13/05/2019

Amazing Archive': Novel Study Reveals Recent Shift In El Ninos Events

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

El Ninos are becoming more common in the central Pacific but also developing into more extreme events in the ocean's east.
Mandy Freund, a post-doctorate researcher at the CSIRO and lead author of the paper published in Nature Geoscience, identified the shift using coral cores that plot El Nino events back to 1600.
El Ninos that formed in the eastern equatorial Pacific are becoming relatively rare, compared with those in the central Pacific. The 1997-98 and 2015-16 events, though, were two of the most powerful on record. Credit: NASA
"Corals are really an amazing archive," said Dr Freund, who based her PhD at Melbourne University on the study. "They give you such precise information - I wondered why nobody had tried them before."
Oxygen isotopes and the ratio of strontium and calcium within the coral - drawn from 24 locations - allowed researchers to recreate past seasonal locations and strengths of El Ninos even in remote regions.
El Nino’s shift towards the central Pacific points
to drier winters and springs for Australia
Source: Global Precipitation Climatology Project, 1979-2015 period
The number of central Pacific El Ninos almost tripled from about 3.5 every 30 years to nine in the past three decades. The number of those forming in the thousands of kilometres to the east remained stable at about two.
The corals also revealed three of those forming in the east - 1982-83, 1997-1998 and 2015-16 -were the strongest events over the past 300 years.
"Now we have 400 years of records, and [those three] are still standing out," Dr Freund said.
Coral core extraction off Christmas Island. Credit: Jason Turl
During El Ninos, easterly trade winds stall or reverse, typically leading to drought in the western Pacific, such as eastern Australia and Indonesia, while producing heavy rains along the west coasts of the Americas.
Since they also reduce the rate of ocean uptake of heat from the atmosphere, global surface temperatures also spike during such years, making El Ninos the biggest near-term influence of weather patterns.
Having more central Pacific El Ninos is not good news for Australian farmers since they tend to have the biggest influence on lower rainfall during the critical winter and spring seasons, according to the Global Precipitation Climatology Project.
Ben Henley, a researcher at the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and also a co-author of the paper and a supervisor of Dr Freund's PhD, said the coral-based research offered "a very important advance".
"Before now, we had very little idea about how these El Nino types had varied in the past," he said. "This paper gives us a unique look at that past."
While the researchers had not sought to identify a human-led climate change signal, the shift in El Ninos was "highly unusual in a multi-century context", he said.
"Some other studies have suggested strongly this could occur in the future with climate change," Dr Henley said.
Cai Wenju, a senior CSIRO researcher, said the central and eastern El Ninos have "vastly different impact" and "studies such as this one are very useful".
"Over the past 30 years, the Atlantic warming has played an important role in modulating the Pacific El Nino, leading to more central Pacific El Nino events," he said. "This can be a factor, but other studies have shown that under greenhouse warming, central and eastern Pacific events will both increase in frequency."
"Whether what we have seen in the past 30 years has already had a greenhouse warming signal needs further study," he said.
Current conditions in the Pacific favour El Nino thresholds being crossed as soon as this month, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said last week. Any event is likely to be short-lived.

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'Appalling' Policy Inaction Draws Former UN Climate Leader Into Federal Election Campaign

ABC News - Stephen Long

Christiana Figueres is supporting Zali Steggall, Keryn Phelps, Rebekha Sharkie and Julia Banks. (Reuters: Denis Balibouse)
The United Nations' former climate change czar has intervened in the Australian election, publicly backing four female independent candidates and calling out "appalling inaction in Canberra" on climate change.
Christiana Figueres led the UN's global negotiating process that culminated in the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, and is now a climate leader at the World Bank.
She has thrown her support behind Zali Steggall, who is standing against former prime minister Tony Abbott in the NSW seat of Warringah, Wentworth MP Kerryn Phelps, Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie and the MP for Chisholm, Julia Banks, who resigned from the Liberal Party and is contesting the nearby seat of Flinders as an independent.
Ms Figueres said the four women "set out strong policy platforms and longer-term vision for what it would take for Australia to take its rightful place as a leader in the global fight against climate change".
She condemned what she called "the ridiculous climate wars in Australia that have led to a very damaging climate and energy policy vacuum for more than a decade".
"This inaction is putting us at war with a climate that has no more room for atmospheric pollution," Ms Figueres said.
"No other policy issue has been plagued by such partisan attacks, nor heralded the repeated fall of Australian prime ministers."
"Extreme elements from both sides of the political spectrum have frustrated sensible, forward-looking policies founded in what must be our most important guide — the science."
The Coalition has been contacted for comment.

Independents praised for their 'courage'
Two of the four candidates — Dr Phelps and Ms Steggall — on Tuesday attended a meeting in Sydney of Mission 2020, which was established after the Paris Agreement to drive global action on climate change in order to cap greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
MP for Wentworth Kerryn Phelps, with Zali Steggal, who is standing against Tony Abbott in the NSW seat of Warringah, at the Mission 2020 meeting in Sydney on May 7, 2019. (Stephen Long)
Speaking via video link, Ms Figueres praised the four independents for "your courage and leadership in having put climate action and clean energy at the forefront of your respective campaigns.
"As mothers, we all share a deep sense of responsibility to make right what is currently going very wrong."
After the meeting Dr Phelps told the ABC that she thought it "enormously significant that a world leader on climate change has backed the independents who are backing action on climate change."
"We have a moment in time when can put in place policies that will make a difference to the future of our planet," Dr Phelps said.
Business leaders, clean energy lobbyists and investors advocating stronger climate change action and policy signals briefed the candidates at the forum.
How the election will change
our response to climate change

Both the Coalition and Labor say they take the threat of climate change seriously, but they're offering different pitches on how to deal with it ahead of the federal election.
"We have been hearing today from investors … and people who understand the science of climate change better than anyone in the country and they are telling us that not only is there an urgent need for action, but governments can no longer afford to delay their action," Ms Phelps said.
"There is a dire message from the science on climate change but there is a positive message about where we can go," Zali Steggall added.
"With clear policy from government the market will take care of it and we have great potential."

Cost of inaction
Ms Steggall also responded to concerns raised during the campaign about the cost of Labor's proposed climate change policies.
"The price of climate change action is nothing compared to the price of inaction."
Australian bosses have started
caring about climate change
Australian company directors nominate climate change as the number one issue they want the government to address in the long-term, in a survey of more than 1,200 business leaders.
Speaking to the Sydney forum, Ms Figueres said the Paris Agreement required countries to bring forward the most ambitious possible national targets every five years.
"Whoever is elected needs to be prepared to bring a revised 2030 target to the table in the next 12 months," she warned.
The former UN climate change leader dismissed arguments that action in Australia to limit global warming would make little difference to global climate change."The fact that Australia only contributes 1.5 per cent of global emissions is not an excuse not to act," she said.
"If every country adopted that stance, we would be on track to oblivion. Your island neighbours in the Pacific would go under the waves."
"We look hopefully to the Land Down Under for a watershed election that sparks a new wave of climate leadership."

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NASA: Antarctica's Effect On Sea Level Rise In Coming Centuries

NASA

This animation shows projections of ice sheet retreat in Antarctica over 500 years using the previous models (shown in green) and the new models, which take into account solid Earth processes like the elastic rebound of the Earth (shown in red). The new models show that by the year 2350, melting of the ice sheet and its corresponding contribution to sea-level rise will be about 29 percent less than what previous projections had indicated for this distant time period. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

There are two primary causes of global mean sea level rise - added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers, and the expansion of sea water as it warms. The melting of Antarctica's ice sheet is currently responsible for 20 to 25 percent of global sea level rise.
But how much of a role will it play hundreds of years in the future?
Scientists rely on precise numerical models to answer questions like this one. As the models used in predicting long-term sea level rise improve, so too do the projections derived from them. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have discovered a way to make current models more accurate. In doing so, they have also gotten one step closer to understanding what Antarctica's ice sheet - and the sea level rise that occurs as it melts - will look like centuries from now.
"Unlike most current models, we included solid Earth processes - such as the elastic rebound of the bedrock under the ice, and the impact of changes in sea level very close to the ice sheet," said JPL's Eric Larour, first author of the study. "We also examined these models at a much higher resolution than is typically used - we zoomed in on areas of bedrock that were about 1 kilometer instead of the usual 20 kilometers."
Thwaites Glacier. Credit: NASA/James Yungel
The scientists found that projections for the next 100 years are within 1 percent of previous projections for that time period; however, further into the future, they observed some significant differences.
"We found that around the year 2250, some of these solid Earth processes started to offset the melting of the ice sheet and the consequent sea level rise," Larour said. In other words, they actually slowed the melting down.
The team noted that a hundred years even further into the future - by 2350 - this slowdown means that the melting of the ice sheet is likely to contribute 29 percent less to global sea level rise than previous models indicated.
"One of the main things we learned was that as grounded ice retreats inland, the bedrock under it lifts up elastically," said Erik Ivins, a co-author of the study. "It's similar to how a sofa cushion decompresses when you remove your weight from it. This process slows down the retreat of the ice sheet and ultimately the amount of melting."
Although this sounds like good news, the scientists say it's important to keep it in perspective. "It's like a truck traveling downhill that encounters speed bumps in the road," said Larour. "The truck will slow down a bit but will ultimately continue down the hill" - just as the ice sheet will continue to melt and sea level will continue to rise.
The breakthrough of this study, he added, was to "reach resolutions high enough to capture as many of these 'speed bumps' as possible and determine their effects in Antarctica while also modeling sea level rise over the entire planet."
The study, titled "Slowdown in Antarctic Mass Loss from Solid Earth and Sea-Level Feedback," was published today in Science.
More information on the study can be found at: https://vesl.jpl.nasa.gov/sea-level/slr-uplift

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12/05/2019

Come Senators, MPs, There's A Climate Emergency Raging

Fairfax - John Hewson*

Bob Dylan brilliantly crafted an anthem for the substantial economic and social upheaval of the '60s in his The Times They Are A-Changin’. The third verse defined the reality of the inevitable changes for the political process:
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
A demonstrator with a giant head in the likeness of former prime minister Tony Abbott holds a sign referencing his 2017 remark belittling the science of climate change during a student-organised protest in Sydney this month. Credit: AP
Such is the reality of climate change, and such is the challenge for our political leaders. The transition to a low-carbon society is inevitable. Only this week, Britain's National Grid declared it had gone almost a record six days without using coal and predicted it would transition to a carbon-free electricity system by 2025.
In Australia, the longer our leaders “stall”, the greater damage they will do to themselves, to all of us. Our nation, our living standards, and the planet are worth savin’. If we don’t start swimming, we’ll “sink like a stone”.
Our leaders have three tiers of responsibility, national, international and intergenerational. Leadership needs to be dignified and respectful to build national solidarity to respond to the urgency of the challenge.
The “climate wars” of the past three decades have seen our leaders squander too many opportunities. The UN's former climate change czar and current climate leader at the World Bank, Christiana Figueres, intervened in the Australian federal election this week, backing four female independent candidates and condemning the climate wars and "extreme elements from both sides of the political spectrum" who had "frustrated sensible, forward-looking policies founded in what must be our most important guide — the science".
Not only have electricity and gas prices rocketed up to the significant detriment of households, and destroying the viability of many businesses, but we still don’t have a national energy policy, nor a responsible, whole-of-economy, emissions-reduction target for 2050. Our Paris commitment is about half what it should be.
Even Labor's commitment of reducing carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 falls short. It just sneaks in to the range of 45 to 63 per cent recommended by the Climate Change Authority. Labor's aspiration to lift electric-vehicles to at least 50 per cent of new car sales by 2030 is commendable, but it offers little detail on how this might be achieved, and is not so different to the Coalition's expectation of 30 to 50 per cent.
As perhaps the highest per capita polluter on the planet, and the second largest exporter of coal and LNG, our international responsibilities are clear. Yet, Australia is “missing in action”, falling from Kyoto leader to now global laggard.
Neither major party offers a genuine transition strategy to achieve emission reductions, nor a national waste strategy, nor a national fuel security strategy, nor a regional development strategy.
All up, our politicians have seriously compromised and constrained the future of our children. Valuable time has been lost. Many hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment have been forgone as we have failed to capitalise on our enormous national assets of sun, wind, graphite, lithium, and a significant range of feed stocks, with world-class technology to convert them to power. Our political leadership has just left us to sink.
Even though climate has emerged as the major election issue, we have been reduced to the facile debate about relative targets and “how much each will cost the economy”. Scott Morrison confines his estimate to the cost to the budget, while attempting to pin Bill Shorten on the cost to the economy, which the Labor leader, in turn, basically says can’t be estimated. Neither will rule out new coalmines, especially Adani.
The debate about targets is a sideshow when global targets are woefully inadequate to save the planet. An effective transition does not need to “cost” – an assumption since climate sceptics such as John Howard and Tony Abbott. Sure, those in coal and coal-fired power and petrol vehicles will be adversely effected, initially, but the transition to renewables, bio-energy and fuels and storage will bring with it new industries, business opportunities, and lifestyle possibilities –  as did the transition from horse-drawn to petrol vehicles.
Consider the monumental and rapidly mounting cost of inaction: extreme weather, financial collapses, the unprecedented loss of bio-diversity, species extinction and, ultimately, of the planet itself. This is a climate emergency. Refer then to this week's UN report on a million species – including our own – in peril.
To be serious about a response to climate, the focus should be, positively, on the detail of the transition and its management – how many jobs will be lost in coal mining and power generation and in the transition to autonomous trucking, to cite just a few of the more obvious. How will people in those industries be compensated, retrained, relocated? How will communities be supported and the development of new industries facilitated?
Many more jobs are available in tourism, aged, health, disability care and education than could be supported by, say, Adani. But in this election campaign, genuine leadership on climate is a scarce commodity.  Both sides are still “standing in the doorway” and “blocking up the halls”. It will be our nation that “gets hurt”.
I was particularly struck in the recent student climate protests that children from Byron Bay Public  recorded themselves as “absentees” to stand in a public space and trace out the words Our Future. They get it. They clearly understand the failure in political leadership. They deserve, and will increasingly demand, better.

*John Hewson is a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and a former Liberal opposition leader.

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Climate Change Threat Now Tops Australians' Concerns, Lowy Poll Finds

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australians rate climate change as the top threat to the country's "vital interests", the first time it has topped the list of concerns, according to Lowy Institute polls going back to 2006.
The polling, of 2130 adult respondents between March 12 and 25 by the Social Research Centre, found 64 per cent agreeing climate change was "a critical threat", up six percentage points from a year earlier.
Local residents wade through flood water in Townsville, Queensland, in February this year. Credit: AAP

That rating was matched by cyber attacks from other countries, and eclipsed international terrorism at 61 per cent and North Korea's nuclear program at 60 per cent, Lowy said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Climate change has become much more mainstream [as a concern]," said Natasha Kassam, head of polling at the Lowy Institute. "Power cuts, droughts, those things are touching people's lives."


The Lowy poll, part of a wider survey to be released next month, is the latest to indicate voters have become more concerned about climate threats, possibly prompted by extreme weather events such summer floods in the north and widespread drought in the country's south.
Australia posted its hottest summer on record in 2018-19 - by almost a whole degree - and the first four months have continued to be the warmest in data going back to 1910, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Lowy found six of ten respondents agree "global warming is a serious and pressing problem [and] we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs". That view has marked a huge turn around - jumping 25 percentage points since 2012's nadir - and is closing in on the peak reading of 68 per cent in 2006.
By comparison, only a tenth said "until we are sure that global warming is really a problem, we should not take any steps that would have economic costs". Just over a quarter agreed with the view "the problem of global warming should be addressed, but its effects will be gradual, so we can deal with the problem gradually by taking steps that are low in cost".
During the election, the Morrison government has demanded Labor present costings for its climate policies, including its target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions 45 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
By contrast, the Coalition is proposing about $3 billion to meet Australia's Paris climate target of a 26 per cent reduction in emissions - a figure that will be roughly half met by applying expected surplus credits earned during the Kyoto Protocol period. Most nations with such "carryover" credits have vowed to voluntarily extinguish them.
According to Lowy, support for climate action is strongest among Australians aged 18-44, with slightly more than three-quarters in favour - up from 70 per cent a year ago. Just under half of those over 45 "share this concern", Lowy said.
On a two-party perspective, 59 per cent of respondents said Labor "would do a better job of managing Australia's response to climate change than the Coalition", the institute said. Only 32 per cent backed the Coalition's position.
Of the nine foreign policy issues, the Coalition was preferred on five of them, including national security and economic management, and was tied on the other three, Ms Kassam said.
Worries about climate change eased to just 36 per cent in 2012 in part because of better weather, but also because the government at the time - under Labor's Julia Gillard made "some real policy developments' to tackle the issues, she said.
Since then, there's been "a very significant trend" of increased concern, she said.
Across the states, the highest readings of climate concern were in NSW and the ACT, with 67 per cent saying it was a serious and pressing concern. WA lagged at 51 per cent and Queensland reported 57 per cent sharing that view. Victorians came in at 62 per cent.
On the sceptical side, though, only 6 per cent of WA respondents said they were unsure global warming was "really a problem", compared with 15 per cent from South Australia and the Northern Territory - the highest such reading, Lowy data showed.

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Carry-Over Credits And Carbon Offsets Are Hot Topics This Election – But What Do They Actually Mean?

The Conversation - Alan Pears | Tim Baxter

Organisations can use offsets as part of their emission reduction strategy. Shutterstock
In this election, often dubbed the “climate election”, voters are refusing to settle for weak policies on climate change.
But between the “will they/won’t they” question of whether the coalition will meet their climate targets and the costing of the ALP’s targets, there is a lot of misunderstanding, even among experts.
Unsurprisingly, even the best-informed voter is liable to struggle, particularly when generic terms like “carbon credits” are used to describe completely different things.
Broadly, carbon credits work as a certificate permitting someone to emit greenhouse gases. To assess Australia’s performance, it’s important to understand the differences between the types of certificate.
Just because we can count something as climate performance does not mean we should. Both approaches from the two major parties have their own issues, but that does not mean they are equal.

What are Kyoto carry-over credits and carbon offsets?
  • Kyoto carry-over credits
    Carry-over credits are “certificates” that translate our international commitments as a number of tonnes. These credits represent emissions we could have released into the atmosphere under our international commitments, but didn’t.
    As we come to the end of the second international commitment period, we have a lot of leftover credits. The government wants to use credits from the first and second periods (2008-2012 and 2013-2020) to satisfy our obligations under the third (2021-2030).
  • Carbon offset credits
    In the case of offsets, these certificates come from actions that reduce emissions. These actions should be measurable and new. Sadly, they do not always meet that simple standard.
    Offset credits are a trading “currency” that, in principle, reduces the overall cost of emission reduction.
    Emission reduction can be costly or difficult for some, and offsets allow individuals or businesses to buy certificates from others who can cut or capture emissions at lower cost.
    Rules to create, trade and monitor offsets can be set at an international, regional or national level. Some offsetting is voluntary, but most is to comply with legal requirements.
The carry-over credit debate
The Coalition plans to use credit from our “over-achievement” in meeting Kyoto targets, as a shortcut to meet the Paris Agreement targets.
Under the Paris Agreement, Australia has voluntarily agreed to reduce its cumulative emissions to 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030. If we use the Kyoto-era credit for the Paris Agreement, it will take only a 15% reduction on 2005 levels to successfully meet our commitment.
Australia’s current and projected emissions and targets with Kyoto carry-over credit transfer. Tim Baxter, 'In a Canter'? Demystifying Australia's Emissions Budget for Paris. Author provided
But the Kyoto Protocol only applied to developed countries, while the Paris agreement applies to many developing countries.
This means many signatories to Paris have no “carry-over” credits they can use. Among those developed nations that do have this credit, almost all have said they will not use Kyoto carry-over credits to meet their Paris commitments.
So the coalition’s position is widely seen as morally dubious. And there are real questions around whether our supposed credit from the Kyoto era can be used at all.
Given the nature of the Paris Agreement, the international community will unlikely enforce an express ban on using carry-over credit.
But that doesn’t mean we should use it. Australia’s international reputation depends on rejecting the use of Kyoto carry-over. More importantly, so does our climate.

Carbon offsets
Under the Kyoto Protocol, several offsetting schemes were created between countries, so-called “flexible mechanisms”. Among these emission reduction opportunities is the Clean Development Mechanism.
The Clean Development Mechanism is an offset scheme where developed countries fund emission reduction action in developing countries.
If projects meet the requirements of the mechanism, the developing country claims certificates equal to the amount of emissions reduction they can prove. They then sell the certificates they have earned to developed countries.
This scheme has seen a number of renewable energy projects constructed, such as hydroelectric dams and projects that consume waste to create electricity.

Offsetting carbon voluntarily
Voluntary use of carbon offsets has also grown. For example, Australia’s voluntary National Carbon Offsets Standard allows organisations to use offsets as part of their emission reduction strategy.
Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative is one such example. This offsetting scheme was originally designed by the ALP, but now underpins the coalition’s Emissions Reduction Fund.
Projects registered under this scheme can create Australian Carbon Credit Units through methods such as revegetation, capture and combustion of methane or surrender of land clearing rights.
Sydney’s School Strike 4 Climate, March 2019. Climate change is one of the top issues voters care about in the upcoming election. Shutterstock
The government buys these credits through reverse auctions – one buyer with many potential sellers. They’re also frequently purchased by Australian facilities caught by the safeguard mechanism (a framework for the largest emitters to measure, report and manage their emissions) and individuals looking to voluntarily offset their own emissions.
The ALP plans to tighten the baselines under the safeguard mechanism, compelling Australia’s major emitters, such as our largest resource companies, to either reduce on-site emissions or purchase Australian Carbon Credit Units.
In a 2014 report, the Climate Change Authority recommended Australia adopt an emission reduction target between 45% and 65% below 2005 levels by 2030. It noted international carbon offsets would help ensure Australia could meet this more ambitious target.
The ALP’s approach is superficially compatible with the Climate Change Authority, though it plans to negotiate the detail if elected. A lot will hang on where these negotiations fall.
Using offset credits is undoubtedly better than taking no action at all. But offsetting must have integrity, not accounting sleight-of-hand. If genuine, they can help cut global emissions at the lowest cost while also delivering local social, economic and environmental benefits.
It is important offsetting methods continue to be refined and debated, while keeping a critical eye on whether they provide environmental benefit.

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11/05/2019

Fixing Australia’s Extinction Crisis Means Thinking Bigger Than Individual Species

The Conversation - Stuart Collard | Patrick O'Connor | Thomas Prowse

The endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland is an ecological community that have shrunk to 6% of their original area. Pete the Poet/Flickr, CC BY-SA
The world’s largest assessment of biodiversity recently shared the alarming news that 1 million species are under threat of extinction.
Australia’s extinction record is poor compared to the rest of the world, and our investment into conservation doesn’t do enough to restrain the growing crisis.
Currently, 511 animal species, 1,356 plant species and 82 distinct “ecological communities” – naturally occurring groups of native plants, animals and other organisms – are listed as nationally threatened in Australia. And these numbers are increasing.
While much conservation effort focuses on protecting individual species, we are failing to protect and restore their habitats.
Our ongoing research into environmental investment programs shows that current levels of investment do not even come close to matching what’s actually needed to downgrade threatened ecosystems.
One of the programs we evaluated was the 20 Million Trees Program, a part of the Australian government’s National Landcare Program. For example, we analysed investment targeted at the critically endangered Peppermint Box Grassy Woodlands of South Australia.
Fewer than three square kilometres of woodland were planted. That’s less than 1% of what was needed to move the conservation status of these woodlands by one category, from critically endangered to endangered.
Many Australian species live in endangered woodlands. Shutterstock
Restoring communities
Conservation efforts are often focused on species – easily understood parts of our complex and interrelated ecosystems.
In recent years, some effective measures have been put in place to conserve species that are teetering on the edge of extinction. We have, for instance, seen the appointment of a Threatened Species Commissioner and the release of a Threatened Species Strategy and Prospectus.
But we don’t often hear about the 82 threatened ecological communities in which many of these species live.
Temperate eucalypt woodlands once covered vast areas of southern Australia before being cleared to make way for agriculture. The Peppermint Box Grassy Woodlands of South Australia, for instance, have been reduced to 2% of their former glory through land clearing and other forms of degradation.
These woodlands provide critical habitat for many plant and animal species, among them declining woodland birds such as the Diamond Firetail and Jacky Winter.
The habitat of Diamond Firetails is under threat. Andreas Ruhz/Shutterstock

Focusing on the conservation and restoration of our threatened communities (rather than individual species) would create a better understanding of how much effort and investment is required to curb the extinction crisis and improve the outcomes of biodiversity restoration.

A problem of scale
Large-scale restoration investment programs are often touted in politics, particularly when these have a national focus. And many recent restoration programs, such as the Environment Restoration Fund, National Landcare Program, Green Army and 20 Million Trees, are important and worthwhile.
But in the majority of cases the effort is inadequate to achieve the stated conservation objectives.
Underlying threats to the environment often remain – such as vegetation clearing, genetic isolation and competition from introduced pests and weeds – and biodiversity continues to decline.
The 20 Million Trees program, for example, is the most recent national initiative aimed at restoring native vegetation systems, attracting A$70 million in investment between 2014 and 2020.
To place the scale of this investment into context, we analysed the impact of the 20 Million Trees program on the critically endangered Peppermint Box Grassy Woodlands of South Australia.
The restoration priority for this community should be to enhance the condition of existing remnant areas. But improving its conservation status would also require more effort to increase the area of land the woodland covers.


Even if the full six-year budget for 20 Million Trees (A$70 million) was used to replant only this type of woodland, it would still fall short of upgrading its conservation status to endangered. We estimate that moving the community up a category would require a minimum investment of A$150 million, excluding land value.
And Peppermint Box Grassy Woodland is just one of the threatened ecological communities listed for conservation. There are 81 others.
Although any effort to improve the status of threatened ecosystems (and species) is important, this example shows how current levels of effort and investment are grossly inadequate to have any substantial impact on threatened communities and the species that live there.
Our estimates relate to how restoration activities affect land cover. But ensuring they are also of adequate quality would need more long-term investment.

Boosting investment
Investment in biodiversity conservation in Australia is falling while the extinction crisis is worsening.
Protecting and restoring ecological communities will preserve our unique native biodiversity and develop an environment that sustains food production and remains resilient to climate change. But failure to invest now will lead to extinctions and the collapse of ecosystems.
To make genuine inroads and have an enduring impact on Australian threatened species and ecosystems, restoration programs must be clear on the amount they expect to contribute to conservation and restoration objectives, along with co-benefits like carbon sequestration.
The programs must be at least an order of magnitude larger and be structured to produce measurable outcomes.

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Lethal Heating is a citizens' initiative