The Ghanaian Villages Destroyed By Climate Change – In Pictures

The Guardian - Nyani Quarmyne

Worsening coastal and riverine erosion is sweeping away homes and livelihoods on the Ghana coast. Photographer Nyani Quarmyne visited the small fishing village of Totope, which was once three miles from the sea but has now virtually disappeared

The fishing village of Totope is disappearing as the rising sea and worsening coastal erosion bury buildings in sand. The villagers say they were once three miles from the sea. Here women sweep sand towards the sea in a forlorn attempt to prevent their homes from being buried completely. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Tekpe Hongah, a resident of Totope, sits on the roof of his rapidly disappearing home. Fearful that the building might collapse at any time, he has been forced to evacuate and move in with relatives. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

A seven-year-old boy looks through a window in the sand-filled remains of a house destroyed by the encroaching sea. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Torgborfio Obodai, a schoolboy from Totope, stands by a house that is being claimed by the sea and sand. When the ravages of the sea are at their worst, he is unable to walk the short distance to school for fear of being swept out into the ocean. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Trapped between the sea and a lagoon, the village has nowhere to go. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Numour Puplampo stands in the doorway of his house that has been half buried, forcing him to abandon the property. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Every morning the women of Totope sweep the beach and bury the rubbish that has been swept down the coast overnight from the cities of Accra and Tema. As the sea continues to advance on the village it periodically buries homes in sand and rubbish. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Anikor Adjawutor and Miyorhokpor Anikor look out from a window in their home on the nearby island of Azizakpe in the Volta Estuary which has been destroyed by rising waters. It is in a location that was once more than 100m from the water’s edge; it now floods monthly. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Rising salinity has killed trees around the village of Azizanya, leaving a barren mudflat. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Hannah Abayateye and her son, Junior, sit on top of all that the sea has left of their traditional family home in the village of Akplabanya. Photograph: Nyani Quarmyne/Panos Pictures

Could Household Battery Storage Have Prevented SA Blackout?

Renew Economy - Giles Parkinson

Energy experts are still scratching their heads about what they could have done to prevent the massive, state-wide blackout that occurred in the midst of a one-in-50-years storm last month. The answer may lay inside South Australian homes. Or at least, it should do. And it’s battery storage.
Dean Spaccavento, the CEO of Australian energy management software company Reposit Power, says battery storage placed in thousands of homes in Adelaide and the surrounding region – and linked through smart software – could have provided the emergency supply to help stabilise the network at its moment of crisis.

Image courtesy of Off-Grid Energy Australia: offgridenergy.com.au

In a matter of seconds, the interconnector became overloaded as it made up for lost power on the South Australia network following the catastrophic series of events that saw three of the main transmission lines disconnect as pylons crashed to the ground.
Battery storage, Spaccavento says, could have provided the emergency system back-up. “That would have stopped the cascading dominoes,” he says. And not a lot would have been required.
To provide 50MW, possibly enough to prevent the Heywood line from going over its overload capacity, the number of homes with linked battery storage would have to have been around 12,500. If the amount needed was 250MW, then it would have required 50,000 households. Around 200,000 households in the state already have rooftop solar.
Reposit Power’s comments are timely, given that the state and federal energy ministers are meeting tomorrow, and on their agenda is a report from the CSIRO about battery storage.
Hopefully, it will be a little more up to date than the AEMO chairman’s report at the last COAG meeting a few weeks ago, when he said that battery storage would not be competitive for up to two decades.
ACT energy minister Simon Corbell found those comments remarkable, and wrong. And as David Leitch writes in this analysis (and advice to federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg advisors) battery storage may already be commercial. Certainly, some networks think so.
Indeed, Reposit Power has written a letter to the ministers asking them to consider the role this aggregated clean energy system plays in keeping the grid balanced.
Reposit’s COO Luke Osborne said “Australian households can provide a cheap and bullet-proof solution to ensuring Australia’s future energy stability.”
The idea that storage could have helped avoid the crisis is not new. AGL, which operates the biggest gas generator in the state, said earlier this week that the best way to offer energy security was through distributed generation and storage and micro-grids, and this could only happen with renewable energy.
That’s the trick with battery storage, to unlock its value streams; no easy task in a grid designed to operate with decades old technology and even older thinking. AGL is having a go, by trialling a scheme that links household storage to make a  “virtual power plant”, and SA Power Networks is conducting trials of its own.
The attraction is that much of the investment for battery storage would come from the households themselves, although the government might want to consider subsidies to reduce the cost.
Providing these services – responding to peak demand and providing emergency back-up, can add to the revenue stream of the battery owner, over and above the time shifting they use for their rooftop solar.

In a briefing Reposit Power wrote for Senator Nick Xenophon, Spaccavento said system security would be increased with each added (linked) battery, and it would mean added value to households and increased private investment in the grid.
“Scaling of this business model will solve South Australia’s grid instability,” the briefing said. But it said initiatives, such as the ACT government’s “Next Gen” battery storage program, would accelerate the uptake and help overcome market barriers.

Osborne, who used to work for a wind energy developer and lives under a wind farm, says the interim reports into the outage from AEMO have shown that South Australia’s energy infrastructure was not strong enough for the force of the fierce storms of September 28.

Transmission lines fell, some wind farms lost output, more than half of the state’s gas capacity was offline or unavailable, or simply too slow to respond. And when the interconnector became overloaded, it too disconnected.
What an energy market operator needs most of all in a crisis is time. The interim AEMO report shows that the crisis played out in less than a minute, the most dramatic events occurring in the space of a few seconds, or even fractions of seconds.
That’s what makes battery storage so attractive. It can respond in milliseconds, providing network support, or outright power – sometimes for only short periods of time. But quite possibly enough for the operator to marshal its defences and get slow-moving gas generators online and other support.
Spaccavento points out that battery storage could not be expected to power the state for any lengthy period. It is designed to hold the system steady for a short period of time so the operator can look at other long-term solutions.
“On September 28, we don’t know what happens next. But storage could have given the operator time to find another option,” he told RenewEconomy.
One of those options could have been creating enough time for the unused gas generation to ramp up and provide more capacity, reducing the load on the interconnector. Although, frankly, there was no of knowing what the impact of the transmission lines would have been.
Spaccavento says, however, that the grid had held up remarkably well considering what was thrown at it.
“This was pretty much a power system apocalypse,” he said. “It’s amazing that it stayed (online) as long as it did. The state got torn apart.” And, he noted, it was interesting that no wind farms tripped, and most of their capacity was still there until the interconnector failed and all generators tripped at the last moment.
Osborne compares what happened in South Australia to the children’s book “Who sank the boat”. That’s when “a cow, a pig, a donkey, a sheep and a tiny mouse go for a row, but one of them sinks the boat.”
The mouse is blamed because it was the last one in. It was kind of what happened in South Australia – it was the last 50MW strain on the interconnector that eventually ended all resistance, and the system sank.

Links

• An imaginary meeting with Frydenberg’s advisors about battery storage
• AGL says blackout not fault of wind farms, but Barnaby and media know best
• Finkel to lead NEM review, but states hold to renewable targets
• Australia battery storage comparison table – July update

Chief Scientist To Lead Review Into Australia's Energy Security

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

State and territory ministers agree on the exercise, which will take stock of the national electricity market while also assessing climate change commitments

Energy minister Josh Frydenberg during a state and territory meeting in Melbourne on Friday to consider a broad review of the nation's electricity market. Photograph: Mal Fairclough/AAP

Australia's chief scientist, Alan Finkel, will lead an energy security review determining whether the national electricity market can deliver reliable base load power while meeting Australia's climate change commitments.
Energy ministers held an emergency meeting on Friday and agreed to hold the independent review, which will deliver its preliminary findings in December.
The communique issued after the meeting says the review will take stock of the current state of the security and reliability of the national electricity market and provide advice to governments on a "coordinated, national reform blueprint".
"In light of this body of work, the Australian government's commitment at Paris and the integration of climate and energy policy at the federal level, the blueprint will outline national policy, legislative, governance and rule changes required to maintain the security, reliability, affordability and sustainability of the national electricity market," it says.
The federal government evidently sees the review as a mechanism to pressure the states to wind back their renewable energy targets.
In a statement issued after Friday's meeting, the federal energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, said the agreement to hold the review meant that ministers had agreed that "energy security, reliability and affordability is their primary responsibility".
He said regulators had briefed Friday's meeting that there were "broader issues" about the reliability of the system as a result of the higher uptake of intermittent power, particularly wind and solar, and the flow-on impact on to interconnectors.
"We actually heard at this meeting from the Australian Energy Market Commission that the state-based targets do raise serious questions about the efficiency, the cost and location of investment decisions," Frydenberg said. "That work is still under way."
But South Australia evidently sees the review as a means of building an evidence base and support across Coag for a form of carbon trading for the electricity sector.
The South Australian energy minister, Tom Koutsantonis, told the ABC after the meeting he had raised the issue of an emissions intensity scheme during Friday's meeting, and he intended to build the case for a sectoral baseline and credit scheme as a mechanism for forcing an orderly transition in the national energy market from coal to gas and renewables.
He said there was a lot of support for the proposal in Coag, and that in pursuing the emissions intensity scheme, South Australia was only supporting a policy that Malcolm Turnbull had himself supported in 2009.
Frydenberg continued on Friday to dead bat questions about whether Canberra would countenance a trading scheme for the electricity sector, or push the federal renewable energy target out beyond 2020 as a means of allowing the states to step back from their schemes. "I'm not going to pre-judge the outcome of our 2017 review [of Direct Action]," he said.
The prime minister sought the one-off meeting of energy ministers following the storms that caused a statewide blackout in South Australia last week.
Turnbull had linked the SA blackout explicitly to the state's use of renewable energy, calling it a "wake-up call" for state leaders who were trying to hit "completely unrealistic" renewable targets.
Friday's communique, on the basis of a preliminary report from the Australian Energy Market Operator, said the cause of the blackout was the weather event, resulting in multiple transmission failures, including the loss of three big 275 kV transmission lines north of Adelaide.
The prime minister's rhetoric triggered a furious backlash among the states and a fresh outbreak of toxic climate change politics after a period of relative calm, prompting a coalition of business and energy groups to call for cool heads and bipartisan cooperation in advance of Friday's meeting.
On Friday, Turnbull continued to face off against the states, describing ambitious renewable energy targets as "heroic" and "very much a Labor obsession".
"South Australia is one that has achieved a very high level of renewable energy. If you look at Queensland, where they are currently at about 4%, they say they're going to get, by 2030, to 50%. Well how on earth is that going to happen?" the prime minister said.
"Ditto, similar targets in Victoria. They set these targets and rather than planning for energy security, they just treat it as an assumption. They assume that they can change the composition of the energy mix and that energy security will always be there and the lights will stay on. That has been brought into question."
Frydenberg was more measured, saying that after the talks the government would like to see "great harmonisation" with renewable energy targets and a "truly national system" – but he also acknowledged that the review process he had set in train was a Coag process, and he said the states were not budging.
The communique noted "the importance of integrating energy and climate policy at the federal level and the federal government's commitment to the Paris targets".
At Friday's meeting, Koutsantonis also reached agreement with his New South Wales counterpart Anthony Roberts to develop a new interconnector between the two states to increase stability in the system.

Links

• Malcolm Turnbull says South Australia blackout a wake-up call on renewables
• Energy ministers urged to map out strategic response to renewables
• Chief scientist defends Climate Change Authority review against dissenters
• Once the storm settles, the real picture emerges of government's energy goals
• Victoria says Coag energy meeting a stunt to save 'Malcolm Turnbull's skin'
• Renewable energy: get your story straight, ACT tells Coalition
• Letter signed by 154 Australian experts demands climate policy match the science
• If energy ministers bow to gas industry they'll be deciding in the dark
• Josh Frydenberg: Australia's use of coal is falling 'and that is not a bad thing'
• 'My work is done': Greg Hunt says mission accomplished on environment portfolio

A Military View On Climate Change: It’s Eroding Our National Security And We Should Prepare For It

The Conversation - David Titley

The guided missile destroyer USS Barry deploys to sea from Naval Station Norfolk ahead of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. U.S. Navy/Flickr

In this presidential election year we have heard much about some issues, such as immigration and trade, and less about others. For example, climate change was discussed for an estimated 82 seconds in the first presidential debate last week, and for just 37 minutes in all presidential and vice presidential debates since the year 2000.
Many observers think climate change deserves more attention. They might be surprised to learn that U.S. military leaders and defense planners agree. The armed forces have been studying climate change for years from a perspective that rarely is mentioned in the news: as a national security threat. And they agree that it poses serious risks.
I spent 32 years as a meteorologist in the U.S. Navy, where I initiated and led the Navy's Task Force on Climate Change. Here is how military planners see this issue: We know that the climate is changing, we know why it's changing and we understand that change will have large impacts on our national security. Yet as a nation we still only begrudgingly take precautions.
The Obama administration recently announced several actions that create a framework for addressing climate-driven security threats. But much of the hard work lies ahead – assuming that our next president understands the risks and chooses to act on them.

Climate-related disruptions
Climate change affects our security in two ways. First, it causes stresses such as water shortages and crop failures, which can exacerbate or inflame existing tensions within or between states. These problems can lead to state failure, uncontrolled migration and ungoverned spaces.
On Sept. 21 the National Intelligence Council issued its most recent report on implications of climate change for U.S. national security. This document represents the U.S. intelligence community's strategic-level view. It does not come from the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, politicians of either party or an advocacy group, but from nonpartisan, senior U.S. intelligence professionals.
The NIC report emphasizes that the problem is not simply climate change, but the interaction of climate with other large-scale demographic and migration trends; its impacts on food, energy and health; and the stresses it will place on societies, especially fragile ones.

Aftermath of a bomb attack in 2014 in Jos, Nigeria by the militant group Boko Haram. Analysts have linked Boko Haram's rise to climatic shifts and resource shortages. Diariocritico de Venezuela/Flickr, CC BY 

As examples the report cites diverse events, ranging from mass protests and violence triggered by water shortages in Mauritania to the possibility that thawing in the Arctic could threaten Russian oil pipelines in the region. Other studies have identified climate change as a contributing factor to events including the civil war in Syria and the Arab Spring uprisings.
Second, climate change is putting our military bases and associated domestic infrastructure in the United States under growing pressure from rising sea levels, "nuisance flooding," increasingly destructive storm surges, intense rainfalls and droughts, and indirect impacts from wildfires. All of these trends make it harder to train our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to deploy and fight the "away" game and to keep our forces ready to deploy.
These changes are not hypothetical. Consider Hurricane Matthew: although we cannot directly attribute this storm to climate change, scientists tell us that as climate change worsens, major hurricanes will become more severe. As Matthew moves up the Atlantic coast, the armed forces are evacuating thousands of service members and dependents out of its path, and the Navy is moving ships out to sea. Other units are preparing to deliver hurricane relief to hard-hit areas.

Marines from the 8th Engineering Support Battalion, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, participate in relief efforts in New York after Hurricane Sandy, November 2012. U.S. Navy/Flickr, CC BY

Many of us who work in this field have written and talked about risks like these for years. Along with 24 other retired senior officers, civilian defense officials from Republican and Democratic administrations, and well-respected academics, I recently signed a consensus statement that calls climate change a strategically significant risk to our national security and international stability. We called for "a robust agenda to both prevent and prepare for climate change risks," and warned that "inaction is not an option."
The "change" part of climate change is critical: The more ability we have to adapt to and manage changes and the rate of change in our climate, the greater our chances are to avoid catastrophic chaos and instability.

Meeting the challenge
Simultaneously with the NIC report on Sept. 21, the White House released a Presidential Memorandum, or PM, on climate change and national security. This document formally states the administration's position that climate change impacts national security.
Building on past executive orders and policies, it directs senior climate officials at 20 federal agencies to form a working group on climate change and national security, cochaired by the president's national security adviser and science adviser. This working group will analyze questions such as which countries and regions are most vulnerable to climate change impacts in the near, medium and long term.
That's high-level attention! In the words of a senior administration official, the PM "gives permission" for career civil servants and military professionals to work on this challenge, just as they address myriad other security challenges daily.

Destroyed tanks in front of a mosque in Azaz, Syria, 2012. Climate scientists have identified the 2006-2010 drought in Syria as a factor in the civil uprising that began in 2011. Christiaan Triebert/Flickr, CC BY-NC

But we need to do much more. I am a member of the Climate and Security Advisory Group – a voluntary, nonpartisan group of 43 U.S.-based military, national security, homeland security, intelligence and foreign policy experts from a broad range of institutions. We have produced a comprehensive briefing book for the next administration that makes detailed recommendations about how to expand our efforts to address security risks associated with climate change.
Our top-line recommendation is to "mainstream" this issue by ensuring that U.S. leaders consider climate change on an equal basis with more traditional security issues, such as changing demographics, economics, political dynamics and other indicators of instability – as well as with low-probability, high-consequence threats like nuclear proliferation. We also recommend that the next president should designate senior officials in key departments, the intelligence community, the National Security Council and within the Executive Office of the President itself to ensure this intent is carried out.
What's next? As a retired naval officer, I find myself drawing on the words of American naval heroes like Admiral Chester Nimitz. In 1945, while he was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Nimitz wrote about a devastating storm near the Philippines that had sunk three ships and seriously damaged more than 20 others, killing and injuring hundreds of sailors. He concluded by observing that:

"The time for taking all measures for a ship's safety is while still able to do so. Nothing is more dangerous than for a seaman to be grudging in taking precautions lest they turn out to have been unnecessary. Safety at sea for a thousand years has depended on exactly the opposite philosophy."

The next president will have a choice to make. One option is to continue down the path that the Obama administration has defined and develop policies, budgets, plans and programs that flesh out the institutional framework now in place. Alternatively, he or she can call climate change a hoax manufactured by foreign governments and ignore the flashing red lights of increasing risk.
The world's ice caps will not care who is elected or what is said. They will simply continue to melt, as dictated by laws of physics. But Americans will care deeply about our policy response. Our nation's security is at stake.

Links

• Political warfare on climate could leave national security at risk
• Climate change and security: a wake-up call for Australia
• As the Arctic melts, the US needs to pay attention
• Climate change and drought: a spark in igniting Syria's civil war

What's Really Going Wrong With Electricity

Fairfax - Adam Morton

The extreme weather conditions and 80,000 lightning strikes that thrust South Australia into darkness last week was extraordinary enough; the disingenuous debate it sparked about Australia's changing energy system has been something else again.
At the heart of the issue - as Malcolm Turnbull has identified - is ideology. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister's words on the subject would have had more power had he not allowed himself to be seen as an ideological player.

The collapse of transmission lines led to the shutdown of SA's entire power network. Photo: Tom Fedorowytsch/ABC

After noting the blackout was the result of a storm, he whacked Labor-led states for setting "extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic" clean energy targets rather than merely sticking to what should be his central point: that an inevitable change is under way in the electricity system.
The only real questions are: are we managing it well? If not, how do we to fix that?
The answer to the first is a resounding no. The second remains an open question that, as federal and state energy ministers prepare to meet in Melbourne on Friday, we are some distance away from meaningfully addressing.

The Capital Wind Farm in NSW. Picture: Bloomberg

In reality, it is too early to say anything of the sort. But the idea - more popular with politicians than the population, and significantly over-represented in influential media commentary – that the growth in renewable energy is a problem that needs to be stopped or reversed persists.
At the other end of the spectrum, and to a lesser extent, so does a suggestion that the shift to a cleaner grid will be simple. Neither are true. But the change is necessary and inevitable.
Consider the facts.  Burning coal to make electricity has been good for Australia's economic development, but it wasn't and isn't cheap. It carries a hidden cost that is passed on to future generations.

Speculation is mounting that the Hazelwood power plant will close. Picture: Chris Hopkins

Coal itself is neither good nor evil. It's just fossilised carbon that burns easily. The idea of carbon pricing, introduced and abandoned by the federal government, was developed as a response to the problem it causes – that we should pay the true cost of using a fuel now to reflect the damage being done.
Recent indicators suggest that damage is encroaching: 2016 is on track to be the hottest year on record; summer Arctic sea ice reached its second lowest level on record; the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than previously thought; coral reefs are bleaching and dying at rates that have stunned scientists.

Global mean surface temperature for January to June 2016. Source: NASA

It doesn't matter whether an individual accepts the mainstream climate science that links these extraordinary shifts to human activity - the global community has accepted it on their behalf. Nearly 200 governments agreed in Paris last December that average warming needed to be limited to well below 2 degrees and acknowledged the ultimate goal should be zero emissions. As of this week, more than 55 countries responsible for more than 55 per cent of global emissions have ratified the Paris deal, crossing the threshold for it to take effect

Celebrations as the climate deal is secured in Paris in December. Picture: AP

Many of those countries don't yet have policies in place to meet the targets required, but the traffic in policy terms is one way.
Businesses across the globe, hard-headed and rationalist, have taken the hint. Shareholders increasingly want to know how companies are responding to climate change. In both China and India, the huge investment in coal power has begun to slow, with some projections suggesting solar power may soon be cheaper to build.

China is aiming to reach a peak its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Picture: Getty

In Australia, the major energy companies all acknowledge coal is on the way out and want the government to intervene to help with an orderly transition to cleaner generation. French energy giant Engie, which owns 72 per cent of Hazelwood, has begun to "exit from coal" by shutting or selling its dirtiest plants across the globe. The Victorian generator is in its sights. Already, some old and inefficient coal plants across the country have shut because they were not profitable.
Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg, his Environment and Energy Minister, have indicated publicly they understand the trend. Both have also acknowledged that under the Paris deal Australia's climate targets (a 26-28 per cent cut in emissions by 2030 compared with 2005 levels) will have to become more ambitious over time.

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg. Picture: Philip Gostelow

Yet we remain stuck in the disingenuous position of having federal policies – mainly the "direct action" emissions reduction fund – that no one believes are capable of meeting even existing commitments. The government currently has no policy to cut the coal-fired emissions of the electricity sector.
It has a policy to boost renewable energy that Tony Abbott sought to kill but couldn't, that Turnbull and Frydenberg have backed to deliver about 23.5 per cent of generation by 2020. But it stops in that year with no plan to extend it.
In this vacuum, Labor state governments have pledged to dramatically increase the share of renewable energy on their own turf. Some, including Victoria, have released details of how they plan to do this. Other targets, such as Queensland, are little more than aspirations. It is arguable whether state targets are helpful – some experts say they increase costs unnecessarily. As recently as last December, then environment minister Greg Hunt said he had encouraged states to offer extra investment if they wanted to attract more clean power. Blame for the current mess lies more with Canberra than the provinces.

Wholesale electricity prices increased dramatically in South Australia in winter. Picture: Jessica Hromas.

Currently, most renewable energy policy is building the cheapest form, wind power. It has proved effective well beyond doomsday predictions, but how much of our electricity should it provide?
Australia's coal plants are mostly old, need replacing over the next couple of decades, and no one is going to build a new coal plant. There is an argument that gas-fired electricity – with lower emissions than coal - could have a role as a transitional power source. But gas is increasingly expensive and are governments really going to introduce a new subsidy – whether direct or implied through regulation – for fossil fuel generation?
The economics and impossible politics of nuclear power continue to rule that out, but it is likely large-scale solar power could have a significant part to play. The cost is coming down rapidly and battery storage continues to advance. And an increasing chunk of the energy system will be decentralised – powered by people and businesses across the country with solar panels and batteries. Already, nearly 2 million Australian homes have solar panels.
Wherever it lands, the transition won't be straight-forward. But those arguing clean energy should be held back due to concerns the transmission network can't cope are approaching the issue in reverse. The question needs to be how can the network be transformed, and what rules need to be changed, to make the grid smart and robust enough to handle a complex mix of centralised, decentralised and intermittent generation underpinned by batteries? And what can we learn from places such as Germany and parts of the US, which have adapted to life with a higher proportion of renewables and micro-grids in certain areas that would protect against blackouts on the scale seen last week?
Energy ministers meeting on Friday could begin by agreeing to change what's known as the national electricity objective to reflect that their decisions should consider reducing emissions alongside the key issues of price and reliability.
It would make it easier to approve new connections between states – a step that should improve reliability of the grid, and is likely to lift the pace of transition.
They could discuss - ahead of a federal review next year - what policies are needed to transform the electricity sector at cheapest cost, and that could be scaled up to meet more ambitious targets. (Hint: start by turning direct action into a form of carbon pricing.)
They could consider how to best ensure coal plants are closed and clean energy brought on in a staged and predictable way.
With their colleagues in other portfolios, they could agree on a template for supporting people in coal towns who deserve support and empathy as their livelihood winds up - including, perhaps, an industry policy that brings work to those regions.
That would be a start. Here's hoping.

Links

• Emergency ministers meeting after SA blackout a 'political stunt': Vic
• Preliminary Report – Black System Event In South Australia On 28 September 2016
• Series of faults plunged SA into darkness, says AEMO report.
• Preliminary report reveals cause of South Australia blackout
• South Australian blackout highlights need for a national energy transition plan

Justin Trudeau Gives Provinces Until 2018 To Adopt Carbon Price Plan

CBC News - Kathleen Harris

Announcement surprises, frustrates some environment ministers meeting in Montreal

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a speech at the start of the Paris climate agreement debate in the House of Commons Monday, announcing a 'floor' carbon price of $10 a tonne by 2018, and $50 a tonne by 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took provinces by surprise Monday by announcing they have until 2018 to adopt a carbon pricing scheme, or the federal government will step in and impose a price for them.
A tough-talking Trudeau told MPs in the House of Commons that provinces can craft a cap-and-trade system or put a direct price on carbon pollution — but it must meet the federal benchmark or "floor price."
"If neither price nor cap and trade is in place by 2018, the government of Canada will implement a price in that jurisdiction," he said.
Trudeau made the announcement in leading off parliamentary debate on the Paris climate change agreement Monday, making the case for Canada to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
Trudeau said the proposed price on carbon dioxide pollution should start at a minimum of $10 a tonne in 2018, rising by $10 each year to $50 a tonne by 2022.
Provinces and territories that choose a cap-and-trade system must decrease emissions in line with both Canada's target and with the reductions expected in jurisdictions that choose a price-based system.
Whatever model a province chooses, Trudeau said, it will be revenue neutral for the federal government, with any revenues generated under the system staying in the province or territory where they are generated.
Trudeau insisted the plan will be good for the economy, good for innovation and good for jobs.

'Sledgehammer' approach
Conservative MP and environment critic Ed Fast accused Trudeau of taking a "sledgehammer" approach with the provinces.
"Here, he lowers the boom on the provinces and said, 'I'm not going to co-operate with you. It's my way or the highway,'" Fast said.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May praised the Liberal government's "leadership" at last year's climate talks, but said keeping the 2030 target set by the previous Conservative government under former prime minister Stephen Harper is "incompatible" with the commitments made there.
"How can he reconcile adopting the Paris agreement while accepting the Harper target, which will make achieving Paris impossible?" she asked.
NDP environment critic Linda Duncan also accused the Liberals of backtracking on targets they once denounced as inadequate, weak and catastrophic. The government has signed on to the Paris agreement without a clear plan and firm measures to meet targets.

Environment ministers meet
Debate in the House comes as Canada's environment ministers met in Montreal to discuss collective efforts to fight climate change.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna was trying to reach a consensus with provincial and territorial ministers on a pan-Canadian plan, but is facing some fierce pushback on a national carbon-pricing scheme. Upset ministers from Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador walked out of the meeting early after getting word of Trudeau's plan.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was incensed that Trudeau would make the announcement as his minister pushed a "collaborative" plan with the provinces.
"The level of disrespect shown by the prime minister and his government today is stunning," he said in a statement. This is a betrayal of the statements made by the prime minister in Vancouver this March. And this new tax will damage our economy."
Wall said that Saskatchewan "will investigate all options to mitigate the impact of one of the largest national tax increases in Canadian history."
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said she supports the principle of a common price on carbon, but could not yet embrace the amounts laid out today.
Any targets must come hand-in-hand with energy projects like pipelines, she said during an interview on CBC News Network's Power & Politics.
"We think it needs to happen concurrently with concrete action on energy infrastructure and in particular on getting a pipeline to tidewater," she told host Rosemary Barton.

Applause for plan
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard applauded the federal plan.
"We believe it's good, and it's not going to affect the functioning of our trading system," he said.
According to figures from Canada's Ecofiscal Commission, an independent research firm, Alberta and B.C. are the only two provinces with a direct carbon tax system.
Alberta's phased-in regime will be $20 a tonne by January 2017 and $30 a tonne one year later.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark has promised to hike the current $30-per-tonne price on carbon.
Ontario and Quebec have cap-and-trade systems, but neither province is on track to meet federal targets.

Pricing plans
Quebec's current estimated equivalent price is about $16.40 per tonne, and is expected to climb to $18 per tonne by 2020
Ontario's plan would have an estimated equivalent price of $19.40 per tonne by 2020, according to Canada's Ecofiscal Commission.
But a statement from Ontario's Environment Minister Glenn Murray said the province is on course to achieve its 2020 target (15 per cent below 1990 levels) and has legislated targets for 2030 (37 per cent below 1990 levels) and 2050 (80 per cent below 1990 levels).
He called Trudeau's announcement a "positive step" for Canada's effort.
"We remain firmly committed to establishing our carbon market, linking with Quebec and California and growing carbon markets both in Canada and around the world in an effort to fight climate change," he said.
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Links

• Down under and dirty: Australia’s carbon footprint 
• Australia Becomes First Developed Nation to Repeal Carbon Tax
• Environment ministers meet on carbon price plan
• Canada to ratify climate deal by year's end
• Trudeau signs climate treaty at UN

Paris Climate Accord To Go Into Force, Australia Misses Out

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The Paris climate accord negotiated last year has been ratified by enough countries for it to go into force.
A group of European nations raised support for the Paris Climate Change Agreement to countries that represent 56.75 per cent of world greenhouse gas emissions, above the 55 per cent needed for implementation.

President Barack Obama welcomes the news that the Paris agreement on climate change will take effect in a month as a historic achievement. Photo: AP

Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Malta - European Union nations that have completed domestic ratification and account for about 4 per cent of emissions - formally signed up on Wednesday.
In total, 72 countries out of 195 have ratified the agreement, the UN said.

Smoke belches from the chimney of a factory on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. The country formally joined the Paris accord on Sunday. Photo: AP

However, Australia has missed out on being part of the historic moment.
The federal government only tabled the agreement in Parliament in its first week back after the July 2 election.
The parliamentary committee into treaties is still examining the deal, with a public hearing on Thursday and submissions closing on Friday.

Historic day: Obama
"Today is a historic day in the fight to protect our planet for future generations," US President Barack Obama told reporters in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday.
"Today, the world has officially crossed the threshold for the Paris agreement to take effect.
"If we follow through on the commitments that this Paris agreement embodies, history may well judge it as a turning point for our planet."
The deal will formally start in 30 days on November 4 - four days before the US presidential election in which Republican Donald Trump opposes the accord and Democrat Hillary Clinton strongly supports it.
China and the United States joined up last month in a joint step by the world's top emitters.
China and the US together account for about 38 per cent of global emissions. Because the accord is not a treaty, US ratification did not require a vote by the Senate, where Republicans mostly oppose the agreement.
India, the planet's fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, formally joined the accord on Sunday.
Other countries to have signed include Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and New Zealand.
The UN's top climate official Patricia Espinosa said the ratification was a "powerful combination" of the importance countries attached to climate change and the realisation of opportunities from the deal.
"The speed at which countries have made the Paris agreement's entry into force possible is unprecedented in recent experience of international agreements," she said in a statement.

Australia still trying
A spokesman for Australia's Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said the government was trying to get it ratified as soon as possible.
The parliamentary committee was looking at the deal as part of Australia's domestic processes, he said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop insists Australia wants to ratify the agreement before the end of the year.
The election is being blamed for the delay in tabling the agreement.
But Greenpeace said it was time for Australia to follow the lead of countries such as China and prove it's serious about climate change.
"It's unfortunate that, at a time in history when other world leaders are taking action in the global battle against climate change, Australia's ill-informed political leaders are hurling insults at wind turbines," Greenpeace Australia senior climate campaigner Nikola Casule said.

3 degrees warming predicted
It took eight years for the previous UN climate deal, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, to gain enough backing to take effect.
It obliged only rich nations to cut emissions and the United States stayed out of it.
UN studies project that average world temperatures are set to rise by 3 degrees or more by 2100, based on current trends.
And this year is expected to prove the warmest since records began in the 19th century, beating 2015.

Links

• Paris climate deal: Time for Australia to step up
• Paris climate accord to take effect; Obama hails 'historic day'
• Paris Climate Treaty to Take Effect in November
• Paris Agreement to enter into force as EU agrees ratification
• Too hot to handle: can we afford a 4-degree rise?