21/07/2019

Great Barrier Reef Authority Urges 'Fastest Possible Action' On Emissions

The Guardian - 

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says ‘further loss of coral is inevitable’
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says it is ‘critical’ global temperature rises remain within 1.5 degrees. Photograph: Tory Chase
The federal agency that manages the Great Barrier Reef has made an unprecedented call for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, warning only the “strongest and fastest possible action” will reduce the risks to the natural wonder.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has published a climate position statement that says the reef is already damaged from warming oceans and it is “critical” global temperature rises remain within 1.5 degrees.
The Coalition government has been criticised for overseeing four straight years of increases in national emissions and experts say it will not meet the country’s Paris target under current climate policy.
“Only the strongest and fastest possible action on climate change will reduce the risks and limit the impacts of climate change on the reef,” the authority said. “Further loss of coral is inevitable and can be minimised by limiting global temperature increase to the maximum extent possible.”
The climate statement was in development for more than a year and published late on Wednesday.
It says climate change is the single greatest threat to the reef and points to the “widespread impacts” already felt from back to back marine heatwaves in 2016 and 2017 that caused the mass wipe-out of corals.
“Of particular concern are projections that the reef could be affected by bleaching events twice per decade by about 2035 and annually by about 2044 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at the current rate,” the authority said.
“If bleaching becomes more frequent and more intense, there will not be enough time for reefs to recover and persist as coral-dominated systems in their current form.”
The marine park authority’s statement says the reduction in emissions required for the reef to survive requires both national and international effort and an “urgent and critical” acceleration of policies to cut carbon pollution.
Any further increase in global temperatures will have “further negative impacts” for reef-dependent activities such as tourism, fishing and traditional use.
“These effects are likely to include loss of properties and infrastructure, loss of cultural and regional identity and, unless urgent action is taken, subsequent declines in regional economies,” the authority said.
Environment groups said on Thursday that such a clear statement from the government’s own agency should prompt the Morrison government to act faster to address the climate crisis.
Australia’s emissions have been rising since the repeal of the carbon price.
“The Great Barrier Reef is not dead yet, but the marine park authority makes it clear that it is already under stress from rising temperatures,” Christian Slattery, a campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, said.
“As the marine park authority states, any additional increase in temperatures will have further devastating impacts on the reef and flow-on effects for tourism, fishing, recreation and traditional use.
“ACF urges the federal government to listen to the experts and treat this call to action with the seriousness and urgency it deserves.”
Imogen Zethoven, the strategic director at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the government’s $443m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation would be “wasted unless the Morrison government takes radical action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to save our greatest natural icon and the jobs it supports”.
Any additional increase in temperatures will have further devastating impacts.
Australian Conservation Foundation
“The prime minister, a former managing director of Tourism Australia, knows how critical the reef is to the tourism industry and to Australia’s international reputation,” she said. “As the caretaker for the reef and a daily witness to its decline, GBRMPA is crying out for immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
After the May election, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, named Warren Entsch the special envoy for the Great Barrier Reef.
In an interview, Entsch said he wanted to focus on plastic waste and warned climate activists in northern Queensland had had a negative impact on the region’s economy.
Environment minister Sussan Ley said she accepted accept the scientific advice, “both that climate change is the biggest threat to the reef and that there are actions we can continue to take to build a more resilient reef.”
“The government is taking meaningful action to reduce global emissions and we investing $1.2bn in addressing threats such as water quality, marine litter and the crown of thorns star fish.”
In 2017, Australia avoided an “in danger” listing for the reef from Unesco’s world heritage committee.
But its status will be reassessed by Unesco next year and Australia must submit a state of conservation report to Unesco in December.
An outlook report for the reef from GBRMPA is also due soon.

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We Went To The Moon. Why Can’t We Solve Climate Change?

New York Times - John Schwartz

The original moon shoot inspired billions. Calling climate action a moon shot isn’t a perfect parallel — but maybe we should try it anyway.
Credit NASA/Reuters
Could a “moon shot” for climate change cool a warming planet?
Fifty years after humans first left bootprints in the lunar dust, it’s an enticing idea. The effort and the commitment of brainpower and money, and the glorious achievement itself, shine as an international example of what people can do when they set their minds to it. The spinoff technologies ended up affecting all of our lives.
So why not do it all over again — but instead of going to another astronomical body and planting a flag, why not save our own planet? Why not face it with the kind of inspiration that John F. Kennedy projected when he stood up at Rice University in 1962 and said “We choose to go to the moon,” and to do such things:
“ … not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win …”
Credit Associated Press


But President Kennedy did not have to convince people that the moon existed. In our current political climate, the clear evidence that humans have generated greenhouse gases that are having a powerful effect on climate, and will have a greater effect into the future, has not moved the federal government to act with vigor. And a determined faction even argues that climate change is a hoax, as President Donald Trump has falsely stated at various times.
And the moon shot had a clearly defined goal: Land on the moon. A finish line for fighting climate change is less clear. Back to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? (We have already passed 412 parts per million.)
Still, it should come as no surprise that Kennedy’s stirring words and accomplishments have made the idea of a moon shot one of the most enduring metaphors for our time. Roger Launius, a retired NASA chief historian and author of a new book, “Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landings,” said that “moon shot” has become shorthand for “a big push,” and it’s almost become a trope: ‘We need a ‘project Apollo for name-the-big-thing-of-your-choice’.”Climate change is certainly an urgent challenge. Rising levels of greenhouse gases are raising temperatures worldwide, leading to shifting weather patterns that are only expected to get worse, with increased flooding and heat waves, and drought and wildfires afflicting millions. The task of reversing that accumulation of greenhouse gases is vast, and progress is painfully slow.
The idea of a moon shot for climate has been gaining supporters. Beto O’Rourke and Kirsten Gillibrand use the idea in their presidential campaigns, as did Michael Bloomberg in unveiling his recently announced $500 million Beyond Carbon campaign. In a commencement speech this year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he said, “It is time for all of us to accept that climate change is the challenge of our time.” He concluded, “It may be a moon shot — but it’s the only shot we’ve got.”
Does the enduring metaphor fit the task of countering the grinding destructiveness of a warming planet?
Climate presents more complicated issues than getting to the moon did, said John M. Logsdon, historian of the space program and founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
In 1970, Dr. Logsdon wrote a book, “The Decision to Go to the Moon,” that laid out four conditions that made Apollo possible. In the case of the space program, the stimulus was the first human spaceflight of the Russian cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin, which filled Americans with dread of losing the space race. In an interview, Dr. Logsdon said it has to be “a singular act that would force action, that you couldn’t ignore.” Other moon shot prerequisites, he said, include leaders in a position to direct the resources necessary to meet the goal on “a warlike basis,” with very deep national pockets — people like President Kennedy, who began the program, and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, who brought it to fruition.
Finally, Dr. Logsdon said, “the objective has to be technically feasible.” Scientists and engineers had told Mr. Kennedy that “there were no technical show stoppers in sending humans to the moon — it would just take a hell of a lot of engineering.”
What would be the “action-forcing stimulus” for a climate moon shot, he asked? He suggested it would have to be something deeply dramatic and immediate, like “Manhattan going under water.” What’s more, he noted, “Apollo did not require changing human behavior” as fighting climate change would, through the need for measures like carbon taxes or changes in consumption patterns.
One more important difference between sending people to the moon and solving a problem like climate change was cited in a recent editorial in the journal Nature, which noted that attempts to counter climate change have lobbyists fighting against them. The editorial said “for decades, energy corporations have stymied global efforts to make equitable reductions to greenhouse-gas emissions because such efforts would reduce their profits. Influential private companies are central to today’s Earth shots, but the historical moon shot approach will be ineffective if potential conflicts of interest are not addressed.”
Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, lauded the inspiration that the moon shot provided, but said she had a less sweeping example of a good comparison to the challenge ahead: fixing the ozone hole. It required international cooperation, detailed in the Montreal Protocol of 1987, and a concerted effort of nearly 200 countries to rid the world of the chlorofluorocarbons that were damaging our atmospheric protection. “There are bumps on that road, but largely the ozone hole is on the road to recovery because of actions that humans took,” she said.
Yet she treasures a necklace that recreates the Apollo 11 trajectory from the Earth to the moon. “It’s incredibly nerdy,” she said, but it’s also a reminder of a national act that people think of “with nothing but good will.” And so, she said, comparing a climate push to the Apollo program makes a kind of sense. “Just because a metaphor is not exact,” she said, “doesn’t mean it’s not useful.”
If we did choose once again to do an important thing because it is hard, the task ahead would be more than technical, said Hal Harvey, chief executive of the research firm Energy Innovation. The deceptively simple goal, he said, should be to “decarbonize electricity, and then electrify everything.” That would involve building up renewable energy and dropping electrical generation from fossil fuel plants, and building up the use of technologies like heat pumps that can make home heating and cooling more efficient. China has invested heavily in electric buses, electric scooters, and other ways to stop burning fossil fuels. There are further advances in industrial processes and power systems engineering that will help, he said, ticking off a dizzying array of avenues that would allow society to reach those goals.
But mostly, he said, it will require a shift in national attitude.
“The moon shot technology we need is political will.”
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Former President Of Kiribati Tells SF To Step Up Fight As Climate Change Threatens To Swallow His Island Country

San Francisco Chronicle - 

This file photo taken on September 7, 2011 shows then Kiribati President Anote Tong in Auckland. Photo: AFP / Getty Images
Nestled in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is Kiribati — a country destined to be doomed, and eventually erased, by climate change. Scientists, the United Nations and even its former president, Anote Tong, all agree: The small island home to 116,000 people will be engulfed by rising sea levels.
It was shortly after taking office in 2003 that he realized the peril his country was in, Tong said in an interview with The Chronicle at the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco.
“The responsibility of my country fell squarely on my shoulders,” Tong said. “When the science started coming in, it was a matter of urgency.”
That science showed how “the results of sea level rise and increasing storm surge threaten the very existence and livelihoods of large segments of the population” in Kiribati, according to a United Nations report from August 2015.
In this March 30, 2004 file photo, Tarawa atoll, Kiribati, is seen in an aerial view. Photo: Richard Vogel / Associated Press
Tong would become renowned around the world as the man leading a country that could soon cease to geographically exist.
He’s in San Francisco this week to speak at the Climate and Ocean Conservation event at Salesforce Tower on Wednesday night. The event gathers CEOs and leaders from over 230 corporations to discuss and explore “climate resilience and ocean conservation.”
Tong caught the world’s attention when he purchased approximately 20 square kilometers of land in Fiji in 2014 — a purchase he describes as an “investment,” a place his people can migrate to just in case his people need it.
Some of Tong’s constituents were upset with him for suggesting an impending migration from their homeland.
“The media went on to extrapolate that I’m moving my people to Fiji, but I never, ever said that,” Tong said. “I had no plans to move people... but somebody else in the future might need to do it.”
The purchase also sent a worldwide message.
“It was a very loud statement to the international community,” Tong said. “They were not listening. And if you’re not listening, then you will never do anything for us.”
He’s now sending a statement to CEOs in the Bay Area, reminding them that companies can either be “complicit or helpful” in stopping the further warming of the planet.
Tong said one man does seem to be particularly silent and dismissive on the issue of climate change: President Trump.
“I’ve been disappointed by his lack of climate change initiative,” Tong said. “But he was elected... and people need to choose for themselves who they think will be strong on this.”
Since leaving office in 2016, he has spent his time speaking to leaders around the world on the global efforts needed to save countries like his own.
Tong said he admires the environmental awareness prevalent in San Francisco, but he said tech companies in Silicon Valley need to step up to expedite progress in combating climate change.
“This is a battle we’re in —a huge, unprecedented battle,” Tong said. “I wonder if these companies can use their resources to change our world for the better.”
When he visits cities like San Francisco, Tong said he sees potential to counteract the current administration’s policies.
“Your federal government isn’t helping, but that’s when cities like San Francisco and other states in your country step in,” Tong said.
In terms of specific changes he wants to see happen, Tong refers to the need for a rapid global response.
“Climate change is only now becoming known as a fight for the survival of humanity,” Tong said. “When I come here to speak, I also come here to inspire people to act quickly.”

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20/07/2019

One Climate Crisis Disaster Happening Every Week, UN Warns

The Guardian - 

Developing countries must prepare now for profound impact, disaster representative says
Aftermath of the damage left by Cyclone Kenneth in a village north of Pemba, Mozambique in May. Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters 
Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned.
Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”
This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. “People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience.”
Estimates put the cost of climate-related disasters at $520bn a year, while the additional cost of building infrastructure that is resistant to the effects of global heating is only about 3%, or $2.7tn in total over the next 20 years.
Mizutori said: “This is not a lot of money [in the context of infrastructure spending], but investors have not been doing enough. Resilience needs to become a commodity that people will pay for.” That would mean normalising the standards for new infrastructure, such as housing, road and rail networks, factories, power and water supply networks, so that they were less vulnerable to the effects of floods, droughts, storms and extreme weather.
Until now, most of the focus of work on the climate crisis has been on “mitigation” – jargon for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and not to be confused with mitigating the effects of the climate crisis. The question of adapting to its effects has taken a distant second place, in part because activists and scientists were concerned for years that people would gain a false complacency that we need not cut emissions as we could adapt to the effects instead, and also because while cutting emissions could be clearly measured, the question of adapting or increasing resilience was harder to pin down.
Mizutori said the time for such arguments had ran out. “We talk about a climate emergency and a climate crisis, but if we cannot confront this [issue of adapting to the effects] we will not survive,” she told the Guardian. “We need to look at the risks of not investing in resilience.”
Many of the lower-impact disasters would be preventable if people had early warnings of severe weather, better infrastructure such as flood defences or access to water in case of drought, and governments had more awareness of which areas were most vulnerable.
Nor is this a problem confined to the developing world, she said, as the recent forest fires in the US and Europe’s latest heatwave had shown. Rich countries also face a challenge to adapt their infrastructure and ways of protecting people from disaster.
“Nature-based solutions”, such as mangrove swamps, forests and wetlands which could form natural barriers to flooding should be a priority, said Mizutori. A further key problem is how to protect people in informal settlements, or slums, which are more vulnerable than planned cities. The most vulnerable people are the poor, women, children, the elderly, the disabled and displaced, and many of these people live in informal settlements without access to basic amenities.
Regulations on building standards must also be updated for the climate crisis and properly enforced, she said. One of the governance issues cited by Mizutori was that while responsibility for the climate crisis and greenhouse gas emissions was usually held in one ministry, such as the economics, environment or energy department, responsibility for infrastructure and people’s protection was held elsewhere in government.
“We need to take a more holistic view of the risks,” she said.

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'Just A Matter Of When': The $20bn Plan To Power Singapore With Australian Solar

The Guardian - 

Ambitious export plan could generate billions and make Australia the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world
There are ambitious solar and wind projects planned for both the Northern Territory and the Pilbara in Western Australia. Photograph: Alice Solar City/AAP
The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change.

If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world.
Known as Sun Cable, it is promised to be the world’s largest solar farm. If developed as planned, a 10-gigawatt-capacity array of panels will be spread across 15,000 hectares and be backed by battery storage to ensure it can supply power around the clock.
Overhead transmission lines will send electricity to Darwin and plug into the NT grid. But the bulk would be exported via a high-voltage direct-current submarine cable snaking through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. The developers say it will be able to provide one-fifth of the island city-state’s electricity needs, replacing its increasingly expensive gas-fired power.
This will be the channel through which Australian energy production will greatly reduce [global] emissions
Ross Garnaut
After 18 months in development, the $20bn Sun Cable development had a quiet coming out party in the Top End three weeks ago at a series of events held to highlight the NT’s solar potential. The idea has been embraced by the NT government and attracted the attention of the software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is considering involvement through his Grok Ventures private investment firm.
The NT plan follows a similarly ambitious proposal for the Pilbara, where another group of developers are working on an even bigger wind and solar hybrid plant to power local industry and develop a green hydrogen manufacturing hub. On Friday, project developer Andrew Dickson announced the scale of the proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub had grown by more than a third, from 11GW to 15GW. “To our knowledge, it’s the largest wind-solar hybrid in the world,” he says.
The skyline of Singapore. The Sun Cable plan could replace one-fifth of the city-state’s electricity needs, currently filled by expensive gas-fired generation. Photograph: Edgar Su/Reuters
These developments are still at relatively early stages of planning. Both teams say it will be four years before they lock in finance, with production scheduled to start mid-to-late next decade. But renewable energy watchers are cautiously optimistic they could help spark a new way of thinking about Australia’s energy exports – one that better aligns with the country’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement, rather than broadening a fossil fuel trade at odds with it.
Opponents to Australia taking significant action on the climate crisis often point out the country is responsible for about 1.4% of greenhouse gas emissions, placing it about 15th on a table of carbon-polluting nations. A recent report by science and policy institute Climate Analytics makes the case that this underplays Australia’s contribution, which increases by 5% if fossil fuel exports are included.
The latter figure is expected to increase over the next decade. Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal and rivals Qatar as the leader in selling liquified natural gas (LNG). There is bipartisan support for a significant expansion of both industries, though government economists anticipate export earnings from coal will fall.
Ross Garnaut, former advisor to Labor governments who is now professor of economics at the University of Melbourne and chairman of the Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, makes the case that there is another way ahead. In a recent lecture series that is being turned into a book, he lays out his analysis of how Australia, with the best renewable energy resource in the developed world, could expand its energy production while significantly reducing global emissions.
Garnaut points to the transformative reduction in the capital cost of renewable energy and energy storage over the past two decades. As most of the cost of clean energy developments is capital (the fuel is free), he says the transformation has radically changed the ability of clean projects to compete with fossil fuels. Given capital costs are lower in developed countries, Garnaut says it means Australia can, if properly managed, be the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world.
It would make it the natural home for growth in minerals processing for a world that increasingly values production powered by solar, wind and other clean sources. Industries that would flourish under Garnaut’s vision include familiar energy-intensive operations such as aluminium, iron ore and steel, and new opportunities in silica, lithium, vanadium, nickel, cobalt and copper.
“This will be the channel through which production of energy in Australia will greatly reduce emissions in the rest of the world. It will also be a foundation for a new era of economic expansion and prosperity,” he says.
Garnaut believes exporting electricity through high-voltage cable and green hydrogen will be a part of this clean energy future, though they would mostly be expected to come later. Sun Cable’s chief executive, David Griffin, is bullish about the possibility of his company helping power Singapore from the outback in less than a decade.
He says the project will use prefabricated solar cells to capture “one of the best solar radiance reserves on the planet”. But he says the major transformation that makes the farm possible is the advent of high-voltage, direct-current submarine cable, which he describes as the “greatest unsung technology development”. Sun Cable’s underwater link to Singapore will run 3,800km.
“It is extraordinary technology that is going to change the flow of energy between countries. It is going to have profound implications and the extent of those implications hasn’t been widely identified,” Griffin says.
“If you have the transmission of electricity over very large distances between countries, then the flow of energy changes from liquid fuels – oil and LNG – to electrons. Ultimately, that’s a vastly more efficient way to transport energy. The incumbents just won’t be able to compete.”
Sun Cable’s backers believe Singapore, as a well-regulated electricity market that runs mostly on gas piped from Malaysia and Indonesia and shipped as LNG, is ripe for competition.
Across in the Pilbara, the Asian Renewable Energy Hub proposal has taken another tack. The developers – a consortium of InterContinental Energy, CWP Energy Asia, wind energy company Vestas and financiers at the Macquarie Group – began with a plan to send energy to Indonesia via sub-sea cable. That has been dropped in favour of green hydrogen – a shift driven, Andrew Dickson says, by falling costs and growing international and local interest that suggests a much bigger market.
An expanded hub proposal released this week says it will be spread across a vast area – 6,500 sq km, or about half the size of greater Sydney – and create 3,000 construction and 400 operational jobs. About two-thirds of the 15GW capacity will be met with giant wind turbines and one-third solar panels. The developers say up to a fifth of the total capacity is expected to go to large industrial energy users in the Pilbara, potentially including new and expanded mines and mineral processing. But most of the electricity generated will be used to run a hydrogen manufacturing hub.
The hydrogen would be sold domestically and exported, most likely to Japan and South Korea, which have expressed a desire to shift energy consumption in that direction. Dickson says producing green hydrogen at large volumes could open up possibilities such as using it to replace coking coal in steel production. It could allow an expanded version of the “green steel” model adopted in Whyalla by British industrialist Sanjeev Gupta.
Dickson points to recent appraisals by the Australian chief scientist, Alan Finkel, and the International Energy Agency as evidence of hydrogen’s potential. “People are realising, after several decades of promise, that now could be the time for it to be a thing,” he says.
Griffin and Dickson both decline to comment on the role the federal government could or should play in developing green exports, although they volunteer that some local MPs and state governments are supportive. Both note the fact their proposals are off-grid has helped insulate them from politically loaded debates that pit renewable energy against fossil fuels.
Roger Dargaville, a senior lecturer in renewable energy at Monash University and member of the Energy Transition Hub, underlines the amount of work that is going into examining what a future of clean exports will look like. A recent project he was involved in suggested a 40-gigawatt sub-sea electricity cable into Indonesia – much larger than that initially proposed by the Asian Renewable Energy Hub – would be viable by 2035 if that country adopts a low emissions target.
Dargaville believes future exports will almost certainly be a mix of hydrogen, cabled electricity and minerals refined before shipment. He says no one should underestimate the scale of what would be necessary to replace Australia’s existing fossil fuel industries (coal and LNG industries are worth more than $100bn a year and employ tens of thousands) and that the political and technological challenges will be significant. But he stresses no one should mistake where international markets are taking us.
The only question is whether it is in the timeframe climate scientists says is necessary. “It’s not really yes or no, it’s just when.”

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19/07/2019

Lower House Inquiry To Set 'Responsible Road Map' Out Of Coal For NSW

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Plotting NSW's transition away from coal will be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, including how the state can make the most of renewable energy supplies.
Submissions for the lower house's committee of environment and planning inquiry are open from Wednesday until September 15, with an aim to sidestep the "ideological debate" over the fossil fuels and climate change, said Alex Greenwich, independent MP and committee chair.
A coal-processing plant in the Hunter Valley: NSW lower house inquiry will examine the changing energy market in NSW including the rise of renewable energy. Credit: Nine
The terms of reference of the inquiry into the sustainability and energy supply and resources in NSW, include the economic opportunities of renewables, emerging trends in supply and exports, and the role government policies can play to support communities affected by changing markets.
"It allows us to plot a responsible road map for renewables in NSW," Mr Greenwich told the Herald. The inquiry will seek to avoid "pitting coal communities against climate change activists".
The inquiry will also look into the impacts on regional communities from the current energy system. These will include the effects coal-fired power have on water supplies in a drought and the sector's wider impact on the environment and public health.
The government's latest budget forecasts are for little immediate change for coal. Mining royalties, 94 per cent supplied by coal, are predicted to total just over $2 billion this fiscal year and barely budge over the following three years.
Within the government, ministers are working to deal with the planned closure of AGL's 1680-megawatt Liddell coal-fired power plant, and the integration of a flood of large-scale solar and wind farms before the 2020 federal renewable energy target ends.
Danielle Coleman, coordinator for Hunter Renewal, said the inquiry was a chance for people in regional coal communities "to speak for ourselves about how we want to prepare for our future".
"We need a plan for a future that is less dependent on coal mining and that sets us up with new jobs and industries for the long-term," she said.
Sophie Nichols, a Singleton student, said there was "considerable worry" in her town aout the future of coal exports.
"It’s clear they cannot be relied on and we need to prepare for change, and this inquiry is a chance to put the Hunter region on the road to renewal," she said.

'Catastrophic' climate change
Prior to the March election, Mr Greenwich – along with fellow independent MPs Greg Piper and Joe McGirr – called on Premier Gladys Berejiklian to develop a 10-year plan for coal-mining communities if the government was "serious about saving the world from catastrophic climate change".
Mr Greenwich said post her election win, the premier "indicated she was open" to the inquiry after the three MPs offered to provide support for the government in Parliament if required.
He said he hopes the probe will draw submissions from all sectors of the communities, including "champions within the government" for taking action to prepare for a lower carbon-intensive economy.
Coal mines in the upper Hunter Valley near Bulga. The committee inquiry will also examine the effects on water security and public health from existing and future energy supplies.
The five-person committee counts three Liberal MPs, including Felicity Wilson, a supporter of climate action, and Nathaniel Smith, the member for Wollondilly, a coal-mining region. Backing for the inquiry was unanimous with Anoulack Chanthivong, a Labor MP, the fifth member, also voting in support.
Matt Kean, the Minister for Energy and Environment, said his government was "focused on the reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy for NSW customers".
Adam Searle, Labor's energy spokesman, questioned the need for another inquiry after an upper house probe last year "thoroughly" dealt with the key energy issues in the state.
"We all know renewable energy is the cheapest new-build supply," he said. "The time has passed for another inquiry - the time for action is now."
Upper house independent MP Justin Field had sought support for a joint select committee for the future diversity of the Hunter Valley economy with the aim of taking a wider approach than just energy supply and generation.
The Greenwich-led inquiry will aim to report its findings by next March or April.

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Drought Now Officially Our Worst On Record

Farm Online - Gregor Heard


THE ongoing drought through the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) is now the worst on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
Speaking during a BOM seminar on climate, BOM climatologist David Jones said the drought had now exceeded the Federation Drought, the WWII drought and the Millennium drought in terms of its severity through the MDB.
"Our records only go back 120 years but in terms of the rainfall records it is the most severe," Dr Jones said.
Hydrologist and water sector engagement lead with BOM Matthew Coulton said this had also translated into markedly lower run-off into the system.
Dr Jones added temperatures were as high as they have been during the human era, saying the nearest equivalent according to paleo-climatic data (analysing historical weather trends) was a hot period encountered 2-3 million years ago.
"We are still below that threshold of a couple of million years ago but we are starting to approach it," Dr Jones said.
And the BOM panel had tough news for those hoping for a swift resolution to the big dry.
"Our climate forecasts for the next three months show well below average chances of exceeding median rainfall through most of the MDB, especially in the north," Dr Jones said.
Data shown during the seminar also demonstrated there is good accuracy in the BOM's forecasting skills over the spring period in the northern MDB.
It is going to be a long and arduous road back, with BOM data showing most of the northern basin, centring on river valleys such as the Barwon, Gwydir and Namoi, would need the wettest three months on record to drag itself back out of official drought conditions.
Poor summer rain in particular has been the killer for northern areas of the MDB.
"There just hasn't been the summer rain to get recharge," Mr Coulton said.
And he said the problem was worse in the subsoil, with aquifers taking longer to recharge than above-ground reservoirs.
Farmers in the Murray Darling Basin are suffering through the worst drought on record with no immediate end to the big dry in sight.
"When you see heavy rain, such as we saw in 2016 in parts of Australia you can get a relatively quick rise in storage levels, but to get recharge in the aquifers it is a much slower process and relies on a long period of rain rather than a short, intense rain system."
While the focus has been on the high profile woes of the MDB, the BOM data showed much of Australia was in drought.
"There was the good rain over summer in western Queensland, but for many other parts of Australia since the start of 2017 it has been very dry over a run of seasons," Dr Jones said.
He said the farming sector was well attuned to managing climatic variability but that the sustained run of dry seasons was making it difficult.
Gippsland, often referred to as the forgotten drought region of Australia and south-west Western Australia were other areas the BOM data highlighted as experiencing well below average rain over the 30 month period since the start of 2017.
The WA case is slightly surprising as grain yields out of the west have been excellent, especially last year, with further good prospects this season.

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