Investors With $26 Trillion In Assets Urge G7 Leaders To Act On Climate Change

Deutsche Welle - David Martin | Reuters

Several huge investment firms, including Germany's Allianz Global Investors, have urged G7 leaders to increase their fight against climate change. The pleas will likely fall on deaf ears in the Trump administration.

Institutional investors boasting some $26 trillion (€22.3 trillion) in assets urged leaders from the Group of Seven nations to double down on their pledge to cut down greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out coal power entirely.
"The global shift to clean energy is under way, but much more needs to be done by governments," the group of 288 investors said in a statement ahead of the upcoming G7 summit in Canada, slated for June 8-9.
Signatories included leading investment firms such as Allianz Global Investors, Aviva Investors, DWS, HSBC Global Asset Management, Nomura Asset Management, Australian Super and HESTA.

What if the earth gets two degrees warmer?

Investors warned that pledges agreed on the back of the 2015 Paris climate summit did not go far enough to limit global warming. Governments, they said, needed to phase out coal power and fossil fuel subsidies worldwide to make any tangible progress in the fight against climate change. Coal power continues to account for almost 40 percent of all generated electricity.
Leading nations also needed "put a meaningful price on carbon," investors wrote in their statement, which was delivered to each of the G7 governments and the United Nations.
Stephanie Pfeifer, CEO of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, one of the signatories, said Sunday's statement marked the first time such a broad group of leading investment firms has called for a phase-out of thermal coal used in power generation.
"There is a lot more momentum in the investor community" to put pressure on governments, she told the Reuters news agency.

What future for coal workers?

Trump's climate policy poses obvious roadblock
However, investors' calls for stricter climate policy risk being ignored by the US.
President Donald Trump has made clear he favors bolstering the US' fossil fuel industry and has voiced his doubts over the scientific findings on climate change.
Trump also announced a year ago that the US would pull out of the Paris climate accord, citing the supposedly "draconian financial and economic burdens" the agreement imposed on American jobs and the US economy.
Investors sought to counter those claims in Sunday's letter, writing that countries and firms that implement the Paris agreement's climate goals "will see significant economic benefits and attract increased investment."
The US along with Germany and Japan, is also not a member of the "Powering Past Coal" alliance, a group of almost 30 countries founded last year seeking to halt all coal power usage by 2030. G7 nations Canada, Britain, France and Italy are among the alliance's members.

Links

• Fire and ice: The untapped fossil fuel that could save or ruin our climate
• Banks produce first guidance on climate-related risks
• Trump's growing cabinet of climate deniers
• Germany's mining communities brace themselves for post-coal era
• Drowning World: Gideon Mendel's images capture the depths of climate change
• Banks And Insurers Support Task Force Recommendations On Climate-Related Financial Disclosure
• Trump Might Not Believe In The Risks Of Climate Change - But Investors Do And They Are Taking Action
• European Insurers Lead Global Industry On Climate Risk Action
• Now Even Insurance Regulators Are Turning Up The Heat On Climate Change

Government's $500m Great Barrier Reef Package May Have Limited Impact Amid Climate Change

ABC Science - Joanna Khan

Coral bleaching is caused by higher than normal water temperatures. (Supplied: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority)

At the end of April a $500 million package to help the Great Barrier Reef was announced by the Federal Government.
It didn't take long for questions to be raised about the decision to give $444 million in funding to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a small charity with a revenue of only $8 million in 2016.
The funding will be split between improving water quality, supporting reef restoration science, increasing crown-of-thorns starfish control, community engagement and reef monitoring.
But there is no acknowledgement of what scientists argue is the biggest threat facing the reef: climate change.
Without climate action, can this package actually do anything to help the reef?

Controlling the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish has been a priority on the reef for many years. (Flickr: Ryan McMinds)

The answer is no, according to many involved in reef research, management and conservation, including University of Queensland coral biologist Sophie Dove.

"Unless we mitigate the CO2, a lot of the other solutions such as cleaning the water and removing crown of thorns are somewhat immaterial," Dr Dove said.

"All of those things can assist in helping any coral reefs that remain to survive and prosper in the future — but without climate mitigation, I think that's an issue."

Local reef actions must be met halfway
While the funding is a step forward for addressing local pressures on the reef like water quality, it must go hand in hand with national and global emissions reductions, according to Russell Reichelt from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA).
"We're very clear that it is absolutely critical to achieve action globally on climate change, but we're focused on what we can do as the Marine Park Authority in the local region," he said.
The funding was not designed to work on its own, said Dr Reichelt, who chairs the GBRMPA.

"The real solution in the long run is to address rising greenhouse gas concentrations in our atmosphere," he said.

"But we're still left with things that will happen inevitably now, because of the amount of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. So there was never a greater imperative that we look for ways to relieve local pressures."
However, some scientists have expressed concern that the funding is targeting some local measures that have not yet been proven effective.
Research fellow Jon Brodie from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies wrote in The Conversation that "one concern with the package is that it seems to give greatest weight to the strategies that are already being tried — and which have so far fallen a long way short of success".

Reef already changed by warming

If the water temperature doesn't drop after bleaching, corals starve and die, and get overgrown with algae. (Supplied: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority)

Across the entire Great Barrier Reef 30 per cent of corals died after the 2016 bleaching event. In the northern third of the reef, where up to 50 per cent of shallow water corals were lost, some corals actually "cooked" because the underwater heatwave was so severe.

In 2016 coral loss was highest in the northern section of the reef where the heatwave was strongest. (Supplied: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies)

The government is avoiding dealing with the root cause of this, which is climate change, said Great Barrier Reef campaigner Imogen Zeethoven from the Australian Marine Conservation Society.
"I wake up at night thinking, what will it take for this Government to respond effectively, if losing 50 per cent of the shallow water corals on the reef isn't enough?" she said.

"They can invest $500 million over six years, but if they do nothing about climate change then it will all be wasted in the end."

Coral ecosystems have already been radically transformed by climate change.
The loss of corals due to the 2016 bleaching has forced some northern reefs to transition to new compositions of corals with less diversity — dominated by slow-growing species with more simple physical structures.
And scientists have already documented changes in reef fish diversity as a result of the coral loss.

New funding is still critical
Echoing these sentiments, CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science Paul Hardisty said the $500 million was a good start, but emissions also needed to be addressed.

Where is the urgency in Australia's climate policy?

Australia needs to stop pretending we're tackling climate change.

"On the business-as-usual trajectory … in a few decades there won't be any reefs, or at least reefs as we know them today," Dr Hardisty said.

"If you don't get greenhouse gas emissions under control then no amount of money is any use."

But Dr Hardisty said that didn't mean we should stop funding other local reef protection measures.
"We're past the point where we can say that getting emissions under control will be enough," he said.
"To have healthy reefs that provide trillions of dollars in ecosystem services to humans every year, then you've got to do both, there isn't another option."
By relieving other pressures on the reef such as poor water quality and crown-of-thorns starfish, the reefs of the future will have a better shot at surviving — no matter that form they take.

So where is the simultaneous climate action?
Spending on climate issues was cut in the 2018 budget from $3 billion to $1.6 billion in 2019, and it will be reduced further to $1.25 billion by 2022.
On top of that, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) has an emissions reduction target of 26 to 28 per cent by 2030, which reef campaigner Imogen Zeethoven said was insufficient.
"A 26 per cent reduction, as proposed by the NEG, matched by all the countries in the world would result in all coral reefs in the world dying," Ms Zeethoven said.

"They need to dramatically upscale their emissions reduction target to match the funding investment that they're putting into the reef."

Dr Reichelt said that advocating for both global and local solutions for the reef was like walking a tightrope.
He said it was a balance between "making sure people understand the underlying cause and the need for global action, as well as not giving up on the reef locally".
"If the reef does survive until the end of the century we'll have a better, more diverse coral reef if we take all these local actions now," he said.

Links

• Great Barrier Reef to get $500m to tackle pollution and breed more resilient coral
• Great Barrier Reef $444m budget funding awarded to small foundation without tender process
• $500 million for the Great Barrier Reef is welcome, but we need a sea change in tactics too
• Great Barrier Reef survived five 'death events', but may not bounce back this time
• Record die-off of Great Barrier Reef coral confirmed by scientists, while some tourist areas improved
• Mass coral bleaching causes biotic homogenization of reef fish assemblages
• Labor slams $444m reef funding to foundation with 'six full-time staff' without tender
• A better energy future for Australia

Don't Turn To The Military To Solve The Climate-Change Crisis

The Guardian - Nick Buxton*

Warning about conflicts, wars and mass migration is the wrong way to approach things

The heat waves and fires in recent years have shown that climate change will have a big impact on Australia. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

The Australian Senate’s declaration last month that climate change is a “current and existential national security risk” was clearly intended to inject much-needed urgency into the country’s climate policy stalemate.
Bringing together the unusual bedfellows of military generals and environmentalists to warn about the dangers of climate change, it has the possibility to break though Australia’s culture wars on the issue.
 However, by framing climate change as a security matter, it also has significant consequences in shaping how we respond to a warming planet.
 As the climate crisis unfolds, is the military the institution we want to turn to for solutions?
The Australian Senate inquiry was initiated by the former Greens senator Scott Ludlam and heard from diverse actors, including humanitarian agencies and defence strategists.
 It examined the likely impacts of extreme weather on military infrastructure, the economy and the wider region. It concluded that “climate change is exacerbating threats and risks to Australia” and called for improved military preparedness, better studies of “risks” to Australia, and enhanced coordination between government agencies.

The question rarely asked is whose security are we talking about - security of what, for whom and from whom?

In this, Australia is following a well-worn path forged by the European Union and the United States. The Pentagon in 2003 was the first to talk about climate security, framing climate change as a “threat multiplier” that would exacerbate conflict, terrorism, mass migration and social instability.
In 2008, the EU concurred saying that global temperature increases of more than 2 degrees (current predictions suggest we are heading for more than 3 degrees) would “lead to unprecedented security scenarios”.
Security is a modern day weasel word – who can be against security? The question rarely asked is whose security are we talking about - security of what, for whom and from whom? The US, EU and now Australian strategies, though, clearly state they are talking about the security of their respective nations in the face of “threats” usually coming from the consequences of climate change in neighbouring countries.
The submission from Australia’s Department of Defence to the inquiry put it this way: “When climate impacts are combined with ethnic or other social grievances, they can contribute to increased migration, internal instability or intra-state insurgencies, often over greater competition for natural resources. These developments may foster terrorism or cross-border conflict.”
They argued that this “could lead to an increase in the demand for a wide spectrum of Defence responses including maintaining law and order following disasters”.
The image they paint is a dystopian one, which assumes that climate change disruptions will lead to a dog-eat-dog world, causing conflicts and wars, and prompting millions to migrate – and this will require the military to deal with the ensuing chaos.
The effect of this approach is to turn the victims of climate change into potential threats and to make a militarised response to the impact of climate change the default response.
The Australian Senate report is more nuanced than some US Pentagon reports in advocating for a range of strategies, including additional climate finance and better disaster resilience planning.
But by blurring the distinction between the military’s ideas of security and other “human security” approaches, it embraces and reinforces a military response to climate change.
This can be seen in the report’s strong appeals to the military to expand its role in disaster relief, even though this typically is the most costly form of relief and can end up militarising humanitarian disasters as the world witnessed graphically in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina where deployed National Guards ended up shooting at flood victims.
The Senate report has less focus on the way the impacts of climate change will vary dramatically depending on the level of poverty and vulnerability of the affected community. Nor does it challenge the economic structures or laws that have led to this inequality and vulnerability, such as the role of Australia’s trade policies in undermining rural livelihoods and disrupting food systems.
This is not surprising. After all, the essence of “security” is to secure what already exists. This means securing a world order in which Australia’s per capita income is 25 times that of nearby Kiribati or Solomon Islands and where even in Australia 2.9 million people live under the poverty line.
 It is an approach that seeks to build walls to exclude the dispossessed rather than tackle the underlying causes that cause people to migrate – shown today most visibly in Australia’s inhumane treatment of refugees in Nauru.
Australia’s experience of unprecedented heat waves and fires in recent years has already shown that climate change will have a big impact on the country and the wider region. But how those impacts play out will depend to a great degree on how we choose to respond.
An approach that relies on military forces and barbed wire will worsen the crisis and create a world no one wants to live in.
Real security emerges from recognising our interdependence, tackling injustice and inequality, and working together to protect those who are most vulnerable.

*Nick Buxton works at the Transnational Institute based in the Netherlands and is co-editor of The Secure and the Dispossessed: How the Military and Corporations are shaping a climate-changed world (Pluto Books, 2015)

Links

• Climate change an 'existential security risk' to Australia, Senate inquiry says 
• Climate 'culture war' will doom Australia to fail on emissions targets, Labor says
• Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth
• Terrawatch: rocks could have a role in combatting climate change
• How Climate Change Is Our Military’s Most Threatening Enemy
• Climate Change Threatens Half Of US Bases Worldwide, Pentagon Report Finds
• Defence Warns Of Climate Change Peril For Food, Energy And Peace
• 'Disaster Alley': Cyclone Debbie Shows How Climate Change Will Test Australia's Military
• The Age Of Consequences
• The White House Doubts Climate Change. Here's Why The Pentagon Does Not
• President Trump, Military Split On Climate Change
• U.S. Defence Experts And Military Officers Sound Alarm About Climate Change
• Climate Change 'Significant And Direct' Threat To U.S. Military: Reports
• The Elephant in Paris – Guns and Greenhouse Gases
• Climate Change Is A Security Threat – So Where Is The UN Security Council?
• Here Are All The Ways Climate Change Presents A Threat To National Security
• 'Long, Slow, Horrible': Former Defence Officers Warn Of Climate Impacts On National Security
• Australia Warned It Has Radically Underestimated Climate Change Security Threat
• Food Shortages Due To Climate Change Could Fuel Violence, Unrest - Research
• Climate Change Poses A Unique Threat To National Security, Military And Intelligence Experts Say
• Intelligence Community To Trump: When It Comes To Global Warming, You're 
• US Military Taking Climate Change Into Account In Food And Energy Security
• Australia Is Sleepwalking Into A Climate Security Nightmare
• Climate Threatens Australia's Security In Unexpected Ways

Cricket Is Natural Choice To Be A World Leader On Climate Change

The Guardian - Tanya Aldred

The sport has a bond with the land that few other field sports do and Thursday’s game at Lord’s can put the environment centre stage

Dominica’s Windsor Park cricket stadium, pictured here during a Test in June 2015, was destroyed by Hurricane Maria last year. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

In September 2017 Roosevelt Skerrit, the prime minister of Dominica, stood up in front of the UN general assembly. “Eden is broken,” he said.
Skerrit had travelled to New York from his devastated island nation, battered to bare-root nakedness by Hurricane Maria, which spat out homes and lives, leaving behind flooding, landslides and a crumpled infrastructure. The category five storm splintered the island’s ancient forests, a Unesco world heritage site, ripping away the lush canopy to reveal a broken, brown reality.
The storm also razed the island’s Windsor Park cricket stadium – and on Thursday a Rest of the World team take on the West Indies at Lord’s to raise money for its restoration, and that of James Ronald Webster Park in Anguilla, ruined by hurricane Irma just two weeks earlier.
The game is a shining example of cricket acting for the common good. It will raise much-needed funds and the tickets, which are £10 for children, are reasonable. The game is being held during the half-term holiday and will be shown on Sky. It brings together players from around the globe including Rashid Khan, Shahid Afridi, Thisara Perera, Dinesh Karthik, and Mitchell McClenaghan under the captaincy of Eoin Morgan for the Rest of the World.
But there is something missing. There has been no discussion of the reasons why the weather seems to be changing, what might be done to prevent it or why the hurricane season of 2017 was both so unprecedented and so brutal.

An aerial view of the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in Roseau, capital of Dominica. Photograph: Lionel Chamoiseau/AFP/Getty Images

No one weather event can be categorically labelled as “caused by climate change”. But scientists are confident that climate change is bringing more extreme weather events, and that it increases the severity of hurricanes, like Irma and Maria, as greenhouse gases trap energy in the atmosphere driving more powerful winds. Rising temperatures have led to higher sea levels, which in turn means bigger storm surges. Higher water temperatures lead to more evaporation of water into the air, and that means more rain and therefore a higher risk of flooding.
Skerrit is in no doubt what is to blame for his island’s repeated battering. In April he spoke of the country’s plans to become the world’s first climate resilient nation. But, he asked, what of the rest of the planet?
“In the current system, those who reap the financial benefits from the emissions of greenhouse gasses are not those who carry the costs. As a result, there is an underinvestment in limiting climate change, mitigating its costs and reducing climate-related damage. That is no longer a viable situation. The time for talk, conventions and declarations is over. The time for action is now,” said Skerrit.
So what does cricket do? There is for the game both a responsibility and an opportunity in tackling climate change. Cricket, and its followers, have an emotional and physical bond with the land in a way that few other field sports do. From the dustbowls of Ahmedabad to the lush pastures of the Somerset levels, cricket is its environment. It affects the batting conditions, the way the ball moves, the choice of players on the field, the way the game is played.
A roll-call of incidents from the the last few years suggest the scale of future challenges the game will have to face, and the risks of doing nothing. Last October Irma and Maria hit the Caribbean; this February the Western Province Cricket Association cancelled all club and school cricket because of severe drought in Cape Town and the surrounding areas.
In 2016, 13 IPL games were moved from Maharashtra as parts of the state endured their worst drought for 100 years, and the control of water became a legal issue this April when the Mumbai high court forbade the Maharashtra Cricket Association from receiving water from the Pavana dam for its matches in Pune.
Last December, air pollution in Delhi during the India v Sri Lanka Test resulted in players vomiting on the pitch and wearing face masks. Play was repeatedly held up and oxygen cylinders were brought into the dressing rooms. In England, 10 county grounds sit in cities where pollution levels exceed WHO recommendations. In the last month, a heatwave in Karachi has killed at least 65 people. And earlier this year, a report by the Climate Coalition named cricket as the game in the UK most likely to be affected by climate change.

Sri Lanka’s players wear anti-pollution masks during December’s Test against India in Delhi. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP

“There is clear evidence that climate change has had a huge impact on the game,” said Dan Musson, the ECB’s national participation manager, “in the form of general wet weather and extreme weather events.”
Glamorgan, the sole Welsh voice in county cricket, have lost 1,300 overs of cricket since 2000 because of the weather. Their head of operations, Dan Cherry, is frank.
“Losing so much cricket is a county’s worst nightmare – it affects the club at every level,” he has said. “It’s difficult even for first-class counties to be commercially viable with such an impact.”
Steve Birks, the Trent Bridge groundsman, told the Cricket Paper only this month: “The rain is getting tropical, it is getting heavier. We’re getting thunderstorms more often when it rains – I think that’s when you can tell the difference.”
Cricket must adapt to what the World Bank calls “the new climate normal” but it must also become part of the solution. On the day of the IPL final, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) signed an agreement to promote green cricket, “greening operations and engaging cricketers and fans in green initiatives”. The following months will give us an idea of how much the BCCI really cares, and how much is greenwash.
Becoming a world leader, a shining example of good environmental practice would attract to cricket the much-desired growth audience – as well as being the right thing to do. Young people, in particular, care about the future of the planet in a way they might not care about, say, 100-ball cricket. Increasingly sponsors too are likely to look at environmental performance when calculating where to put their money.
So many things could be done quite easily – large and small – from carbon audits to sensible tour planning to reduce the number of flights, from encouraging spectators to travel to matches in sustainable ways to curbing single-use plastic use. Some grounds, Lord’s and the Oval particularly, but also Edgbaston and Cardiff, are acting unilaterally, but cricket, and sport in general, is crying out for environmental leadership – how fabulous it would be if Thursday’s match banged heads together. With 2.5bn fans worldwide, cricket has the potential to influence human behaviour in profound ways.

Links

• Sri Lankan bowler vomits in Delhi cricket match due to polluted air
• Sport must prepare for irreversible changes due to climate change unless it becomes part of the solution
• Sport & Climate Impacts: | The Climate Institute
• Sport and Climate Change - Cool Australia
• Just not cricket – how climate change will make sport more risky
• Warming World May Put Most Cities Off-Limits For Summer Olympics
• The last Summer Olympics? Climate change, health, and work outdoors
• Climate change could trigger tropical evacuations
• Game changer: How climate change is impacting sports in the UK

Up In Smoke: What Did Taxpayers Get For The $2bn Emissions Fund?

The Guardian - Adam Morton

Before the latest auction figures, Adam Morton investigates the plan Turnbull once called ‘a recipe for fiscal recklessness’

The government’s enthusiasm for the Direct Action climate policy has visibly waned since Malcolm Turnbull returned to the leadership in 2015. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

At some point in June, the Australian government will announce it has spent up to $2.3bn over three years on a scheme that the prime minister believes is a reckless waste of public money.
That is not how it will be expressed. If the past is a guide, the government is likely to quietly issue an understated press release saying the latest auction of the emissions reduction fund – the scheme better known as Direct Action, which the former environment minister Greg Hunt described as the centrepiece of Australia’s efforts to tackle climate change – has been a success.
However, the specifics of how the money is to be spent will be all but impenetrable to most people.
First, a recap: Hunt hastily conceived Direct Action over the summer of 2009-10 after Tony Abbott pipped Malcolm Turnbull by a vote in a ballot for the Liberal leadership, having run on a platform of quasi-climate scepticism and withdrawing Coalition support for requiring big polluters to pay for the carbon dioxide they emitted. With Kevin Rudd a popular first-term leader, Abbott becoming prime minister seemed a remote possibility. But he proved a brutally effective opposition leader, Labor imploded and the 2013 election was a blue-tied landslide. Hunt set about implementing a $2.55bn policy that, even within the Coalition, many thought unlikely to ever be legislated.

It would have been cheaper if the government negotiated to buy the land rather than pay landowners to protect it.

The emissions reduction fund pays farmers and businesses to cut carbon dioxide emissions below what they would have otherwise been. It does this through a reverse auction – people nominate how cheaply they believe they can reduce emissions and bureaucrats choose the cheapest bids. The government buys carbon credits from the successful projects once emissions cuts are verified.

According to the scheme’s architect, it is great value for money. In the run up to the landmark Paris climate conference in 2015, Hunt said early auction results were “stunning”. He looked forward to telling the United Nations meeting about how Australia had built “one of the most effective systems in the world for significantly reducing emissions” that would meet our recently announced 2030 target, a cut of at least 26% cut below 2005 levels.
Turnbull described it another way. While on the backbench, he observed that Direct Action would involve billions of taxpayers’ dollars being spent paying farmers to create offsets so industry could freely pollute, a plan he described as “a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale”. He noted that, from Abbott and Hunt’s perspective, the policy at least had the virtue that it could be easily scrapped if climate change proved not real, or if the rest of the world was doing nothing about it.

Emissions reduction fund abatement by type

Guardian Graphic | Source: Clean Energy Regulator

Today, the evidence of the impact of climate change continues to mount, the world has made significant, though inadequate, commitments to address the problem, and the emissions reduction fund rolls on. It has now been Turnbull government policy longer than it was Abbott government policy.
The Clean Energy Regulator, which runs the fund for the government, has signed contracts to buy credits equivalent to 191.7m tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next decade or so – about 3% of what Australia is expected to emit in that time. About 30.5m have been acquitted so far.
But national emissions, which fell between 2012 and 2014 under the carbon price scheme introduced by Labor and the Greens and abolished by the Coalition, are tracking upwards year-on-year. A thinktank analysis late last year found Australia was the only wealthy country where emissions from energy combustion were at a record high.
Though it continues, the government’s enthusiasm for its self-described main climate policy has visibly waned since Turnbull returned to the leadership in 2015. The “Direct Action” label has disappeared from the government’s lexicon. Frydenberg does not spruik the emissions reduction fund’s wares with Hunt’s brio, and its notional funding has been slashed.
In the dying months of Abbott’s prime ministership, he and Hunt promised it would be topped up with $200m a year between 2018 and 2030, lifting public spending on offsets to nearly $5bn. But there was nothing for it over the next four years in the recent budget.
While political and media attention has fallen away, projects being bankrolled by the emissions reduction fund may become increasingly important in the years ahead assuming the government is successful in negotiating into life its plan for the electricity sector – the national energy guarantee, or Neg.
As proposed, it would allow electricity retailers to buy carbon offsets as an alternative to reducing emissions, potentially creating a larger secondary market beyond the government for farmers and businesses to sell the credits they generate. Big polluters covered by the other part of Direct Action – what the government calls the “safeguard mechanism”, which was promised to stop industrial emissions increasing emissions to wipe out the cuts the government is paying for – are already using the offsets in small amounts.
Two questions, then: what are taxpayers getting for their billions? And how robust are the projects that are counted as emissions cuts?

Plants, rubbish dumps and supermarket lights
About 80% of projects with contracts under the emissions reduction fund are in the rugby league states north of the Murray. The overwhelming majority of those are in a corridor of land between Cobar in western New South Wales and Quilpie in south-western Queensland and involve restoring or protecting plant life. Vegetation projects – regenerating degraded habitat, tree-planting and “avoided deforestation” schemes in which landowners are paid to not clear their land – are expected to deliver two-thirds of the cuts promised to date.
Using these projects to create offsets isn’t a new idea. Many existed under the Carbon Farming Initiative introduced under Labor in 2011. The notable difference between the parties is who pays for the credits. Under Labor, they would have been mostly sold to business. Under the Coalition, it is taxpayers who have been doing the buying.
The regeneration projects have broad support – few would argue that they do not perform valuable work or store carbon dioxide. University of Queensland research fellow Megan Evans found they can have not just environmental benefits, but be good for regional communities, bringing investment and jobs.
However, some critics have questioned what happens after the “permanence period” – either 100 or 25 years, depending on the contract, in which the land must not be cleared. As the law stands, bulldozers could come out as soon as the period is up. Equally, fire or drought could sweep through at any point and release what has been protected. Yet supporters believe that once a market is established, the rationale to use carbon farming to make marginal land profitable will continue.

Emissions reduction fund status

Guardian Graphic | Source: Clean Energy Regulator

Avoided deforestation projects, which have been signed up to deliver 26m tonnes and – based on the average $11.90 per tonne of carbon dioxide paid under the scheme – could receive more than $300m of public money, are more contentious. They rely on a counterfactual though – it is impossible to know if a landowner ever really intended to clear the land.
Tim Baxter, a legal academic with the Australian-German Climate and Energy College, doubts many with government contracts did. He says some landowners had permits to clear their land for more than eight years before registering with the fund. At the other end of the scale, one project received a permit to clear just 49 days before registering. “Both raise serious questions,” he says.
Thinktank the Green Institute looked at the cost per hectare and found that it would have been far cheaper in most cases if the government negotiated to buy the land rather than pay landowners to protect it.

Academics believe landowners who received public money for avoided deforestation projects may not have intended to clear the land. Photograph: Auscape/UIG via Getty Images

But early evidence from satellite data suggests avoided deforestation projects could be making a difference. In an analysis published by the government’s Climate Change Authority, academics Megan Evans and Andrew Macintosh found a steep decline in deforestation in western NSW since 2012, while other parts of the state showed little change in land-clearing rates. Evans did say, however, it was a desktop analysis only and it is not yet clear what has caused the decline.
About half of all outback vegetation abatement projects are being managed by the Sydney-based environmental markets company Green Collar. Its chief executive and co-founder, James Schultz, says the methods used to estimate the emissions reductions from avoided deforestation and habitat regeneration projects are based on conservative assessments of what drove changes in land-clearing rates in the past, such as commodity prices and input costs.
“The method doesn’t pretend to say ‘this is a precise estimate of exactly what happens with clearing over every square inch of every property’,” he says. “They’re all estimates. The important thing is the estimate is well within the margins of what we think happens in the real world. They’re all going to be under-estimates of what is delivered.”
While it is necessarily imperfect, Schultz says Australia’s carbon offsets scheme is world-class and rigorously policed. “We do hundreds of audits a year and then the Clean Energy Regulator does spot audits across the top of that,” he says.
According to Baxter, a glaring omission from the rules is the impact of climate change itself. Australia’s scientific agencies suggest that, under the goals of the Paris conference, western NSW is projected to be on average 2.3 degrees warmer and have 8% less rainfall by 2100, a shift that would make it more akin to outback Queensland. “The difference between the closed woodlands of Bourke and the open woodlands of its future is a loss of approximately half its foliage cover – and a commensurate loss of carbon stored in the forests,” Baxter says. “The law doesn’t deal with that.”
An arguably larger question hangs over landfill sites that receive credits for capturing and combusting methane that leaks from decomposing rubbish. As revealed by Guardian Australia, an independent expert committee has recommended the government not extend contracts with sites that use the methane to generate electricity as they are what economist Paul Burke calls “anyway” projects – they would have existed without the fund and have a viable revenue stream from selling electricity and renewable energy certificates. This has been a long-standing criticism of landfill gas projects, dating back to their inclusion in earlier schemes. Critics say it means they are creating “junk” credits that do not reflect additional emissions cuts. Frydenberg is yet to say whether he will accept the committee’s advice.

Where are Australia's emissions coming from?

Guardian graphic | Source: NGGI. *LULUCF is negative for 2011 onwards

Less employed emission reduction fund methods – including supermarkets installing new lighting systems and companies reducing pollution from vehicle fleets – have also drawn flak. Burke, from the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, says the fund should never have been extended to include industrial emitters, energy or transport as there were more effective ways to cut emissions in those parts of the economy – some form of carbon price, for example. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the Australian public to be paying for Coles and Woolies to change their lights,” he says.

As Turnbull has pointed out, in Australia the offsets scheme is the policy. And it is barely making a dent.

Added up, it is difficult to know what taxpayers are getting for their investment. There has been surprisingly little academic research into what it is delivering. Some insiders privately say the Clean Energy Regulator does not do enough to ensure the projects they sign contracts with will be able to deliver, pointing particularly to the experimental techniques involved in storing carbon in soil. Even supporters believe as designed it is unlikely to deliver the cuts the government has promised.
What is clear is that there is little support inside and outside government for using taxpayers’ money to offset a fraction of Australia’s growing emissions. An offset scheme is generally used in conjunction with other policies to help make cuts as cheap as possible for those having to make them.
As Turnbull has pointed out, in Australia the offsets scheme is the policy. And it is barely making a dent.
The most recent greenhouse gas data shows pollution is up in every sector of the economy that gets money from the emissions reduction fund. Deforestation is outstripping habitat restoration by a rate of five-to-one based on government data. Emissions from waste, agriculture and big industry all rose last year. Recent auctions indicate industry interest has slumped, in part because the government seems indifferent to the scheme.
James Schultz, whose company is perhaps the greatest beneficiary under the emissions reduction fund, is among those who wants the government to change tack. “I’m a strong advocate for a more pure market-based mechanism,” he says. “It is just not economically efficient to have the taxpayer pay for it rather than private industry.”

Where to from here?
The only sector in which there has been a fall in emissions is the one not covered by the emissions reduction fund – electricity, due to the closure of some coal-fired power. Electricity is also the area where there are obvious steps being taken to introduce a policy. The government wants to bring in a Neg with a target of a 26% cut by 2030 – a level scientists say is far short of what is needed in the power sector. Some analysis has suggested this goal would be reached regardless given the pace of the transition under way.
The government is also moving to make changes to the safeguard mechanism that covers big industrial emitters. Currently, polluters are set an emissions limit – known as a baseline – at the highest level they emitted between 2009 and 2014. Though the scheme is supposed to stop emissions rising, companies can apply to get a higher baseline. This freedom to increase emissions without penalty did not stop 16 industrial sites breaching their baseline last year and having to hand in millions of dollars-worth of carbon credits, mostly bought from emissions reduction fund projects – a sign that Australia has an operational carbon market, albeit a small one.
The government is now considering making the safeguard mechanism less tied to historic emissions. A climate policy review released in December suggested emission limits could be loosened so they “increase with production, supporting business growth”. This has widely been interpreted as letting companies emit more without penalty.
Insiders say an effective reboot of the scheme could also be used to tighten the baselines for the majority of polluters that are now emitting below – sometimes well below – their historic highs. It would prevent these businesses being able to argue in future that they should be given free carbon credits for beating an outdated historic baseline and selling them to polluting companies that are breaching their limit.
Those familiar with the thinking say there may also be a shift in the way the baseline is expressed from total emissions to emissions intensity – that is, how much a company emits for each widget it makes. This would allow emissions at a site to “increase with production” as the government has promised without immediately blowing out the baseline.
This could leave industrial emissions soaring unchecked. But it is also being interpreted as potentially laying the groundwork for a future emissions intensity scheme – the kind the government emphatically ruled out for the electricity sector amid uproar from the Coalition’s right wing.
The argument goes that a trading scheme – or two, if you count the Neg – could eventually provide a future government with a market for Australia’s carbon credits if it chose not to put more cash into the emissions reduction fund.
Of course, these sort of predictions have been made before and the government’s position is that it opposes any form of carbon price or trading. Its message is that it will not stand in industry’s way and wants to encourage new and expanding operators to invest in Australia without penalty.
But it is worth remembering that Hunt promised the safeguard mechanism would cut industrial emissions by 200m tonnes between 2020 and 2030 to help meet the Paris greenhouse target.
Guardian Australia last week asked Frydenberg if this remained the government’s position. He did not answer the question.

Links

• Land-clearing wipes out $1bn taxpayer-funded emissions gains
• Emissions scheme wastes millions on projects that would have gone ahead anyway
• Greg Hunt hasn't a lot to show for $660m spent on reducing greenhouse emissions
• Emissions increases approved by regulator may wipe out $260m of Direct Action cuts
• China’s emissions trading scheme puts Australian companies on notice

The Rapidly Changing Dynamics Of Australia’s Grid

RenewEconomy - Giles Parkinson


The politics may not change much, but Australia’s electricity grid is changing before our very eyes – slowly and inevitably becoming more renewable, more decentralised, and challenging the pre-conceptions of many in the industry.
The latest National Emissions Audit from The Australia Institute, which includes an update on key electricity trends in the National Electricity Market, notes some interesting developments over the last three months.

• Renewables-rich South Australia became a net electricity exporter for first time;
• 12 new wind and solar farms totalling 1050MW of capacity were added to the grid, including 500MW of large-scale solar, trebling the amount of large-scale solar in the system;
• The continued rapid uptake of rooftop PV by homes and businesses kept a lid on grid demand, even if overall consumption showed a rise, and;
• Electricity generation emissions in the NEM fell again, but only slightly.

The most surprising of those developments may be the South Australia achievement, which shows that since the closure of the Hazelwood brown coal generator in March 2017, South Australia has become a net exporter of electricity, in net annualised terms.
Lead author Hugh Saddler notes that this is a big change for South Australia, which in 1999 and 2000, when it had only gas and local coal, used to import 30 per cent of its electricity demand.
The fact that wholesale prices in South Australia were higher in other states – then, as they are now – has nothing to with wind and solar, but the fact that it has no low-cost conventional source and a peaky demand profile (then and now).
“The difference today is that the state is now taking advantage of its abundant resources of wind and solar radiation, and the new technologies which have made them the lowest cost sources of new generation, to supply much of its electricity requirements,” Saddler writes.
He notes that way back in the 1950s, when the local supply problem was first recognised, the then Electricity Trust of South Australia undertook a study into the feasibility of wind generation, about half a century before it was actually built.
Other things to note about the flows between states is that Victoria was about equal on imports and exports with its three neighbouring states, despite the closure of Hazelwood, while NSW continues to import around 10 per cent of its needs from Queensland.
This has nothing to do with the lack of supply in NSW. Its coal generators continued to deliver only around two-thirds of the time, it’s just that NSW plants are older and more expensive than the ones in Queensland.

Another interesting point is that gas-fired generation has increased in the last year or two in South Australia as a result of the Northern closure, but is still below the levels of a decade ago.
But because it is expensive, this is likely to spur more investment in storage.
As for rooftop solar, Saddler notes that the share of residential solar in the grid is still relatively small but it is the most steadily growing generation source in the NEM. (See red line in chart below).

That line is expected to grow steadily. By 2040, or perhaps 2050, the share of distributed generation, which includes rooftop solar, battery storage and demand management, is expected to reach nearly half of all Australia’s grid demand.
Saddler, says, however, that the increase in large-scale solar over the last few months is a significant milestone in Australia’s transition towards clean electricity generation. (See very top graph).
“Firstly, they are a concrete demonstration that the construction cost advantage, which wind enjoyed over solar until a year or two ago, is gone.
“From now on we can expect new capacity to be a mix of both technologies. Indeed, the Clean Energy Regulator states that it expects solar to account for half of all (new renewable) capacity by 2020.”

As for the change in emissions, this graph above tells the story, the brown line is key – there was another slight fall in the latest period.
But Australia – thanks to the closure of coal-fired generators and their replacement with wind and solar – has cut emissions by 18 per cent from the electricity grid in a decade.
Sadly, the government target is just a 26 per cent reduction from 2005 levels by 2030. Most of the rest of the target will be met over the next two years when the build-out of more wind and solar to meet the renewable energy target is completed.
Then what?

Links

• Wind and solar slashing corporate energy costs by 40%
• Renewables smash records in 2017, but 2018/19 will be bigger
• A 100% renewable grid isn’t just feasible, it’s already happening
• Australia’s “hidden” carbon price – it’s trading at nearly $18
• Malcolm Turnbull has become a de-facto climate denier
• 'All Happening Very Quickly': Tesla Battery Sends A Jolt Through Energy Markets
• Tesla’s Enormous Battery In Australia, Just Weeks Old, Is Already Responding To Outages In ‘Record’ Time
• 'History In The Making': Tesla Switches On World's Largest Battery In SA
• Why South Australia Must, And Will, Lead World On Renewables
• South Australia’s Energy Plan Gives National Regulators Another Headache
• South Australia Backs Battery, Gas Plant Under $550 Million Energy Plan

6 Must-See Movies About Climate Change

Climate Reality Project

Six deeply engaging and thought-provoking films shine a light on the realities of the climate crisis today – and imagine what it means for our tomorrow. 


Truly great films about the climate crisis are tough to come by.
 Allusions to environmental destruction are very familiar in the futuristic dystopias Hollywood churns out like clockwork, but they rarely get the science right – or they abandon it entirely in favor of skipping straight to some post-apocalyptic CGI extravaganza.
Those of us with a little knowledge of the climate crisis bristle at this kind of doom-and-gloom bombast – because we know better.
But that doesn’t mean a few thoughtful films haven’t been able to cut through the noise.
Below are six of our favorites.
We decided to spice it up by mixing narrative films with documentaries – and while our changing climate understandably casts a long, dark shadow over any future that wrestles with its impacts, we did our best to stay on the right side of the fine line between raucous, factually dubious calamity and thought-provoking “what if” explorations or science-centered spectacle.

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INTERSTELLAR
Director Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is that rarest of Hollywood anomalies – a wildly complicated, lavishly expensive, wholly original mainstream blockbuster. It doesn’t exist in the Marvel or DC cinematic universes; instead, it occupies a not-so-distant-future version of our very own – and things aren’t exactly going great. 
While the words “climate change” are never explicitly said in the film, the impacts of the crisis are writ large, driving a plot about an attempt to flee a near-future Earth reeling from drastically changing weather patterns and global food shortages for the safety of a new habitable planet.
Featuring one of the most stacked casts in recent memory, including Oscar winners Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, and Ellen Burstyn and nominees Jessica Chastain, Timothée Chalamet, and John Lithgow, Interstellar takes on a very real consequence of climate inaction, though it offers up an untenable solution.
After all, there’s still no Planet B.

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BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Living in a Louisiana bayou community called “the Bathtub,” six-year-old Hush Puppy (youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis) can’t get the prehistoric aurochs her teacher tells her will be released from melting ice caps off her mind – even as the world in front of her crumbles and cowers, the victim of powerful storms, failing levees, and familial health problems.
While the film’s setting is technically fictional, it was inspired by several very real fishing villages in Southern Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish. These small, isolated wetland communities are threatened by climate-driven erosion, extreme weather, and rising sea levels. Most notable among them is the rapidly disappearing Isle de Jean Charles, former home of “the first American climate refugees.”

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CHASING CORAL
The 2017 documentary Chasing Coral enjoys a rare accolade: It is one of a pretty short list of films to hold a 100 percent “fresh” rating on popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
That coral reefs are existentially threatened by the climate crisis is a truth near-universally acknowledged. But filmmaker Jeff Orlowski doesn’t simply telegraph a report on this impending ecological catastrophe.
Instead, Orlowski infuses his film with such empathy and ardor for our world’s oceans and their vibrant ecosystems – as well as those working hard to save what’s left – that it’s impossible to not walk away pumped up and ready to join the fight.

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SNOWPIERCER
Like we already mentioned, we try to avoid cynical, despondent hot takes on the climate crisis. But we’re fans of director Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer for two big reasons: First, it’s a very, very good, wildly underseen film, and second, because it confronts head-on the dangers of a “we’ll deal with this later” approach to climate action.
The film is set in a future where a failed geoengineering experiment to counteract climate change plunges the planet into a new ice age, killing all life except for those lucky enough (a phrase we’re using loosely here) to have boarded the titular train. This train now circles the globe on a constant loop and a tyrannical class system has taken hold onboard.
It’s an important cautionary tale: While we should investigate any and all scientific developments to stop the climate crisis, dangerous gambles like geoengineering – or for that matter, fleeing our planet for an imagined oasis somewhere deep in the universe – could come with unintended consequences. So, why risk it when we know for sure that quickly transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables can and will work?
There’s even an important philosophical principle – one at work in another great, underappreciated sci-fi film, 1997’s Contact – to back this one up. Attributed to fourteenth century logician and Franciscan friar William of Ockham, Ockham's Razor states… well, Jodie Foster’s Dr. Ellie Arroway put it best: “All things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one.” We agree, Dr. Arroway.
Note: For all its incredible imagination, Snowpiercer definitely has some moments of real violence and isn’t one for younger audiences.

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AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH / AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER
Now, of course, the film that started a movement – and the follow-up that propelled it to new heights.
After seeing former US Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, people worldwide finally understood the reality of the climate crisis devastating our planet. For many, it was the moment they knew they personally had to do something about it. The film’s impact continues to be felt more than a decade after it won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary and took its place among the highest-grossing documentaries ever.
Last year’s follow-up, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, took that story further, showcasing both the amazing progress that’s been made as well as how much further we still have to go to solve the climate crisis.
Both documentaries present the science and stakes of the crisis and ask viewers if they’re ready to fight like our world depends on it (because it does).

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Links

• Interstellar
• Beasts Of The Southern Wild
• Chasing Coral
• Snowpiercer
• An Inconvenient Truth
• An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power
• Soil Health and the Climate Crisis
• On the Move: When Climate Changes Communities in the US
• A ‘Perfect Storm’: Extreme Winter Weather, Bitter Cold, and Climate Change
• So You Saw An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power. Here’s What to Do Next