$5.3 Trillion A Year In Fossil Fuel Subsidies Is Idiotic

CleanTechnica - Zachary Shahan

Ah, society — takes us decades to turn a simple, life-saving corner.
 Subsidizing fossil fuels in the 21st century has got to be one of the dumbest things society has ever done… (and we've done a lot of dumb things).
We have cheaper alternatives that don't kill us and cause all kinds of health problems and suffering beforehand.
We've got locally available, renewable resources that don't have us exporting billions of dollars a year to countries in the Middle East, Venezuela, etc.
We've got zero-emission technologies that won't fry our planet and burn much of the human race.
But we choose to continue subsidizing dirty, toxic, expensive fossil fuels instead.
The G20 "wised up" to the idiocy and agreed two years ago to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, but a new study from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) finds that we continue to subsidize fossil fuels with trillions of dollars of citizen-earned cash.
According to the study, the US dumps a ridiculous $700 billion a year on the dirty subsidies for the dirty piles of coal, gas, and oil.
That's $2,180 per American per year.
Yep, aside from your electricity and gas bills, you are essentially sending $2,000+ to oil, gas, and coal companies because… because… well, they need our help, no?
Australia, where the recent G20 meeting was held, has its citizens helping these poor industries to the tune of $1,260 per person.
The UK gives $41 billion a year, which comes to $635 per person.
Developing countries Mexico, India, and Indonesia average $250 per person per year.
As a percentage of GDP, the subsidies come out as follows:

• USA: 3.8%
• Australia: 2%
• UK: 1.4%
• China: 20%
• India: 12%
• Ukraine: 60%

Staggering.
The world as a whole subsidizes fossil fuels with $5.3 trillion in subsidies per year.
Subsidies included in the report go beyond simple tax breaks, direct subsidies, etc., and also include externalities (something I consistently argue should be done).
Those include the pollution that causes innumerable health problems and premature deaths as well as the harmful effects of global warming and climate change.
If we were brave enough to cut these subsidies, the IMF estimates that 1.6 million premature deaths from outdoor air pollution a year would be prevented, about 50% of those that occur, and global CO2 emissions would be cut 20%.
It seems like common sense, no?
Cut the damn subsidies. Stop giving companies trillions of dollars a year to kill us faster.
The UAE is doing it… somewhat.

Links

• IMF Figures Show UK Government Still Subsidising Fossil Fuel, While Renewables Are Slashed
• The IMF Just Destroyed The Main Argument Against Clean Energy
• Fossil Fuels Subsidies Cost World $5.3 Trillion A Year – $10 Million A Minute
• Energy Subsidy Nonsense — Energy Subsidy Narrow-Mindedness Gets Old
• Oil Subsidies & Natural Gas Subsidies — Subsidies For The Big Boys
• G20 Leaders Agree To Phase Out "Inefficient" Fossil Fuel Subsidies
• G20 Supporting Fossil Fuels To The Tune Of $88 Billion

Overlooked Law Could Be Powerful Tool To Fight Climate Change, Scholars Say

Columbia Daily Spectator - Dan Garisto

Michael Gerrard, professor of climate law, is the director of the Sabin Center on Climate Law. Ethan Wu / Senior Staff Photographer

Attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been a key struggle for President Barack Obama, CC ’83, with both houses of Congress led by Republicans who have outright opposed even acknowledging the existence of climate change.
But a Columbia-led team of legal scholars may have found a promising, never-before-used route for enacting emission reductions that was previously overlooked. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law published an article last month that details how Section 115 of the Clean Air Act can be used to compel the United States to cut emissions—without going through Congress.
When the article was released, Obama’s plan to reduce greenhouse emissions by 25 percent, the Clean Power Plan, was still going forward, albeit under intense legal scrutiny. But earlier this month, the Supreme Court issued an unprecedented stay to prevent the plan from moving forward.

Atrianne Dolom / Staff Designer

“I thought it was the most environmentally destructive thing the Supreme Court has done in very many years,” Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental law and co-author of the article, said. “It was shutting down the most important effort that the U.S. was undertaking to deal with the world's most pressing environmental problem.”
The drama surrounding the Clean Power Plan’s judicial struggles increased, as only days later, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died.
Without Scalia on the court, the vote will likely be tied 4-4, making Scalia’s replacement the deciding vote.
However, according to Gerrard, using Section 115 of the Clean Air Act would allow Obama or the next president to bypass both the congressional and judicial gauntlet.
“The Clean Power Plan has limited coverage—it only applies to power plants. It doesn’t apply to any other part of the economy,” Gerrard said. “We wanted to see if there was some other legal pathway that might allow the administration to regulate greenhouse gases.”
Under Section 115, the Environmental Protection Agency can force states responsible for polluting other countries to cut emissions so long as those other countries agree to cut their own emissions. Agreements made at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference between 195 countries to reduce carbon dioxide production could make this reciprocity clause easy to fulfill.
In addition to the ability to bypass Congress, a regulation on the basis of Section 115 would also be supported by strong, broad language that could render judicial attacks null.
“[Congress] did not limit this use to bordering countries—and if you follow a textualist analysis, like Justice Scalia said he did, the plain text of it is quite broad,” Gerrard said.
Previously, Section 115 had been overlooked by lawyers because it was assumed to apply only to Canada and Mexico, the two countries bordering the U.S. The only previous attempt to use Section 115 occurred at the end of the Carter administration, and was promptly squashed when Reagan entered office.
Section 115 was subsequently out of the public eye and thought to be inconsequential.
“We saw it as something of a sideshow, but we decided to look into it more deeply, and the deeper we dove into it the more fruitful it became,” Gerrard said.
However, the scholars’ analysis, while promising, holds little potential for immediate change. Enacting regulations based on Section 115 would take a great deal of planning that Gerrard said was unlikely to happen due to the Obama administration’s investment in the Clean Power Plan.
“I think it's a very helpful tool for an administration that wants to act on climate change but can't get the help of Congress,” Gerrard said. “If Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is the next president, they may well utilize this.”

Once-In-A-Generation Heatwaves Could Be A Yearly Event, New Research Finds

news.com.au - Benedict Brook

The sun rises on another hot day in Sydney.

IT’S been a sticky old week across southern Australia with the mercury topping 41C in the west of Sydney and severe heatwaves in parts of New South Wales and northern Western Australia.
But far from being an unusual occurrence, climate scientists are predicting heatwaves globally are on the rise with extreme heat events, which previously only occurred “once in a generation”, could happen every year.
And that means more than just some extra days at the beach, with predictions of more bushfires, stretched emergency services and severe impacts to farmers and food production.
In a paper published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers found heatwaves only experienced once in every 20 years could, in years to come, happen every year in some places. By 2075, 60 per cent of the Earth’s land mass could see these extreme heat events annually or even more frequently.
By 2050, heatwaves could be three degrees warmer across half the world and across 10 per cent of the Earth’s surface a scorching five degrees hotter.

The Bureau of Meteorology predicts Australia will almost certainly have above average temperatures during March. Source: BoM.

Fifth warmest year
The study’s co-author, Claudia Tebaldi, from the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research said “Mitigation is crucial. We have a lot to gain from limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and [those] benefits will be felt fairly soon,” reported Climate Control.
Although the northern hemisphere is more likely to be in the firing line, there’s little respite for us in Australia with a marked increase in heatwaves and their intensity, climate researchers have said.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) warned daytime temperatures during Autumn were likely to be warmer than average, particularly in March.
According to the BoM’s annual climate statement, 2015 was Australia’s fifth warmest year on record with temperatures 0.83C above average and exceptionally warm spells including heatwaves across north and central Australia in March and south and south eastern Australia in the latter part of the year.
Heatwave conditions in Australia are defined by three days of unusually hot minimum and maximum temperatures for any given area.

Beachgoers walk into the sea at Coogee on Thursday in Sydney as temperatures peaked at 41C in the city’s west. Photo: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images.

Longer and more extreme
Speaking earlier this month, Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, of the University of NSW’s Climate Research Centre, said the trend was for longer and more extreme heatwaves.
“We’re seeing heat and hot weather we’ve never seen before that [is] breaking lots of records.
“We’re not expecting to see heatwaves last all summer but those really rare heatwaves we might only have seen every 20 years we could now see every two years, which may not have happened if climate change hadn’t occurred.”
However, the pattern of heatwaves wasn’t uniform, said Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick. Sydney had seen its heatwave season kicking in three weeks earlier, as had Melbourne — although the latter hadn’t seen an overall increase in the number of days experiencing extreme heat.
In Canberra, they really can’t bear it, with a doubling in the number of heatwave days although the intensity had remained stable.
The new research said if nations cut emissions, 95 per cent of land areas could see a reduction in worst-case temperatures on extreme heat days by 1C while half the earth’s land mass could see a 2C cut. Areas severely affected by heatwaves might drop to between 10 and 25 per cent rather than the 60 per cent predicted.
More than 100 countries have pledged to work towards keeping temperature rises to below 2C by the end of the century.

The only way to cool down. Photo: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Cooking the planet
Activist group GetUp!’s Climate Change Campaigns Director, Sam Regester, said it was not surprising that the globe was seeing a rise in heatwaves and nations needed to do more to prevent climate-induced catastrophes.
“More extreme weather events mean more bushfires and natural disasters and emergency services are just not equipped to deal with once in a generation heatwaves every few years.
“It also puts a huge stress on farmers. In some heatwaves we see entire seasons of crops destroyed and unless we address climate change, food security becomes a real and urgent problem and we won’t be able to take abundant fresh food for granted.”
While 2015 was one of Australia’s hottest years on record, overall temperatures have been reducing, coming off a record peak in 2013. Aren’t things going in the right direction already?
“You just have to take a step back and look at the long term trends of 30 years in a row of above average temperatures,” said Mr Regester. “There’s no question — the world’s getting hotter and getting hotter at a dangerous rate.
“We need to transition urgently away from fossil fuels that are literally cooking the planet and move to 100 per cent renewable as fast as possible.”
While Australia’s south-east corner is in for cooler temperatures this weekend, with Sydney topping 28C on Sunday and Melbourne only reaching 23C, there are still spots of punishing heat elsewhere. Brisbane will reach 35C on Sunday with Perth sweltering with a whopping 38C the same day.
Global Weirding
Global weather really is getting more extreme - with bigger, badder storms and droughts every year. Is the sun to blame? Welcome to the new terrifying world of global weirding.

CSIRO Becoming A 'Glorified Consultancy', As Climate Adaptation Program At Risk

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Labor senator Kim Carr says some CSIRO answers to Senate estimated 'defied belief'. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The drive to increase the share of CSIRO funding from external sources is turning Australia's premier scientific research institution into "a glorified consultancy", Labor's shadow industry minister Kim Carr said.
Senator Carr said the current round of job cuts, which will fall particularly hard on the CSIRO's climate change programs, revealed a distortion of the organisation's mandated role.
Of the roughly $500 million raised each year from external sources, only about $70 million came from the private sector. Since the bulk of the remainder came from federal agencies, the CSIRO is vulnerable to sharp cuts to funding - as has occurred during the Abbott-Turnbull years, Senator Carr said.

Fiji, hard hit by Cyclone Winston last week, has had Australian help with climate projection. Photo: APO

"Setting external [funding] targets is a farcical way to determine priorities," Senator Carr said. "It's an attempt to turn the CSIRO into a glorified consultancy."
"It's an assault on public benefit research and distorts the priorities of public-good science."
Senator Carr said he plans to hold the CSIRO management to account for what he viewed as misleading comments made at Senate estimates by Chief Executive Larry Marshall earlier this month.
When asked by Senator Carr whether CSIRO had reimposed external revenue targets, Dr Marshall, according to Hansard, replied: "We do not have a target."
"Claiming that they don't have external revenue targets defies belief," Senator Carr said.
The CSIRO told Fairfax Media that it plans to correct the record.
"The [Senate] hearing covered the topic of external revenue with questioning covering the time period of more than a decade," a CSIRO spokesman said. "Having reviewed the Hansard record, CSIRO believes that there are some parts of the Hansard record that could benefit from some clarification and is preparing a letter to the Chairman of the Committee."
"I'm deeply disappointed that it's taken so long to correct the record," Senator Carr said.
The CSIRO has been under pressure to explain the rationale behind plans to slice 350 jobs, with about 200 of them to come from Oceans & Atmosphere and Land & Water divisions. Many of jobs to go are climate scientists.
Dr Marshall has said that, since climate change had been proved, more funding could be spent on efforts to curb future global warming by limiting carbon emissions. Additional spending could also go to prepare for adaptation efforts to the future changes, such as more extreme weather, that are virtually inevitable.
Insiders, though, say that adaptation programs, such as the 18-member climate projections team, are at risk.
"It seems to be a strange place to start pruning," Lynne Turner, an associate professor at the University of Southern Queensland, said.
Prof Turner, formerly head of Queensland's Climate Change Centre of Excellence before it was closed when Campbell Newman's Liberal National Party took office in 2012, said every regional natural resource management group in the country used CSIRO's climate projections to inform their long-term planning.
"It's hard to turn that capacity on and off like a tap," Prof Turner said, adding CSIRO's modelling of projected changes to temperature, sea level, rainfall and extreme events was also a service to poorer neighbours in the South Pacific.
"These are highly vulnerable countries, with low technical expertise, which have been highly reliant on a big countries like Australia," she said.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie is also likely to pursue Science Minister Christopher Pyne's answer to him in Question Time this week that while CSIRO would make 350 people redundant, "350 positions will be opened up".
Land & Water staff were told in an all-staff meeting this week that new hires were dependent on the division meeting revenue targets. Any shortfall could see further cuts, a senior scientist told Fairfax Media.

Links

• CSIRO executives to face fresh scrutiny over planned cuts to climate science
• Canberra's late summer heat streak breaks capital records
• Sydney weather: 'Strangely warm southerly' brings little relief

Climate Change Benefits The Rich At The Expense Of The Poor, Study Finds

Independent - Matt Payton

'We tend to think of climate change as just a problem of physics and biology'

A fisherman cuts a fish at the fishermen dock in La Libertad, El Salvador Reuters

Everyone knows that wealth feeds wealth and the rich are getting richer.
But now a new study has found that even what is seemingly the most universal of threats is also increasing the inequality gap.
Climate change, it has been found, is causing important natural resources to move towards the Earth's poles, thereby taking wealth away from the poorest nations nearest the equator.
Rises in temperature are forcing fish, plants, trees and other species to move away from temperate zones towards the poles.
According to a paper entitled "Wealth reallocation and sustainability under climate change", which was published in the journal Nature Climate Change, this mass redistribution of resources both natural and human benefits the wealthiest countries in the northern hemisphere.
The study used fish migration data and a mathematical formula to illustrate the correlation between the movement of resources and the movement of wealth.
Because the effects of climate change are unevenly spread across the world, such a physical redistriubtion of resources to the poles will be similary uneven.
Dr Malin Pinsky, from Rutgers University, said: "What we find is that natural resources like fish are being pushed around by climate change, and that changes who gets access to them.
"We tend to think of climate change as just a problem of physics and biology.
"But people react to climate change as well, and at the moment we don't have a good understanding for the impacts of human behavior on natural resources affected by climate change."

Defence White Paper: Climate Change Threatens Regional Security

New Matilda - Thom Mitchell

US Sea Hawk helicopters in Kuwait. (IMAGE: New York National Guard, Flickr).

Malcolm Turnbull's Defence White Paper has done what Abbott's energy equivalent failed to do, acknowledging climate change as a fundamental and overarching influence on Australia's long-term future and the stability of the region.
There is a growing awareness among international security experts, already embedded in the long-term plans of other nations, that climate change has huge potential to force geopolitical instability, shape conflicts, and require humanitarian deployments.
As New Matilda has previously reported, the toxicity of Canberra's debate on climate change had contributed to Australia's tardiness in incorporating it into strategic plans.
Indeed an issues paper released in 2014 by then Defence Minister David Johnston, when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister, didn't mention climate change at all.
But then, hardly either did the Abbott-era Energy White Paper, said to be 'technology neutral', which mentioned climate change only twice to reference the Coalition's Direct Action policy.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

The full Defence White paper released today goes a little further. "Climate change will be a major challenge for countries in Australia's immediate region," the paper concedes.
"Within the South Pacific, variable economic growth, crime and social, governance and climate change challenges will all contribute to uneven progress and may lead to instability in some countries," it states.
"Climate change will see higher temperatures, increased sea-level rise and will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. These effects will exacerbate the challenges of population growth and environmental degradation, and will contribute to food shortages and undermine economic development."
The White Paper also acknowledges the threat that climate change poses to the 'defence estate' – Australia's Navy bases will be impacted by rising seas and "more extreme weather events more frequently putting facilities at risk of damage".
Ultimately, beyond 2025, climate change will contribute to a need to develop "new bases, wharves, airfields and training and weapons testing ranges".
That's pretty much the sum-total of the paper's focus on climate change, though. Despite anticipating climate change will be an important contributor to state fragility – one of six key drivers that the paper says will shape Defence thinking out to 2035 – it's mentioned less than 10 times, and only in a perfunctory sense.

Rob Faulkner, Flickr

As New Matilda reported in June last year, other countries have been making more serious and methodical attempts to integrate climate change into their long-term strategic thinking.
A former senior advisor to the UK government, Rear Admiral Neill Morisetti said at the time that other countries are now "instinctively saying 'we must factor in the impact of a changing climate along with all the other points'".
He said the "political context presents a challenge in Australia".
Defence was being hampered, and political influences dissuading proper acknowledgement of climate change's pervasive presence as a 'multiplyer' of other threats to geopolitical stability, a report from the Centre for Policy Development suggested.
Today's White Paper shows the first signs that those roadblocks to an un-politicised approach to strategic planning may be coming down under Turnbull's leadership.
Clearly, though, there's still plenty of work to be done to put flesh on the bare bones that are outlined in the Defence White Paper.

Links

• Defence White Paper fails on climate change
• Defence white paper shows Australian forces must safeguard nature too
• Defence White Paper: A Recipe For Big Spending And Bigger Risks

New Australian Climate Developing

Australian Grains Export Innovation Centre

Seasonal rainfall zones shift across Australia since 2000

A new climate is emerging in Australia, according to new maps released by the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre (AEGIC).
AEGIC analysed data from more than 8000 Bureau of Meteorology stations around the country and discovered that traditional rainfall zones have changed significantly since 2000.
The findings will be presented as part of a talk entitled “South-west Western Australia is losing its Mediterranean Climate” by AEGIC agro-meteorologist Dr David Stephens at the 2016 GRDC Perth Grains Research Update (Perth Convention Centre, 29 February-1 March 2016).
Dr Stephens said the new analysis revealed striking changes to the Australian climate over the past 16 years.
“Since 2000, there has been a general increase in summer rainfall across Australia, and a corresponding decrease in winter rainfall, leading to shifts in rainfall zones extending for hundreds of kilometres,” Dr Stephens said.
“Rainfall between May to October over much of the heavily populated regions of southern Australia has decreased 10-30%, while summer rain has increased up to 40% in some areas.
“This change in climate has major implications for farming and pastoral systems as the profitability of different crop types changes, disease risk changes, and the composition of rangeland grasses changes with stocking rates.”
The analysis revealed significant shifts in rainfall zones since 2000, which can be seen in the maps above.

Summary:

• For regions with a Mediterranean climate, winter (and winter dominant) rainfall zones are contracting in a south-westerly direction.

• In northern and eastern areas, summer (and summer dominant) rainfall zones are expanding southward.

• Between these regions, there is a uniform rainfall zone where summer and winter rainfall are similar. The southern boundary of this zone has shifted from southern/central New South Wales down into central Victoria and the Mallee region of south-east South Australia.

• In the south-west of Western Australia, a uniform rainfall zone has appeared along the eastern edge of the wheat-belt from Beacon to Southern Cross to Grass Patch.

• Most rainfall zone boundaries have typically shifted 100-400km over the last 16 years. The only expansion of the winter rainfall zone has occurred in southeast Tasmania where winter rainfall has become more reliable.

Dr Stephens said the analysis highlighted that the shift to earlier sowing of winter crops measured recently by AEGIC should continue because early sown crops take advantage of any additional summer soil moisture.
“They also experience a lower evaporative demand through the growing season, and are less affected by declining rain in October and rising spring temperatures,” he said.
“In pastoral regions in much of Western Australia, increasing summer rain with a reduction in rainfall variability has assisted perennial C4 (tropical) plants at the expense of C3 (temperate) grasses (especially in southern areas), while in central and northern Queensland, an increase in rainfall variability has been detrimental on pasture production and stocking rates”.
“Australia is going to need some of the most water-efficient farming systems in the world to mitigate the effects of a drier and warmer climate in Southern Australia. Research in this area is vital because Australian crop yields have been among the most affected by climate change compared to other grain exporting nations.”

More Information
These changes appear to be related to changes in barometric pressure, sea surface temperatures and upper level westerly winds.

• In the mid-1970s, there was a weakening of the Indian Ocean Trough to the west of Perth which appears to be related to a decline in winter rainfall since then. In the 2000s, this trough has weakened further in conjunction with strengthening high pressures over Australia.

• In addition, sea surface temperatures have warmed in all seasons, which is beneficial for summer rainfall.

• However, a more marked warming in oceans west of Perth in winter has an inverse relationship to rainfall and has contributed to weaker cloud-band activity in recent years.

• At a Hemispheric scale, one of the drivers of weather is the temperature gradient between the equator and the South Pole. This gradient dropped at the beginning of the 2000s as westerly winds in May-July weakened over Australia.”

• The variability in annual rainfall across Australia has changed since 2000. Reduced variability in some regions is due to the loss of wet years, as in south-west Australia, or more consistent average to above average rain, as in the north-western parts of the country and southern South Australia.”

• In contrast variability in annual rainfall has increased in inland Victoria, southern New South Wales and much of central Queensland.