28/11/2018

Glorious Rubbish, Have We Been Wasting Your Energy All Along?

Fairfax - Lia Timson

A never-ending resource: rubbish. Credit: Graham Tidy
Talking points
  • 10,000 tonnes a day of domestic rubbish are collected at the tip
  • the rubbish is 55 per cent organic on average, but also includes plastic, glass and paper as disposed of in household bins 
  • the plant captures the methane gas produced by decomposing rubbish and transforms it into CO2 that is converted into electricity by thermoelectric engines
  • the plant produces enough energy to power a city of 300,000 people
  • the plant generates carbon credits as a reward for not releasing the gases into the atmosphere
Caieiras, Sao Paulo: As Australia debates the need to spend money on renewable energy projects to power our future without destroying the environment, it is worth taking a look at rubbish.
Is this never-ending resource being used to our advantage? What if, instead of just seeing it as something to get rid of, we put it to work?
That is a question environmental engineer Marcelo Camargo, manager of one of the world's largest biogas electricity generators on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, asked himself.
Rubbish tips produce copious amounts of methane gas which must be allowed to escape to avoid combusting the sites. It is typically burnt in multiple flares to convert it into CO², a gas many times less toxic than methane, or CH4. The CO² is typically released into the atmosphere.
And that's what the Solvi Group of companies, which owns and manages 39 landfill sites in Brazil, used to do, in the process earning carbon credits in the country's carbon trading scheme.
Marcelo Camargo, manager of Termoverde Caieiras, Brazil's largest biogas (methane) energy plant, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. Credit: Lia Timson
"But we saw an opportunity," says Camargo, who's been in the business for more than a decade and oversaw the plant's construction.
"We thought it's a pity, we're throwing energy away. We're taking methane, which has calorific value, and only generating credits. We thought, let's generate energy."
In 2011 Termoverde, a Solvi subsidiary, opened a small thermoelectric plant in Salvador, in the north-east state of Bahia, as a pilot, and in 2016 used lessons from that site to build a 100 million reais ($39 million) modern, modular, green power plant in Caieiras.
Nestled in lush subtropical hills just 33 kilometres out of the Sao Paulo megametropolis, Termoverde Caieiras is surrounded by an eucalyptus plantation and a environmental reserve belt that has the added bonus of shielding it from the road. The power plant itself is not much bigger than a couple of football fields and most Paulistas don't even know it is there.
Trucks work on the 15,000-square-metre rubbish tip in Caieiras, Brazil, where black pipes take methane away to the power plant. Credit: Lia Timson
Every day, hundreds of garbage trucks come and go, bringing 10,000 tonnes of rubbish from half of Sao Paulo's households as well as from surrounding towns. Their loads, 55 per cent organic on average, are dumped onto sections of the plant's 15,000-square-metre tip operated by sister company Essencis. The loads are then compacted and landscaped onto terraces, and left to decompose.
A network of perforated pipes allows the methane generated by the decomposing rubbish to travel upwards. In the same pipes, the slurry, the compost's liquid residue, travels downwards into a dam and later by truck to a sewage treatment plant.
The methane is control-burnt in four large chimneys and piped into thermo engines in modular containers. Credit: Lia Timson
Then, instead of burning aimlessly through small flares, the gas is captured, piped and control-burnt into CO² before being piped again into 21 containers housing individual generators. From here, it leaves as high-voltage electricity transmitted by cables to the site's substation, before feeding the state's power grid.
The plant produces enough energy to power a city of 300,000 – say, Wollongong in NSW or Geelong in Victoria – all year around. That's 29.5 megawatts of energy that would otherwise be wasted, and worse, released into the atmosphere.
Five of the 21 modular generators at Termoverde Caieiras. Credit: Lia Timson
The waste-to-energy technology is known in Australia as anaerobic digestion, that is, without oxygen, and is currently deployed in a modest site in Wollert, Victoria, where it powers the Yarra Valley Water sewage treatment plant. The $27-million 18-month-old site has a capacity to process up to 33,000 tonnes of organic waste each year, or 100 tonnes per day. According to Yarra Valley Water, any surplus energy from the plant is exported to the grid.
That's what Termoverde does too. It sells its energy to large commercial clients, and any surplus it sells on the open market. It has proven such a hit the company is thinking of converting all its sites into such private green-energy engines.
Electricity from the containers is fed into the site's substation and then the state's grid. Credit: Lia Timson
Key to the technology is that it doesn't burn or heat the waste – as opposed to combustion and gasification – technology, which use incinerators and boilers respectively.

How it works
Household waste-to-energy using anaerobic digestion
Graphic: Jamie Brown   Source: Termoverde Caieiras
Victoria is planning a gasification plant for Laverton North that would take up to 200,000 tonnes a year of residual household waste.
NSW excludes biological processes, such as anaerobic digestion and composting of waste from its Energy from Waste Policy Statement, in favour of thermal treatments such as combustion, oxidation and gasification.
A planned $700-million waste-to-energy incinerator plant by Dial A Dump Industries in Western Sydney was dumped in July amid uncertainty over the project’s human health risks and impact on air and water quality.
"Incinerators are only used where there's no room for landfill, like in Germany or Japan," Camargo says, adding that in Brazilian terms such solutions cost twice as much as anaerobic digestion because of the cost of heating the waste.
"Here that technology is superseded, and it has the added problem of burning dioxins from things like PVC which are much more damaging to the environment.
“And by not burning the rubbish to create energy, I’m making clean energy from a renewable source.
"I'm also helping reduce the amount of odour emissions from the landfill site."
In order to obtain the permits necessary to operate in Brazil, where more than 80 per cent of all energy generation is from renewable sources, the company had to build the substation and transfer its ownership to the state electricity transmission company, which maintains it.
"There are very stringent requirements, but the environmental advantages are undisputable.
"I'm transforming rubbish into energy and contributing to the national policy of reduction of solid waste. That's what matters."
Sergio Leitao, director of the not-for-profit Instituto Escolhas and former Greenpeace Brazil executive, told Sao Paulo daily newspaper Folha de SP this month that no single renewable energy source can be relied upon to supply an entire country's electricity system.
"We shouldn't necessarily select the option with lowest cost or the most competitive," he said, referring also to wind, solar and hydro energy (the latter supplies 68 per cent of Brazil's needs).
"It's how they complement each other that provides the best and most efficient mix."

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Four Ways Our Cities Can Cut Transport Emissions In A Hurry: Avoid, Shift, Share And Improve

The Conversation - 

Urgent and radical change in urban transport policies and practices will benefit the planet and future generations. blurAZ/Shutterstock
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently warned that global warming could reach 1.5℃ as early as 2030. The landmark report by leading scientists urged nations to do more to avert an impending crisis.
We have 12 years, the report said, to contain greenhouse gas emissions. This includes serious efforts to reduce transport emissions.
In Australia, transport is the third-largest source of greenhouse gases, accounting for around 17% of emissions. Passenger cars account for around half of our transport emissions.
The transport sector is also one of the strongest factors in emissions growth in Australia. Emissions from transport have increased nearly 60% since 1990 – more than any other sector. Australia is ranked 20th out of 25 of the largest energy-using countries for transport energy efficiency.
Cities around the world have many opportunities to reduce emissions. But this requires renewed thinking and real commitment to change.

Our planet can’t survive our old transport habits
Past (and still current) practices in urban and transport planning are fundamental causes of the transport problems we face today.
Over the past half-century, cities worldwide have grown rapidly, leading to urban sprawl. The result was high demand for motorised transport and, in turn, increased emissions.
The traffic gridlock on roads and motorways was the catalyst for most transport policy responses during that period. The solution prescribed for most cities was to build out of congestion by providing more infrastructure for private vehicles. Limited attention was given to managing travel demand or improving other modes of transport.
Equating mobility with building more roads nurtured a tendency towards increased motorisation, reinforcing an ever-increasing inclination to expand the road network. The result was a range of unintended adverse environmental, social and economic consequences. Most of these are rooted in the high priority given to private vehicles.

What are the opportunities to change?
The various strategies to move our cities in the right direction can be grouped into four broad categories: avoid, shift, share, and improve. Major policy, behaviour and technology changes are required to make these strategies work.
Avoid strategies aim to slow the growth of travel. They include initiatives to reduce trip lengths, such as high-density and mixed land use developments. Other options decrease private vehicle travel – for example, through car/ride sharing and congestion pricing. And teleworking and e-commerce help people avoid private car trips altogether.
Shanghai’s Hongqiao transport hub is a unique example of an integrated air, rail and mixed land use development. It combines Hongqiao’s airport, metro subway lines, and regional high-speed rail. A low-carbon residential and commercial precinct surrounds the hub.
Layout of Shanghai Hongqiao integrated transport hub. Peng & Shen (2016)/Researchgate, CC BY
Shift strategies encourage travellers to switch from private vehicles to public transport, walking and cycling. This includes improving bus routes and service frequency.
Pricing strategies that discourage private vehicles and encourage other modes of transport can also be effective. Policies that include incentives that make electric vehicles more affordable have been shown to encourage the shift.
Norway is an undisputed world leader in electric vehicle uptake. Nearly a third of all new cars sold in 2017 were a plug-in model. The electric vehicle market share was expected to be as much as 40% within a year.
An electric vehicle charging station in the Norwegian capital Oslo. Softulka/Shutterstock
Share strategies affect car ownership. New sharing economy businesses are already moving people, goods and services. Shared mobility, rather than car ownership, is providing city dwellers with a real alternative.
This trend is likely to continue and will pose significant challenges to car ownership models.
Uber claims that its carpooling service in Mumbai saved 936,000 litres of fuel and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2,662 metric tonnes within one year. It also reports that UberPool in London achieved a reduction of more than 1.1 million driving kilometres in just six months.
UberPool is available in inner Melbourne suburbs. Trip must begin and end in this area. Uber
Improve strategies promote the use of technologies to optimise performance of transport modes and intelligent infrastructure. These include intelligent transport systems, urban information technologies and emerging solutions such as autonomous mobility.
Our research shows that sharing 80% of autonomous vehicles will reduce net emissions by up to 20%. The benefits increase with wider adoption of autonomous shared electric vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles can offer first- and last-kilometre solutions, especially in outer suburbs with limited public transport services. Monopoly919/Shutterstock
The urgency and benefits of steering our cities towards a path of low-carbon mobility are unmistakable. This was recognised in the past but progress has been slow. Today, the changing context for how we build future cities – smart, healthy and low-carbon – presents new opportunities.
If well planned and implemented, these four interventions will collectively achieve transport emission reduction targets. They will also improve access to the jobs and opportunities that are preconditions for sound economic development in cities around the world.

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467 Ways To Die On A Warming Globe

The Guardian - 

While most people in most countries accept the truth of climate science, they reject its implications. What can be done to change that?
‘An Earth warmer by four degrees – and after the unwinding of the 2015 Paris agreement that is the path we have returned to – will impose enormous stresses on all societies’ Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images 
A new study published in Nature has found evidence for 467 ways in which climate hazards due to global warming are making life on the planet harder for humans. It confirms that we are witnessing a shift in the functioning of the Earth system as a whole, a shift to a new state that is unsympathetic to the continued flourishing of human life.
A changing climate is only one feature of a warming globe. Human activity has bounced the Earth into a state that has no equivalent in its 4.5 billion year history.
The Earth’s new trajectory as it spins into the future has led scientists to tell us we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. We have crossed a threshold and the geological clock cannot be turned back. The disruption we have caused is increasingly unpredictable and uncontrollable, and it has no endpoint.
There are, therefore, two questions humankind must face. What must we do to prevent serial disasters becoming existential catastrophe? And how can we make our social and economic systems flexible enough to cope with the new dispensation?
There are several reasons an international agreement has proven so hard. The leading one is sabotage by climate science deniers. Can it be countered? Climate science denial was invented and propagated mainly in the United States by the fossil fuel industry in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The challenge is no longer how to use information to change people’s minds. The challenge is how to change a culture
Activists know how to thwart an industry lobbying campaign. But then something calamitous happened – rejecting climate science became caught up in the culture war. The Tea Party and Fox News were largely responsible for the shift. Before then, even a conservative like Sarah Palin accepted the science and called for action. But after 2009, rejecting climate science became a badge of political identity for conservatives.
From that point onwards, facts no longer mattered.
So the challenge is no longer how to use information to change people’s minds. The challenge is how to change a culture. No one knows how to do that.

Just Trump?
Last week Donald Trump, who calls climate science a hoax, visited a California devastated by wildfires. When asked whether his visit would change his mind about climate change he said “No”. What else could he say? The journalist was asking him if he would change who he was.
Yet it’s too easy to blame the world’s slowness to act on crazy American deniers. Because, in a way, we are all climate science deniers.
The full truth of what humans have done is almost impossible to take in. To fully embrace the message of the climate scientists means giving up the deepest presupposition of modernity – the idea of progress. Relinquishing our belief in progress means we must let go of the future, because we have been taught from infancy that the future is progress.
In our minds, replacing the old future defined by progress with a new future defined by endless struggle requires a period of grieving. Not many people have the stomach for that.
While most people in most countries accept the truth of climate science, they don’t accept its implications. What can be done to change that?

Changing minds
When it comes to communicating the science’s message to the public, there is no magic potion to be found. A lot has been tried and some of it works reasonably well, up to a point. The scientists must keep doing their research and putting it out. Accusing them of alarmism is a calculated political slander; in truth, they have consistently been too cautious in their warnings, especially in IPCC reports.
Yet the meaning of their reports has not sunk in. It’s clear that an Earth warmer by four degrees – and after the unwinding of the 2015 Paris agreement that is the path we have returned to – will impose enormous stresses on all societies.
In poorer countries, it will lead to mass migrations, many deaths and violent conflict. The effects in wealthy countries will depend on who holds power and how they govern. Disasters, food shortages and waves of immigration will magnify resentment against the rich, who will be attempting to insulate themselves from the turmoil around them.
But they too depend on the infrastructure of urban life – electricity and water supply, sewerage and waste disposal, transport systems for food and so on. And they can’t insulate themselves from social upheaval.
Some communities will learn to adapt more effectively. Smaller, cooperative communities will be best placed to adapt themselves to endure the troubles.
But however humans live or die on the new Earth we have made, we are approaching the endpoint of modernity and must accept that it is finally true that man is the environment of man.

*Clive Hamilton is professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University and author of Defiant Earth: The fate of humans in the Anthropocene

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27/11/2018

Outgoing Australian Antarctic Division Boss Sounds Climate Change Warning

ABC - Carla Howarth

Nick Gales became the director of the Australian Antarctic Division in 2015 after years as a research scientist. (Supplied: AAD)
Dr Gales will continue his role on the International Whaling Commission. (ABC News: Carla Howarth)
Nick Gales has lost count of the number of times he has ventured to Antarctica.
He thinks he has spent roughly three years on the frozen continent, but he won't be going back.
The vet and wildlife biologist began working at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) in 2001 and spent four years as chief scientist.
He took on the role of director in 2015 and will retire on Thursday after a successful career driving climate change research and working to protect whales.
Despite losing count of the number of times he's ventured south, Dr Gales vividly remembers with awe his first winter in Antarctica.
"It's indescribable," he said.
"You see the photographs of Antarctica and it's a truly beautiful place and you can tell that, but to experience it first hand is something very, very special.
"Certainly I recall in my first winter south seeing the southern lights, getting up in the middle of the night in winter minus 40 degrees, crisp and very, very cold seeing these dancing lights in the sky, is absolutely extraordinary."
The Aurora Australis is one of the highlights of being an Antarctic scientist, Dr Gales says. (Supplied: Shane Ness)
But Dr Gales fears Antarctica is being threatened by climate change.
"It's almost difficult to overstate the important role that Antarctica and the Southern Ocean play in actually driving our climate," he said.


Sea ice retreat is exposing ice shelf fronts to destructive wave action. (Australian Antarctic Division) (ABC News)

"With human climate change, those things are expressed in Antarctica and that changes the way Antarctica will affect our daily lives.
"Sea levels rise, as warming atmosphere and warming oceans break down those ice shelves."
Dr Gales said the ice shelves are rapidly breaking down in the Arctic.
"And we're beginning to see in parts of Antarctica rapid change down there as well," he said.
"Everyone is showing very clear evidence that humans are driving climate change and are predicting broadly what is going to happen."
Dr Gales is passionate about conservation and will continue in his role as Australia's commissioner to the International Whaling Commission.
"I don't think in these big areas, individuals on their own make the difference, so I hope I've contributed a big deal to the team effort, that has seen that shift in the agenda towards conservation," he said.
"There is absolutely no scientific basis for killing a whale in the name of science.
"We can do just as well with non-lethal science and we can do far better with our understanding of marine mammals."
Australia has long opposed commercial whaling and in 2010, the Rudd government challenged Japan's illegal whaling practices in the International Court of Justice.
Dr Gales (left) helps with seal research in his earlier years as an Antarctic scientist. (Supplied: AAD)
In 2014, the court concluded the country's whaling program was for reasons other than scientific study and ruled all permits were to be revoked.
Dr Gales played a role in the case.
"It was a privilege to participate in Australia's court case against Japan in the International Court of Justice, where the first independent arbiter, the highest court in the land, concluded just that, that there wasn't a scientific case being made," he said.
Dr Gales will now spend his time sailing and travelling with his wife.
The AAD's new director will be announced in the coming days.
Nick Gales (left) with seal researchers on Macquarie Island. (Supplied: AAD)
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Wanted: Citizen Climate Scientists For Nationwide Study

Fairfax - Elliot Williams

If you've ever fancied yourself as an amateur climate scientist, you now have an opportunity to participate in an Australia-wide micro-climate study.
The project, conducted by RMIT and the University of NSW, aims to explore the urban heat island effect in greater detail.
Canberra temperatures shown as departures from the average temperature of 35 degrees. Temperatures captured by thermal imagery on February 9, 2017 and taken from the CSIRO report 'Mapping surface urban heat in Canberra'. Credit: CSIRO
Summary
In a collaboration between RMIT and the University of New South Wales, the Citizen Science Project will mobilise a league of enthusiastic citizen scientists to assist Australia’s leading Universities and scientific organisations with their research.
This project, administered by RMIT University in collaboration with University of New South Wales, is one of the successful grants announced by the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Arthur Sinodinos.
This research being undertaken by academic staff in the school of Property, Construction and Project Management (PCPM), RMIT University, has been approved by the RMIT Human Research Ethics Committee.
Participation in the study would involve Canberrans measuring wind, temperature and humidity in Tuggeranong, Woden and Gungahlin to form baseline climate data for these areas.
The urban heat island effect is a phenomenon where certain urban areas will become significantly hotter than other parts of the city due to the concentration of built environments and lack of water or vegetation.
The ACT government commissioned CSIRO to produce a report, which was released earlier this year.
The report found that land surface temperatures in Canberra could differ by as much as 22 degrees. Canberra's inner suburbs were typically cooler while areas with large expanses of impervious surfaces such as rooftops and paving, such as industrial areas or new housing developments, were hotter.
Clusters of neighbourhoods with high heat exposure were found in Gungahlin, west Belconnen and Molonglo Valley.
One of the reports authors, Guy Barnett said the warmer temperatures were caused by heat being absorbed into roads and buildings and then slowly emitted into the urban environment. Vegetation and bodies of water, such as Lake Burley Griffin, could significantly reduce temperatures in nearby suburbs.
"We know in the ACT, with climate change, our summers are going to become warmer, we’re going to see more frequent and longer lasting heat wave events," Mr Barnett said.
"What this report does is help to point to areas where we have high heat at the moment in Canberra and points to some of the actions how you might mitigate that heat and adapt to a warming climate."
Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability Shane Rattenbury urged Canberrans to get involved with the new study to help get a better understanding of the capital's micro-climates.
“We would love to see around 100 volunteers come together to help track the changing climate in
our local centres," Mr Rattenbury said.
"Together, we can make a real difference when it comes to understanding how the climate is changing, and what factors contribute to the urban heat island effect."
He said the three town centres were chosen as they have substantially varied climate data, such as Tuggeranong being generally cooler thanks to its lake, town park and surrounding woodlands.
To be involved in the project you must be available for two hours from 2pm to 4pm on February 8, 9 or 10 next year. Those interested should register online at citizenscienceproject.org.au

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Why Aren't They Doing Anything?: Students Strike To Give Climate Lesson

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

This Friday, November 30, thousands of Australian students will go on strike, demanding their politicians start taking serious action on climate change.
The movement, School Strike 4 Climate Action, has been inspired by a 15-year-old Swedish student, Greta Thunberg, who started boycotting classes before parliamentary elections in her nation on September 9, and continues to skip school every Friday. She also has a particular message for Australia.
Students in each state capital and across 20 regional Australian centres will walk out of their classrooms this week to tell politicians that more of the same climate inaction is not good enough.
Here are some of the lessons they hope to teach.

'If we really want a better planet Earth'
Lucie Atkin-Bolton, an 11-year-old student and school captain at Forest Lodge Public School, wants an end to 'coal-sourced energy', and is willing to go on strike for it. Credit: Christopher Pearce
Lucie Atkin-Bolton, 11, who will soon graduate as school captain at Sydney's Forest Lodge Public School, says Australia should be sourcing 100 per cent of its electricity from solar power: "I can't understand why it hasn't been done yet."
"Right now the political leaders aren’t doing very much at all," Lucie says. "They’re more promoting coal-sourced energy when, if we really want to have a better planet Earth, we need renewable energy."
Climate change "is a crisis", she says. "It’s not going to happen in two or three decades - it’s happening now."
Lucie says "whole islands will disappear" as warming lifts sea levels, and the time for thinking is running out.
"We can’t just talk about it, we have to act," she says. "We have to make a change."
While Lucie hopes to attend the main strike event at NSW Parliament, school principal Stephen Reed has been supportive, she says. Students remaining behind are expected to be involved in school-wide activities.

'Fear' is a motivator
Vivienne Paduch, a 14-year-old student from Manly Selective school, says 'striking for climate action is more important than missing a day of school'. Credit: Christopher Pearce
Vivienne Paduch isn't waiting for Friday's gathering - where the Manly Selective school student will also be a speaker  - to get active. This Sunday, she'll be busy at a "Crafternoon", creating banners and honing her speech.
The 14-year-old says Australia needs to cut its carbon footprint "dramatically" and soon. The run of "crazy, extreme weather events" - from the NSW drought to destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and recent unusual fires within the Arctic Circle - are part of her motivation.
"Firstly it's fear," Vivienne says. "I'm really scared for me and for my generation and the generations that are going to come after me from the implications of what climate change will mean.
"It's only going to get worse if we don't take action now.
"Striking for climate action is more important [to me] than missing a day of school.
"With all the support we've got this year, I can see it happening again next year," Vivienne says. "It's very important to keep pressure on the politicians."

'Young people have to step up'
Aisheeya Huq, a 16-year-old student from Auburn Girls High School, says young people 'are going to have to face the consequences' of climate change long after the current political leaders are gone. Credit: Christopher Pearce
For Aisheeya Huq, a year 10 student at Auburn Girls High School, the School Strike is a natural extension of her volunteer work for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
The 16-year-old says her generation can't ignore climate change and environmental destruction and the justice issues that flow from them.
"We’re going to have to face the consequences [from the work of] a lot of the policymakers and politicians ... due to their lack of understanding and perhaps care for the future," Aisheeya says.
"Young people have realised that because we are going to be affected, we have to step up, and we have to do something about it."
Politicians talk about the importance of education and shouldn't be surprised when students join the climate dots. "If you care so much about our education and what you’re teaching us, why aren’t you doing anything about it?" she says.

'Massive emergency'
Callum Neilson-Bridgefoot (left) and Tully Boyle, Castlemaine students who helped set off an Australian campaign. Credit: Eddie Jim
Students from Castlemaine, a town in the Victorian goldfields north-west of Melbourne, were the originators of the School Strike movement in Australia after reading about Greta Thunberg and also the special Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 1.5 degree report.
Tully Boyle, a 15-year-old at Castlemaine Secondary College, has already taken part in several school boycotts, and this week took a train into Melbourne with other students to deliver demands to politicians.
"It's a massive emergency," Tully says. "We want all governments to take it seriously."
She says heatwaves, flooding and worsening bushfires are a portent of much worse to come if temperature rises reach 4-5 degrees - the course they are now on.
Tully would like to see support for renewable energy and greater promotion of electric vehicles given priority.
"Climate change matters more for us," she says. "We need to fight for our future."
Students from Castlemaine in central Victoria journeyed down to Melbourne this week to press the issue for urgent climate action from our political leaders. Credit: Eddie Jim
Callum Neilson-Bridgefoot, an 11-year-old student at Castlemaine Primary School, has also taken part in four strike activities already.
"Sacrificing a little bit of my education will help in the long term," Callum said. "I work really hard when I'm at school.
"Any political leader can really make a difference - they have much more power than we do," he says. "Right now what they are doing is not enough."
Greta's actions were a key inspiration. "I was really moved," Callum says. "It was really brave and very powerful."

'It was so easy'
Greta Thunberg, the 15-year-old Swedish student whose 'school strike' has drawn international attention and many followers. Credit: Anders Hellberg
Greta Thunberg has seen her Friday vigils for action on climate change copied in many parts of the world, including Finland, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Canada and Britain. "And Australia of course!" she says.
"The thing I think surprised me the most was that it was so easy," she tells Fairfax Media, via email.
"I remember thinking before I started 'why has no one ever done this before?'"
The solution, she says, is to keep climate change in front of the public's attention.
"All we need to do is treat it like a crisis with headlines and news reporting all the time. And I mean A L L the time," she writes. "As if there was a war going on."
Greta wants her Australian acolytes to know she is aware of their actions: "I would tell them that they are making a huge difference. I read about them in newspapers up here in Europe and it's hopeful beyond my imagination.
"And Australia is a huge climate villain, I am sorry to say. Your carbon footprint is way bigger than Sweden and we are among the worst in the world."
Greta says leading by example is important, as is "saying the things that are too uncomfortable to say".
"We may not like that we have to change some of our habits, like flying or eating meat and dairy. But we do have to. Because our carbon budget has been spent and there is nothing left for future generations or the ecosystems we rely on," she says.

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24/11/2018

Shorten's Energy Plan Better Than No Plan At All

SMH - Editorial

Some readers might be forgiven for sighing and turning the page when they read that Opposition leader Bill Shorten has just launched yet another climate change policy to take to the next election.
Australian climate policies have a lower survival rate than newly hatched deep sea turtles flippering across the beach for the safety of the ocean.
It is true that the vicious politics of energy and climate change have forced the ALP to adopt a suite of policies which are very far away from the first-best, market-friendly options to reduce carbon emissions which were being contemplated a decade ago.
Still, on balance, it is hard not to agree with Mr Shorten's basic point: after a decade of climate wars it would be better to have a national climate change policy, even a compromised one, rather than none at all, which is what the Coalition is proposing.
Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten says climate change is already a "disaster". Credit: Ben Rushton
While Mr Shorten said he believed climate change was already a "disaster", he is not acting like the problem is all that urgent. He has taken a very cautious, small target approach.
Gone is any plan for a single, clear mechanism for pricing carbon which the Herald endorses.  Instead, Mr Shorten has proposed a modified version of the rather complicated National Energy Guarantee, which the Coalition dumped three months ago, backed up by a smorgasbord of ad hoc subsidies and investments in renewable energy.
Mr Shorten's Plan A is to revive the mechanism in the NEG which sets a limit on carbon emissions in the electricity sector.  Mr Shorten is all too aware, however, of the difficulty of winning parliamentary and state government approval for the policy.
Even though, until three months ago Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the NEG was the best thing since sliced bread, the recalcitrant rump which hold the Coalition's climate policy hostage is now against it.
It will be even harder to push the NEG through the parliament because Mr Shorten is proposing to modify the Coalition's discarded plan by almost doubling the target for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to 45 per cent below 2005 levels.
This is logical. Without carbon reductions of at least that size in the electricity sector, it will be all but impossible to achieve the 26 per cent reduction across the whole economy to which Australia pledged itself under the Paris climate treaty. But the Coalition will likely have none of it.
Yet even that higher target might not be enough to secure the support in the Senate of the Greens, who dislike the NEG and want even bigger cuts. It will depend on the outcome of the election but Mr Shorten, if he becomes prime minister, is unlikely to find common cause with the parties on either left or right and is preparing for legislative gridlock.
Mr Shorten's Plan B is to directly spend about $15 billion on the new generation, interconnectors and back-up power sources such as batteries and pumped hydro needed for a low-carbon electricity grid based on renewable energy. It complements policy already being pursed in South Australia and Victoria.
Yet it is a second or third best option. If a clear carbon price signal were in place, the market – rather than bureaucrats – could have been left to decide on the optimal outcomes and tax payers would not carry the risk of making dud investments.
Mr Shorten has included no detail on how he is planning to ensure he invests wisely except to say he will channel much of it through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which at least has some track record.
He has been most specific about a populist plan offering $200 million for a rebate to install  battery storage in 100,000 homes. Home battery storage has a place in a low-carbon grid but it is not clear why it deserves this special subsidy up-front. Home batteries also give most benefit to the few lucky households which have them rather than the whole energy grid.
The Coalition has already started a scare campaign comparing the battery program to the "pink batt" insulation scheme under the Rudd government but this is premature.  The battery industry is much better prepared for this extra investment than insulation in 2009.
The Coalition will also run scare campaigns that renewable energy will send prices power soaring but the Reserve Bank of Australia has said the opposite is true. Bringing in more renewable energy to replace old, breakdown-prone coal plants will cut the price of electricity generation.
The Coalition clings to the fantasy that it can build its own coal-fired power plant.
That would be a massive waste of taxpayers' money and a huge step backwards in the fight to reduce emissions.

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