29/11/2018

Adani To Self-Fund $2b Carmichael Mine, Construction To Start Before Christmas

AFR - Mark Ludlow

Adani's greenlight for the Carmichael mine will energise environmental activists. Dan Peled/AAP
Indian energy giant Adani has finally pulled the trigger on its controversial $2 billion Carmichael mine and will fund the project itself, with construction planned to begin before Christmas.
After eight years of court challenges from environmental activists and delayed approvals, Adani Australia chief executive Lucas Dow on Thursday said the company had finally reached financial close on the project which could start exporting coal by the end of 2020.
The decision could prove a catalyst for opening up the frontier Galilee Basin in Central Queensland - with other big coal mines expected to follow including GVK/Hancock Coal's two mines and MacMines' recently approved $6.7 billion China Stone project. It will also be welcomed by pro-coal activists in the Morrison government, including federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan.
The project will also put pressure on federal Labor leader Bill Shorten and Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk - who both have been less than enthusiastic about the project - in the lead-up to next year's federal election.
Last month, Adani announced it would scale back the size and scope of the Carmichael mine - trimming it back from the 60 million tonne $16.5 billion mega-mine, to a more manageable 10 to 15 million tonnes a year, with the potential to be scaled up to 27 million tonnes a year.
Adani, which has already spent $3.3 billion in Australia, said the capital cost of the scaled-back project would come in at around $2 billion. They had been talking to international banks to finance the project, but Mr Dow said this was no longer needed.
He said the "sharpening" of the mine plan had kept operating costs to a minimum and the construction and the operation of the thermal coal mine will now begin.
"We've pulled the trigger and we've got finance and we're ready to go," Mr Dow said in an interview with The Australian Financial Review.
"It has been a long time coming and we're obviously very excited about announcing this so we can get on and this and deliver the jobs for the people who have stood alongside us all this time. I'm desperate to have these jobs come into the northern part of Queensland."
Mr Dow said the project, which now only needs final management plans signed off by state and federal governments, would be funded by parent company Adani Group's finances rather than externally by a bank.
"It's akin to Rio Tinto or BHP funding the project. It's come from group Treasury. They have got it secured," he said.
When asked whether Adani Group had to borrow money from international banks to help fund projects including the Carmichael mine, Mr Dow said he "didn't want to speculate".
"That's a matter for group treasury. The important part for us is Carmichael mine and railway is fully funded and we're in a position to be able to get on with it. We're very much masters of our own destiny."
Mr Dow, a former BHP executive, said any future scaling up of the mine and rail to 27 million tonnes would be funded by profits from the mine's initial production.
Environmental groups, anti-fossil fuel organisations and even some politicians have expressed scepticism about whether the Carmichael project would ever get off the ground, given deadlines have been delayed over the past few years.
Mr Dow said Tuesday's announcement should remove any doubt about the Carmichael project stacking up, saying it remains within the first quartile of the global cost curve.
Adani said the Carmichael project will deliver more than 1500 direct jobs on the mine and rail projects during the initial ramp-up and construction phase and will support thousands more indirect jobs. This is a long way from the 10,000 jobs that had been touted for the project in recent incarnations.
Adani announced in September it would abandon plans to build its own 388-kilometre standard gauge railway line to Abbot Point, but it will now instead build a 200-kilometre narrow gauge line which will join Aurizon's existing coal network - a decision that saved it $1.5 billion.
The Adani rail line to the Galilee Basin will also open up the option for other projects including GVK/Hancock and Clive Palmer's Waratah Coal project to get up and running.
It has applied to Aurizon for access to its regulated Central Queensland coal network. The new 200 kilometre rail link will have the capacity for both the planned 27 million tonnes or up to 40 million tonnes down the track if required, and depending on market conditions.
The Palaszczuk government announced suddenly during last year's election campaign it would not support a federal loan for the Adani mine from the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, saying it did not deserve any taxpayer funding. The move was seen as a pitch to secure Green preferences in a string of Brisbane seats. In November, the Palaszczuk government was returned for a second term.
Mr Shorten used to be a strong advocate for the Adani project, based on the jobs the project would create throughout regional Queensland. But he has backed down in recent months, using the same lines as the Palaszczuk government about no taxpayer funding for the mine.

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Climate Change Threatens Our Children's Health As Well As Their Future

Fairfax - Fiona Stanley* | George Crisp*

The fight for the future of children is everywhere we look right now. From teachers rallying to get kids off Nauru, to young students striking for action on climate change.
As Australians we care for the future of our kids, yet there is one key issue that threatens this as much as anything - climate change.
Children are inherently vulnerable to the health effects of climate change for a number of reasons. These include physiological, developmental and behavioural factors.
Students are planning to go on strike to demand serious climate action. Credit: Eddie Jim
Children are more mentally impacted by extreme weather related disasters, with Australian research demonstrating higher rates of behavioural and emotional disturbance, anxiety and PTSD than in adults. As a group they are more vulnerable to physical injuries such as burns from fires and drowning and hypothermia from floods. These extreme events also compromise health services and the access to them, meaning delayed assessment and treatment.
Globally climate change is worsening or aggravating some of the leading causes of child mortality, including malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoea. In 2004 The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that around 140,000 deaths each year were attributable to climate change, a number projected to nearly double by 2030.
These effects even begin before birth, with evidence that exposure to heatwaves and air pollution during pregnancy can result in babies being born too small, which influences health throughout life. Extreme heat also influences air pollution and allergen levels, with children being more susceptible to asthma, allergies and respiratory conditions.
It’s a fundamental mammalian role to protect our offspring and provide a safe and nurturing environment for them. From early pregnancy, through childhood, to adulthood and independence, mammals prioritise care and safety for their children above all else.
Anyone who has watched nature documentaries or seen behaviour in the wild, of mother orangutans, elephants or bears with their young will be very aware of the depth of that familiar and special attention.
It is why it is so difficult to come to terms with the fact we are in a predicament where we are knowingly risking the future health and security of our children. Our health is already being impacted by climate change in numerous ways and most concerning, it is our children who bear the brunt of these impacts.
How could we have allowed this happen? Surely if we were aware of this, even if it were just a possibility, we would do everything in our power to stop it - as parents, as doctors, as human beings?
In spite of having been well aware of this situation for over three decades our governments and institutions in Australia have not yet implemented a sufficient evidence based response. The scientific principles underlying climate change are well established and with each passing year the impacts are becoming more evident and more troubling.
As doctors we recognise our role and responsibility to speak out and act when there are health risks in our communities. It is what we have always done when confronted with major public health issues such as HIV, Ebola or tobacco use. Therefore, we are now standing up in light of a child health crisis.
We are launching a new campaign called ‘No Time For Games’ in response to the IPCC advice that deep emissions cuts are needed by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5°C. We’re doing this as doctors because a rise in temperature by this much will dramatically increase the nature of extreme weather and therefore, danger the health of our children.
We ask our medical colleagues to join us by pledging support for urgent action towards climate change and therefore, the future health of children.
And we call upon all governments and institutions to recognise it is also their responsibility to take necessary action required to protect our country’s health. This starts by developing a national strategy on climate change and health and immediately reducing our country’s reliance on fossil fuels.
With the future of our children at stake, we must stand up and act before it’s too late.

*Professor Fiona Stanley is a doctor, epidemiologist, founder of the Telethon Kids Institute and former Australian of the Year.
*Dr George Crisp is a Perth GP and former WA Chair of Doctors for the Environment Australia.

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'We'll Be Voting Soon': Students Take On PM Over Climate Change

Fairfax - Chloe Livadeas

More than 200 Canberra children skipped class and another 100 parents and supporters rallied in the rain on Wednesday morning in front of Parliament House to call for government action on climate change.
The strike was part of a nationwide protest on global warming this week. Thousands of students from more than 200 schools in towns and cities were expected to skip class to put pressure on politicians.
The strike was organised by the School Strike 4 Action, a Victoria-based student activist group that's spread across Australia. The movement was inspired by a 15-year-old Swedish school girl Greta Thunberg who skipped school to camp outside Sweden’s parliament last month.
Canberra students protesting outside Parliament House on Wednesday asking for climate change action. Credit: Karleen Minney
During question time in Parliament on Monday Prime Minister Scott Morrison condemned the children who were planning to miss class and said there should be less activism in schools.
Clara McArthur, 17, of Canberra College, called Mr Morrison's comments “ridiculous”, and said the students were using what they learned in school in their protest.
Canberra students will be protesting outside Parliament House on Wednesday. Credit: Karleen Minney
“We’re taught about how amazing this planet is and how important it is that we look after the environment, but he won’t let us do anything about it.
"Me and my friends here are turning 18 soon, we are able to vote in the next election and if he won’t listen to us that is ridiculous.”
Miss McArthur said every teacher and guardian she had spoken with had been incredibly supportive of the strike. “I’ve only heard praise,” she said.
Zaki Sullivan, 10, said he was striking because he believes Australia must take action on climate change now before more species became extinct and the number of natural disasters increased.
"I don’t want to live in that world,” he said.
Zaki said nature and environment had always been a large part of his life.
"I love being out in nature. I love camping, swimming and bush walking like all Australian kids. I want to live in the world that I know now and it needs to be there for future generations too," he said.
His brother Ayo, 8, said, "I’m going on strike to make politicians think about the decisions they’re making and how they impact me. I can’t vote yet but I still have my right to a future and a world that is fit to live in."
Both boys, who attend Chapman Primary, said they wanted a commitment from the government to use 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050.
An ACT Education Directorate spokesperson said it valued student voices in education and would not stop or penalise any student attending a rally, as long as they were supervised by carers in "their actions as global citizens".
Iolo Cornthwaite, 11, also from Chapman Primary, said, “I’d like the [government] to listen to the 99 climate scientists that have told them for a few years that they need to stop doing coal and change to 100 per cent renewable energy.
Clara McArthur, 17: I'll be voting soon, he should listen. Credit: Karleen Minney
Iolo said he became engaged with the issue of global warming when he heard that temperatures were predicted to ruse by 1.5 degrees “because even one degree can damage our world for the rest of our lives”.
His sister, Nia Cornthwaite, 10, was also striking.
“I do really love school but this is important. There’ll be no school to go to in the future if the government doesn’t listen,” she said.
Nia said she wanted Australia to stop investing in coal mines such as Adani and that it should stop damaging the Great Barrier Reef.
“If we destroy it we’ll never be able to recreate it. We can’t bring it back,” she said.
ACT Minister for Climate Change Shane Rattenbury said, “Young people don’t want to just stand by and watch this climate emergency roll out.
“As future leaders, they’re making their voices heard - and the message is clear.”
The federal government must deliver a clean, renewable future for all Australians, he said.

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Australia Not On Track To Hit Paris Emissions Goals, As UN Warns Global Efforts Must Increase

ABC - Nick Kilvert

(Australian Antarctic Division: Adrian Patel)
 Key points:
  • On current trends, Australia is unlikely to meet its Paris carbon emissions reduction target of 26-28 per cent, a UN report says
  • The report says global efforts need to be tripled to hold warming at 2C by 2030, and ramped up five-fold for warming to remain at 1.5C
  • The Federal Government insists Australia is on track to meet its Paris commitment
Australia is among a number of countries currently not on track to meet their unconditional Paris carbon emissions reduction targets by 2030, a United Nations (UN) report has warned.
The 2018 Emissions Gap Report released today by UN Environment shows that global emissions have hit a historic high and are showing "no signs of peaking".
Australia is listed as a G20 country that will not meet its 2030 target — alongside Canada, Argentina, EU28, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United States.
Under the Paris agreement, Australia's aim is to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels.
The Paris emissions reduction targets were set at the climate conference in 2015, and represent the first ever legally binding global climate deal.
The agreement holds 195 signatory countries to a global action plan to keep global warming "well below" 2 degrees Celsius.
In response to a damning IPCC report earlier this year on the state of the climate, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia was on track to meet its targets "in a canter".
But today's report states Australia's emissions on current trend are projected to "remain at high levels rather than reducing in line with the 2030 target".
"There has been no improvement in Australia's climate policy since 2017 and emission levels for 2030 are projected to be well above the [Nationally Determined Contribution] target," it states.
(Supplied: UN Environment)
The forecast is consistent with the majority of thinking from the scientific community, according to the director of the ANU's Climate Change Institute, Professor Mark Howden, who was not involved with the latest report.
"Our greenhouse gas emissions nationally keep on going up, and of course to actually meet those targets at some stage they have to go down," said Professor Howden, who was a review editor on this year's IPCC report.
"I just don't see that the mix of policies that we've got at the moment are accelerating that reversal."
In a statement, Environment Minister Melissa Price said Australia would meet its Paris commitments.
"We have the right mix of scalable policies to meet our 2030 targets," Ms Price said.
"Policies like the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation have led to emissions reductions in the electricity sector, for instance."
The Prime Minister's office referred the ABC to the Environment Minister.

Efforts must triple to hold warming to 2C
In another dire warning for world leaders, the UN Environment report predicts that even if all G20 countries achieve their 2030 targets, global emissions will still be far too high to limit warming to 2C by 2100.
Under the 2030 target scenario, annual global emissions are predicted to increase from their current 53.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, to 56 gigatonnes over the next 12 years.
The UN report says Australia's emissions are projected to remain high through to 2030.
(Flickr: UniversityBlogSpot)
But to be on track to keep warming below 2C, UN Environment estimates that emissions need to be down to about 40 gigatonnes per annum by that time.
And to limit warming to 1.5C, global annual emissions would need to be reduced to 24 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per annum by 2030.
In a statement, UN Environment deputy director and assistant secretary-general Joyce Msuya said it was time for governments to act.
"If the IPCC report represented a global fire alarm, this report is the arson investigation," Ms Msuya said.
"The science is clear; for all the ambitious climate action we've seen, governments need to move faster and with greater urgency."
The report says emissions reduction efforts need to be tripled to keep the world on track to hold warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels, and increased five-fold to hold warming to 1.5C.
The consequences of going beyond those temperatures are unprecedented, according to Professor Peter Newman from Curtin University, who was not involved with the report.
"The last 10,000 years, when cities and agriculture have developed, have not been outside the 1C rise — it's been within that frame. So we're leaving that safe operating zone and we're going into a new area we've never been before," said Professor Newman, who was a contributing author on the 2018 IPCC report.
"Even though it doesn't sound like much — 1.5C — you're talking about the entire ocean warming up by that much.
"That's an awful lot of water to heat and that [energy] has got to go somewhere — it goes into storms and … more extreme weather events."
Australia's solar a standout among poor performers
Australia's uptake of solar is helping reduce our energy emissions.
(ABC Rural: Bridget Fitzgerald)
Per capita, Australia's emissions are decreasing alongside many countries around the world.
However, the steady rise in our population continues to push our overall emissions up.
Australia's energy sector accounts for the highest portion of greenhouse gas emissions.
But Professor Howden said this is also the sector where we are making good ground, despite the lack of a consistent energy policy.
"The broadscale expansion of solar PV and batteries and wind, which continues at pace, is actually pulling back on that [upward emissions] trajectory," he said.
"But that's happening in spite of the energy policies, rather than because of them."
Behind energy, Australia's next biggest emitting sectors are transport, agriculture and fugitive emissions from coal seam gas and other mining.
Combined with increased land clearing, it's these areas where there is the greatest room for emissions reduction, according to Professor Newman.
"We're not doing well on electric vehicles compared to the rest of the world, and we're not doing well on LNG — we've eased up on those guys that were going to be doing carbon sequestration and they have just been completely irresponsible," he said.
"And I would add land at this point; reforesting and deforesting — we're planting a lot but we're clearing a lot more, and that's third-world stuff.
"In Europe and America they're reforesting faster than they're deforesting. We were, and now we've slipped back."

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28/11/2018

Glorious Rubbish, Have We Been Wasting Your Energy All Along?

Fairfax - Lia Timson

A never-ending resource: rubbish. Credit: Graham Tidy
Talking points
  • 10,000 tonnes a day of domestic rubbish are collected at the tip
  • the rubbish is 55 per cent organic on average, but also includes plastic, glass and paper as disposed of in household bins 
  • the plant captures the methane gas produced by decomposing rubbish and transforms it into CO2 that is converted into electricity by thermoelectric engines
  • the plant produces enough energy to power a city of 300,000 people
  • the plant generates carbon credits as a reward for not releasing the gases into the atmosphere
Caieiras, Sao Paulo: As Australia debates the need to spend money on renewable energy projects to power our future without destroying the environment, it is worth taking a look at rubbish.
Is this never-ending resource being used to our advantage? What if, instead of just seeing it as something to get rid of, we put it to work?
That is a question environmental engineer Marcelo Camargo, manager of one of the world's largest biogas electricity generators on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, asked himself.
Rubbish tips produce copious amounts of methane gas which must be allowed to escape to avoid combusting the sites. It is typically burnt in multiple flares to convert it into CO², a gas many times less toxic than methane, or CH4. The CO² is typically released into the atmosphere.
And that's what the Solvi Group of companies, which owns and manages 39 landfill sites in Brazil, used to do, in the process earning carbon credits in the country's carbon trading scheme.
Marcelo Camargo, manager of Termoverde Caieiras, Brazil's largest biogas (methane) energy plant, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. Credit: Lia Timson
"But we saw an opportunity," says Camargo, who's been in the business for more than a decade and oversaw the plant's construction.
"We thought it's a pity, we're throwing energy away. We're taking methane, which has calorific value, and only generating credits. We thought, let's generate energy."
In 2011 Termoverde, a Solvi subsidiary, opened a small thermoelectric plant in Salvador, in the north-east state of Bahia, as a pilot, and in 2016 used lessons from that site to build a 100 million reais ($39 million) modern, modular, green power plant in Caieiras.
Nestled in lush subtropical hills just 33 kilometres out of the Sao Paulo megametropolis, Termoverde Caieiras is surrounded by an eucalyptus plantation and a environmental reserve belt that has the added bonus of shielding it from the road. The power plant itself is not much bigger than a couple of football fields and most Paulistas don't even know it is there.
Trucks work on the 15,000-square-metre rubbish tip in Caieiras, Brazil, where black pipes take methane away to the power plant. Credit: Lia Timson
Every day, hundreds of garbage trucks come and go, bringing 10,000 tonnes of rubbish from half of Sao Paulo's households as well as from surrounding towns. Their loads, 55 per cent organic on average, are dumped onto sections of the plant's 15,000-square-metre tip operated by sister company Essencis. The loads are then compacted and landscaped onto terraces, and left to decompose.
A network of perforated pipes allows the methane generated by the decomposing rubbish to travel upwards. In the same pipes, the slurry, the compost's liquid residue, travels downwards into a dam and later by truck to a sewage treatment plant.
The methane is control-burnt in four large chimneys and piped into thermo engines in modular containers. Credit: Lia Timson
Then, instead of burning aimlessly through small flares, the gas is captured, piped and control-burnt into CO² before being piped again into 21 containers housing individual generators. From here, it leaves as high-voltage electricity transmitted by cables to the site's substation, before feeding the state's power grid.
The plant produces enough energy to power a city of 300,000 – say, Wollongong in NSW or Geelong in Victoria – all year around. That's 29.5 megawatts of energy that would otherwise be wasted, and worse, released into the atmosphere.
Five of the 21 modular generators at Termoverde Caieiras. Credit: Lia Timson
The waste-to-energy technology is known in Australia as anaerobic digestion, that is, without oxygen, and is currently deployed in a modest site in Wollert, Victoria, where it powers the Yarra Valley Water sewage treatment plant. The $27-million 18-month-old site has a capacity to process up to 33,000 tonnes of organic waste each year, or 100 tonnes per day. According to Yarra Valley Water, any surplus energy from the plant is exported to the grid.
That's what Termoverde does too. It sells its energy to large commercial clients, and any surplus it sells on the open market. It has proven such a hit the company is thinking of converting all its sites into such private green-energy engines.
Electricity from the containers is fed into the site's substation and then the state's grid. Credit: Lia Timson
Key to the technology is that it doesn't burn or heat the waste – as opposed to combustion and gasification – technology, which use incinerators and boilers respectively.

How it works
Household waste-to-energy using anaerobic digestion
Graphic: Jamie Brown   Source: Termoverde Caieiras
Victoria is planning a gasification plant for Laverton North that would take up to 200,000 tonnes a year of residual household waste.
NSW excludes biological processes, such as anaerobic digestion and composting of waste from its Energy from Waste Policy Statement, in favour of thermal treatments such as combustion, oxidation and gasification.
A planned $700-million waste-to-energy incinerator plant by Dial A Dump Industries in Western Sydney was dumped in July amid uncertainty over the project’s human health risks and impact on air and water quality.
"Incinerators are only used where there's no room for landfill, like in Germany or Japan," Camargo says, adding that in Brazilian terms such solutions cost twice as much as anaerobic digestion because of the cost of heating the waste.
"Here that technology is superseded, and it has the added problem of burning dioxins from things like PVC which are much more damaging to the environment.
“And by not burning the rubbish to create energy, I’m making clean energy from a renewable source.
"I'm also helping reduce the amount of odour emissions from the landfill site."
In order to obtain the permits necessary to operate in Brazil, where more than 80 per cent of all energy generation is from renewable sources, the company had to build the substation and transfer its ownership to the state electricity transmission company, which maintains it.
"There are very stringent requirements, but the environmental advantages are undisputable.
"I'm transforming rubbish into energy and contributing to the national policy of reduction of solid waste. That's what matters."
Sergio Leitao, director of the not-for-profit Instituto Escolhas and former Greenpeace Brazil executive, told Sao Paulo daily newspaper Folha de SP this month that no single renewable energy source can be relied upon to supply an entire country's electricity system.
"We shouldn't necessarily select the option with lowest cost or the most competitive," he said, referring also to wind, solar and hydro energy (the latter supplies 68 per cent of Brazil's needs).
"It's how they complement each other that provides the best and most efficient mix."

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Four Ways Our Cities Can Cut Transport Emissions In A Hurry: Avoid, Shift, Share And Improve

The Conversation - 

Urgent and radical change in urban transport policies and practices will benefit the planet and future generations. blurAZ/Shutterstock
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently warned that global warming could reach 1.5℃ as early as 2030. The landmark report by leading scientists urged nations to do more to avert an impending crisis.
We have 12 years, the report said, to contain greenhouse gas emissions. This includes serious efforts to reduce transport emissions.
In Australia, transport is the third-largest source of greenhouse gases, accounting for around 17% of emissions. Passenger cars account for around half of our transport emissions.
The transport sector is also one of the strongest factors in emissions growth in Australia. Emissions from transport have increased nearly 60% since 1990 – more than any other sector. Australia is ranked 20th out of 25 of the largest energy-using countries for transport energy efficiency.
Cities around the world have many opportunities to reduce emissions. But this requires renewed thinking and real commitment to change.

Our planet can’t survive our old transport habits
Past (and still current) practices in urban and transport planning are fundamental causes of the transport problems we face today.
Over the past half-century, cities worldwide have grown rapidly, leading to urban sprawl. The result was high demand for motorised transport and, in turn, increased emissions.
The traffic gridlock on roads and motorways was the catalyst for most transport policy responses during that period. The solution prescribed for most cities was to build out of congestion by providing more infrastructure for private vehicles. Limited attention was given to managing travel demand or improving other modes of transport.
Equating mobility with building more roads nurtured a tendency towards increased motorisation, reinforcing an ever-increasing inclination to expand the road network. The result was a range of unintended adverse environmental, social and economic consequences. Most of these are rooted in the high priority given to private vehicles.

What are the opportunities to change?
The various strategies to move our cities in the right direction can be grouped into four broad categories: avoid, shift, share, and improve. Major policy, behaviour and technology changes are required to make these strategies work.
Avoid strategies aim to slow the growth of travel. They include initiatives to reduce trip lengths, such as high-density and mixed land use developments. Other options decrease private vehicle travel – for example, through car/ride sharing and congestion pricing. And teleworking and e-commerce help people avoid private car trips altogether.
Shanghai’s Hongqiao transport hub is a unique example of an integrated air, rail and mixed land use development. It combines Hongqiao’s airport, metro subway lines, and regional high-speed rail. A low-carbon residential and commercial precinct surrounds the hub.
Layout of Shanghai Hongqiao integrated transport hub. Peng & Shen (2016)/Researchgate, CC BY
Shift strategies encourage travellers to switch from private vehicles to public transport, walking and cycling. This includes improving bus routes and service frequency.
Pricing strategies that discourage private vehicles and encourage other modes of transport can also be effective. Policies that include incentives that make electric vehicles more affordable have been shown to encourage the shift.
Norway is an undisputed world leader in electric vehicle uptake. Nearly a third of all new cars sold in 2017 were a plug-in model. The electric vehicle market share was expected to be as much as 40% within a year.
An electric vehicle charging station in the Norwegian capital Oslo. Softulka/Shutterstock
Share strategies affect car ownership. New sharing economy businesses are already moving people, goods and services. Shared mobility, rather than car ownership, is providing city dwellers with a real alternative.
This trend is likely to continue and will pose significant challenges to car ownership models.
Uber claims that its carpooling service in Mumbai saved 936,000 litres of fuel and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2,662 metric tonnes within one year. It also reports that UberPool in London achieved a reduction of more than 1.1 million driving kilometres in just six months.
UberPool is available in inner Melbourne suburbs. Trip must begin and end in this area. Uber
Improve strategies promote the use of technologies to optimise performance of transport modes and intelligent infrastructure. These include intelligent transport systems, urban information technologies and emerging solutions such as autonomous mobility.
Our research shows that sharing 80% of autonomous vehicles will reduce net emissions by up to 20%. The benefits increase with wider adoption of autonomous shared electric vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles can offer first- and last-kilometre solutions, especially in outer suburbs with limited public transport services. Monopoly919/Shutterstock
The urgency and benefits of steering our cities towards a path of low-carbon mobility are unmistakable. This was recognised in the past but progress has been slow. Today, the changing context for how we build future cities – smart, healthy and low-carbon – presents new opportunities.
If well planned and implemented, these four interventions will collectively achieve transport emission reduction targets. They will also improve access to the jobs and opportunities that are preconditions for sound economic development in cities around the world.

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467 Ways To Die On A Warming Globe

The Guardian - 

While most people in most countries accept the truth of climate science, they reject its implications. What can be done to change that?
‘An Earth warmer by four degrees – and after the unwinding of the 2015 Paris agreement that is the path we have returned to – will impose enormous stresses on all societies’ Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images 
A new study published in Nature has found evidence for 467 ways in which climate hazards due to global warming are making life on the planet harder for humans. It confirms that we are witnessing a shift in the functioning of the Earth system as a whole, a shift to a new state that is unsympathetic to the continued flourishing of human life.
A changing climate is only one feature of a warming globe. Human activity has bounced the Earth into a state that has no equivalent in its 4.5 billion year history.
The Earth’s new trajectory as it spins into the future has led scientists to tell us we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. We have crossed a threshold and the geological clock cannot be turned back. The disruption we have caused is increasingly unpredictable and uncontrollable, and it has no endpoint.
There are, therefore, two questions humankind must face. What must we do to prevent serial disasters becoming existential catastrophe? And how can we make our social and economic systems flexible enough to cope with the new dispensation?
There are several reasons an international agreement has proven so hard. The leading one is sabotage by climate science deniers. Can it be countered? Climate science denial was invented and propagated mainly in the United States by the fossil fuel industry in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The challenge is no longer how to use information to change people’s minds. The challenge is how to change a culture
Activists know how to thwart an industry lobbying campaign. But then something calamitous happened – rejecting climate science became caught up in the culture war. The Tea Party and Fox News were largely responsible for the shift. Before then, even a conservative like Sarah Palin accepted the science and called for action. But after 2009, rejecting climate science became a badge of political identity for conservatives.
From that point onwards, facts no longer mattered.
So the challenge is no longer how to use information to change people’s minds. The challenge is how to change a culture. No one knows how to do that.

Just Trump?
Last week Donald Trump, who calls climate science a hoax, visited a California devastated by wildfires. When asked whether his visit would change his mind about climate change he said “No”. What else could he say? The journalist was asking him if he would change who he was.
Yet it’s too easy to blame the world’s slowness to act on crazy American deniers. Because, in a way, we are all climate science deniers.
The full truth of what humans have done is almost impossible to take in. To fully embrace the message of the climate scientists means giving up the deepest presupposition of modernity – the idea of progress. Relinquishing our belief in progress means we must let go of the future, because we have been taught from infancy that the future is progress.
In our minds, replacing the old future defined by progress with a new future defined by endless struggle requires a period of grieving. Not many people have the stomach for that.
While most people in most countries accept the truth of climate science, they don’t accept its implications. What can be done to change that?

Changing minds
When it comes to communicating the science’s message to the public, there is no magic potion to be found. A lot has been tried and some of it works reasonably well, up to a point. The scientists must keep doing their research and putting it out. Accusing them of alarmism is a calculated political slander; in truth, they have consistently been too cautious in their warnings, especially in IPCC reports.
Yet the meaning of their reports has not sunk in. It’s clear that an Earth warmer by four degrees – and after the unwinding of the 2015 Paris agreement that is the path we have returned to – will impose enormous stresses on all societies.
In poorer countries, it will lead to mass migrations, many deaths and violent conflict. The effects in wealthy countries will depend on who holds power and how they govern. Disasters, food shortages and waves of immigration will magnify resentment against the rich, who will be attempting to insulate themselves from the turmoil around them.
But they too depend on the infrastructure of urban life – electricity and water supply, sewerage and waste disposal, transport systems for food and so on. And they can’t insulate themselves from social upheaval.
Some communities will learn to adapt more effectively. Smaller, cooperative communities will be best placed to adapt themselves to endure the troubles.
But however humans live or die on the new Earth we have made, we are approaching the endpoint of modernity and must accept that it is finally true that man is the environment of man.

*Clive Hamilton is professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University and author of Defiant Earth: The fate of humans in the Anthropocene

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