10/04/2019

In Australia, Climate Policy Battles Are Endlessly Reheated

The Conversation - 

Three words, so much mileage: Tony Abbott’s anti-carbon tax refrain has been a fixture on the policy landscape for years. AAP Image/Julian Smith
It might feel like the past decade of climate policy wars has led us into uncharted political waters. But the truth is, we’ve been sailing around in circles for much longer than that.
The situation in the late 1990s bore an uncanny resemblance to today: a Liberal-led government; a prime minister who clearly favours economic imperatives over environmental ones; emerging internal splits between hardline Liberal MPs and those keen to see stronger climate action; and a Labor party trying to figure out how ambitious it can be without being labelled as loony tree-huggers.
The striking parallels between now and two decades ago tell us something about what to expect in the months ahead.
After a brief flirtation with progressive climate policy in the 1990 federal election, the Liberals had, by the final years of the 20th century, become adamant opponents of climate action.
In March 1996, John Howard had come to power just as international climate negotiations were heating up. In his opinion, even signing the United Nations climate convention in Rio in 1992 had been a mistake. He expended considerable effort trying to secure a favourable deal for Australia at the crunch Kyoto negotiations in 1997.
Australia got a very generous deal indeed (and is still talking about banking the credit to count towards its Paris target), and Howard was able to keep a lid on climate concerns until 2006. But it was too little, too late, and in 2007 his party began a six-year exile from government as Rudd, then Gillard, then Rudd took the climate policy helm, with acrimonious results.
When Tony Abbott swept to power in 2013, his first act was to abolish the Labor-appointed Climate Commission, which resurrected itself as the independent Climate Council. Next, he delivered his signature election campaign promise: to axe the hated carbon tax (despite his chief of staff Peta Credlin’s later admission that the tax wasn’t, of course, actually a tax).
Abbott also reduced the renewable energy target, and sought (unsuccessfully) to keep climate change off the agenda at the 2014 G20 summit in Brisbane.
Abbott and his environment minister Greg Hunt did preside over some policy offerings – most notably the Direct Action platform, with the A$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund at its heart, dishing out public money for carbon-reduction projects. The pair also announced an emissions reduction target of 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030, which Australia took as its formal pledge to the crucial 2015 Paris climate talks.
But by the time nations convened in Paris, Malcolm Turnbull was in the hot seat, having toppled Abbott a few months earlier. Many observers hoped he would take strong action on climate; in 2010 he had enthused about the prospect of Australia going carbon-neutral. But the hoped-for successor to the carbon price never materialised, as Turnbull came under sustained attack from detractors within both his own party and the Nationals.
Then, in September 2016, a thunderbolt (or rather, a fateful thunderstorm). South Australia’s entire electricity grid was knocked out by freak weather, plunging the state into blackout, and the state government into a vicious tussle with Canberra. The dispute, embodied by SA Premier Jay Weatherill’s infamous altercation with the federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg, spilled over into a wider ideological conflict about renewable energy.
With tempers fraying on all sides, and still no economy-wide emissions policy in place, business began to agitate for increasingly elusive investment certainty (although they had played dead or applauded when Gillard’s carbon price was under attack).
In an era of policy on the run, things accelerated to a sprinter’s pace. Frydenberg suggested an emissions intensity scheme might be looked at. Forty-eight hours later it was dead and buried.
Turnbull commissioned Chief Scientist Alan Finkel to produce a report, which included the recommendation for a Clean Energy Target, prompting it to be vetoed in short order by the government’s backbench.
Within three months Frydenberg hurriedly put together the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which focused on both reliability and emissions reduction in the electricity sector. The policy gained support from exhausted business and NGOs, but not from the Monash Forum of Tony Abbott and cohorts, who preferred the sound of state-funded coal instead. And then, in August 2018, the NEG was torpedoed, along with Turnbull’s premiership.
The next man to move into the Lodge, Scott Morrison, was previously best known in climate circles for waving a lump of coal (kindly provided, with lacquer to prevent smudging, by the Minerals Council of Australia) in parliament.
Scott Morrison’s new-found enthusiasm for Snowy 2.0 stands in contrast to his earlier excitement about coal. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Morrison’s problems haven’t eased. His energy minister Angus Taylor and environment minister Melissa Price have each come under attack for their apparent lack of climate policy ambition, and Barnaby Joyce and a select few fellow Nationals recently endangered the fragile truce over not mentioning the coal.
Meanwhile, Labor, with one eye on the Green vote and another on Liberal voters appalled by the lack of action on climate change, are trying to slip between Scylla and Charybdis.

Shorten’s offering
While Labor has decided not to make use of a Kyoto-era loophole (taking credit for reduced land-clearing), its newly released climate policy platform makes no mention of keeping fossil fuels in the ground, dodges the thorny issue of the Adani coalmine, and has almost nothing to say on how to pay the now-inevitable costs of climate adaptation.
What will the minor parties say? Labor’s policy is nowhere near enough to placate the Greens’ leadership, but then the goal for Labor is of course to peel away the Greens support – or at least reduce the haemorrhaging, while perhaps picking up the votes of disillusioned Liberals.
Overall, as Nicky Ison has already pointed out on The Conversation, Labor has missed an “opportunity to put Australians’ health and well-being at the centre of the climate crisis and redress historical injustices by actively supporting Aboriginal and other vulnerable communities like Borroloola to benefit from climate action”.
And so the prevailing political winds have blown us more or less back to where we were in 1997: the Liberals fighting among themselves, business despairing, and Labor being cautious.
But in another sense, of course, our situation is far worse. Not only has a culture war broken out, but the four hottest years in the world have happened in the past five, the Great Barrier Reef is suffering, and the Bureau of Meteorology’s purple will be getting more of a workout.
We’ve spent two decades digging a deeper hole for ourselves. It’s still not clear when or how we can climb out.

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Environment Minister Melissa Price Signs Off On Adani Project

Fairfax - Nicole Hasham

Environment Minister Melissa Price has granted federal approval to the controversial Adani coal mine following intense pressure from her Queensland colleagues to sign off on the plan before the federal election.
Ms Price announced on Tuesday that she had approved the groundwater management plans submitted by the Indian mining giant after CSIRO and Geoscience Australia found they met scientific requirements.
The decision means the company has cleared the final federal hurdle for the project and now only requires Queensland Government approvals to proceed.
Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price was under pressure to sign-off on the Adani project before the election. Credit: Alex Ellinhausen
If the plan was approved during the caretaker period, the government would have been forced to consult Labor before granting permission.
Queensland MPs in the Morrison government have been pressuring Ms Price to approve the plan before the election to appease voters who want the mine to proceed.
The Courier Mail reported yesterday that Coalition senator James McGrath threatened to publicly call for Ms Price to be sacked if she did not sign off on the project.
However it is understood that Liberal MPs in metropolitan seats, whose constituents are concerned about climate change, wanted the approval to be delayed.
Anti-Adani groups are campaigning hard in a number of Coalition-held city seats including Kooyong, held by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Flinders, held by Health Minister Greg Hunt.
Environmentalists say the Adani plan will damage aquifers in the Great Artesian Basin and ground-water dependent rivers and springs, as well as create water shortages for farmers and communities.
The project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin is among the extractive projects granted a special water licence by the Queensland government. The licence runs until 2077 and gives Adani unlimited access to groundwater.
In a statement, Ms Price said CSIRO and Geoscience Australia “have confirmed the revised plans meet strict scientific requirements”.
“Following this independent assessment and the Department of Environment and Energy’s recommendation for approval, I have accepted the scientific advice and therefore approved the groundwater management plans,” she said.
Ms Price said the project still required Queensland government approvals for nine environmental plans and “must meet further stringent conditions of approval from the Commonwealth before it can begin producing coal”.
She said the project “has been subject to the most rigorous approval process of any mining project in Australia”.
The Adani project has attracted widespread public opposition.


Labor leader Bill Shorten questioned how Ms Price could make a sound decision when she was being "bullied" by her peers.
"Another explanation could be that she is satisfied by the science but the LNP heavy handedness … trying to pressure people, now creates a cloud over a process that didn’t need to be there," he said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has previoulsy warned that any federal approval may face a court challenge if it was rushed or subject to political interference.
On Tuesday the foundation's spokesman Christian Slattery said it was "wrong to think Adani now has the green light start digging up coal in the Galilee Basin".
He said aside from the outstanding state approvals, Adani is awaiting federal approval for an above-ground water scheme needed to support the mine's operation.
The Lock the Gate Alliance said the governemnt had "thrown Central Queenslanders under a bus, and put scarce water resources at risk".
“This rushed decision just prior to the election is one of the most compromised environmental approvals this country has ever seen," spokeswoman Carmel Flint said, adding that independent water experts "have identified glaring failures with the water plan".

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Coalition Hits Bottom Of Barrel With Fake News Campaign Against Electric Cars

The Driven - Bridie Schmidt

Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor Source: AAP
It’s been a significant week for electric vehicles in Australia.
First, there was the Labor policy to introduce a target for half of all new vehicle sales to be electric by 2030, and the suggestion from the NRMA that the target should be twice as high and twice as quick, and effectively ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2025.
The response from the conservatives has been equally stunning, starting with the uninformed drivel from Sky News commentators last Monday, before misinformation and outright lies were embraced as official party policy from the Coalition by week’s end.
Prime minister Scott Morrison has even suggested that Labor’s policy will bring an end to the “Australian weekend” – apparently because EVs can’t tow boats or caravans (some of them can), and you can’t take them camping (actually, they are an asset).
And here’s the irony. The Coalition’s own emissions reduction policy, as revealed by Environment Department officials in Senate Estimates last week, factors in 25-50 per cent share of electric vehicles in new vehicle sales by 2030.
“Electric vehicles could make up between 25 and 50 per cent of new car sales in 2030 if supported by coordination and facilitation of local, state and Commonwealth actions, coordinated through a national strategy, which is the measure that is announced in the Climate Solutions Package,” said Kristin Tilley.
The argument for transitioning to electric cars is simple: as a contributor of 19% of our greenhouse gas emissions, transport needs to move to cleaner options, by setting targets and introducing stricter fuel emissions standards.
It’s being done already overseas throughout a number of progressive nations. If implemented, a 50% EV target by 2030 would bring Australia – which has been branded a laggard in EV adoption compared to the rest of the developed world – more in line with progressive nations around the world.
In Norway for example, a target of 100% electric cars by 2025 (a more ambitious target than put forward by the Australian Greens which is calling for 100% EVs by 2030) has been instrumental in transitioning the auto market there so effectively that half of all cars on the road are now electric.
Little wonder that the Coalition does not want to reveal its EV policy until the middle of next year. This level of deceit is hard to maintain, but the Coalition – along with One Nation – is giving it a fair crack.
So here goes – the ammo from the Coalition and One Nation is so ludicrous it would actually be difficult not to let a giggle go if it weren’t so horrifyingly stupid.

Lie #1: That Bill Shorten is wrong about fast-charging electric cars
The Liberal party has it so wrong about the charging of electric vehicles that even Chris Kenny swallowed it, along with many other commentators.
The Coalition focused on Bill Shorten’s claim that – in some circumstances and with some electric cars – batteries can be charged in eight to 10 minutes.
“Wrong,” says the Liberal Party.
Actually, he’s quite right. ABB has released a fast-charger than can recharge to full in eight minutes, and this was echoed by Tim Washington, the head of Australia’s JetCharge.
It all depends on the capacity of the charging equipment and the car battery. There is talk that some EV makers, like Porsche, are looking at super-fast charging of 500kW.
“Electric cars will take eight to nine hours overnight,” the Liberals say.
Mostly, yes, about 90 per cent of all charging will take place at home – during the day, or night. And the issue is?
At home, a “trickle” cable that you simply plug in to your powerpoint charges at a rate of 2-3kW and up to 7kW if you install a specially designed “wall charger”.
But there are also other types of chargers – including destination chargers which can boost a charge in 30-60 minutes (such as made by Tritium and Schneider Electric) and ultra-fast chargers which can charge in 8-10 minutes (such as made by ABB and Tritium).
Chargefox Co-founder Tim Washington (left) with Head of Charging, Evan Beaver next to an ABB 350kW fast charger.
Destination chargers charge at a rate of 22kW on AC power or 50kW on DC power, and are most commonly placed at locations where a driver would be likely to spend a few hours and leave the car to “top up”, such as at shopping centres – or in the case of EV advocate and Twitterer SydEV, just 20 minutes for a decent top up.
DC “fast chargers” can range from 120kW in the case of a Tesla Superchargers, or 350kW-475kW in the case of an ultra-fast charger – these are the chargers that, depending on the size of an EV’s battery, can recharge in as little as 8-10 minutes.

Lie #2: EVs cannot drive far enough to be useful
This choice tweet, in which energy minister Angus Taylor referenced Top Gear’s famously debunked negative review on EV range has since been deleted – but thanks to Ketan Joshi, it is here for all to see:
The average range of electric vehicles currently coming onto the market is around 280km-400km – more than enough for a week of daily commuting (which in Australia is an average of 40km a day), with range to spare for trips to the shops and so on.
Older cars such as the 2012 Nissan Leaf have around 120km range, and more expensive models such as a Tesla Model X have up to 470km range. The new electric Kona, at around $60,000 – has a 450km range.
Battery running low? Top it up every night – 90 per cent of all charging will be done at home – or drop into a destination charger for a boost if you are on the road.
Going on a long distance trip?
Coastal trips are easier for the time being, to be sure, if you’re the kind of driver who wants to drive Sydney to Melbourne in a day – a fast-charging network is already being built that will in Adelaide with Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane that will then connect to Queensland’s Electric Superhighway that has been running now for over a year.
Travelling inland? Look to the examples of Sylvia Wilson, who travelled around Australia in her Tesla (which granted for now have a more extensive network) for about $150, or Wiebe Wakker who just yesterday finished a 3-year journey from the Netherlands to Sydney across Europe, the Middle East, South-East Asia and Australia without using a drop of fuel.
These people are pioneers, the Kingsford-Smiths of Amelia Earharts of their day – and look where the aviation industry is now.

Lie #3 – Electric cars are too expensive
What does this even mean?
Electric cars are a (relatively) new technology. Like any new technology, early versions are more expensive, and as market penetration occurs, fuelling more investment in technology development and spreading of high R&D costs across a larger market, prices lower.
This is simple economics. The good news is that the cost of EVs is expected to reach parity with petrol and diesel equivalents in about five years. By then, the reduced running costs of the car, plus its superior performance, quietness and lack of pollution, will make it a no-brainer.
Understanding this is happening, other countries (such as Norway, the United States, and China – the world’s largest EV market) have accelerated adoption of EVs by introducing financial and fiscal incentives to ensure the market takes hold.
EVs now account for more than 50 per cent of new car sales in Norway.
Australia is lagging because it has no policy, little interest from manufacturers, and little choice for consumers to date.
So far, there is just one new electric vehicle on the Australia today priced under $A50,000 (the 280km range Hyundai Ioniq), Nissan’s latest Leaf is soon to join it. And by having government car fleets adopting EVs, that will create a significant second hand market.

Lie #4 – Labor wants a “crazy car cull”

 “Bill Shorten has announced he wants to get rid of half the cars in Australia and repalce [sic] them with ones powered by batteries,” writes One Nation on Facebook.

SCREENSHOT Source: Facebook/One Nation
This ill-informed catch-cry by One Nation ignores the fact that the policies proposed by both Labor and the Greens are targets for new vehicle sales.
Australians would still be able to buy secondhand petrol and diesel vehicles, and even new ones – although with the right policies implemented to reach those targets, it will increasingly make more financial sense to buy an electric car thanks to reduced fuel and maintenance costs.Electric cars are already predicted to cost less than petrol or diesel equivalents by as soon as 2030 for EVs with smaller batteries – and like it or not, as EVs do become more affordable, their petrol and diesel equivalents will become next-to-worthless.

Lie #5 – Electric cars won’t tow caravans
Looks like somebody missed this Tesla towing an airplane – yes, it’s a premium EV. Who tows caravans with hatchbacks anyway?


That time we towed a plane with a Tesla

 Lie #6 – The electricity grid cannot support electric cars
Wrong. Not only can electric cars be used to smooth peak demand on the grid by using software to determine the optimal time to charge (at times of low demand and hence also low electricity prices), they can also be used to augment the grid.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has suggested having a 50 per cent EV fleet will add maybe 15 per cent to demand in the grid, but if done smartly, this won’t increase the peaks.
In fact, it could reduce them. And the storage in the vehicles could be a valuable resource. See Giles Parkinon’s interview with Tritium co-founder James Kennedy on how with electric cars, the electricity will never be the same again (in a good way).

Lie #7 – Electric cars don’t pay anything towards roads through fuel excise
This is true. But it is also true of fuel efficient vehicles – driven mostly by the rich who can afford them. Shame that because of Australia’s lack of emissions and fuel standards, there are few of them about, and Australian cars tend to burn more fuel and probably slug drivers an extra $500 in fuel costs each year.
Options for replacing fuel excise with other systems such as a user-pays system where registration costs include an amount for numbers of kilometres driven, have already been put forward by some, including Infrastructure Partnerships boss Adrian Dwyer and independent Senator Tim Storer from his EV inquiry.

Any publicity is good publicity
Ironically, the furore that has erupted over the past week or so in relation to the state of electric vehicles in Australia has likely set in place a juggernaut that can no longer be ignored.
Australians are talking about electric cars, they have entered our social and political atmosphere and it is only now a matter of time before they become as inexorably ever-present as smartphones and solar panels.
As the treasurer Josh Frydenberg himself wrote in an illuminating opinion piece on electric vehicles in the SMH last year, “A global revolution in electric vehicles is under way and with the right preparation, planning and policies, Australian consumers are set to be the big beneficiaries.”
He stopped talking about that when the Murdoch media launched a “carbon tax on wheels” scare campaign. Now they are at it again – no fewer than five different editorials and commentaries railing against electric vehicles in The Australian and the Daily Telegraph on Monday.
So, while the Coalition resorts to a fear campaign, if you really want to dig deep on the staggering hypocrisy of the Coalition’s stance, wade through this thread from Labor candidate Sam Crosby:
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09/04/2019

Legal Protections Urged As Science Gears Up To Aid Great Barrier Reef

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Early-stage research into ways to limit the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef is being approved in a "policy vacuum", potentially limiting risk assessments and undermining public support, researchers say.
So-called geoengineering to draw down carbon dioxide or mask the effect of a warming planet has begun to draw science funding, including for three projects to protect Australia's largest network of coral reefs.
Increasing cloud cover to help cool the Great Barrier Reef is one type of geoengineering being considered for testing. Credit: Photo: Bloomberg

However, "the current laws do not guarantee robust governance for field testing of these technologies," according to a paper published in the Climate Policy journal. "Nor do they provide the foundation for a more coherent national policy on climate intervention technologies more generally."
Of the three reef-related projects with feasibility study approval, two will start very small.
One involves spraying a biodegradable reflective surface polymer film of calcium carbonate to reflect solar radiation, while the other would pump cooler water from depths of 10 to 30 metres to ease the heat stress of surface corals.
Funding has been awarded for feasibility studies of three geoengineering technologies to protect the reef: (1) a ‘floating sunshield’ of reflective surface film made of calcium carbonate to reflect sunlight and lower water temperatures; (2) marine cloud brightening; and (3) water mixing. Credit: Climate Policy
The third proposal would see microscopic salt particles propelled into low-lying marine clouds to increase their reflectivity and reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the sea surface.
"Australia currently has no national law or policy governing geoengineering or solar radiation management, or even on how such activities might fit within national climate response strategy," the paper notes.
Jan McDonald, a professor of environmental and climate law at the University of Tasmania and the paper's lead author, said the "prognosis [for the reef] is looking pretty grim", with scientists estimating most of the world's corals will be lost even if global warming is kept to the low end of the Paris climate goal of 1.5 to 2 degrees.
As a result, it is inevitable climate interventions will be tried even without dodging our "serious obligation to reduce carbon dioxide", Professor McDonald said.
The experience in Britain, where a government-funded project aimed at assessing the feasibility of injecting particles into the stratosphere was halted in 2012, suggested public consultation and transparency were needed at the start,'' she said. Without that, the public trust in regulators or the research would be lost, "probably a dangerous path to go down".
Bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef corals in 2017, the second year of unprecedented back-to-back mass bleaching.  Credit: AAP
"Australia has the opportunity to do the right thing by the Great Barrier Reef but also to provide a model of good governance for other countries grappling with this issue," Professor McDonald said.
Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price was contacted for comment.
Labor environment spokesman Tony Burke said: "We are the custodians of the planet’s most precious and most vulnerable environmental asset.
"If we win the election, then we would listen to the experts both on individual projects and the overall framework for protecting the Great Barrier Reef."
Greens spokeswoman on the Great Barrier Reef Larissa Waters noted that a Nature paper published last week found 89 per cent of new corals were not surviving.
"[That] made it clear restoration and other projects aren’t enough – there must be urgent action to reverse climate change," Senator Waters said.
"There should be an assessment framework for geoengineering experiments to ensure new problems aren’t being created."

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Australian Doctors Declare A Climate Emergency

Centre for Climate Safety - 

Photo Sebastiaan Jansen-Munday
Doctors from across Australia gathered on 6 April 2019 in Hobart to declare a climate emergency.
The medical doctors, from various specialisations, called on Australia’s federal and state governments and councils to adequately respond to the climate chaos we are experiencing. They stated that anything less on the part of governments amounts to negligence.
“Declaring a Climate Emergency calls on governments at all levels to undertake an urgent re-evaluation of priorities, ending destructive, self-harming practices and pursuing actions that promote health and wellbeing for all. Doctors have a duty to care for human health and to alleviate suffering. We cannot be silent and watch governments continue to dismiss the threat posed by climate change and unhealthy environments to the health of their people.”
~ Dr Kristine Barnde, iDEA conference co-organiser and a member of Doctors for the Environment Australia
Doctors in scrubs, surgical masks and stethoscopes gathered to issue the climate emergency declaration on 6 April 2019 at the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart. They had come together in Hobart to attend Doctors for the Environment Australia’s annual conference iDEA Conference 2019, which this year had the theme ‘Keeping The Lights On’, aiming to “empower medical professionals and medical students from across Australia and beyond to skill up, get motivated and to address the biggest challenge and opportunity facing doctors today — the human health impacts of the environment and climate change.”



Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) is an independent organisation of medical doctors protecting health through care of the environment. They are supported by a Nobel laureate, recipients of the Australia of the Year award, and other health experts.

Appalled and frightened
“Doctors are appalled and frightened by the ongoing refusal of politicians to take necessary action.”
~ Dr Kristine Barnde, iDEA conference co-organiser and a member of Doctors for the Environment Australia
Conference co-organiser and DEA member Dr Kristine Barnden said, “Climate change is killing people and children are one of the groups most at risk. There is no time for games, and DEA is running a campaign urging health professionals to speak out on action on climate to protect our children now and into the future.”
“Knowing that climate change constitutes a public health crisis, knowing that solutions are available, knowing that we only have a short time to act to prevent run away climate change, doctors are appalled and frightened by the ongoing refusal of politicians to take necessary action. We must recognise climate change for the emergency that it is.”
Barnden noted that the change in the climate due to greenhouse gas emissions is accelerating, bringing with it more frequent and severe extreme weather events, an increase in infectious diseases, allergic and respiratory diseases, and the risk of global food shortages.
In a media release, the medical group quoted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has stated that, “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change, with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us.”
“We are familiar with dealing with emergencies and know that disaster can be averted when emergencies are recognised early, and when the response is prompt. We know that pretending an emergency isn’t happening, or giving inappropriate or inadequate treatment, can only end in disaster. Human impact on the planet is now threatening the life support systems that we all depend on. Multiple scientific studies show a decline in many critical areas, such as biodiversity loss and declining fresh water availability on which our health and survival depends.”

Climate change policy in Australia is costing lives
The Medical Journal of Australia has said inaction on climate change policy in Australia is costing lives:
“We find that Australia is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on health, and that policy inaction in this regard threatens Australian lives. In a number of respects, Australia has gone backwards and now lags behind other high income countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Examples include the persistence of a very high carbon-intensive energy system in Australia, and its slow transition to renewables and low carbon electricity generation.”Medical Journal of Australia – 29 November 2018
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08/04/2019

Electric Vehicles An Opportunity For Local Government

Fairfax - Caitlin Fitzsimmons

Local councils could save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by shifting their fleets to electric vehicles, a study by ClimateWorks Australia suggests.
Project officer Claire Connell said more than half of new vehicles sold in Australia in 2017 were purchased by the government and corporate fleets so it was a significant opportunity.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore's council has embraced electric cars in their fleet. Credit: Jessica Hromas
"Local governments specifically have an explicit obligation to manage their assets in the best interests of their constituents," Ms Connell said. "A number have significant emissions reductions targets in place."
The research follows the federal opposition's announcement of its electric vehicle policy last week. Labor's plans include spending $100 million to support the rollout of charging stations around the country and a target for electric vehicles to make up half of all new car sales by 2030. A Labor government would also commit to an electric vehicle target of 50 per cent of new purchases and leases of passenger vehicles for the government fleet.
Transport emissions account for 18 per cent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions and that figure is rising, according to the Climate Council.The City of Sydney has embraced electric vehicles, with 19 Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV vehicles in its fleet, as well as 40 hybrid cars and 70 hybrid trucks. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the council was waiting for electric versions of some larger vehicles such as garbage trucks to become available.
"By using electric and hybrid trucks and vehicles, the City reduced its fleet emissions by 26 per cent between 2010 and 2014, and we are on track to achieve our goal of zero increase in fleet emissions by June 2021," Cr Moore said.
"There are many advantages to moving to electric vehicles. They produce no tailpipe emissions, are quieter, cheaper to fuel and lower carbon if using renewable electricity.
"We know we are fast running out of time to take serious action on climate change, and transitioning to electric vehicles is one way we can reduce our emissions."
The ClimateWorks project engaged 43 local governments across Victoria over nine months, but Ms Connell said she believes councils across Australia have similar drivers. The report recommends a national capacity building program to give councils information and support to make the shift.
Ms Connell said the latest figures, from 2016, found the average emissions intensity of a petrol vehicle was 182 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre. The emissions intensity of electricity from the grid was generally less - in NSW, for example, electricity from the grid contributed 160 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven in an electric car.
This would improve as electric cars became more efficient and the electricity grid shifted to renewables.
The study analysed the councils' fleets -  which included hatchback and sedans, larger SUV vehicles, vans, mini-buses and small trucks, utes and small box trucks - and the actual usage patterns. The analysis looked at the total cost of ownership of switching to electric vehicles where an appropriate equivalent was available.
The analysis didn't include the cost of charging infrastructure because different councils planned to deal with this differently.
Some councils would see no financial benefit, the study found, while others would save money, depending on their usage patterns. One council that could switch to electric vehicles for hatchbacks, sedans and vans would save 1-3c per kilometre, based on owning the vehicles for six years, driving 20,000 kilometres a year and energy costs of 15c per kilowatt hour.

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Environmental Groups To Sue Shell Over Climate Change

Washington Post - Mike Corder AP

Climate activists pose outside the Shell headquarters, rear, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday April 5, 2019, prior to deliver a court summons to Shell in a court case aimed at forcing the energy giant to do more to rein in carbon emissions. (Mike Corder/Associated Press)


THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Climate activists delivered a court summons Friday to oil company Shell in a court case aimed at forcing it to do more to rein in carbon emissions.
Friends of the Earth Netherlands, one of the groups involved, said it wants a court in The Hague to order Shell to reduce its carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels and to zero by 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Accord.
“Shell’s directors still do not want to say goodbye to oil and gas,” said the group’s director, Donald Pols. “They would pull the world into the abyss. The judge can prevent this from happening.”
The summons, more than 250 pages long and backed up by boxes of supporting documents, was wheeled into the headquarters on a trolley as a couple of hundred activists looked on.
The move comes a year after the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth sent a letter to Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden accusing the company of “breaching its legal duty of care” by causing climate damage across the globe.
In a statement, Shell outlined renewable energy projects it is involved in in the Netherlands and said that it agrees climate change action is necessary and that the company is “committed to playing our part.”
“We welcome constructive efforts to work together to find solutions to the challenge of climate change, but we do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address the global climate challenge,” the company said.
The Shell case, which has more than 17,000 claimants, follows a groundbreaking ruling by a Hague court in 2015 that ordered the Dutch government to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels.
The new case is not seeking compensation; it focuses instead on pushing Shell to take more action to rein in emissions.
Roger Cox, a lawyer who initially represented environmental group Urgenda and is now leading the civil action against Shell, said the two cases are similar because they are based in part on a duty of care enshrined in Dutch law.
“And more specifically the duty to not create dangerous situations for others if these dangerous situations can reasonably be prevented,” he said. “So what we in fact are stating is that Shell is contributing to dangerous climate change because its emissions are not in line with what is needed.”

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