02/05/2018

Science Can't Solve Climate Change — Better Politics Can, Former IPCC Scientist Says

ABC Science - Anna Salleh

People cheered when the Paris agreement was made in 2015, but some suggest the historic accord could distract from more effective solutions to climate change. (AFP: Francois Guillot)
It's not every day you hear that the climate change debate needs to be "more political and less scientific" — but that is exactly what Mike Hulme is calling for.
The 2015 Paris agreement was declared "a victory for climate science", but Professor Hulme — who used to work for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — is not convinced that the Paris deal will work.
In fact, he said he thought climate change was in danger of becoming a "fetish" and that rallying cries to "save the planet by limiting global warming to 2 degrees" could distract us from the "political logjam" in front of us.
"We can't solve climate change with numbers," Professor Hulme told Natasha Mitchell on ABC RN's Science Friction.
"We can actually only deal with climate through the human imagination."
'Science can't provide moral energy'
A human geographer at the University of Cambridge, Professor Hulme once advocated globally-negotiated national emission targets, but said he now thought the future lay with more local solutions — involving new "political coalitions" of unlikely bedfellows.
He said a focus on immediate "co-benefits" would give governments, businesses and individuals the incentives they needed to move away from fossil fuels or to create carbon sinks.
Think solar panels or wind farms for those without access to electricity; planting forests that protect catchments and provide shade from the searing heat; or replacing coal-fired power stations — not simply to cut carbon emissions, but to reduce deaths from air pollution.
This approach could be attractive to hundreds of millions of people across the planet, regardless of their views on global warming, Professor Hulme argued.
Recent research into local climate action in Australia supported this focus on co-benefits.
"Sometimes, framing actions as [tackling] climate change will not bring people into a community meeting. But framing it as making savings on energy bills will gain more traction," said Macquarie University geographer Donna Houston, who hosted a postgraduate workshop with Professor Hulme in Sydney last week.
Dr Houston said she thought climate change could still be a "very abstract concept" for many people, and for others it could feel "politicised in some way".
Her research found that when local councillors or community members were trying to gain support for climate action, they sometimes gave it a different label, such as "sustainability".
"It was often easier not to refer to climate change," she said.
"And anything that had co-benefits was a lot easier to get up and running."

More support for co-benefits
Co-benefits are "critically important", according to David Karoly, who heads up the CSIRO's Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub.
He is on the advisory board of the Climate and Health Alliance, a coalition of doctors worried about the immediate health effects of air pollution from burning fossil fuels.
Professor Karoly said the recent decrease in greenhouse emissions in the US, as well as a slowdown in China's emissions growth, were both encouraged by health co-benefits.
"There are some interesting cross political alliances," he added.
The shift away from burning fossil fuels may stop global warming in the longer term, but it could also help us breathe easier today. (ABC News: Zhang Qian)
He pointed to the Lock the Gate coalition, which opposes coal seam gas developments on agricultural land and sees conservative radio host "Alan Jones … working closely with climate change mitigation advocates".
Steven Sherwood, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales, pointed to other examples.
"There are places in Texas that are rapidly taking up rooftop solar — even though most people there are pretty sceptical about global warming — because it enables them to be independent," Professor Sherwood said.
"A lot of people don't want to accept the reality of global warming because … they're scared they're going to be forced to do things.
President Donald Trump said he would withdraw from the Paris agreement. (AP: Andrew Harnik)
Professor Hulme said the immediate co-benefits of interventions like flood barriers could also increase support for climate adaptation.
"This is where you can find new ways, rhetorically at least, of bringing Trump on board," Professor Hulme said.
"If there's a trillion-dollar infrastructure fund to renew and refresh America, let's make it resilient to climatic extremes at the same time. But don't call it a response to climate change in a political culture like the US."

Climate change a 'toxic brand'
The idea of using more politics and less science to solve climate change might stick in the craw of those who think we should rely on what the science "says".
Reasonable people can disagree about the right mix of energy for the future. (Supplied)
But Professor Hulme, who once evaluated climate models and scenario construction, claimed this was putting too much of a burden on science.
"Science is a very powerful way that humans have invented and discovered to understand the way in which the physical world works," he said.
"Science will not be able to adjudicate on what we should or should not do.
"We have invented another human tradition — we call it politics — to resolve those sorts of challenges."
Professor Hulme claimed better politics was the only way to reduce the vitriol around climate change that has made it a divisive and "toxic brand" in some countries.

Better science communication?
Some, like Australian psychologists John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky, argued there would be more action on climate if people better understood the scientific consensus.

The Paris climate deal explained (ABC News )

But Professor Hulme countered that at the heart of the debate were different political preferences and values — such as how much people are prepared to sacrifice now for future generations, and what kind of energy technology we support.
"People who are just as committed to the evidence of climate change have very different views about what energy mix we should have — between fracking, nuclear and solar," Professor Hulme said.
But Dr Cook, from George Mason University, insisted better science communication can still change views.
"Consensus messaging depolarises the debate, so conservatives become more accepting," he said.
Still, even if people agree that humans are changing the climate, this is not the same as accepting a 2-degree limit on global warming.

Local versus global
While Professor Karoly said he supported efforts to improve people's understanding of climate science, he agreed with Professor Hulme that it would not necessarily change minds.
"Climate change is no longer a scientific problem," he said.
"Climate change is a human problem."
But he said he was dubious of the power of "bottom-up" actions to create real action on climate.
"In the UK, Europe, United States and in Australia, action or inaction on climate change has not been driven by grassroots level activity," he said.
"It has been driven by decisions made at the national political level."
Community renewable energy projects can provide local control and financial savings — as well as reducing greenhouse emissions. (ABC Landline: Prue Adams)
He said the Paris agreement to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees was a key part of the answer.
Professor Sherwood agreed.
"It gives you something to point to and say, 'Look, the whole world agrees with this'. So, I don't agree it's not going to work."
Professor Hulme, meanwhile, said he was worried that overly focusing on the 2-degree target might cause us to rush into risky ventures. He said geoengineering, including creating "space umbrellas" in the atmosphere to block the sun, "might make our problems worse".
"Global temperatures might be stabilised, but we might, in the process, destabilise many of our regional weather systems, which are in many ways unpredictable," he said.
Instead, Professor Hulme said he hoped for "more empowering and less fatalistic" responses to climate change.
"The way we think about the future … is actually at the heart of this."
Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: ,

Emmanuel Macron Calls On Malcolm Turnbull To Show 'Power Of Conviction' In Fighting Climate Change

ABC News - Matthew Doran | Stephen Dziedzic


Macron challenges Turnbull Government to commit to tackling climate change (ABC News)

Key points:
  • Mr Macron spoke of his concern about the effect of climate change on Pacific nations
  • France has deep interests in the Pacific, forged through decades of colonialism
  • New Caledonia will hold a referendum later this year on whether to break away from France
French President Emmanuel Macron has issued a challenge to Australia to lift its game when it comes to tackling climate change.
Mr Macron, who arrived in Sydney last night, is only the second sitting French President to make an official trip to Australia.
The first stop on his whistle-stop tour was a dinner at the Sydney Opera House joined by politicians, business leaders and French expats.
During his speech, the President called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to show the "power of conviction" and display courage in confronting climate change, despite the ideological hurdles he may face in both the Parliament and his party room.
"I am fully aware of the political and economic debate surrounding this issue in your country, and I respect this," Mr Macron said.
"But I think that actual leaders are those that can respect those existing interests, but at the same time decide to participate to something broader, to something more strategic."
France has deep interests in the Pacific. (AP: Mick Tsikas/Pool Photo)
In launching the plea, Mr Macron suggested some of Australia's closest neighbours feel the effect of climate change more acutely than others.
"When I speak about vulnerability, I want to speak obviously about climate, which is an absolute priority," Mr Macron said.
"Numerous states in the Pacific are at direct risk of disappearing completely in only a few years if we do not take action.
"How could this life be better if we decide to sacrifice the life of our children? It is not an option."
France has deep interests in the Pacific, forged through decades of colonialism.
Mr Macron will travel to New Caledonia after his trip to Australia.
The country will hold a referendum later this year on whether to break away from France.

'You are a man who is for, not against'
Mr Turnbull and Mr Macron are also expected unveil new agreements to boost military co-operation and deepen collaboration on cyber security.
They will also discuss China's growing strategic presence in the Pacific and the possible collapse of the Iran nuclear deal.
US President Donald Trump has vowed to tear up the deal, which lifts sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran curtailing its nuclear weapons program.
Mr Macron has been urging Mr Trump to change his mind, warning that junking the agreement would be deeply destabilising.
Australia has also been pressing the US not to abandon the deal — but it has been much less forceful in its advocacy than France.
Mr Turnbull also heaped praise on Mr Macron at last night's dinner, paying tribute to his vitality and ambition.
"You are a man who is for, not against," Mr Turnbull said.
"We might say 'always on the front foot, always a glass half full, not half empty'."

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: ,

Bill Mckibben: 'There’s Clearly Money To Be Made From Sun And Wind'

The Guardian - 

Environmental campaigner and founder of 350.org says the financial sector has picked up on the future of energy much quicker than politicians
Bill McKibben in Newcastle. ‘There’s a one-to-one relationship’ between the mountains of coal and climate change. Photograph: Samantha Hawker 
After almost three decades of environmental activism, Bill McKibben has become the Earth’s investment broker.
“There’s no way at this point to solve [climate change] one person at a time,” McKibben told Guardian Australia.
The author and founder of 350.org is at the start of an Australian tour, speaking with councils and unions, banks and superannuation funds – anyone with serious cash to invest – about backing an aggressive shift to renewable power sources.
What started as a campaign for ethical investment, a push for divestment from fossil fuels, has now become in part a pitch to capitalists that there is money to be made from backing renewables.
“When we started the divestment stuff six years ago, I was operating entirely on moral grounds,” McKibben said. “But it quickly became apparent that it was a much more financially savvy idea than we’d given ourselves credit for. Anyone who five years ago did it made out like bandits.”
On Tuesday, McKibben will launch a report by 350.org, the University of Technology, Sydney, and Future Super, showing 7.7% of Australia’s superannuation savings could fund a full transition to renewables by 2030.
McKibben said this was not just an activist’s pipe dream. In New York, the city and state pension funds divested from fossil fuels. Dozens of Australian councils have followed suit.
“I’ve been interested to watch the fact that financial types are picking up more quickly what’s happening than political types,” he said.
“The solar guys haven’t made their money yet, so they can’t [buy political influence]. But if you’re running a pension fund or you’re running a big investment company, you can’t make any more money out of coal. Its day is done. But there’s clearly money to be made from sun and wind, so that’s where they’re headed.”
McKibben has wasted no time in Australia, heading to the country’s two most prominent beachheads. In Newcastle, the world’s largest coal export port, he stood in the shadow of piles and piles of black coal, and met local community groups.
“There is a one-to-one relationship between those huge mountains of coal behind us and the fact there are countries that are not going to exist by the end of the century,” he told them. “One is directly related to the other one.”
At the weekend he visited the Great Barrier Reef. There he saw two versions of a future he warned about almost three decades ago.

Bill McKibben, right, on the reef. 
Photograph: Samantha Hawker
The first was a “horrifying” vision of, as he titled his first book, the end of nature – a reef at the northern end that had been effectively “cooked”, as leading reef scientist Terry Hughes described it, during the 2016 marine heatwave.
“It was a spot with close to 100% coral mortality, and it was depressing, grey monochrome, drab expanse of, well, of dead life,” McKibben said.
“A kilometre away we stopped again. It was only about half dead. And it was a reminder of what a remarkable corner of God’s brain the coral reef is. It was filled with colour and vibrant life.
“One doesn’t know whether to be happy whether it remains as alive as it is, or sad that so much of it has already been destroyed.”
While McKibben was heading to the reef, news broke that the federal government would fund a $500m “rescue package” for the reef. To those who know the science – that the bleaching and death of corals is demonstrably due to climate change – the commitment was laughable.
“To simultaneously promote the world’s biggest coalmine while pretending to care about the world’s largest reef is an acrobatic feat only a cynical politician would attempt,” McKibben said.
Back on land at Port Douglas, his reaction to seeing the reef was: “We need to accelerate.
“The point is all about pace. We need to push everybody to put up renewables at the pace that’s now possible. Elon Musk demonstrated the pace that’s now possible [with the South Australian Tesla battery project]. Everybody should be trying to operate at that pace.
“Everyone knows that 70 years from now we’re going to run this planet on sun and wind, the question is whether we’re going to be running a broken planet. The reef is one of the clearest signs of that breakage. It’s a demonstration of the foolishness of what we’re doing. It’s not like this is some obscure mystery.
“It’s important to understand that the reef is not a dead ecosystem. Human beings do not have the right to write it off as an ecosystem, and it remains a miraculous place even if that miracle is now hanging by a thread. It should serve as a reminder for us all that we need to double down on aggressive, aggressive action.
“Really the dominant emotion is one of fear that the world won’t rise to the occasion.”

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels: ,

01/05/2018

Can The World Kick Its Fossil-Fuel Addiction Fast Enough?

Nature - Jeff Tollefson

Clean energy is growing quickly. But time is running out to rein in carbon emissions.
A worker walks through a sorting area at a coal mine in Shanxi, China. Credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty
 Making sense of recent energy trends can seem like a high-stakes Rorschach test. Some experts see the boom in renewable energy and the shift away from coal in many countries as evidence that the world is beginning to turn a corner on global warming. Others see simply a continuing reliance on low-cost fossil fuels, slow governmental action and a rising risk of planetary meltdown.
The fact is that both sides are right. Renewable energy is indeed undergoing a revolution, as prices for things such as solar panels, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries continue to plummet. And yet it is also true that the world remains dependent on fossil fuels — so much so that even small economic shifts can quickly overwhelm the gains made with clean energy.
So it was in 2017, when, after staying relatively flat from 2014 to 2016, carbon emissions grew by about 1.5% (see ‘A brief lull’). All it took to create that spike was a small rise in economic growth across the developing world, according to a final estimate released in March by the Global Carbon Project, an international research consortium that monitors carbon emissions and climate trends.
Design: Jasiek Krzysztofiak/Nature; Source: Global Carbon Project
 The setback is likely to loom large in December, when countries will meet in Katowice, Poland, to complete the first assessment of their progress in implementing the 2015 Paris climate agreement — an ambitious pact that aims to limit global warming to 1.5–2 °C above pre-industrial levels. The bottom line is hardly encouraging: by and large, governments are falling well short of their commitments, both collectively and individually. Many countries are likely to miss the emissions targets that they made in 2015, and the world is on track for more than 3 °C of warming by the end of the century (see ‘Plotting the future’).
Design: Jasiek Krzysztofiak/Nature; Source: Carbon Action Tracker
 The spike in 2017 threw the situation into sharp relief. Governments are going to have to face the fact that they need to do more if they are serious about meeting the Paris climate agreement’s goals, says Glen Peters, a climate-policy researcher at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo and co-author of the Global Carbon Project’s March report. “A lot of hard truths will have to come out in 2018,” he says.
Here, Nature examines the forces behind the recent emissions trends and what they signal for the future. The good news is that clean-energy technology is at last making substantial strides. The bad news is that the pace isn’t nearly quick enough. Big economic and political hurdles stand in the way of shutting off the fossil-fuel spigot and the cheap energy it provides.

The plateau and the spike
To determine where carbon emissions are heading, researchers must first understand why they flattened out for three years. The most optimistic answer is that the seeds of a clean-energy revolution have been planted and are now growing like weeds.
More than a decade of government mandates and economic incentives have helped the renewable-energy industry to take root. Thanks to a combination of technological advances and economies of scale, prices have fallen dramatically for wind and solar (see ‘Seeds of a revolution’). Meanwhile, improvements in lithium-ion batteries have made electric vehicles the clean technology to beat in the transport sector.
Design: Jasiek Krzysztofiak/Nature; Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
 All of this has created a virtuous cycle that is driving prices down and sales up, says Jules Kortenhorst, chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank based in Basalt, Colorado. “President Trump can easily imagine a world where we all turned back to coal-fired electricity and horses and buggies and kerosene lamps, but the reality is that the world is shifting at an accelerating pace to a completely different reality,” Kortenhorst says.
The impact of the renewables boom can be readily seen in the United States and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse-gas emitters. In the United States, where annual carbon emissions have decreased more than 13% since 2005, renewable sources have become an increasingly important part of the story, contributing more than half of the energy-generating capacity added in 2017 — the equivalent of about 46 average-sized coal plants. In China, the development of renewable energy sources has helped to scale back coal consumption and rein in the country’s skyrocketing emissions. In late 2017, Climate Action Tracker, a research consortium that monitors international climate policies, reduced its projection for China’s annual emissions in 2030 by 700 million tonnes of CO2. That figure, which is more than twice the current annual carbon emissions from France, could double if China’s efforts to curb coal use continue apace.
Work is done on a rooftop solar panel installation in Wuhan, China. Credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty
 But the 2014–16 emissions plateau was shaped by more than just a clean-energy push. One of the biggest factors in keeping levels in check was an economic slowdown in China, which lowered demand for everything from energy to concrete and steel. In the power sector, the country’s aggressive pursuit of renewables and nuclear energy has been accompanied by efforts to boost the efficiency of modern coal plants and retire old ones. Similarly, much of the decline in US emissions comes from a shift from coal to natural gas, which emits less carbon.
The upshot, says David Victor, a climate-policy specialist at the University of California, San Diego, is that two of the biggest factors in reducing emissions from electricity come from the fossil-fuel sector itself: increasing coal-plant efficiency in China and the expansion of shale gas in the United States. Because so much energy comes from coal, slight fluctuations from year to year can wipe out massive gains in renewables (see ‘The scale of things’).
Design: Jasiek Krzysztofiak/Nature; Source: BP
 And, to a large extent, that is precisely what happened in 2017. Solar continued to grow at a breakneck pace, but coal consumption in China also rose. A lack of rainfall in parts of China reduced hydropower output, and coal made up the difference. The government had also initiated a stimulus programme towards the end of 2016, aimed at boosting the economy ahead of the Communist party congress in October 2017. All told, China’s carbon dioxide emissions, driven by coal consumption, increased by 3.5% in the first half of 2017, according to the Global Carbon Project.
That small blip in China’s coal emissions might have been a major contributor to the spike, but developments in other countries also played a part (see ‘The big contributors’). India’s emissions rose faster than expected, owing to stronger economic growth. Thanks to changes in fossil-fuel consumption, emissions in the United States and European Union dropped more slowly in 2017 than in years past. Then there is the rest of the world, whose emissions rose by 2% in 2017, according to the Global Carbon Project’s analysis. That includes developing countries, where tapping fossil fuels remains a relatively cheap and easy way of making economic progress.
Design: Jasiek Krzysztofiak/Nature; Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center/Global Carbon Project
 Bending the curve
Little time remains for the world to get its emissions under control. The Paris agreement is predicated on a single global carbon budget that countries are collectively using up each year. The longer humanity waits to reduce emissions, the more aggressive future measures will need to be to keep the total under budget.
It is difficult to say exactly how much time is left. Estimates for the maximum amount of carbon that can be emitted if warming is to remain below 1.5 °C, for example, vary widely. There could be 10 or even 15 years of leeway remaining. Or, humanity might have already burned through the total allotment six years ago. Either way, the tight margins have led many researchers to suspect that even the 2 °C Paris target could be out of reach — at least without developing technologies to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere or artificially cooling Earth by blocking incoming solar radiation.
The amount by which the world will ultimately warm hinges on a key question: how quickly will the emissions curve bend? An optimist might point to the fact that almost all projections for clean energy have proved to be overly conservative. In 2008, for instance, China set a goal of installing 2 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics by 2020. But it is now likely to achieve more than 200 gigawatts, says Jiang Kejun, a senior researcher at China’s Energy Research Institute in Beijing. Kejun says that the pattern is likely to be repeated in the future. “Modellers are underestimating the potential of renewable energy,” he says.
Some analysts think that solar energy, in particular, is poised to hit a tipping point that could change the face of the energy market. Watt for watt, solar energy already costs as little as coal in some places. And intriguingly, the London-based energy consultancy Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has calculated that solar could become so cheap that, by 2030, it would be more cost-effective in many regions to build a solar plant than to continue supplying fuel to an existing coal plant (see ‘Solar tipping point’). Similarly, beginning in the mid-2020s, the consultancy projects that falling battery prices will make electric cars cheaper to buy and run than their conventional counterparts — without the government subsidies that have fuelled the market so far.
Design: Jasiek Krzysztofiak/Nature; Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
“These are very important tipping points, but nobody quite knows what will happen and how policymakers will respond,” says Angus McCrone, chief editor at BNEF. “Politics is a bottleneck, particularly when there’s a powerful incumbency in an industry that is going to be affected by these new technologies.”
But politics can also help to bring about rapid change. While Trump is fighting on behalf of the fossil-fuel industry, leaders of other countries are moving in the opposite direction. The United Kingdom and France have both announced plans to ban the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040. And more than two dozen countries have committed to phasing out coal by as early as 2030.
These types of mandate are a sign that energy politics might be shifting towards more brute-force methods, says Michael Mehling, an energy and environmental-policy researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Economists tend to favour market-based programmes, such as the EU’s Emissions Trading System, but Mehling says there is little evidence that such arrangements will drive the kind of rapid transformational change needed to meet global climate goals. Old-school government mandates might be the last resort, Mehling says. “If the decisions are made at a sufficiently high level,” he says, “they can change the landscape pretty much overnight”.
Kejun’s calculations suggest that, driven both by policy and economics, China’s carbon emissions are still on track to peak as early as 2020, and its coal consumption could drop by as much as 40–50% by 2030. “The transition has already started,” says Kejun.
A similar movement seems to be under way in India, which is racing to provide reliable power — and cleaner air — to more than 1.3 billion people. If India can chart a path to sustainable development, it would set an example for other developing countries and avoid a repeat of China’s coal-fuelled ascension.
Today, the solar-power industry is booming in India, thanks to government incentives and falling prices, and the Indian government aims to install 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022 — nearly double the current solar-generation capacity in the United States. Meeting that goal could be challenging, because solar power will increasingly need to compete with existing coal-fired power plants for limited space on the electricity grid, says Rahul Tongia, an energy researcher at the non-profit public-policy organization the Brookings Institution in New Delhi. Still, he says, the trends are impressive. “Maybe it takes a bit longer to hit the targets. Who cares?” Tongia says. “The progress is still remarkable, measurable, dramatic and meaningful.”
But can such progress realistically rein in warming? For Peters, the boom in renewable energy is necessary and welcome, but still insufficient. Ultimately, the only thing that matters to the climate is the quantity of greenhouse gases emitted — and so the question is when humanity will begin to close the spigot and shut down fossil-fuel infrastructure. When that happens, he says, “you can start to feel a little bit better”.

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels:

The World’s Bleak Climate Situation, In 3 Charts

Vox - David Roberts

We’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
Copyright: Panos




Every so often it’s helpful — and by helpful I also mean traumatic, so buyer beware — to pull the lens back and take a look at the big picture on climate change and what’s necessary to avert its worst consequences.
In the journal Nature, journalist Jeff Tollefson recently offered that magisterial overview of the climate challenge and the progress that’s been made so far. He finds, as such sweeping looks tend to, that both optimists and pessimists have a case. There is a revolution in clean energy ... but it’s not happening fast enough.
I’ve boiled it down to three key graphics, adapted from Tollefson’s piece (which you should read, seriously).

We’re currently heading for around 3 degrees of warming
Javier Zarracina/Vox
Global average temperatures have risen about 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times. At current rates, they could exceed 1.5 degrees by 2030. And global greenhouse gas emissions, after a brief lull from 2014 to 2016, are rising again.
The worst-case scenarios, nudging up to 4 or 5 degrees, seem unlikely at this point. The political and economic winds have shifted; the curve is bending.
If all the world’s countries can live up to their pledges in the Paris climate agreement, we’ll hit the year 2100 somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 degrees. So far every country has done at least a little, though very few are on track to meet their commitments.
Suffice to say, 3 degrees is worse than 2 degrees. There’s no way to pin such differences down with precision, but this graph gives you a sense.

How close are we to replacing fossil fuels?
Javier Zarracina/Vox
Not very close! As of 2015, renewable energy provided 19.3 percent of final global energy consumption. Excluding traditional biomass (burning wood for heat and cooking), it was 10.2 percent. Without hydro, that was 6.6 percent. Wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass electricity together accounted for 1.6 percent.
Renewables are growing faster than any other source of energy, but they’ve got a long, long way to go. As things currently stand, “because so much energy comes from coal,” Tollefson writes, “slight fluctuations from year to year can wipe out massive gains in renewables.”

The most consequential climate decisions will happen in developing nations
Javier Zarracina/Vox
The big carbon story of the 21st century thus far has been China’s miraculous spurt of economic growth, fueled almost entirely by coal, and its equally miraculous plateauing of emissions in the last few years, driven by a wide range of efforts to curb coal use.
In the US and the EU, emissions have largely decoupled from economic growth, trending mildly down, mostly due to decarbonization in electricity.
But emissions are on the upswing in India, and more importantly, in “all other” countries. It is rapidly developing countries like Turkey, Indonesia, and Vietnam where key decisions about 21st-century infrastructure are being made. A growing share of global coal demand comes from those countries, though the coal boom climate hawks feared seems to be slowing somewhat.
In a nutshell, hitting Paris targets will mean both that developed nations start rapidly reducing toward net-zero emissions by mid-century and that developing nations find a different path to prosperity than the one traveled by the countries around them holding all the wealth and still, on a per-capita basis, emitting the most carbon.
It’s a long shot.

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels:

Sydney Smashes April Records With A Month Of Summer-Like Heat

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

If this April in Sydney often felt more like mid-summer than mid-autumn, you wouldn't be far off the mark. And there's more out-of-season warmth to come.
Even before the final temperatures for the month settle on Monday, readings for the first 29 days are far enough ahead of previous records to make it certain that April will be Sydney's hottest in almost 160 years of records, Weatherzone says.
"It was a really, really hot month," Kim Westcott, a meteorologist with Weatherzone, said.
Temperatures in Sydney this April have been more typical of those in mid-summer. Photo: Janie Barrett
"Certainly, it's not isolated to just Sydney and NSW," she said, adding that South Australia and Victoria were also likely to challenge historical records.
Up until Monday, average daytime temperatures were running at 26.27 degrees, well ahead of the previous high of 25.6 degrees set almost a century ago in April 1922, Weatherzone said.
A typical April in Sydney would normally post maximum temperatures of 22.5 degrees. The hottest month of the year is usually January when 26 degrees marks an average day, according to Bureau of Meteorology data.
The mercury came close to reaching its forecast top of 21 degrees in Sydney, touching 20.8 decrees. That was just the third day of the month to register a below-average maximum temperature - and not cool enough to make much difference to the new April record.
"Due to a lack of cloud cover, Sydney also experienced about one and a half hours more sunshine than usual per day when averaged across the month," Ben Domensino, a meteorologist with Weatherzone, said.
The Bureau of Meteorology declined to comment on the records, pending the release of the monthly reported expected on Tuesday.

Mild nights too
If anything, the overnight temperatures were even more anomalously mild.
Despite two cooler-than-average days to end the month - the only two during this April - a typical overnight low this month has been about 18 degrees, Weatherzone said.
That tally compares with the previous mildest April for minimums of 16.91 degrees, set in April 1986. A typical April in Sydney has minimums averaging 14.7 degrees.
Rainfall for the city was boosted by a couple of late bursts. The tally, though, was only about 23 millimetres, well shy of the average for the month of 128.5mm.
"This was Sydney’s driest April in 12 years during what is typically the city’s fourth wettest month of the year," Mr Domensino said.

Outlook
The month got off to a roaring start across much of southern Australia, prompting the bureau to issue a special climate statement to highlight the many late-season records falling.
The outlook is for more unseasonably warm - and mostly dry - weather for the most of the first week of May at least.
After Monday, each day for the coming six days is forecast to be 23-27 degrees, or about 3-7 degrees warmer than a typical May day in Sydney.
Nights, though, will be closer to the average of 11.6 degrees usual for this month, although Friday's forecast overnight low of 19 degrees will be particularly mild.
Two cold fronts should arrive across Victoria and southern parts of NSW on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, possibly bringing snow flurries to mountain regions, Ms Westcott said.
Still, "the cold's not likely to get that far north", and make much of a dent in Sydney's readings, she said.
Among April's stand-out events were a record daytime for the month reading of 35.4 degrees on April 9, one of five days above 30 degrees. Another day with 29.9 degrees meant the city fell just short of matching 1922's record number of six days of 30 degrees or warmer days.
Background warming of about 1 degree over the past century caused by climate change - in Australia and globally - makes it much more likely that records for warm days will fall compared with cool ones, the bureau says.

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels:

30/04/2018

'Bandaid Measure': Is $500m Enough To Save The Great Barrier Reef?

SBS - Rashida Yosufzai

A $500 million rescue package has been announced by the federal government to help the Great Barrier Reef, but experts and green groups aren't sure if it will be enough to save the World Heritage site.


The federal government has announced a record $500 million investment to save the national icon, but some experts say it’s too late for some areas already severely damaged by the impacts of climate change.
The rescue package comes after parts of the ailing reef were hit by two consecutive years of a major coral bleaching event linked to climate change in 2016 and 2017, coupled with the destruction wrought by a recent outbreak of coral-eating crown of thorns starfish.
The funding includes measures to improve water quality by encouraging better farming practices, scientific research towards reef restoration and building more resilient coral by tackling the coral-eating corn of thorns starfish.
University of Sydney Marine Biology Professor Maria Byrne says the funding measures are welcome, especially for those areas of the reef heavily dependent on the tourism market.
But she said no amount of money could bring back those northern reefs that were impacted by the 2016 and 2017 mass bleaching event."
“For instance, the reefs around Lizard Island, 90 per cent of those reefs are gone," Professor Byrne told SBS News.
“No money put at those reefs is going to reinstate those in the next while.”
An underwater photographer documents an expanse of dead coral at Lizard Island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The Ocean Agency/XL Catlin Seaview Survey via AP
Tourist areas likely to be targeted
“Clearly the government isn’t investing in the entire Great Barrier Reef but importantly it will probably be investing in areas where we have targeted commercial interests – those tourists jobs."
And in order to save the reef, the government must tackle the elephant in the room first: climate change, she added.
“You cannot protect the reef from puddles of warm water sitting over the entire northern GBR, together with all of the cyclones that came at the same time which were also climate related.
“So sure this is a bandaid measure to try and keep those tourist reefs in good shape.”
The Wilderness Society criticised the government for supporting the Adani coal mine, accusing it of using the funding package as a “smokescreen to cover up years of inaction on climate change”.
“Prevention is far more effective and cheaper than the cure and in this case the government refuses to curb carbon pollution which is damaging the reef and refusing to curb deforestation which is muddying up the waters of the reef,” Climate Campaign Manager Glenn Walker told SBS News.

Rescue package brings hope
Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg acknowledged the reef was facing a number of challenges.
“But these are important initiatives, we continue to invest heavily recognising that all Australians have an investment, have an interest, have a stake in the future health of the Reef.
Coral bleaching has devastated Australia's Great Barrier Reef. AAP
“That is why the announcement today is such a game-changer. It will secure the reef for future generations."
The Great Barrier Reef Foundation, which is partnering with the government on the rescue package, said it would bring hope to the reef’s future.
While the world worked on a plan to tackle climate change, these were practical measures to build the Reef’s resilience, Chairman John Schubert said.
“Today’s major investment brings real solutions within our grasp,” he said.
These funds represent an unequaled opportunity to create a legacy of hope for future generations.”

Links
Posted by at No comments :
Labels:
Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )

Lethal Heating is a citizens' initiative