09/04/2017

Climate Threatens Australia's Security In Unexpected Ways

Fairfax - Sherri Goodman*

When President Donald Trump became the commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces, he accepted the responsibility to protect my country against enemies, foreign and domestic. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shares the same responsibility to protect Australians.
Do these leaders understand that a key component of national security and global stability is climate change and the instability it is already causing around the world? The intersection of these two issues is already striking the world in unexpected ways, as climate change interacts with other pre-existing problems to become an accelerant to instability. The consequences include overwhelming humanitarian crises, forced migrations like those we are witnessing around the Mediterranean, and a breakdown in the human systems that make our societies work.

Trump rolls back Obama-era climate regulations
U.S. President Trump said on Tuesday that he's putting an 'end to the war on coal' with an executive order that will undo a slew of Obama-era climate change policies.

Indeed, Trump's Defence Secretary, Marine Corps General Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, said recently: "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."
Take Syria. From 2006 to 2010, 60 per cent of Syria had its worst long-term drought and crop failures since civilisation began. About 800,000 people in rural areas had lost their livelihood by 2009. Two to three million people were driven into extreme poverty, and 1.5 million migrated to Syrian cities, which had already received a similar number of Iraqi war refugees.
The cities grew rapidly, as did food and housing prices. The resulting social breakdown, state failure and the rise of Islamic State was a reaction to a regime unable to adequately respond, while the global and regional climatic changes were major underlying causes making a bad problem much worse. Had we factored long-term drought and crop failure into strategic planning for the region in 2011, we might have made earlier decisions about measures needed to avert the current political and refugee crisis.
Extreme weather and climate change also played their part in the Arab Spring. Per capita, the world's top-nine wheat importers are in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2010, a heatwave and wildfires in Ukraine and Russia, and a "once-in-a-century" winter drought in China, resulted in wheat shortages and a global wheat price spike, with bread prices rocketing across the Middle East. Food riots resulted in countries such as Egypt, where basic food costs are one-third of the household budget, and became a trigger for the Arab Spring.
The issue of accelerating climate change should be considered as part of the Australia's current debate over energy security. As the world's driest continent and an important force in Asian security, Australia could be a leader on sustainable growth approaches, to address not only energy and climate security but also critical issues facing the country, such as declining agricultural productivity and water availability.
The national-security dimension of climate change is the subject of intense focus by the American military and security community, where I have worked on the issue for more than two decades. I understand the same is happening occurring in Australia.
A girl carries a toddler in Bangladesh. A one-metre rise in sea level would submerge one-fifth of the country, displacing 30 million people. Photo: Allison Joyce
The internal cohesion of many nations is already under great stress, including in the United States, as a result of both a dramatic rise in migration, and changes in weather patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world from low-lying Pacific Islands to the US, South Asia and China has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities.
Throughout Asia, climate change will increase regional instability. A one-metre sea-level rise would flood 20 per cent of the area of Bangladesh and displace 30 million people. India has surrounded Bangladesh with a double-security "climate refugee" fence patrolled by 80,000 troops, in anticipation of a potential migration crisis. The Mekong Delta is very vulnerable to inundation, and Pakistan faces a growing water crisis. More than one billion people rely on snow-melt water from the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, which will decrease.
The economic and social implications will be profound, with a major effect on Australia's export-dominated economy. As the US National Intelligence Council said in a recent report, the effects of climate change are already under way and are "likely to pose wide-ranging national security challenges for the United States and other countries over the next 20 years".
Now is the time to lower Australia's national security risks by taking a leadership role in coordinated, wide-scale and well-executed actions to limit heat-trapping gases, and in preparing for the projected effects of climate change. This response should include multifaceted cooperation with other nations, as well as between Australian institutions, to build resilience.
To forestall the worst outcomes, we must recognise climate change as a threat multiplier to human society that demands a whole-of-society approach, that will enable Australia to be on the leading edge of innovation and competitiveness in the advanced energy economy that is rapidly evolving in China and other Asian economies.

*Sherri Goodman is a former US deputy undersecretary of defence, and founder of the CNA Military Advisory Board.

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08/04/2017

The End Of Coal: EU Energy Companies Pledge No New Plants From 2020

The Guardian - 

Companies from every EU nation except Poland and Greece sign up to initiative in bid to meet Paris pledges and limit effects of climate change
Plants such as Boxberg in Germany, seen here, will not be built across most of Europe from 2020 after a moratorium agreed to on Tuesday. Photograph: Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images
Europe’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.
The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland.
National energy companies from every EU nation – except Poland and Greece – have signed up to the initiative, which will overhaul the bloc’s energy-generating future.
A press release from Eurelectric, which represents 3,500 utilities with a combined value of over €200bn, reaffirmed a pledge to deliver on the Paris climate agreement, and vowed a moratorium on new investments in coal plants after 2020.
“26 of 28 member states have stated that they will not invest in new coal plants after 2020” said Kristian Ruby, Eurelectric’s secretary-general. “History will judge this message we are bringing here today. It is a clear message that speaks for itself, and should be seen in close relation to the Paris agreement and our commitment to provide 100% carbon-neutral electricity by 2050.”
“Europe’s energy companies are putting their money where their mouths are,” he added.
Coal has been central to Europe’s development, powering the industrial revolution, trades union history, and even the EU’s precursor, the European coal and steel community.
But it also emits more carbon dioxide than any other fossil fuel, plus deadly toxins such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, which are responsible for more than 20,000 deaths each year.
Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe, hailed the new move as “the beginning of the end for coal”.
“It is now clear that there is no future for coal in the EU,” he said. “The question is: what is the date for its phase out in the EU, and how hard will the coal industry fight to keep plants open, even if they are no longer economically viable?”
The coal industry though was sceptical about the utilities’ announcement. Brian Ricketts, the secretary-general of the Euracoal trade group said: “Steam engines were replaced by something better,cheaper and more productive – electric motors and diesel engines. When we see a new energy system – with lots of energy storage – that works at an affordable price, then coal, oil and gas will not be needed. In the meantime, we still rely on conventional sources.”
Renewable industry sources also welcomed the news, albeit with the caveat that it would allow continued new investments in the industry for another three years.
“The debate about coal is over,” one industry insider told the Guardian. “This is the only way that we can go forward with decarbonisation. But it would be good to see a phase out of existing coal plants.”
The energy utilities’ initiative faced initial resistance in Germany which is relying on coal to bridge a move away from nuclear energy to renewables under the “energiewende” transition.
In the end though, only Poland which depends on coal for around 90% of its electricity and Greece, which still plans new coal plants, bucked what is becoming a global trend.
New coal plant constructions fell by almost two thirds across the world in 2016, with the EU and US leading the way in retiring in existing coal capacity.
The move is also in line with a pathway for meeting the 2C target laid out by climate scientists last month, as a way of limiting future stranded asset risks.
Europe will have to phase out all of its coal plants by 2030 or else “vastly overshoot” its Paris climate pledges, climate experts say.
António Mexia, the CEO of Portuguese energy giant EDP and president of the Eurelectric trade association, said: “The power sector is determined to lead the energy transition and back our commitment to the low-carbon economy with concrete action.”
“With power supply becoming increasingly clean, electric technologies are an obvious choice for replacing fossil fuel based systems, for instance in the transport sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
“The challenge for policy makers in the next two years will be to target the political instruments, ensure that they are complementary and advance decarbonisation and electrification at the same time,” said Ruby.
Ruby called for a ratcheting up of the cap on CO2 emissions under the EU’s emissions trading system, to speed the transition to a low carbon economy.

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

Salon - 

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.

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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. 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.”

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07/04/2017

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

The Guardian - 

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.

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

The Conversation -  |  |. | 

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.

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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

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