America’s Loss Is China’s Gain: Trump’s Stance On Climate Change Is A Gift To The Chinese

Salon - John Light

America's whiplash-inducing reversal on climate change is China’s gain. Here's why

China's President Xi Jinping waves after speaking at the CEO summit during the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)(Credit: AP)

In January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech in which he framed both himself and his country as the answer to Trumpism — as proponents of globalization and as proponents of climate action.
“All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it, as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations,” Xi said of the Paris Agreement, without explicitly mentioning Trump’s assertion that the US may withdraw from it. “We should join hands and rise to the challenge,” he told the elites gathered at the conference. “Let us boost confidence, take actions and work together for a bright future.”
China’s bid to become the world’s climate leader is more than just a noble enterprise. Of course, staving off the worst impacts of climate change will spare Chinese lives, and limiting sea level rise will help to protect Chinese cities and the agricultural regions on which the country’s enormous population depends. But there are also reasons for China to green its economy that aren’t explicitly tied to climate: China is tired of the smoggy cities, and the attendant health issues, that come with coal-fired power plants. Furthermore, renewable energy represents a growth area for the country’s economy, which could be facing stagnation. In fact, worldwide, the Paris Agreement is expected to generate $19 trillion in wealth — and China hopes to capitalize on the opportunity.
The United States and China were once the world’s key allies in the fight against climate change. In November 2014, President Barack Obama traveled to Beijing and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Few knew it at the time, but their meeting would produce an agreement that paved the way for the Paris negotiations.
In that November 2014 announcement, Obama said the United States would commit to cutting emissions immediately — by up to 28 percent by 2025 — while Xi promised to put in place policies that would lead to China’s emissions peaking by 2030. The deal was denounced by conservatives in the United States as a giveaway to China, but the notoriously coal-loving country exceeded its promise and expectations by quickly ramping up renewables. Obama, meanwhile, put in place the Clean Power Plan and other regulations aimed at cutting America’s CO2 emissions.
The United States and China had thrown up some the biggest stumbling blocks during past U.N.-orchestrated efforts to put a climate deal in place. The fact that they were now openly acknowledging, through joint, public pronouncements, that climate change must be confronted and that both countries would put in place policies that did so, was a turning point in the two-decade-long effort to cement a global deal.
The following December, a year and a month after Obama and Xi’s announcement, the Paris Agreement was finalized.
Since signing the agreement, China has continued to encourage growth in renewables. By 2020, the country hopes to get 15 percent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources, a push that the government will fund with a $361 billion investment in renewables and nuclear energy that will create 13 million jobs for Chinese citizens. That would put China on track to meet its commitment under the Paris Agreement to get 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. Meanwhile, the country, which was at one time bringing two new coal power plants online every week, has seen its coal consumption fall three years in a row and is canceling construction on coal plants, anticipating there won’t be much use for them.
The United States, on the other hand, has moved in the other direction. This week, Donald Trump started the process of undoing Obama’s climate change programs, and hasn’t made up his mind yet about whether to exit the Paris Agreement or simply ignore it. Surrounded by coal miners at yesterday’s executive order signing, Trump triumphantly announced that rolling back Obama’s Clean Power Plan would revive the US’ failing coal industry, though in practice his policies, which may be good for coal CEOs, are unlikely to create many jobs due to automation and other technological advances.
China, meanwhile, is looking for another country to replace the US as its partner in global climate efforts. The EU might be able to step into the role. Beijing has asked Brussels to schedule the annual China-EU summit for earlier this year than usual, with climate change as one of the items on the agenda.
Perhaps the greatest irony in this whole saga is Donald Trump’s go-to reason for dismissing climate change: That it is a hoax perpetrated to aid the Chinese.
Climate change is not a hoax perpetrated to aid the Chinese. Ironically, President Trump’s failure to address it makes way for China to thrive, both economically and diplomatically.
But there is another hoax at play here: The claim, repeated just recently by Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, that there is still debate among climate scientists about whether global warming is caused by humans. That hoax was foisted on the American people by polluting companies and the think tanks they fund, repeated again and again by faux experts who specialize in sowing doubt.
One such expert is Trump’s transition team head, Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He spent years casting doubt on climate change — and before that, worked for tobacco companies to cast doubt on the dangers of smoking. Ebell was most recently found at an annual conference put together by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, where he was among those fretting that Trump’s climate change-denying EPA head and oil company CEO secretary of state were, in fact, too pro-environment to fully prevent climate action. “Secretary Rex Tillerson may be from Texas and he may have been the CEO of Exxon, but he is part of the swamp,” Ebell said.
The oil industry, which once funded this sort of propaganda, has created a monster it is powerless to stop. Many companies, including Exxon, which played a prominent role in obfuscating climate science, want the president to stay in the Paris Agreement, which will, in the short term, incentivize countries to turn away from coal electricity and potentially embrace natural gas, a product in which the oil industry is already heavily invested and is more than happy to sell. The president, however, remains skeptical of the agreement and of climate science, as his advisers battle among themselves — the plutocrats versus the nationalists — to determine whether the administration will keep America in the climate change agreement or bail.
That Trump has bought into polluters’ hoax so thoroughly is America’s, and the world’s, loss — but in the short term, it’s China’s gain.

Links

• Trump Boosts Coal as China Takes the Lead on Climate Change
• China Poised for Leadership on Climate Change After U.S. Reversal
• China says committed to Paris accord as Trump undoes U.S. climate policy
• Donald Trump 'won't discuss climate change' at meeting with Xi Jinping despite US and China being worst polluters

Coal Is On The Way Out At Electric Utilities, No Matter What Trump Says

New York Times - Coral Davenport

A train receiving a load of coal in Price, Utah, last year. For decades, electric utilities have been the largest consumers of coal, but have in large part turned to natural gas, wind and solar for power generation. Credit George Frey/Bloomberg

WASHINGTON — In Page, Ariz., the operators of the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, have announced plans to close it by 2019. The electric utility Dayton Power & Light will shut two coal plants in southern Ohio by next year. Across the country, at least six other coal-fired power plants have shut since November, and nearly 40 more are to close in the next four years.

President Trump campaigned on a pledge to restore the limping American coal industry, vowing to bring jobs and production back to a sector that has been on a steady decline for over a decade. But to do that, he would have to revive demand for coal by electric utilities, which for decades have been the largest consumer of the heavily polluting fuel. Nearly all the coal mined in the United States generates electricity.

On March 28, Mr. Trump headed to the Environmental Protection Agency, where, flanked by coal miners and coal company executives, he signed an executive order directing the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, to begin rolling back a set of regulations on coal-fired power plant pollution that made up the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change legacy.

“Today I’m taking bold action to follow through on that promise,” Mr. Trump told the miners. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.”

But executives at the nation’s largest electric utilities say Mr. Trump’s announcement and the eventual fate of the regulations known as the Clean Power Plan make little difference to them. They still plan to retire coal plants — although perhaps at a slightly slower pace — and, more significant, they have no plans to build new ones.

“For us, it really doesn’t change anything,” said Jeff Burleson, vice president of system planning at Southern Company, an Atlanta-based utility that provides electricity to 44 million people across the Southeast, of the prospective rollback of the Clean Power Plan. “Whatever happens in the near term in the current administration doesn’t affect our long-term planning for future generation,” he said.

As do most electric utilities, Southern Company plans its investment on a 50-year horizon, the expected life span of a new power plant. Its planners do not see coal as economically viable in that time frame.

With or without the Clean Power Plan, power companies say, coal is simply no longer the fuel of choice for keeping the lights on in America — and they do not expect it to make a comeback. Cheaper natural gas and renewable sources like wind and solar power have replaced it.

“We’ll continue to grow the renewables portion of our business and meanwhile rely on natural gas, but we don’t see investing in new coal,” Mr. Burleson said.

A decade-long boom in extracting gas and oil from rock in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has led to a glut in natural gas, causing its price to plummet below that of coal. Electric utilities have turned away from buying coal and toward the cheaper fuel, a market shift was already underway well before Mr. Obama announced the Clean Power Plan.

“This is not an environmentally driven trend we are seeing,” said Jairo Chung, an associate vice president at Moody’s Investors Service. “What we are seeing now is in the interior of the U.S., where wind is very rich, states and utilities are pushing ahead in investing in it — not because of regulation or environmental concerns, but because it’s economically driven.”

Natural gas produces just half as much planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution as coal — an additional benefit, electricity generators say, as they invest in the new power generators that will provide electricity to America for the next half-century.

This decision is also driven by economics. Electric company executives are including in their long-term profit-and-loss calculations an expectation that the federal government will eventually tax or regulate carbon dioxide pollution.

Several electric utilities, including Southern Company of Atlanta, have already incorporated an anticipated carbon tax into their business models, plugging in estimated fees of $10 to $40 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution. “We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we hold a presumption that there will be a price on carbon on the horizon, either from legislation or regulation,” Mr. Burleson said.

Legal experts say it is not certain that Mr. Trump will succeed in efforts to roll back the Clean Power Plan.

And under the current statute, which has yet to be put into effect, the federal government is still required to regulate carbon dioxide pollution. So, even if Mr. Trump does succeed in repealing his predecessor’s carbon dioxide rules, either he or his successor will be required to issue replacement rules.

While Mr. Trump tries to roll back the rules today, executives of electric power generators assume that his successors will eventually reinstate them in some form. Essentially, they say, Mr. Trump’s moves are a bump on the road to a future in which the government constrains climate-warming pollution and consumers increasingly demand cleaner power.

“At this point, it really, in terms of how we’ve been transitioning our fleet and transmission — it probably won’t have a big impact,” John McManus, a vice president at American Electric Power, an Ohio-based utility that provides power to five million people in 11 states, said of Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. announcement.

American Electric Power was once built entirely around coal. In 2005, 71 percent of its electricity was coal-fired. But that figure has dropped to 47 percent and is expected to fall further, according to the company’s projections. Natural gas-fired power has grown to 27 percent from 20 percent in 2005, and that share is expected to grow.

Over the next three years, the company plans to invest about $1 billion in new wind and solar generation and $3 billion in new transmission lines to move that electricity, Mr. McManus said. “We have been relying on what makes sense for a different kind of electrical system in the future.”

Still, companies say, the changing environment matters. “This is our long-term view — unless the entire issue of climate change goes away,” he said. “And we don’t expect that to happen.”

Links

• Trump Signs Executive Order Unwinding Obama Climate Policies
• Taking Action on Climate Change
• Natural Gas (Fracking)
• Solar Energy

‘Disaster Alley’: Australia Could Be Set To Receive New Wave Of Climate Refugees

The Guardian - Ben Doherty

US defence expert warns people fleeing low-lying Pacific islands a precursor to ‘climate-exacerbated water insecurities’ that could trigger wider conflict

A king tide crashes through the sea wall, flooding Pita Meanke’s family home on the low-lying South Pacific island of Kiribati. Photograph: jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Alamy

Australia could be on the frontline of a new wave of “climate refugees” displaced by extreme weather events, droughts and rising seas, a US expert on the national security impacts of climate change has warned.
Sherri Goodman, a former US deputy undersecretary of defence, argues the impact of climate change – rising seas, extreme weather, prolonged droughts – will be a “threat multiplier” for security challenges, and could be the spark that ignites conflict and drives new waves of mass forced migration.
The Asia-Pacific region was acutely vulnerable, she said.
“You may be on the frontlines here in Australia for climate refugees,” she told the Guardian in Sydney. “The first wave will be those who have to flee the low-lying Pacific islands, because many of them will be uninhabitable, even in our lifetimes.”
“But you’re also in ‘disaster alley’ here in the Asia-Pacific region and while there have begun to be efforts to reduce risks of disasters, I’m concerned that we’re not acting as quickly as we should to protect our societies from those risks, which is going to mean more migration.”
Goodman cited the example of the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has produced more than five million refugees over six years of fighting.
But the political conflict in Syria was exacerbated by a long-running drought which drove people into food insecurity, poverty and rapid, unsustainable urbanisation.
“From 2006 to 2010, 60% of Syria had its worst long-term drought and crop failures since civilisation began,” Goodman says. “About 800,000 people in rural areas lost their livelihood by 2009. Three million people were driven into extreme poverty, and 1.5 million migrated to cities.”
“Those conditions enable terrorists like the Islamic State of Boko Haram in parts of Nigeria or al-Qaida in Iraq to rise and take advantage of desperate people in desperate circumstances.”
Goodman is careful not to posit climate change as the sole cause of future conflicts, but argues it will be a contributory, compounding factor.
“Climate is a threat multiplier because it aggravates others tensions and conflicts that already exist.
“Climate-exacerbated water insecurities could eventually become a tipping [point] to wider conflict or instability in the region. We see this now playing out in various ways around the world, but particularly here in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Regionally, Goodman sees the example of Pakistan and India, where historical enmity, long-running religious, political and cultural fractures, and territorial disputes over Kashmir, could be reignited by conflict over water or other resources.

Sherri Goodman, a former US deputy undersecretary of defence, describes climate change as ‘a threat multiplier’. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

Low-lying Bangladesh, the eighth-most populous country in the world with more than 160 million people, has been identified as being extremely vulnerable to climate change, on some measures the most vulnerable country in the world.
“Another extreme weather event, combined with sea-level rise and storm surge, could send upwards up 10 million people or more along that low-lying coastline in Bangladesh fleeing towards higher ground, which is towards India, which is building a massive wall to keep Bangladeshis out.
“I think that could create consequences for which we’re currently unprepared. India shows no signs of wanting or being able to absorb those numbers of refugees. And then where do they flee? These are mostly people who can’t afford to get on a cruise ship and leave. And if they can’t flee by land into India does that mean they, there’s either a massive loss of life or head off in rickety boats, where they might lose their lives at sea.”

Mousuni, an island in the Bay of Bengal, is sinking due to climate change and tidal flooding, leaving thousands of its inhabitants homeless. Photograph: Sushavan Nandy / Barcroft Images

In 2008, the then president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, speculated about buying land in Australia in order to house his country’s population when the archipelago nation was consumed by the rising Indian Ocean.
Under the global standard for refugee protection, the 1951 refugee convention, there is no such thing as a “climate change refugee”.
The refugee convention, written in the aftermath of the massive displacement caused by the second world war, only recognises refugees displaced from their home countries, and suffering a “well-founded fear of persecution” on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.
Some regional treaties – such as Latin America’s Cartagena declaration – have a broader definition, recognising as refugees people displaced by “circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order”, which is taken to include natural disasters and food insecurity.
Goodman argues national governments, and supranational organisations, will need to redraw, or add to, the current global protection framework.
“We do need to rethink the governance for refugees better to reflect the types of refugees we face today. Current governance structures are just inadequate for the modern era.”
Governments and militaries around the world are becoming increasingly cognisant of the national security threat posed by climate change.
In his confirmation hearing in January, the US’s new secretary of defence, James Mattis, said climate change posed a current security threat to America.
“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today. It is appropriate for the combatant commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.”
In 2015, Australia’s Climate Council released a report, co-authored by the former chief of the Australian defence force, Chris Barrie, that argued climate change “poses a significant and growing threat to human and societal wellbeing, threatening food, water, health and national security”.
In 2016, the army chief, Angus Campbell, made climate security a focus of the annual chief of army’s exercise. He said climate change was “immediately relevant” for militaries and “the scale of climate change problems, their unpredictability, and the level of support required from land forces are key issues for us to better understand”.
The Centre for Policy Development policy director, Rob Sturrock, co-authored a report in 2015 arguing that Australia’s struggle to deal with climate vulnerabilities domestically and across the region was the country’s “longest conflict”.
The report recommended the federal government appoint a climate security advisory council, connecting the defence, environment and foreign affairs departments to develop a national climate security strategy.
Goodman, founder of the CNA Military Advisory Board, is speaking this week in Sydney at the Lowy Institute, Canberra at the ANU, and Melbourne at the Breakthrough Institute at screenings of The Age of Consequences documentary, about the security threat posed by climate change.

Links

• Lives in the balance: climate change and the Marshall Islands
• On the climate change frontline: the disappearing fishing villages of Bangladesh
• Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits
• Climate change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military
• Australia must not be afraid of its obligations to Pacific climate migrants

Climate-Driven Species On The Move Are Changing (Almost) Everything

The Conversation - Gretta Pecl | Adriana Vergés |.Ekaterina Popova | Jan McDonald

When species are pushed to the top of the mountain, where else is left to go? Tero Mustonen, Author provided

Last year in Paris, for the very first time, English sparkling wine beat champagne in a blind tasting event. Well established French Champagne houses have started buying fields in Britain to grow grapes, and even the royal family is investing in this new venture.
At the same time, coffee-growing regions are shrinking and shifting. Farmers are being forced to move to higher altitudes, as the band in which to grow tasty coffee moves up the mountain.
The evidence that climate change is affecting some of our most prized beverages is simply too great to be ignored. So while British sparkling wine and the beginning of the "coffeepocalypse" were inconceivable just a few decades ago, they are now a reality. It's unlikely that you'll find many climate deniers among winemakers and coffee connoisseurs. But there are far greater impacts in store for human society than disruptions to our favourite drinks.
Dramatic examples of climate-mediated change to species distributions are not exceptions; they are fast becoming the rule. As our study published last week in the journal Science shows, climate change is driving a universal major redistribution of life on Earth.

Documented and predicted changes in species distribution are occurring all over the globe. Pecl et al. 2017

 These changes are already having serious consequences for economic development, livelihoods, food security, human health, and culture. They are even influencing the pace of climate change itself, producing feedbacks to the climate system.

Species on the move
Species have, of course, been on the move since the dawn of life on Earth. The geographical ranges of species are naturally dynamic and fluctuate over time. But the critical issue here is the magnitude and rate of climatic changes for the 21st century, which are comparable to the largest global changes in the past 65 million years. Species have often adapted to changes in their physical environment, but never before have they been expected to do it so fast, and to accommodate so many human needs along the way.
For most species – marine, freshwater, and terrestrial species alike – the first response to rapid changes in climate is a shift in location, to stay within their preferred environmental conditions. On average, species are moving towards the poles at 17km per decade on land and 78km per decade in the ocean. On land, species are also moving to cooler, higher elevations, while in the ocean some fish are venturing deeper in search of cooler water.

Why does it matter?
Different species respond at different rates and to different degrees, with the result that new ecological communities are starting to emerge. Species that had never before interacted are now intermingled, and species that previously depended on one another for food or shelter are forced apart.

Why do changes in species distribution matter?

This global reshuffling of species can lead to pervasive and often unexpected consequences for both biological and human communities. For example, the range expansion of plant-eating tropical fish can have catastrophic impacts by overgrazing kelp forests, affecting biodiversity and important fisheries. In wealthier countries these changes will create substantial challenges. For developing countries, the impacts may be devastating.

Knock-on effects
Many changes in species distribution have implications that are immediately obvious, like the spread of disease vectors such as mosquitoes or agricultural pests. However, other changes that may initially appear more subtle can also have great effects via impacting global climate feedbacks.
Mangroves, which store more carbon per unit area than most tropical forests, are moving towards the poles. Spring blooms of microscopic sea algae are projected to weaken and shift into the Arctic Ocean, as the global temperature rises and the seasonal Arctic sea ice retreats. This will change the patterns of "biological carbon sequestration" over Earth's surface, and may lead to less carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere.
Redistribution of the vegetation on land is also expected to influence climate change. With more vegetation, less solar radiation is reflected back into the atmosphere, resulting in further warming. "Greening of the Arctic", where larger shrubs are taking over from mosses and lichens, is expected to substantially change the reflectivity of the surface.
These changes in the distribution of vegetation are also affecting the culture of Indigenous Arctic communities. The northward growth of shrubs is leading to declines in the low-lying mosses and lichens eaten by caribou and reindeer. The opportunities for Indigenous reindeer herding and hunting are greatly reduced, with economic and cultural implications.

Reindeer in the Arctic are very important components of Indigenous and traditional ways of life. Snowchange 2016 /Tero Mustonen

Winners and losers
Not all changes in distribution will be harmful. There will be winners and losers for species, and for the human communities and economic activities that rely on them. For example, coastal fishing communities in northern India are benefiting from the northward shift in the oil sardine's range. In contrast, skipjack tuna is projected to become less abundant in western areas of the Pacific, where many countries depend on this fishery for economic development and food security.
Local communities can help forge solutions to these challenges. Citizen science initiatives like Redmap are boosting traditional scientific research and can be used as an early indication of how species distributions are changing. Having local communities engaged in such participatory monitoring can also increase the chances of timely and site-specific management interventions.
Even with improved monitoring and communication, we face an enormous challenge in addressing these changes in species distribution, to reduce their adverse impacts and maximise any opportunities. Responses will be needed at all levels of governance.
Internationally, the impacts of species on the move will affect our capacity to achieve virtually all of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including good health, poverty reduction, economic growth, and gender equity.
Currently, these goals do not yet adequately consider effects of climate-driven changes in species distributions. This needs to change if we are to have any chance of achieving them in the future.
National development plans, economic strategies, conservation priorities, and supporting policies and governance arrangements will all need to be recalibrated to reflect the realities of climate change impacts on our natural systems. At the regional and local levels, a range of responses may be needed to enable affected places and communities to survive or thrive under new conditions.
For communities, this might include changed farming, forestry or fishing practices, new health interventions, and, in some cases, alternative livelihoods. Management responses such as relocating coffee production will itself have spillover effects on other communities or natural areas, so adaptation responses may need to anticipate indirect effects and negotiate these trade-offs.
To promote global biodiversity, protected areas will need to be managed to explicitly recognise novel ecological communities, and to promote connectivity across the landscape. For some species, managed relocations or direct interventions may be needed. Our commitment to conservation will need to be reflected in funding levels and priorities.
The success of human societies has always depended on the living components of natural and managed systems. For all our development and modernisation, this hasn't changed. But human society has yet to appreciate the full implications for life on Earth, including human lives, of our current unprecedented climate-driven species redistribution. Enhanced awareness, supported by appropriate governance, will provide the best chance of minimising negative consequences while maximising opportunities arising from species movements.

Links

• Climate change is hitting South Africa's coastal fish
• Arctic birds face disappearing breeding grounds as climate warms
• Temporary ban on fishing reflects how fragile Arctic ecosystem is
• Anglers have helped detect a shift in the habitat of black marlin
• Projected Shifts in Coffea arabica Suitability among Major Global Producing Regions Due to Climate Change
• Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being
• Changes in Ecologically Critical Terrestrial Climate Conditions
• Climate-related range shifts – a global multidimensional synthesis and new research directions
• Future change in ocean productivity: Is the Arctic the new Atlantic?
• The greening and browning of Alaska based on 1982–2003 satellite data

Adani's Carmichael Coal Mine Is Environmentally Reckless And Contrary To Today's Energy Markets

Fairfax - Julien Vincent*

"If at first you don't stack up economically, make the public pay for it."
This could be the mantra that delivers Adani's Carmichael mega coal mine in the Galilee Basin at the expense of the environment, culture, our prospects of a stable climate and in defiance of sound economics.

ABC spreading fake news: Canavan
Nationals MP Matt Canavan has had a bizarre spray on radio, accusing the ABC of reporting fake news over the Adani coal mine.

Since buying the coal tenements from Linc Energy in 2010, Adani has failed to secure a single private backer for the Carmichael mine.
In fact, since then, 17 banks have either publicly distanced themselves from Galilee Basin coal export projects or introduced policies that prevent them lending to the Carmichael mine.
This has left Adani increasingly dependent on the public purse.
At the centre is the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility (NAIF). Since its inception, the NAIF has been something of a black box, giving no information about projects that could receive hefty public subsidies. Last month, former Treasurer Wayne Swan described the NAIF as being as "dodgy as Lehman Brothers", on account of its opaque governance.
We know almost nothing about the 100 applications that the NAIF has received for funding. But we do know that it has two proposals in front of it to connect Adani's Carmichael coal mine with ports on Queensland's coast.
On one hand, there's Adani's $1 billion bid, which I critiqued in December over a range of issues, including that the applicant would be owned by a company in the Cayman Islands and we'd need to take it on good faith that the money would not disappear into a tax haven.

Adani plans to build Australia's largest coal project in the Galilee Basin. Photo: Michael Mucci

And then Queensland rail haulage company Aurizon, an ASX top 50 company worth $11 billion, has made a $1.25 billion bid to NAIF to build the rail line.
Soon after Aurizon's bid went public it was reported that QIC, an investment firm wholly owned by the Queensland Government, would also consider backing the rail line.

Bob Brown returned to Parliament House in Canberra with Geoff Cousins and environmental groups to protest against the Adani coal mine. Photo: Andrew Meares

Since QIC manages money on behalf of super funds across the country, this would amount to a particularly crafty way for the Palaszczuk government to break off from its pre-election commitment in 2015 to not use public money to fund the project.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. Photo: Glenn Hunt

Rather than invest directly, the Government could use QIC to invest on behalf of the millions of superannuation fund members it manages money for, transferring the risk to the likes of retired Queensland public sector employees.

We should also not discount the prospect of Indian public funding. An understanding signed in November 2014 for the State Bank of India to finance Adani mine was reported to have been cancelled the following year, but nothing has been formally announced, and there is a real risk that the Indian taxpayer is still on the hook.
All in all, we could be looking at about half the $5 billion Adani needs to get their Carmichael mine up and running coming from public subsidies. But that still leaves a lot of private backers to persuade. Now, more than ever, we need sensible voices from the financial sector acknowledging that building one of the world's biggest greenfield thermal coal mines is environmentally reckless, but also incongruent with the direction of energy markets.
The context is abundant. Just in the past week, the Financial Times, The Economist and Bloomberg have all written about the global decline in thermal coal, the latter writing off Adani's Carmichael mine as uneconomic.

Adani protesters in Brisbane. Photo: Ben Bissett

These are statements we now need to see from prospective investors in the Carmichael mine, and in Australia, the big four banks remain crucial. Last year, ANZ signalled that funding Carmichael wouldn't square with their intent to scale down coal mining exposure. CBA walked away from their advisory mandate on the Carmichael mine in 2015 and later that year, NAB just ruled it out. Westpac, however, has remained silent on whether they would finance the mine.
Westpac turns 200 this weekend and some parts of their operations are showing their age. The bank's sustainability credentials for instance, once one of its prized assets, are looking a little worse for wear.
In recent years, customers and shareholders have questioned the hypocrisy of financing the expansion of the fossil fuel industry after committing to support the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees. It also hasn't helped that after four years of asking, Westpac has failed to make a clear public statement about whether or not it would finance Carmichael.
In an industry where sentiment and market signals have a huge impact, leadership from private banks like Westpac can do more than just prevent a project like Adani's Carmichael coal mine, and its impacts on people, the environment and climate. It can help prevent Australians for having to pay for the privilege.

*Julien Vincent is executive director of Market Forces

Links

• Coal's dirty Australian secret? It's not coming back
• Adani head says Qld mega mine ready to go
• Adani Plans To Export Low Quality, High Ash Coal To India, Court Told
• Is This The Worst Mistake Australia Could Make?
• In The Battle For The Planet's Climate Future, Australia's Adani Mine Is The Line In The Sand
• Adani facing growing pressure on fears investors may have been misled
• Queensland Premier, mayors work to convince Adani to go ahead with $21.7b mine
• The Adani mine is this generation's Franklin River. People power can stop it
• Anti-Adani activists vow 'direct action' against mine contractor Downer
• Adani coalmine activists gear up to fight: ‘This will dwarf the Franklin blockade’
• Adani mine leases and national parks in doubt after native title court decision
• Adani coalmine 'covertly funded' by World Bank, says report

These Stunning Timelapse Photos May Just Convince You About Climate Change

Washington Post - Chelsea Harvey

Melting glaciers, from Greenland to Antarctica, have become symbols of global warming — and monitoring their retreat is one major way scientists are keeping tabs on the progress of climate change.
Now, scientists are trying to bring the issue a little closer to home by using time-lapse photos to show the effects of climate change are already occurring.
A paper published last week by the Geological Society of America presents dramatic before-and-after photographs of glaciers around the world over the last decade. Most of the photos were taken by photographer James Balog as part of a project called the Extreme Ice Survey, which began documenting changing glaciers around the world in 2007. The project was featured in the 2012 documentary “Chasing Ice.”
Below is a time-lapse video, using images captured by Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey team, documenting changes at Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska. Between 2007 and 2015, the glacier retreated by 550 meters, or more than 1,800 feet.

Photojournalist James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey team travels the world to document vanishing ice. (Earth Vision Institute/ Extreme Ice Survey)

On-the-ground expeditions are “key to informing broad audiences of non-specialists,” note the paper’s authors, who include Balog and multiple other glacier and climate experts. “Science is grounded in observation, so science education will benefit from displaying the recently exposed landscapes.”
In an interview with The Washington Post, Balog suggested that ground-level photographs provide an immediacy that’s missing from other scientific tools, such as satellite images.
“I do think that our most dominant sensory apparatus is our vision,” he added. “So when you can deliver an understanding of the reality of what’s going on through vision, rather than numbers or maps, that also has the unique ability to touch and influence people.”
Below are before-and-after images of Switzerland’s Stein Glacier, which also retreated by 550 meters between 2006 and 2015.

Stein Glacier, in part of the Swiss Alps, on Sept. 17, 2011. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/Geological Society of America)

Stein Glacier on Aug. 20, 2015. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/The Geological Society of America)

For Balog, the location that’s had the greatest personal impact is Sólheimajökull Glacier in Iceland, which he described as his “first love.”
“It’s where I kind of first realized how quickly the ice is changing,” he said. “And it’s because of what the local scientists were able to show me by way of the change in the glacier in a shockingly short period of time.”
Reports suggest that the glacier has shrunk by more than 2,000 feet since 2007. Below is a time-lapse of its retreat between 2007 and 2015.

Photojournalist James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey team travels the world to document vanishing ice. (Earth Vision Institute/ Extreme Ice Survey)

While the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets often receive the most press — and not without reason, thanks to the sheer amount of ice they contain — Balog’s photos include smaller mountain glaciers from places like Alaska and Europe. In many places around the world, these smaller glaciers are responding even more rapidly to their changing environments than their polar counterparts.
And while the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets may have the greatest long-term potential to raise global sea levels, melting mountain glaciers come with their own set of consequences as well. Nearby communities often rely on runoff from these glaciers for sources of fresh water. But as the glaciers shrink away, less water becomes available. Some experts have also raised the possibility that melting mountain glaciers could result in huge floods capable of destroying nearby homes and infrastructure.
“People who live in proximity to these things are really are quite acutely aware of how much things are changing and think about it, and the researchers in their areas study it,” Balog said. “These are important and immediate impacts.”
Below is Trift Glacier, which retreated by more than 3,700 feet between 2006 and 2016.

Trift Glacier in the Swiss Alps in 2006. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/The Geological Society of America)

Trift Glacier on Aug. 20, 2015. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/Geological Society of America)

Satellite measurements still provide some of the most precise information on glacial retreat all over the world, revealing the vulnerability of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Scientists have used satellite data to estimate how much ice these sheets contain in total. (If the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melted away entirely, for instance, they could raise sea levels by more than 200 feet. But it would take tens of thousands of years for that to happen, even at current warming rates.)
On-the-ground imagery provides a different kind of service, presenting compelling visual evidence of the climate effects that are already occurring. And the photos have an added visceral effect because they come from places where human communities exist — it’s not just ice on deserted Antarctica that’s disappearing, but also glaciers from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa. And once they’re gone, they may never exist again.
“It is likely that these recently deglaciated landscapes will not be re-occupied by ice during foreseeable human timeframes,” the paper’s authors warn. “In other places, forests or other vegetation may rapidly colonize such landscapes. Photographic records, such as those included here, provide an outstanding avenue for education, because they display a record of ice that may never be seen again.”

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Conservative Liberals Watching Trump's Lead On Climate, Key Backbencher Says

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Craig Kelly, who chairs backbench committee on environment and energy, says he thinks Paris agreement is ‘cactus’

Liberal MP Craig Kelly with Tony Abbott on the backbench during question time. Kelly says Australia should ditch the Paris climate agreement if the US does. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Australia will need to review its participation in the Paris agreement on climate change if Donald Trump follows through with his threat to withdraw from the treaty, according to the chair of the Turnbull government’s backbench committee on environment and energy.
Craig Kelly told Guardian Australia on Wednesday he’d predicted immediately after Trump’s election that the Paris climate deal was “cactus” and he stood by that assessment.
Trump on Tuesday night Australian time signed a new executive order to unravel a number of Barack Obama’s regulatory measures to combat climate change, including eliminating the clean power plan, which sets limits on the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants emit.
The latest executive order is seen as a prelude to the US following through with the campaign commitment to withdraw from the Paris deal.

Donald Trump: I would end Paris climate deal

Australian conservatives are watching events in the US closely.
Kelly said he was aware of the new executive order, and if Trump went the extra step and withdrew from the Paris agreement: “I think we have to review it.”
The former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who now sits on the crossbench, holds the same view.
“It is clear America intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement and it would be folly for Australia to be part of it,” Bernardi said. “I don’t think we should subsume our national interest to international bodies.”
Bernardi this week sparked a rebellion inside the government by proposing to disallow an extradition treaty with China on the basis the country’s legal system was deficient.
The disallowance motion prompted a number of Liberals to express opposition to the extradition treaty.
If Trump withdraws from the Paris deal, Bernardi will likely use the development as a recruitment drive for his new Australian Conservatives movement, which will put pressure on conservative MPs in the government.
Kelly, who chairs the government’s backbench committee on climate and energy, has been campaigning internally for months, arguing that the federal renewable energy target should be frozen at its current level.
The Sydney Liberal backbencher said regardless of what the US ultimately did, he had concerns about what the Paris deal could achieve.
Kelly said even if you accepted that fiddling with “the CO2 knob” could influence climate change, he had doubts that countries could meet their Paris commitments “without a technological breakthrough”.
Asked whether a majority of his Coalition colleagues would be in favour of quitting the Paris deal in the event Trump pulled out, Kelly argued “it would be a close run thing”.
He said government MPs were under pressure from voters who believed renewable energy targets were responsible for higher power prices.
The prime minister has signalled Australia will stay the course if the Trump administration follows through with its threats to quit the Paris deal.

Malcolm Turnbull announces Australia has ratified Paris climate change agreement

Turnbull told reporters last November it would take four years to withdraw from the agreement after ratification.

Links

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• Australia needs two emissions trading schemes, Climate Change Authority says