Warming Oceans Likely To Raise Sea Levels 30cm By End Of Century – Study

The Guardian - Fiona Harvey

Seawater temperature is rising faster than predicted, which is likely to worsen extreme weather events around the world

A family wades through seawater that flooded their village in Kiribati central Pacific. Warmer oceans are a major factor in increasing the severity of storms and extreme rainfall. Photograph: Jonas Gratzer/LightRocket via Getty Images 

The world’s oceans are warming at a faster rate than previously estimated, new research has found, raising fresh concerns over the rapid progress of climate change.
Warming oceans take up more space, a process known as thermal expansion, which the study says is likely to raise sea levels by about 30cm by the end of the century, on top of the rise in sea levels from melting ice and glaciers. Warmer oceans are also a major factor in increasing the severity of storms, hurricanes and extreme rainfall.
Oceans store heat so effectively that it would take decades for them to cool down, even in the unlikely scenario that greenhouse gas emissions were halted urgently.
The report, published on Thursday in the journal Science, found that the warming of the oceans was accelerating and was matching the predictions of climate change models, which have shown global temperature rises are likely to lead to extreme weather across the world.
Zeke Hausfather, co-author of the paper and a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, said: “While 2018 will be the fourth warmest year on record on the [earth’s] surface, it will most certainly be the warmest year on record in the oceans, as was 2017 and 2016 before that. The global warming signal is a lot easier to detect if it is changing in the oceans than on the surface.”

Oceans absorb more than nine-tenths of the excess energy trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, and play a key role in regulating the world’s climate.
But the role of oceans in the global climate system was overlooked for many years, in part because of a lack of data and the difficulty of studying the marine environment. Only in recent years have scientists come to realise the full importance of oceans, which have effectively absorbed much of the impact of climate change in recent decades, but are now understood to be reaching their capacity as a buffer.
Separate recently published research extrapolated temperature estimates for the oceans for the past 150 years, and found substantial warming.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, that research found the total heat taken up by the oceans in the last century and a half was about 1,000 times the annual energy use of the world’s population.
A Guardian analysis of those findings suggested that the amount of energy absorbed by the oceans was equivalent to an atomic bomb per second for the past 150 years. Scientists said this was unsustainable in the long term without seeing further massive effects, including extreme weather, fiercer storms, and sea level rises.
The heating could also affect sea currents around the world, with unpredictable consequences.
Late last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that the world would face dire effects from global warming from 2030 unless urgent and drastic measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The new Science paper analysed four studies published between 2014 and 2017, which corrected for discrepancies between different types of ocean temperature measurements and gaps in measurements.
Satellite monitoring, buoys and ships are all used to gather data on the effect of climate change on the oceans. In the past decade, a network of 4,000 buoys known as Argo has provided an unprecedented data set on the temperature, salinity and acidification of oceans.
By taking the four studies, with different methodologies, into consideration the authors of the new analysis were able to build a fuller picture than was previously possible, with calculations extrapolated back to the 1970s.

Links

• Rising sea levels will claim homes around English coast, report warns
• East Antarctica glacial stronghold melting as seas warm
• Build walls on seafloor to stop glaciers melting, scientists say
• From Miami to Shanghai: 3C of warming will leave world cities below sea level
• New study confirms the oceans are warming rapidly
• Collapsing Greenland glacier could raise sea levels by half a metre, say scientists
• Warming of oceans due to climate change is unstoppable, say US scientists
• Antarctic ice thicker than previously thought, study finds

Records 'Blown Away' As Rising Power Bill Fears Trigger Solar PV Surge

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

New solar energy installations tripled in capacity in 2018 in Australia, with solid growth in rooftop solar eclipsed by a massive increase in utility-sized ventures.
According to data collected by Green Energy Trading, the nation added just over 3775 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity last year, up from 1270MW a year earlier.

Solar panel installations soared to annual records - again - in 2018.

"That's blown away" the previous records, Tristan Edis, director of Green Energy Markets, said. "It's going to have a significant impact on [wholesale] power prices in the middle of the day."
Total installations are forecast by the consultancy to rise another quarter this year to 4700MW.
While 2018 was a year the solar farm came into its own – with more than 2000MW added, half of it in Queensland – rooftop solar for homes and businesses continued to expand at annual rates of more than 40 per cent, the firm estimated, using certificates surrendered by installers.

Solar uptake
Residential and commercial grew by more than 40% and large scale solar really came of age.

Source: Green Energy Trading

For residential users, NSW regained the lead as the nation's largest market, with 326MW added, up almost 60 per cent from 2017 levels.

Victoria, though, grew at close to 70 per cent during the year, thanks in large part to a pre-election promise from the Andrews Labor government to support the installation of 650,000 new systems.

Australia late last year passed its two millionth home with solar PV, with installations running at six panels a minute. All up about one in five houses have solar systems, one of the highest penetration rates anywhere.

Domenic Mercuri, chief executive of Solargain, said the lead time for installation was out to as long as 10 weeks in Victoria compared to about half that in other states.
The company grew about a fifth in 2018, swelling its workforce, including contractors, to 220.

"We'd expect to grow another 20 per cent this year," Mr Mercuri said.

Even with the industry's rapid pace and payback times for residential panels dropping to under five years, consumers were becoming more savvy, he said.

"They know the brand they want, the panels, the system size – they're more educated," including wanting to know how long the retailer had been around, Mr Mercuri said.
With signs that retail power prices have started to taper – reducing one accelerant for demand – fresh buyers were appearing on the commercial side, which accounts for about 30 per cent of Solargain's sales, he said.

New growth sector

Green Energy Markets' Mr Edis said businesses looking to add systems of greater than 100 kilowatts of capacity – a segment which more than doubled in 2018 – was emerging as a growth sector.

"We've probably got significant room for growth there in 2019," he said, adding the sector "is only just starting to develop some legs".

One reason for the optimism was many companies had three-year power contracts. About a third of them could expect higher electricity bills this year when they renewed deals that included the effect of the closure in 2017 of Victoria's Hazelwood power plant, making solar PV more attractive.
Wholesale prices in the National Electricity Market may start to decline this year as the impact of the huge increase in solar farm capacity started to take effect, Mr Edis said.

Some of that price influence had so far been masked by a sharp reduction in output from Snowy Hydro plants in anticipation of falling reservoir levels amid the drought.

Assuming dams start to fill up this year and next, the benefit of extra renewable capacity - including the wind and solar farms that will come online in 2019 - should add to downward pressure on wholesale prices, Mr Edis said.

Links

• Survey finds solar panels can save you even more money
• Brown Coal Generation Drops To Lowest For NEM As Solar, Wind Surge
• Unsubsidised Wind And Solar Now Cheapest Form Of Bulk Energy
• Global Report Highlights Australia’s Renewables Potential Amid Mixed Signals For Coal
• 'We Want To Do Everything We Can': NSW Readies For Renewables Surge
• Clean Energy Is Cheap, Surging – And Headed For A Fall
• 'Tsunami' Of New Wind And Solar Projects Drives Renewables Output To A Record
• What Australian States Can Learn From Trump Dismantling Climate Change Policy
• Green Energy Producers Just Installed Their First Trillion Watts
• Life After Coal: The South Australian City Leading The Way

The Biggest Issues For Wildlife And Endangered Species In 2019

The Revelator - John R. Platt

It’s going to be a rough year, but we’ll also see some progress.

The Tapanuli orangutan could go extinct this year. Photo: Tim Laman (CC 4.0)

Wildlife didn’t have an easy go of it in 2018. We lost the last male northern white rhino, the vaquita porpoise continued its slide toward extinction, poachers kept targeting pangolins and other rare creatures, and through it all the Trump administration kept trying to whittle away at key protections for endangered species.
So with that rough bit of recent history, what does 2019 hold?
Well, in most cases it won’t be pretty. There will be more blood, more habitat loss, more legislative attacks and more extinctions — but at the same time, there will also be signs of hope and progress on many levels.
Here are some big issues that experts say we should be watching in 2019:

Climate Chaos
Of course, climate change will continue to threaten species around the world in 2019.
“The impacts of climate change aren’t showing signs of slowing, and this administration refuses to recognize it,” says Charise Johnson of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Water temperatures are rising, increased flooding, deforestation, fires, storms — these are all things that affect a species’ existence.”
And new threats continue to emerge. “There’s been a lot of discussion about how global climate change affects ocean acidification, and now there’s emerging evidence that the even greater threat is reduced oxygen levels,” says noted conservationist William Laurance of James Cook University. A study published last month found that ocean deoxygenation could have a major impact on zooplankton, one of the building blocks for the ocean food web. Deoxygenation also causes increased algal growth, like the red tides that choked the coasts of Florida this past year and killed hundreds of manatees and tens of thousands of fish.
“Changes in ocean composition will be a large-scale driver of mortality,” Laurance says. “Some people are calling this ‘the great dying.’ ”
A related issue in the Arctic also appears to be another emerging threat. According to the just-released “Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation in 2019” (the tenth annual edition of this study), climate-change induced release of carbon from polar ice will further worsen global warming, while the release of mercury from thawing permafrost will create a toxic threat for animals, plants and soil.
Meanwhile, on top of the obvious weather-related changes, climate change could create an additional unexpected threat to some species: wildlife trafficking.
“Some species will undoubtedly decline as a result of climate change, making them rarer and thus potentially even more desirable by those who trade in them,” explains Richard Thomas, global communications coordinator for TRAFFIC, the anti-wildlife-trafficking organization. “Addressing wildlife trade issues and promoting sustainable harvesting are likely to become more important than ever,” he says.
The (tiny) bit of good news related to climate change? Because so many scientists are studying it, we’re learning more and more about its effects.
“I think research showing when, where and how species are able to adapt to some changes is promising,” says amphibian biologist Karen Lips of the University of Maryland. The more we know about exactly how climate change threatens certain species — or about how they can adapt to it — the better we can do at protecting them from extinction.

Politics in the Trump Era — and Beyond
Among the greatest threats to wildlife are the Trump administration and similar politicians around the world, such as Brazil’s new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who took office last week and immediately moved to undermine indigenous rights in his country.
“The new president in Brazil could unravel 50 years of progress for species, tropical forests and indigenous people,” says Lindsay Renick Mayer, associate director of communications for Global Wildlife Conservation. That could be devastating to one of the world’s most biodiverse regions on the planet, which is often referred to as the “lungs of the Earth.”

Credit: Eric Kilby Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Mayer adds that the recent election in Madagascar could be just as bad. Former president Andry Rajoelina, whose previous tenure was marked by a dramatic increase in illegal logging, deforestation and biodiversity loss, was reelected last month, although as of press time the election remains mired in protests and accusations of fraud. “The risk of losing the amazing biodiversity of Madagascar is always a big story and it could get worse now,” Mayer says.Getting back to the Trump administration, many experts worried about how things will play out for this country’s wildlife in the year ahead.
“The federal government is shirking its duty to protect species and commit to conservation programs,” says Johnson of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who points to three potential rule changes would diminish the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act and other conservation regulations, among many other attacks against the laws. “This, in addition to funding cuts for species listings, will put a strain on conservation efforts,” she says.
Johnson expects funding to remain an issue in 2019, as will further attacks against the Endangered Species Act.
Others echoed those thoughts and fears about the ESA. “I think our current administration has shown that the environment and conservation are not high priorities,” says Lips. “I think that has a dampening effect on the actions of the federal agencies.”
There’s a potential positive side to this, she adds: “I have heard, however, that historically this produces increased donations to NGOs and increased activism by citizens.”
Indeed, that may have also helped inspire last November’s “blue wave,” the newly elected officials from which took office this month. Many of our experts expressed cautious optimism about these new government representatives.
“I think one of the biggest stories of the year is going to be what Democratic House oversight of the Trump administration can do for environmental policy,” says shark scientist David Shiffman. “Each individual thing they do will be very subtle and maybe you won’t even know what’s happening on time, but the aggregate effect, I think, will be slowing down a lot of the harmful decisions made by this administration.”

Roads to Ruin, But a Push to Preserve
But outside of Washington, things are speeding up. New road and infrastructure projects, many backed by Chinese investment, are currently being carved into critical habitats in Indonesia, Africa, the Amazon and other regions. Much of this stems from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a development strategy to build extractive industries in 70 nations around the globe along with overland roads, ports, railways and pipelines to exploit them.

A forest is cleared for a new road. William Laurance

“We’re experiencing an avalanche of new infrastructure projects,” says Laurance, who points out that the Initiative has at least 7,000 developments planned or underway. One of the most notorious projects is a gigantic hydroelectric dam that could wipe out the newly discovered Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) in Sumatra.
Meanwhile, a similar — if not even more extensive — proliferation of illegal roads is being constructed around the world by loggers, miners, poachers and other extractive industries. These activities threaten everything from elephants and tigers to insects and rare plants.
One big problem is that conservationists don’t always know where these roads — legal or otherwise — are being built, and without that information it’s impossible to protect species from development.
“It’s actually really difficult to try to get even basic maps of where roads are,” Laurance says. Right now he and his team pore over satellite images by hand, looking for signs of new disturbance — not an easy prospect when images vary by surface, shadowing and other factors. “Our group has spent something like a thousand hours trying to map these roads,” he says.
Their results of their labor-intensive work are rather shocking: “For every kilometer of legal road, we’ve mapped around three kilometers of illegal roads,” Laurance says. “That’s a very rough average, but it gives you an idea of the magnitude of the problem.”
Laurance has issued a call for help to develop a software tool to automate the road-discovery process. “We’ve got an urgent need to detect the roads and tell governments, look, here’s where there’s illegal activity,” he says.
Without that, conservation — and species — will lose ground every day. “The bottom line is we need to be able to keep track of roads in real-time, on a global scale, and especially in developing countries,” he says.
As this road-building goes on, governments around the world face a tight deadline to protect some of their most pristine wildlife habitats — or at least say they’re doing so. The signatories to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets have until 2020 — next year — to meet 20 conservation goals, including conserving “at least 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services.”
Most countries haven’t come close to that goal yet. Many of the experts we spoke with expressed hope that the tight deadline will result in some good, quick land and water protection that could protect countless species, but cautioned that these efforts should be watched carefully to make sure they truly protect key habitats and that they offer connectivity between disparate species populations.
The oceans will also be a big part of the Aichi targets. “You’ll probably see a lot of new, large marine protected areas established in the next year,” says Shiffman. He cautions, though, that some of these could be established in places where there’s no fish or other species to protect, or no system in place in which to protect what’s there. “They could end up being paper parks — parks in name only,” he says.

A Host of Other Issues

Photo: John R. Platt

Here are a few more factors predicted to play a big role in 2019.
First, we continue to learn more about how plastic waste affects wildlife and the environment. Most recently, a study found that 100 percent of sea turtles had plastic or microplastics in their digestive systems. With more and more plastic being produced every day, this will be a major focus of research and conservation the coming year.
Meanwhile many experts also expressed fear about emerging diseases, like those affecting bats, frogs and salamanders.
“Emerging diseases are increasing in numbers, impacts, and in incidents, and are likely to cause greater losses of species,” says Lips. “They don’t often get the attention that climate change does, and the time scale is accelerated.”
Lips also noted that it’s often hard to get funding and other support for these growing problems because they’re less in the public eye. “People and the media tend to focus on the current emergencies rather than the slow, long-term problems because we are not very good at maintaining focus and attention,” she says.
The threats of poaching, snaring and wildlife trafficking will also remain significant around the world, as the forests of southeast Asia and the plains of southern Africa became emptied of their animal life and as “valued” species such as tigers, rhinos and pangolins face ever-increasing pressures.
Right now this activity is all illegal, but that could change in the blink of a pen stroke. “We need to watch out for the pro-trade agenda” like this past year’s attempt by China to legalize the medicinal trade in rhino horns and tiger parts, cautioned Rhishja Cota, founder of the wildlife advocacy organization Annamiticus. This may also mean keeping an eye out on the Trump administration’s continuing efforts to promote big-game hunting and resulting trophy imports by its wealthy patrons.

B. Bartel/USFWS

Finally, as habitats shrink and poaching and other threats take their toll, a growing number of species are likely to benefit from last-gasp captive breeding, either to boost their wild populations or to keep them alive once their habitats have disappeared. The red wolf and Florida grasshopper sparrow captive-breeding programs may save those species from extinction in 2019. Another species starting the year off on better footing is one of the world’s rarest birds, a duck called the Madagascar pochard (Aythya innotata), just returned to the wild after 15 years thanks to a captive-breeding program in Scotland, of all places. Other incredibly rare species likely to benefit from similar programs this year include the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) and maybe even the rarely seen saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis).
“We haven’t had a camera trap photo of saola since 2013 and no biologist has ever seen one in the wild,” says Mayer from Global Wildlife Conservation. “But the Saola Working Group and partners are hoping to detect saola and begin to catch them next year for a conservation breeding program in Vietnam. Next year could be the year we rediscover this species and work toward breeding it.”

The Countdown Begins
The year 2019 has just barely begun, but experts warn us that the opportunity to make a difference on these issues is already running short.
“I don’t want to sound too bleak, but time is literally running out for the world as we know it,” say TRAFFIC’s Thomas. “The Earth simply can’t take the punishment of relentless over-exploitation of its natural resources, poisoning of its atmosphere and pollution of its oceans. We need to put aside political differences and work together to do something about this catastrophic situation — and quickly.”

Links

• 2019 Will Be a Big Year for Water
• Jellyfish are causing mayhem as pollution, climate change see numbers boom
• Small changes in oxygen levels have big implications for ocean life
• A Horizon Scan of Emerging Issues for Global Conservation in 2019
• Jair Bolsonaro, on Day 1, Undermines Indigenous Brazilians’ Rights
• 100% of Sea Turtles in Global Study Found With Plastics in Their Bellies
• Climate change: ‘Red alert’ from the natural world
• One Species Loves Our Climate-Wrecking Ways: Fire Ants!
• Worst mass extinction event in Earth’s history was caused by global warming analogous to current climate crisis
• These are the animals that went extinct in 2018
• Report: Climate change poses ‘catastrophic’ threat to Scotland’s nature

Climate Change: Focusing On How Individuals Can Help Is Very Convenient For Corporations

The Conversation - Morten Fibieger Byskov

To do list. Joel Carrett/EPA-EFE

What can be done to limit global warming to 1.5°C? A quick internet search offers a deluge of advice on how individuals can change their behaviour. Take public transport instead of the car or, for longer journeys, the train rather than fly. Eat less meat and more vegetables, pulses and grains, and don’t forget to turn off the light when leaving a room or the water when shampooing. The implication here is that the impetus for addressing climate change is on individual consumers.
But can and should it really be the responsibility of individuals to limit global warming? On the face of it, we all contribute to global warming through the cumulative impact of our actions.
By changing consumption patterns on a large scale we might be able to influence companies to change their production patterns to more sustainable methods. Some experts have argued that everyone (or at least those who can afford it) has a responsibility to limit global warming, even if each individual action is insufficient in itself to make a difference.
Yet there are at least two reasons why making it the duty of individuals to limit global warming is wrong.

Individuals are statistically blameless
Climate change is a planetary-scale threat and, as such, requires planetary-scale reforms that can only be implemented by the world’s governments. Individuals can at most be responsible for their own behaviour, but governments have the power to implement legislation that compels industries and individuals to act sustainably.
Although the power of consumers is strong, it pales in comparison to that of international corporations and only governments have the power to keep these interests in check.
Usually, we regard governments as having a duty to protect citizens. So why is it that we allow them to skirt these responsibilities just because it is more convenient to encourage individual action? Asking individuals to bear the burden of global warming shifts the responsibilities from those who are meant to protect to those who are meant to be protected. We need to hold governments to their responsibilities first and foremost.
A recent report found that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions since 1988. Incredibly, a mere 25 corporations and state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global industrial emissions in that same period.

Powerful industries are responsible for most of climate change and should carry most of the responsibility for tackling it. Lastdjedai/Shutterstock

Most of these are coal and oil producing companies and include ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Gazprom, and the Saudi Arabian Oil Company. China leads the pack on the international stage with 14.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its coal production and consumption.
If the fossil fuel industry and high polluting countries are not forced to change, we will be on course to increase global average temperatures by 4°C by the end of the century.
If just a few companies and countries are responsible for so much of global greenhouse gas emissions, then why is our first response to blame individuals for their consumption patterns? It shouldn’t be – businesses and governments need to take responsibility for curbing industrial emissions.

Governments and industries should lead
Rather than rely on appeals to individual virtue, what can be done to hold governments and industries accountable?
Governments have the power to enact legislation which could regulate industries to remain within sustainable emission limits and adhere to environmental protection standards. Companies should be compelled to purchase emissions rights – the profits from which can be used to aid climate vulnerable communities.
Governments could also make renewable energy generation, from sources such as solar panels and wind turbines, affordable to all consumers through subsidies. Affordable and low-carbon mass transportation must replace emission-heavy means of travel, such as planes and cars.
More must also be done by rich countries and powerful industries to support and empower poorer countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

People in poorer countries deserve solidarity and support, not a smaller share of the blame. Piyaset/Shutterstock

All of this is not to say that individuals cannot or should not do what they can to change their behaviour where possible. Every little contribution helps, and research shows that limiting meat consumption can be an effective step. The point is that failing to do so should not be considered morally blameworthy.
In particular, individuals living in poorer countries who have contributed almost nothing to climate change deserve the most support and the least guilt. They are neither the primary perpetrators of global warming nor the ones who have the power to enact the structural changes necessary for limiting global warming, which would have to involve holding powerful industries responsible.
While individuals may have a role to play, appealing to individual virtues for addressing climate change is something akin to victim-blaming because it shifts the burden from those who ought to act to those who are most likely to be affected by climate change. A far more just and effective approach would be to hold those who are responsible for climate change accountable for their actions.

Links

• Climate action must now focus on the global rich and their corporations
• Individual action won’t achieve 1.5℃ warming – social change is needed, as history shows
• Climate action must now focus on the global rich and their corporations
• COP24: climate protesters must get radical and challenge economic growth
• COP24 climate talks had a ‘people’s voice’, but did anyone listen?

When The Ice Melts: The Catastrophe Of Vanishing Glaciers

The Guardian - Dahr Jamail

As global temperatures rise, shrivelling glaciers and thawing permafrost threaten yet more climate disruption. How should we confront what is happening to our world?

Denali national park and preserve, Alaska. Photograph: Dahr Jamail

The fall lasts long enough that I have time to watch the blue ice race upward, aeons of time compressed into glacial ice, flashing by in fractions of seconds. I assume I’ve fallen far enough that I’ve pulled my climbing partner, Sean, into the crevasse with me. This is what it’s like to die in the mountains, a voice in my head tells me.
Just as my mind completes that thought, the rope wrenches my climbing harness up. I bounce languidly up and down as the dynamic physics inherent in the rope play themselves out. Somehow Sean has checked my fall while still on the surface of the glacier.
I brush the snow and chunks of ice from my hair, arms and chest and pull down the sleeves of my shirt. Finding my glacier glasses hanging from the pocket of my climbing bib, I tuck them away. I check myself for injuries and, incredibly, find none. Assessing my situation, I find there’s no ice shelf nearby to ease the tension from the rope, so Sean will not be able to begin setting up a pulley system to extract me.
I look down. Nothing but blackness. I look at the wall of blue ice directly in front of me, take a deep breath and peer up at the tiny hole I made when I fell through the snow bridge spanning the crevasse – the same bridge Sean had crossed without incident as we made our way up Alaska’s Matanuska Glacier towards Mount Marcus Baker in the Chugach Range.
“You get to look down one more time, then that’s it,” I tell myself out loud.
Again, there’s only the black void yawning beneath me, swallowing everything, even sound. My stomach clenches. I remind myself to breathe.
“Sean, are you OK?” I yell as I clamp my mechanical ascenders to the rope in preparation to climb up.
“Yeah, I’m all right, but I’m right on the edge,” he calls back. “I can’t set up an anchor, so we’re just going to have to wait for the other guys to catch up.”
Time passes. The onset of hypothermia means I can’t control my body from periodically shaking. To ignore my fear of dying, I gaze meditatively at the ice a few feet in front of me as I dangle.
The miniature air pockets found in the whiter ice near the top of the glacier have long since been compressed, producing the mesmerising beauty of centuries-old turquoise ice. Slightly deeper into the crevasse is ice that has been there since long before the Neanderthals.
I hang suspended in silence, mindful not to move for fear of dislodging Sean. Giving my full attention to the ice immediately within my vision, I focus on how the gently refracting light from above seems to penetrate and reflect off the perfectly smooth wall. Staring into it, the blue seems infinite. Despite the danger of my situation, the glacier’s beauty calms me.
Eventually our two other teammates arrive and work to extract Sean from his perch just six inches from the edge of the crevasse. The three of them set up a three-way pulley system. Laboriously, my teammates begin to haul me up, inches at a time, out of what nearly became my tomb. I continue to focus on the delicately shifting shades of blue in the ice as I draw closer to the surface.
My teammates pull me up to the lip of the crevasse. I repeatedly plunge the pick of my ice axe into the snow and haul myself out, never before as grateful for being on top of a glacier. I stand and gaze up at a mountain to the west, behind which the sun has just set. Snow plumes stream off one of its ridges, turned into red ribbons by the setting sun. Snowflakes flicker as they float into space.
As relief floods my shivering body, I roar in gratitude. Utterly overwhelmed by being alive and surrounded by the beauty of the mountain world, I hug each of my three climbing partners. Now that I am safe, it sinks in just how close to death I’ve been.
That was 22 April 2003 – Earth Day. In hindsight, I believe the emotion I felt then stemmed in part from something else – a deeper consciousness that the ice I had seen was vanishing. Seven years of climbing in Alaska had provided me with a front-row seat from where I could witness the dramatic impact of human-caused climate disruption. Each year, we found that the toe of the glacier had shrivelled further. Each year, for the annual early season ice-climbing festival on this glacier, we found ourselves hiking further up the crusty frozen mud left behind by its rapidly retreating terminus. Each year, the parking lot was moved closer to the glacier, only to be left farther away as the ice withdrew. Even sections of Denali – the highest mountain in North America, which stands more than 20,000 feet tall and is roughly 250 miles from the Arctic Circle – had already undergone startling changes in 2003: the ice of its glaciers was disappearing quickly.

---

Our planet is rapidly changing, and what we are witnessing is unlike anything that has occurred in human, or even geological, history. The heat-trapping nature of CO₂ and methane, both greenhouse gases, has been scientific fact for decades, and according to Nasa, “no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response”. Evidence shows that greenhouse gas emissions are causing the Earth to warm 10 times faster than it should, and the ramifications of this are being felt, quite literally, throughout the entire biosphere.
Oceans are warming at unprecedented rates, droughts and wildfires of increasing severity and frequency are altering forests around the globe, and the Earth’s cryosphere – the parts of the Earth so cold that water is frozen into ice or snow – is melting at an ever-accelerating rate. The subsea permafrost in the Arctic is thawing, and we could experience a methane “burp” of previously trapped gas at any moment, causing the equivalent of several times the total amount of CO₂ humans have emitted to be released into the atmosphere. The results would be catastrophic.
Climate disruption also brings with it extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods. For instance, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, leading to an increase in the frequency of severe major rain events, such as Hurricane Harvey over Houston in summer 2017, which dropped so much rain that the weight of the water actually caused the Earth’s crust to sink by 2cm.
Earth has not seen current atmospheric CO₂ levels since the Pliocene epoch, some 3m years ago. Three-quarters of that CO₂ will still be here in 500 years. It takes a decade to experience the full warming effects of CO₂ emissions. Even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions, it would take another 25,000 years for most of what is currently in the atmosphere to be absorbed into the oceans.

A glacial pool in Denali national park and preserve in Alaska. Photograph: Aaron Huey

Climate disruption is progressing faster than ever, and faster than predicted. Seventeen of the 18 hottest years ever recorded have occurred since 2001. The distress signals from our overheated planet are all around us, with reports, studies and warnings increasing daily. Worst-case prediction made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the rise in temperatures, extreme weather, sea levels and CO₂ levels in the atmosphere have fallen short of reality. Countless glaciers, rivers, lakes, forests and species are already vanishing at a pace never seen before, and all of this from increasing the global mean temperature by “only” 1C above the preindustrial baseline. Some scientists predict it could rise by as much as 10C by 2100. A study led by James Hansen, the former director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned that the rise we have seen so far has already caused unstoppable melting in both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
Mountaineering in today’s climate-disrupted world is a vastly different endeavour from what it used to be. Glaciers are vanishing before our eyes, having shrunk to the lowest levels ever recorded, and are now melting faster than ever. Seventy per cent of the glaciers in western Canada are projected to be gone by 2100. Montana’s Glacier National Park will most likely not have any active glaciers by 2030. The Matanuska Glacier’s ancient ice is already rapidly vanishing. Dramatic changes are occurring even in the planet’s highest and coldest places. Even Mount Everest is transforming, as thousands of glaciers across the Himalayas are likely to shrink by up to 99% by 2100. A child born today will see an Everest largely free of glaciers within their lifetime.

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I lived in Alaska for a decade beginning in 1996, and spent time on the glaciers there. As early as the late 90s, large portions of the holiday season would go by in Anchorage without any snow on the ground. The waterfalls that my climbing friends and I had used for ice climbing barely froze some winters, and we could see the glaciers that we used to traverse to access peaks shrinking from year to year.
In Nepal the sacred mountain Machapuchare rises abruptly on the eastern boundary of the Annapurna Sanctuary. As a child I came across a photograph of this peak in a geography textbook and was immediately captivated by its majesty. Shaped like a fish’s tail, the knife-edged ridge that forms its summit is a seemingly paper-thin line of rock that drops precipitously on either side, causing the apex of the peak – which is nearly half a mile higher than the top of Denali – to be one of the more dramatic summits anywhere. It is a masterpiece of nature.
When I was 10 years old, I saw the Rocky Mountains of Colorado for the first time, their silhouettes against the setting sun, and I was awestruck. Years later I travelled to Alaska and drove a short way into Denali national park and preserve. When the afternoon clouds parted to reveal the majesty of Denali’s summit, my first inclination was to bow in wonderment. A year after that I moved to Alaska, and began training myself in the mountaineering skills I needed to access these sanctuaries that stand far from the violence, speed and greed of society. John Muir, the Scottish-American naturalist, author, philosopher and early wilderness-preservation advocate, captured my feelings precisely: “I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.”

Dahr Jamail in Alaska. Photograph: Supplied by Dahr Jamail

A glacier is essentially suspended energy, suspended force. It is, in a sense, life frozen in time. But now they are themselves running out of time. The planet’s ecosystems, pushed far beyond their capacity to adapt to human-generated traumas and stresses, are in a state of freefall. Just as I watched hundreds of years of time compressed into glacial ice flash before my eyes in a matter of seconds as I fell into the crevasse, swathes of the natural world are, in the blink of a geological eye, falling into oblivion.
Modern life has compressed time and space. You can traverse the globe in a matter of hours, or gain information in nanoseconds. The price for this, along with everything we want, on demand, all the time, is a total disconnection from the planet that sustains our lives.
I venture into the wilds and into the mountains in large part to allow space and time to stretch themselves back to what they were. The frenetic pace of contemporary life is having a devastating impact on this planet. Humans have transformed more than half the ice-free land on Earth. We have changed the composition of the atmosphere and the chemistry of the oceans from which we came. We now use more than half the planet’s readily accessible freshwater runoff, and the majority of the world’s major rivers have been either dammed or diverted.
As a species, we now hang over the abyss of a geoengineered future we have created for ourselves. At our insistence, our voracious appetite is consuming nature itself. We have refused to heed the warnings Earth has been sending, and there is no rescue team on its way.

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At the end of July 2017 I flew to Alaska’s northern shore. A couple of days after my arrival I took a morning walk along the Arctic Ocean. The only thing that was a constant was the shore beneath my boots and the crunching sound of the tiny stones as I walked. Up here, only 1,300 miles from the north pole, the sun never sets in summer, and time stretches until it loses its meaning.
Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow), one of several ancient villages in the area, is the northernmost incorporated point in the US. The indigenous people here, the Iñupiat, have learned to live on the edge of the tundra and the seas, with the whales, the birds and the ice floes.
I met 55-year-old Marvin Kanayurak, who was born and raised here, as were his parents. He is a whaler and volunteers doing rescues. He tells me how there used to be pressure ridges in the sea ice (formed when two ice floes are forced together) during the winter that were 50 or even 60 feet high, but now they are “lucky” to find any even 20 feet tall. Heading out across the ice to find open water in the spring used to take them two weeks of plotting and making a trail. Now it takes them only a couple of days because the open water is so much closer.
Kanayurak had told me that he was a volunteer gravedigger. The permafrost used to be 10-12 inches below the surface, so it would take three days of chipping with an ice pick to dig a grave. Now the permafrost is several feet below the surface, and softer, so he can dig a grave in a few hours.
Permafrost is a layer of ground that is continuously frozen for a period of two years or more. It contains dead plants that absorbed CO₂ from the atmosphere centuries ago, and then froze before decomposing. When it thaws, microbial activity converts a large portion of that organic material into methane and CO₂, which is released back into the atmosphere. According to a Nasa report, over hundreds of millennia, “Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon” – an estimated 1,400-1,850 gigatonnes, compared to 850 gigatonnes of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere.
That’s equal to around half of all the estimated organic carbon in Earth’s soils, with most of it located in the top 10 feet of thaw-vulnerable soil. Scientists, along with others, are learning that the Arctic permafrost is less permanent than its name implies. Estimates of how much carbon will be released by thawing permafrost show it could average around 1.5bn tonnes annually, which is roughly the same amount as current US annual emissions from burning fossil fuels. Dr Kevin Schaefer, a research scientist for the National Snow and Ice Data Center who studies permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) – the warming of the surface of the planet that would result from the release of carbon from the permafrost – estimates that PCF by itself will increase temperatures by 0.2C by 2100, and even more beyond that. This means PCF will have a significant effect on the long-term climate, even if the goal of limiting atmospheric temperatures to 2C is reached.

A climber jumps over a glacial stream on the Ruth Glacier in Denali national park. Photograph: Aaron Huey

While I was in Utqiagvik I spoke to Dr Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who also specialises in permafrost. His lab has been collecting temperature data each year in many locations around the world, but mostly across Alaska, Canada and Russia.
“If it comes closer to thawing point, then it becomes unstable,” Romanovsky said. “For any permafrost research, that is the crucial data: what is the temperature and how stable is it?”
His lab is unique in that it now has nearly 40 years of data records from a variety of locations, and he generates permafrost temperature modelling to explain how the temperatures are changing.
The changes in the permafrost happening across Alaska’s North Slope are due to some of the most dramatic temperature increases in the world. In 35 years of measurements here, the temperature at 20 metres below the ground has increased by 3C since Romanovsky’s first measurement, and at the surface of the permafrost one metre below the ground, the average temperature has increased by a staggering 5C since the mid-1980s. Even small increases bring the temperature of the permafrost closer to 0C. Crossing that line means the permafrost will start to thaw.
Scientists used to believe the permafrost was stable across the North Slope, and that it would not begin to thaw this century. Romanovsky said: “If you look at our records, however, and extrapolate into the future another 30 years, assuming changes continue as they have been for the last 30 years, the permafrost on the North Slope will hit 0C by 2050 or 2060 at the latest. Nobody was expecting this, and most people would be surprised to see this happen so soon.”
Schaefer also expressed concern about the impact that thawing permafrost will have on the infrastructure and people of the Arctic. “Thawing permafrost represents a radical change to the environment and way of life in the Arctic, with unknown social costs,” he said. I asked if he thought it would be necessary to relocate most, if not all, of the coastal villages in northern Alaska. He said that as sea levels go up and permafrost thaws, “there is risk the thawing will destroy critical infrastructure, which will require repair or moving it, and that includes entire villages. If you built your village right next to the ocean and it starts to melt, you have to move. This is happening in interior Alaska along rivers, and it’s also happening across the entire Arctic zone.”
Roads, railroads, oil and gas infrastructure, airports, seaports – all these things were built across the Arctic on the assumption that the permafrost would stay frozen. “When it is frozen it is solid, but it thaws out and turns to mud, so it’s easy to see this causing a lot of damage to infrastructure,” Schaefer said.
Dr Leonid Yurganov, a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County physics department and the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, is an expert in the remote sensing of Arctic methane levels. He told me his team of researchers had already detected long-term increases in methane over large areas of the Arctic, and warned that the fast liberation of methane would influence air temperature near the surface and accelerate Arctic warming. “The difference in temperatures between the poles and the equator drives our air currents from west to east,” he said. “If this difference diminishes, the west-to-east air transport becomes slower, and north-south air currents become stronger. This results in frequent changes in weather in the midlatitudes.”
It would change the climate, he says, “everywhere in the world”.

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Two days after leaving Utqiagvik, I flew from Anchorage to Seattle on my way home. Forty-five minutes before we landed, while flying at 35,000 feet, the plane entered a cloud of brownish-grey smoke rising from the 146 wildfires scorching British Columbia beneath us. At that point, they had burned more than 600,000 acres and forced 7,000 people from their homes. We descended into the brown cloud until we landed in Seattle, which was also enveloped in the smoke.
A couple of days later, a leaked draft report from US scientists across 13 federal agencies warned of a worst-case scenario of 18F warming over the Arctic between 2071 and 2100. The report also noted that the Arctic was losing more than 3.5% of its sea ice coverage every decade, that the extent of the September sea ice had declined more than 10% per decade, that the land ice was disappearing at an increasingly rapid rate and that the severity of winter storms was increasing because of warming temperatures.
The grim news seemed endless: the snow-free season on Alaska’s North Slope is lengthening. The year 2016 experienced the longest snow-free season in 115 years of record-keeping – roughly 45% longer than the average snow-free period over the previous four decades. The October temperature at Utqiagvik increased by a staggering 7.2C between 1979 and 2012.
We are already facing mass extinction. There is no removing the heat we have introduced into the oceans, nor the 40bn tons of CO₂ we pump into the atmosphere every single year. There may be no changing what is happening, and far worse things are coming. How, then, shall we meet this?
Like so many people, I have wondered what to do at this time. Each of us now must find our own honest, natural response to the conditions that we have brought upon ourselves.
I am heartened by people like my friend Karina Miotto in Brazil, who has devoted her entire life to protecting the Amazon. Each time a report is published about increased deforestation in her beloved rainforest, I watch Karina become consumed in grief. But each time, she goes deeper within herself and her community, further strengthening her love for that portion of the planet where she lives, and repurposes herself into her next action to protect the Amazon. I find solace in the fact that there are millions of others like Karina, particularly among the younger generations, who have drawn their lines around their respective portions of the planet closest to their hearts and are making their stands.
I find my deepest conviction and connection to the Earth by communing with the mountains. I moved to Colorado and lived among them when I was in my early 20s, and it was there I began to deepen my relationship with them, and to really listen to them. I would hike out and just sit among the peaks, watching them for hours, and write about them in my journal. Today I know in my bones that my job is to learn to listen to them ever more deeply, and to share what they are telling us with those who are also listening.
While western colonialist culture believes in “rights”, many indigenous cultures teach of “obligations” that we are born into: obligations to those who came before, to those who will come after, and to the Earth itself. When I orient myself around the question of what my obligations are, a deeper question immediately arises: from this moment on, knowing what is happening to the planet, to what do I devote my life?

Note: This is an edited extract from The End of Ice by Dahr Jamail, which will be published by The New Press on 15 January

Links

• How climate scepticism turned into something more dangerous
• The Big Thaw
• Graphic: Dramatic glacier melt
• Glaciers and climate change
• Snow, Ice and Climate Change
• How Climate Change Impacts Glaciers

The End Of Coffee: Could Australia Save The World's Beans?

The Guardian - Max Opray

Climate change may devastate the globe’s major coffee-growing regions through extreme weather events – but Australia could be the solution 

Demand for coffee is expected to double by 2050 and, if nothing is done, more than half of the world’s suitable coffee land will be pushed into unsuitability owing to climate change. Photograph: andresr/Getty Images/iStockphoto

If a future of relentless fires, droughts, superstorms and rising sea levels makes you feel like you need a strong caffeinated beverage, there is some bad news: climate change is coming for the world’s coffee beans.
Greg Meenahan, the partnership director at the non-profit institute World Coffee Research, puts it this way: “Demand for coffee is expected to double by the year 2050 and, if nothing is done, more than half of the world’s suitable coffee land will be pushed into unsuitability due to climate change. Without research and development, the coffee sector will need up to 180m more bags of coffee in 2050 than we are likely to have.”
To address this, the organisation is undertaking the international multi-location variety trial, testing 35 coffee types across 23 countries to measure performance in different climates – including in regions not typically associated with coffee production, such as Australia.
In what could be Australia’s most significant contribution to coffee since the flat white, scientists at Southern Cross University will be testing 20 “climate-resistant” varieties.
Prof Graham King, the director of plant science at SCU, says that in January up to 900 plants will be planted at the tropical fruit research station in Alstonville, northern New South Wales. According to King, climate change is expected to devastate the world’s major coffee-growing regions through extreme weather and by increasing attacks by crop pests and diseases.
“Many current mountainous tropical production areas of the world are likely to become untenable for coffee as climate change progresses,” he says. “Within Australia we currently have the benefit of no coffee rust or cherry borer, or other major pests and disease. This is quite unique compared with most production areas of the world.”
The impact is already being felt. As detailed in a 2016 report by Fairtrade Australia, in 2012 Central America was hit by a wave of coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) after unusually high temperatures and high-altitude rains, causing US$500m in crop damages and putting nearly 350,000 labourers out of work.
Droughts and frequent storms have led to Costa Rican farmers giving up coffee for orange plantations. Outside Latin America, the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) – which used to only appear at a maximum altitude of 1,500 metres above sea level – is being found above this limit, thanks to unseasonably hot conditions and higher rainfall on plantations from Tanzania to Indonesia. On Mount Kilimanjaro plantations, the beetle is now found 300 metres higher than last century.

The future of coffee … and the livelihood and wellbeing of coffee farmers, workers and their families is at stake
Molly Harriss Olson, Fairtrade Australia

Not only is Australia free of these blights, says King, but climate change could open up more Australian regions for growing coffee cherries owing to reduced frost damage in winter.
King warns that the trial will need at least five years to reap results, but funding from the federal government-funded AgriFutures Australia runs out in May. He says it has offered “pretty poor engagement” on the issue.
AgriFutures’ business development manager, Duncan Farquhar, says the coffee sector has been provided with funding for developing new varieties since 2014. “Emerging industries, including the coffee industry” have been invited to compete for a new round of funding, he says.
The organisation’s figures indicate that local coffee production has a long way to go to meet domestic demand. In 2011–12, just under 50 Australian growers produced about 1,000 tonnes of dry green beans, while about 67,000 tonnes were imported. Its experts say Australian coffee is 10% to 15% lower in caffeine than much overseas coffee because it is grown in a low-stress environment. Caffeine is produced by coffee plants as a defence mechanism against threats from pests and diseases.
An agronomist and coffee industry adviser, David Peasley, says rising temperatures could hurt coffee growing in north Queensland but agrees that in subtropical coffee growing regions they could help. He cautions that climate change could leave Australian plantations more vulnerable to pests and diseases and that extreme weather events will present a challenge.

Freshly roasted coffee beans. Photograph: Ash Adams for the Guardian

Indeed, without hardier varieties, Australian growers may find climate change brings more challenges than benefits. A grower, Zeta Grealy, says conditions have become increasingly difficult since she created her Zeta’s Coffee plantation on the border of NSW and Queensland in 1994.
“In the past we had fabulous conditions, a lovely microclimate for coffee,” she says. “It used to look rainforest-y around here, now it’s very sparse. It has been a gradual change – where once we’d be getting two metres of rainfall, [across 2018] we had less than one.
“Our crop actually didn’t happen this time, we had overripe cherries and completely green cherries, flowers on the tree – not what we want. So we decided to strip the trees and get them ready for next year.”
The crop was down to 19kg from a typical year of about a tonne. Grealy is hopeful that the trials lead to access to varieties that can cope with lower rainfall.
World Coffee Research is encouraging the industry to do its bit to safeguard the crop’s global future by contributing to its Checkoff program, in which roasters can donate up to 0.20 cents a kilogram of green coffee from participating suppliers to help fund initiatives such as the global trial.
Supporters include Single O’s director of coffee, Wendy De Jong, whose company will be the first roaster to import a full container of “future-friendly” coffees to Australia.
“[We] are calling on Australian roasters and importers to do their part to fund the critical research and development needed for coffee and farmers alike by signing up to the WCR Checkoff program,” she says.
Fairtrade Australia’s chief executive, Molly Harriss Olson, welcomes research into hardier varieties, noting that by 2080 wild coffee – a vital bedrock of genetic diversity for developing new varieties – could become extinct. She notes that expanding Australian plantations won’t prevent climate change’s impact on coffee growers in other countries.
“More frequent and severe drought is associated with a deep and disturbing sense of failure, loss, powerlessness, heightened anxiety, stress, depression and an increased suicide rate among farmers,” she says.
Harriss Olson urged coffee consumers to educate themselves about the challenges facing growers, seek out brands that are both carbon-neutral and help producers to adapt to a changing climate, and urge businesses and governments to pursue a carbon-neutral economy.
“It’s crucial that we all take action now,” she says. “Because the future of coffee, one of the world’s favourite commodities, and the livelihood and wellbeing of millions of coffee farmers, workers and their families is at stake.”

Links

• Coffee order: would you like environmental sustainability with that?
• Your Morning Cup of Coffee Is in Danger. Can the Industry Adapt in Time?
• 5 Ways Climate Change Is Killing The Coffee Industry
• Here’s how climate change is affecting your cup of coffee
• Caffeine high? Climate-hit Ethiopia shifts coffee uphill

Powering Progress: States Renewable Energy Race

Climate Council - Greg Bourne | Petra Stock | Andrew Stock

The renewable energy boom is accelerating in Australia, and across the world. State and territory governments are leading Australia’s electricity transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and storage.

Powering Progress: States Renewable Energy Race rates states and territories based on their performance across a range of metrics. These include each state’s percentage of renewable electricity, the proportion of households with solar and policies that support renewable energy.


Tasmania, ACT and SA are equal winners of this year’s renewables race. WA and the NT are lagging at the back of the pack.

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• The Climate Council’s 2018 renewable energy scorecard finds Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and South Australia are leading the other states and territories across a range of renewable energy measures – based on each state’s proportion of renewable energy, wind and solar capacity per capita, proportion of households with solar, and renewable energy targets and policies.
• Western Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales are lagging behind the other states and territories. Western Australia’s share of renewable energy is low, however the state has the third highest proportion of households with rooftop solar. The Northern Territory has a low share of renewable electricity and solar households, but is set to implement its plan to reach 50% renewable energy by 2030. New South Wales does not have a renewable energy target and has no plan to replace its ageing and unreliable coal power stations.

States and territories continue to lead the way on renewable energy in the ongoing absence of credible national climate policy.

• Australia is already experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change, such as worsening extreme weather events. To effectively tackle climate change we must accelerate the transition to renewables and storage technologies.
• With the exception of Western Australia, all states and territories have committed to renewable energy targets and/or net zero emissions targets.
• Tasmania, the ACT and South Australia have the highest proportion of renewable electricity.
• South Australia continues to have the largest amount of installed wind and solar capacity (1,831MW), closely followed by New South Wales (1,759MW) and Victoria (1,634MW). On a per capita basis, South Australia, the ACT and Tasmania are the leaders.
• Queensland and South Australia have the highest proportion of households with rooftop solar, at 32.9% and 32.3% respectively. Western Australia is in third place with 26.7% of households with rooftop solar.

Queensland has more renewable energy projects under construction than any other state.

• Almost 10,000 jobs are being created in the renewable energy industry across Australia with 69 wind and solar plants under construction.
• Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales are home to the vast majority of these projects.
• Queensland and Victoria have ambitious renewable energy targets and policies to increase the amount of renewable energy.
• South Australia has at least eight new projects under construction and is on track for 73% renewable electricity in just two years.

More solar PV capacity was added around the world than coal, gas and nuclear combined.

• Almost three-quarters of new energy generation capacity added globally was renewable in 2017.
• Electricity generation from coal and gas fell for the fifth consecutive year.
• Approximately 17 countries generated more than 90% of their electricity with renewable energy in 2017. Australia was not one of them.

Links

• What Can I Do? 8 New Year’s Resolutions on Climate Change
• Climate Change Let’s get something straight – Australia is not on track to meet its Paris climate target
• Renewable Energy Your Renewable Shopping List
• Climate Change 2018: the 8 biggest moments in climate change
• International Action Climate talks wrap-up in Poland – did we get what we wanted for Christmas?
• Renewable Energy Australia’s Top Renewable Brews
• Solar All Aboard the Solar Express: Byron Bay’s Solar Train
• Energy New wind and solar now as cheap as existing coal
• What Can I Do?
• School Strikes: Spread the word, our voices must be heard.
• The Facts Decoding Labor’s Energy Announcement
• Annual Reports Climate Council Annual Report 2018
• The Facts Submission on Underwriting New Generation
• What Can I Do? What can I do to tackle climate change?
• What Can I Do? How to write an effective letter to the editor
• Climate Leaders Leaders and Laggards: States and Renewable Energy
• Local Legends We’re more powerful when we work together
• The Facts Seven of the funniest transport videos
• Australia Climate change should transform how we live and care for each other
• Solutions 5 reasons to stay positive in the face of climate inaction
• Climate Leaders Event Invitation: Help Celebrate our 5th Birthday!
• Causes 2017 second worst for global tropical forest loss
• What Can I Do? National Science Week: SHOW so they KNOW
• Climate Change Climate Council Celebrates Science
• Australia What are stakeholders saying about the National Energy Guarantee?
• What Can I Do? 2018 Community Survey