Change Promotes The Spread Of Mosquito And Tick Borne Viruses

EU Science Hub

Spurred on by climate change, international travel and international trade, disease-bearing insects are spreading to ever-wider parts of the world.
This means that more humans are exposed to viral infections such as Dengue fever, Chikungunya, Zika, West Nile fever, Yellow fever and Tick-borne encephalitis.
For many of these diseases, there are as yet no specific antiviral agents or vaccines.
Global warming has allowed mosquitoes, ticks and other disease-bearing insects to proliferate, adapt to different seasons, migrate and spread to new niche areas that have become warmer.
These are the findings of a JRC report that aims to raise awareness about the threat posed by the spread of arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses).

The growing spread of arboviruses
Aedes mosquitoes spread several arboviruses, including  Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, West Nile and Yellow fever viruses.
These mosquitoes thrive in urban settings due to the lack of natural predators and the ready availability of food and habitats in which to procreate.
They have existed in Africa and Asia for many years and are now becoming more and more widespread.
They have recently become established in some European countries and the Americas, largely as a result of international travel and trade.
Their alarming spread poses a problem for public health. They are difficult to eradicate - their larvae can survive for months, even in suboptimal humidity and temperature conditions.
The tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) has been found in several European countries, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and, more recently, the Netherlands.
One of the more recently reported vectors for the virus, the Dermacentor reticulatus tick species, is rapidly spreading through Europe. It has a high reproduction rate, is cold resistant and can live underwater for months.
Humans can be infected by a tick bite or through consuming unpasteurised dairy products that do not meet EU safety standards and have come from infected animals. Luckily, TBEV can be vaccinated against.

Zika virus – a serious concern for Europe
Zika virus has received a lot of media attention due to its association with neurological disorders such as Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and the development of microcephaly (abnormally small head) in foetuses.
It is difficult to diagnose and there is no cure or vaccine. First identified in 1947 in the Zika forest of Uganda, its spread is a serious concern given the growing presence of its main vector, the mosquito  Aedes albopictus, in temperate zones including Europe and America.
The first documented outbreak of ZIKV infection was reported in 2007 in Micronesia. Since then it spread to French Polynesia and Brazil, where it infected up to 1.3 million people in 2015.
More than 70 territories worldwide have confirmed autochthonous (indigenous) cases of ZIKV. By March 2017, 2 130 Europeans were reported to have travel-associated ZIKV infections.

Mosquito control strategies
The report describes and discusses several methods that have been used to control the spread of mosquitoes, including insecticides, mosquito traps, genetic modification, land reclamation and habitat surveillance.
Currently, the safest and most readily available and effective methods of controlling mosquitoes are mosquito traps (for relatively small areas) and nets, and the reduction of potential breeding sites (standing water).
While the research team behind the study advocate better control of mosquito populations, they also warn that it would be unwise to remove mosquitoes completely from the ecosystem.
They are part of the food web for some species, and pollinate many plants. Wiping them out completely could have negative effects on nature, and consequently on humans.

Links

• Toward Climate Change Impact: Vectors carrying viral infection
• Hazards and risks of climate change impacts
• Climate change mitigation
• Impacts of climate change
• Monitoring of climate and climate change

The Temperature Is Rising ... And So Is The Death Toll

Fairfax - Professor Hilary Bambrick*

I've investigated the impact of climate change driven extreme weather on public health for 20 years.
The research shows the links between the two couldn't be clearer - extreme weather events such as severe heatwaves, bushfires and supercharged storms are placing Australian lives at risk.

The threats to our lives from extreme weather isn't limited to heatwaves, but extends to more severe storms and floods and more intense and 'out of season' bushfires. Photo: AFP

As we continue to burn fossil fuels such as coal and gas, more carbon pollution is released into our climate system, causing more intense, more severe and more frequent extreme weather events, which in turn, will continue to place increasing pressure on health systems, emergency services and our communities.
Globally, we've just experienced the hottest five year period ever recorded, stretching from 2013 to 2017, and this month parts of Queensland were hit with a severe heatwave, breaking February averages by more than  10 degrees.
The reality is that Australia will become warmer and drier as a direct result of intensifying climate change as heatwaves continue to become hotter, longer, and more frequent.
Severe heatwaves are silent killers, causing more deaths since the 1890s than all of Australia's bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and severe storms combined.
Over the past decade, severe heatwaves around Australia have resulted in deaths and an increased number of hospital admissions for heart attack, stroke, respiratory illness, diabetes and kidney disease.
Older people, young children, and those with chronic health conditions are at high risk, but so are outdoor workers and our emergency responders.
In January 2009, Melbourne suffered three consecutive days of above 43 degrees, while elsewhere in Victoria it came within a whisker of 49.
There were 980 heat-related deaths during this time, which was around 60% more than would normally occur at that time of year.
Morgues were over capacity and bodies had to be stored in refrigerated trucks.
A few years earlier in 2004, Brisbane experienced a prolonged heatwave with temperatures reaching up to 42 degrees in February, which increased overall deaths by 23%.
The threats to our lives and livelihoods from extreme weather isn't limited to heatwaves, but extends to more frequent and more severe storms and floods, more intense and 'out of season' bushfires, and widespread and prolonged drought.
Of course, we’re used to extreme weather in Australia, so much so that it is embedded in our cultural identity.
From ancient Indigenous understandings of complex seasons and use of fire to manage landscapes, to Dorothea McKeller’s 1908 poem My Country, to Gang Gajang’s 1985 anthem Sounds of Then (This is Australia), we sure like to talk about the weather.
But climate change is making these events more and more deadly, and we can’t afford to be complacent.
So what do we do to protect ourselves and our loved ones from extreme heat and other events?
We can check in with our friends, family and neighbours on extreme heat days and we can strive to make our health services more resilient and responsive, but this doesn't deal with the cause.
Without rapid effective action to reduce carbon emissions we're locking ourselves into a future of worsening, out of control extremes.
Ultimately, to protect Australians from worsening extreme weather events and to do our fair share in the global effort to tackle climate change, we have to cut our greenhouse gas pollution levels quickly and deeply.
Reducing our carbon pollution means a healthier Australia, now and in the future, with fewer deaths, fewer ambulance call-outs, fewer trips to the hospital, and reduced costs to the health system.
The only thing standing in the way of Australia tackling climate change is political will.

*Professor Hilary Bambrick is a member of the Climate Council and heads the School of Public Health and Social Work at QUT.

Links

• Australia Among Countries Growing Hotter Faster: Report
• 'Significant' Heatwave Roasts South-Eastern Australia As Global Records Melt
• Penrith Swelters While Florida Freezes: Climate Disruption Is To Blame
• BOM Annual Climate Statement Shows 2017 Was Australia's Third-Warmest Year On Record
• Sydney Hits Its Highest Temperature Recorded Since 1939 With Penrith Reaching 47.3c
• Global Hot Spot: Exceptional Heat Pushes Up Ocean Temperatures Off Australia
• Health Savings Outweigh Costs Of Limiting Global Warming: Study
• With Political Leaders On The Sidelines, Sport Could Take The Lead On Climate Change
• Why Climate Change Is Worsening Public Health Problems
• How Climate Change Can Spread Respiratory Infection
• Study: Climate Change Is Damaging The Health Of Millions Of People
• How Climate Change Affects The Building Blocks For Health
• Doctors Call On Health Super Funds To Pull $1.7 Billion Out Of Coal And Oil Companies