(AU) Australia's Climate Future To Evolve As Economy Is Rebuilt

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley | Mike Foley

Just a few months ago there had been growing consensus among scientists, activists, economists and even investors that 2020 would be pivotal in the fight to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.

Around the world global warming had become manifest in the intensity of fires and floods, droughts and storms, prompting politicians to catch up with the view of voters on the urgency of the problem.

In November, world leaders were to meet in Scotland for the 2020 United Nations Climate Change Conference to set even more ambitious emissions targets and outline concrete plans on how to meet them in the effort to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.

Projects that will use hydrogen in transport, such as this hydrogen-power bus in France, are among those potentially eligible for the CEFC funding.

But the Glasgow meeting has been cancelled and politicians are now focused on keeping citizens alive in the face of a more immediate threat.

Rather than lose the momentum that had been growing, scientists and activists groups around the world are focusing on a campaign to ensure that economic stimulus packages being adopted around the world are green.

On Friday, the World Economic Forum released a statement in support of the European Union’s “Green Deal”, declaring that it must become the “cornerstone” of Europe’s pandemic recovery.

“Rather than rebuilding the 20th-century economy, we must focus on spending stimulus money wisely and on preparing Europe for a competitive and inclusive 21st century, climate-neutral future.”

Earlier this month, the University of Oxford released findings of a study of 700 previous stimulus packages which showed that a green stimulus created more jobs per dollar spent than a black one.

Launching the study, one of the lead authors, Professor Cameron Hepburn, told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that he believed the decisions politicians made in coming weeks would decide how future generations experienced climate change.

“The recovery packages are vital to getting our economies going again and to putting us on a cleaner path to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” he said.

The Oxford research was one of a wave of reports, studies and papers recently released as various groups seek to catch the attention of leaders. In one report, the World Bank suggested that tax concessions could be offered to low-carbon fuel categories while the current low prices might be an opportunity for countries to withdraw subsidies to the oil sector.

The International Monetary Fund made similar recommendations advocating for measures to modernise grids, expand public transport and support climate change adaptation projects.

The United Nations secretary general António Guterres declared that taxpayers’ money deployed in stimulus should be spent on “new jobs and businesses through a clean, green transition” and that when it was used to rescue business, it should be “tied to green jobs and sustainable growth”.

The word's first liquid hydrogen ship, the Suiso Frontier, is christened at the Kobe Works yard in Japan. Credit: Kawasaki Heavy Industries

The movement for a green recovery has some serious political backing around the world.

Alongside the EU’s moves towards green stimulus, Joe Biden, presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, has embraced the Green New Deal championed by elements of his party as part of his election platform.

South Korea’s new government, elected in part on its environmental policies, has announced its own $US110 billion New Green Deal, designed to boost employment and meet a target of producing net zero emissions by 2050.

So far China’s efforts have been mixed, with governments backing both new coal-fired power plants as well as high-tech grid improvements that could reduce emissions.

In Australia, political signals are mixed.

Asked by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age if the pandemic presented Australia with an opportunity to set more ambitious reductions targets, Energy and Emissions Reductions Minister Angus Taylor advocated for increasing gas use and exports, saying that countries with access to cheap liquified natural gas were able to cut emissions faster.

This is despite the increasing body of research showing gas to be as bad for the atmosphere as coal.

But Mr Taylor has also backed hydrogen, which is increasingly seen as the crucial new clean energy technology, and a potential source of employment and export dollars for Australia.

Last month, Fatih Birol, executive director at International Energy Agency, wrote that hydrogen technology today is at the same state of development and adoption wind and solar were during the crisis in 2009, when massive green stimulus packages supercharged their uptake and put them in the position of undercutting fossil fuels on costs today.

“They have the potential to be the coming decade’s breakout technologies,” he wrote.

'It is a natural for expansion.'
Professor Ross Garnaut

Mr Taylor agrees, telling the Herald and The Age “it’s not heralded much, but Japanese power generators are talking about feeding hydrogen into their old gas power systems, which creates phenomenal export potential for us in Australia, and offers a huge advantage (to generators) that they don’t have to rebuild their plants.”

But Mr Taylor has drawn criticism for backing so-called “brown” hydrogen alongside “green”.

Hydrogen emits no greenhouse gases when burned in engines or power plants, but splitting water by electrolysis to create hydrogen consumes electricity. Clean energy advocates argue that Australia has the space to build wind and solar power stations to become a green hydrogen export leader, but Mr Taylor has not ruled out a role for gas and coal.

Leading economist and renewable energy expert Ross Garnaut says Australia’s vast capacity to generate wind and solar energy could fuel not only exports but a boom in domestic heavy industry and replace petrol for transport.

“The full emergence of Australia as an energy superpower of the low-carbon world economy would encompass large-scale early-stage processing of Australian iron, aluminium and other minerals,” Professor Garnaut says.

He told the Herald and The Age that Alcoa and Rio Tinto had already signalled they did not see a long-term role for the nation’s three largest aluminium smelters in their portfolios under current electricity supply arrangements due to their high electricity cost and emissions output.

He believes that if such plants made use of Australia’s advantages in low-cost renewable energy, they could expand their output to meet demand during a global revival in aluminium demand.

Similarly, Professor Garnaut sees an opportunity in production of silicon, which is in demand for photo-voltaic cells and computer chips, and whose key ingredients he describes as high-grade sand or quartz, carbon, which can be renewable carbon from biomass, and “a huge amount of energy”.

“It is a natural for expansion,” he says.

Links

• Erosion from surging seas threatens roads, homes and beaches
• While the world looked the other way, corporate giants abandoned coal
• Natural gas is a much ‘dirtier’ energy source than we thought
• Climate Change and COVID-19: UN urges nations to ‘recover better’
• Thinking ahead: For a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

Coal Industry Will Never Recover After Coronavirus Pandemic, Say Experts

The Guardian - Jonathan Watts | Jillian Ambrose

Crisis has proved renewable energy is now a safer investment, and accelerated the shift

Climate activists in front of the coal-fired Jaenschwalde power station in the Lausitz region, Germany, protesting against open-cast mining in November 2019. Their banner reads: ‘Love for the Lausitz. Not for the coal.’ Photograph: Christian Mang/Reuters

The global coal industry will “never recover” from the Covid-19 pandemic, industry observers predict, because the crisis has proved renewable energy is cheaper for consumers and a safer bet for investors.

A long-term shift away from dirty fossil fuels has accelerated during the lockdown, bringing forward power plant closures in several countries and providing new evidence that humanity’s coal use may finally have peaked after more than 200 years.

That makes the worst-case climate scenarios less likely, because they are based on a continued expansion of coal for the rest of the century.

Even before the pandemic, the industry was under pressure due to heightened climate activism, divestment campaigns and cheap alternatives. The lockdown has exposed its frailties even further, wiping billions from the market valuations of the world’s biggest coal miners.

As demand for electricity has fallen, many utilities have cut back on coal first, because it is more expensive than gas, wind and solar. In the EU imports of coal for thermal power plants plunged by almost two-thirds in recent months to reach lows not seen in 30 years. The consequences have been felt around the world as well.

This week, a new report by the US Energy Information Administration projected the US would produce more electricity this year from renewables than from coal for the first time. Industry analysts predict coal’s share of US electricity generation could fall to just 10% in five years, down from 50% a decade ago.

Despite Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to “dig coal”, there are now more job losses and closures in the industry than at any time since Eisenhower’s presidency 60 years ago. Among the latest has been Great River Energy’s plan to shut down a 1.1-gigawatt thermal plant in North Dakota and replace it with wind and gas.

Rob Jackson, the chair of Global Carbon Project, said the pandemic was likely to confirm that coal will never again reach the global peak seen in 2013: “Covid-19 will slash coal emissions so much this year that the industry will never recover, even with a continued build-out in India and elsewhere. The crash in natural gas prices, record-cheap solar and wind power, and climate and health concerns have undercut the industry permanently.”

Records are falling thick and fast. By Friday, the UK national grid had not burned a single lump of coal for 35 days, the longest uninterrupted period since the start of the industrial revolution more than 230 years ago. In Portugal, the record coal-free run has extended almost two months, the campaign group Europe Beyond Coal recently reported.

A stack of coal at a power station in Geertruidenberg, Netherlands, in 2010. Photograph: Jock Fistick/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Last month Sweden closed its last coal-fired power plant, KVV6 in Hjorthagen, eastern Stockholm, two years early because the mild winter meant it was not used even before the pandemic. Austria followed suit with the shutdown of its only remaining coal plant at Mellach. The Netherlands said it would reduce the capacity of its thermal plants by 75% to comply with a court order to reduce climate risks.

More importantly, in India – the world’s second-biggest coal consumer – the government has prioritised cheap solar energy rather than coal in response to a slump in electricity demand caused by Covid-19 and a weak economy. This has led to the first year-on-year fall in carbon emissions in four decades, exceptional air quality, and a growing public clamour for more renewables.

Elsewhere in Asia, the picture is mixed. A few years ago, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines were expected to be the industry’s biggest growth areas, but the pandemic, falling renewable prices and a growing divestment campaign have put several major coal projects on hold.

South Korean president Moon Jae-in has been re-elected on a pledge to phase out domestic coal use, and many in his ruling coalition are pushing to end financing of overseas projects. In Japan, the big three commercial lenders and the governor of the Japan Bank of International Cooperation have recently said they will no longer accept proposals for coal generation.

Other money taps are also being turned off, as investors and finance houses respond to scientific advice and campaigns by divestment activists and school strikers such as Greta Thunberg.

“The economics of coal were already under structural pressure before the pandemic,” said Michael Lewis, the head of climate change investment research at French bank BNP Paribas. “And coming out of it these pressures will still be there – but now compounded by the impact of the pandemic.”

BNP Paribas is one of a growing list of financial institutions which have chosen to sever ties with coal. The bank said last week that it would accelerate its planned exit from coal financing to 2030 to bring its portfolio in line with the Paris climate goals sooner.

In the same week, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund – the world’s biggest – ditched a host of coal mining and energy companies, including Glencore, Anglo-American, Vale and AGL over climate concerns. This follows coal blacklisting announcements by BlackRock, Standard Chartered and JPMorgan Chase.

The fossil fuel has fallen from favour in the eyes of many investors due to rising climate concerns, cheaper renewable energy alternatives and a public backlash against air pollution.

“The public health benefits of cleaner air will be front and centre after weeks of lockdown that have prompted blue skies and clean air in Asia’s megalopolises,” Lewis said. “This pressure from the finance sector will only accelerate going forward, pushing the cost of capital for coal projects even higher.”

Even before the pandemic, Australian coal companies said they were finding it hard to find financing for mines and port facilities due to the international divestment campaign. This is not the only economic squeeze. A near-30% fall in the price of thermal coal has made more than half of production unprofitable, prompting several firms to warn of pit closures and layoffs.

Coal mine and processing facility in Liulin, Shanxi province, China. Photograph: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The elephant in the room is China, which burns half of the world’s coal and is the biggest financier of mines and power plants in Asia and Africa – largely to provide an export market for its domestic manufacturing and engineering firms.

A few years ago, domestic coal consumption fell, prompting hopes that president Xi Jinping was committed to a shift away from dirty, high-emitting power production. But after the lockdown, the political priority is to jumpstart the economy. Provincial governments are now working on a slew of new thermal plants. But they are running at less than half of capacity because demand for coal has not returned to its previous level.

“Covid-19 has made clear that China and India have built more than they need. Even before the crisis, they had overcapacity. Now with lower demand, you can see everything is a mess,” said Carlos Fernández Alvarez, lead coal analyst at the International Energy Agency.

Alvarez said coal had been hit hardest by the pandemic, but he cautioned the decline could be temporary unless governments invest in renewables to pull economies out of the lockdown. “We have to look at this structurally. If there is high energy demand again in the future, it will probably be coal that picks up the slack because it is the marginal supplier,” he said.

While nobody is expecting coal to disappear any time soon, Ted Nace, director of Global Energy Monitor, believes the balance has shifted for good. “Coal is definitely on the downturn and this pandemic is going to accelerate that. Demand should come back to some degree next year. But there is a very strong argument that it is not going to just bounce back.”

Links

• Covid-19 crisis will wipe out demand for fossil fuels, says IEA
• Wind and solar plants will soon be cheaper than coal in all big markets around world, analysis finds
• Will the coronavirus kill the oil industry and help save the climate?
• Concerns as EU bank balks at plan to halt fossil fuel investments Oil and gas companies undermining climate goals, says report
• Global 'collapse' in number of new coal-fired power plants
• Insurers in UK and US lagging behind in divesting from coal, report finds
• British power generation achieves first ever coal-free day
• Dutch parliament votes to close down country's coal industry

Causes Of Global Warming: How Scientists Know That Humans Are Responsible

Yale Climate Connections - Samantha Harrington

It's a conclusion shared by the world's most respected scientific organizations.

Hurricane Dorian as seen from the International Space Station on Monday, September 2, 2019. (Photo credit: NASA)

You likely have heard about global warming in the news, at school or from a friend. And so you probably have questions such as, “What is causing this warming?” and “What role do humans play in that warming?” and “What’s the science behind the warming?”

According to widely cited research, more than 97% of climate scientists agree that the planet has been warming during the past several decades and that the warming is overwhelmingly the result of human activities.

That conclusion is also shared by the U.S.’s most respected scientific organization, the National Academies of Sciences, and by its counterpart organizations worldwide. The National Academies of Sciences, in a 2020 update to its “Climate Change Evidence and Causes” report, concluded that “Natural causes alone are inadequate to explain the recent observed changes in climate.”

It added that “only when models include human influences on the composition of the atmosphere are the resulting temperature changes consistent with observed changes.” Those conclusions are strengthened because they are based on observed, and not simply modeled, global temperatures.

To figure out the causes behind rising global temperatures, scientists start with what is known: They know based on scientific evidence that the planet is warming, and they have long known that greenhouse gases warm Earth’s atmosphere. They know too that humans emit large quantities of those same heat-trapping gases – most importantly including carbon dioxide – by burning fossil fuels and the release of the resulting emissions to the atmosphere.

To explain how gases like carbon dioxide are heating up the planet, climate scientists and communicators often use blankets as a metaphor. As humans burn fossil fuels, heat-trapping emissions accumulate in the atmosphere. Adding more of these gases to the planet’s atmosphere is like adding layers of blankets on top of a bed.

How scientists know the Earth is warming

Climate modeler Tom Knutson, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, explains that scientists can see that the planet is warming by observing surface and satellite temperature data over time.

In the mainland U.S., for instance, annual average temperature increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2016. Most of that increase has occurred since 1986. Globally, temperatures have increased at the same rate.

Surface temperature data is available in the U.S. as far back as 1885 thanks to an observatory founded on a hill outside of Boston.

Satellite temperature data, which documents the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere, is available from the late 1970s on.

Scientists also gather paleoclimate records, which provide clues to what the world’s climate was like before human records began. Such clues are stored in tree rings, glaciers, corals, and ocean and lake sediments. For example, by analyzing the dust particles and air bubbles stored in glacial ice cores, scientists can create a picture of what the climate was like in the past. For the U.S., paleoclimate data has shown that the most recent decades are the warmest in the past 1,500 years.

Scientists know that heat-trapping gases exist in the atmosphere

Heat-trapping gases in Earth’s atmosphere prevent some energy, or heat, from escaping out into space. That advantageous “greenhouse” effect is what makes Earth habitable for humans and all the life on the planet.

Scientists first began to realize that certain gases might trap heat in the 1820s, theorizing that the atmosphere retained heat, keeping the planet warm. In 1856, American scientist Eunice Foote published the results of an experiment describing how carbon dioxide trapped heat from the sun. Three years later, Irish scientist John Tyndall found that certain gases, including carbon dioxide, can retain and transfer heat.

In the late 19th century, Swedish scientist Svante August Arrhenius suggested that the burning of fossil fuels could become a large source of carbon dioxide emissions. In his later work he studied the effect that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide would have on the global climate. He concluded that temperatures would warm.

Without these greenhouse gases, Earth’s average temperature would be below freezing. But as people have added more of the heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, the planet has warmed more than it could naturally. And as the levels of the carbon dioxide and other gases increase, average global temperatures increase.

Scientists know there are more heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere

Since 1958, researchers at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii have been recording the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Charles Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California led this work, and the daily record of global carbon dioxide is known as the Keeling Curve.

In addition to carbon dioxide, atmospheric concentrations of the heat-trapping gases nitrous oxide and methane also have increased.

“We are reaching levels that we have never seen in nearly a million years,” notes Ilissa Ocko, a climate scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization.

Scientists know humans release these heat-trapping gases

Humans’ burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for transportation and electricity has led to releases of heat-trapping gases. Industrial processes and agriculture also emit heat-trapping gases.

Carbon dioxide – which, importantly, has a very long lifespan in the atmosphere – is the principal gas of concern to the science community, comprising the majority of global emissions. Since 1970, carbon dioxide emissions have increased by about 90%.

“This rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is just unprecedented,” Knutson says.

The scientific community has also found a “smoking gun” link between human activities and rising carbon dioxide emissions. National Academy of Sciences member and geologist Richard Alley of Penn State University, in a brief video, explains that carbon isotopes show that human emissions are the source.

“It’s us,” Alley concludes.



The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations group charged with analyzing research about climate change, in its 2018 Special Report, confirmed that view, saying that “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

In addition, the report said, human activities are “extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” That carefully chosen “extremely likely” terminology indicates the reviewers’ highest level of scientific confidence in their findings.

For Ocko of the Environmental Defense Fund, these findings are actually somewhat reassuring.

“I’d be a lot more scared if this was completely natural, the sun was growing, the sun was moving closer to the Earth, and we had to resort to crazy, blockbuster movie scenarios to save ourselves,” she said. “Yes, it’s very hard to address, but at least we know how to do it. It’s a good thing that we know it’s humans, because that means we know how to fix it.”

Links

• Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming
• Climate Change Evidence and Causes
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• What’s the difference between weather and climate?
• How NASA satellites help scientists understand climate change
• A leading scientist's transition from climate science to solutions
• Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe's 'Global Weirding' videos
• 'Why have carbon dioxide levels risen and fallen in the past?'

'For Your Children': Former Top Australian Public Servants Call For Carbon Price

The Guardian - Adam Morton

Ex-Treasury head Ken Henry tells Four Corners he looks back on a decade of failed climate policy and feels ‘gutted’

Several former public servants have expressed their frustration over Australia’s climate policy. Photograph: Darren England/AAP

Former senior public servants have called for the re-introduction of a carbon price, saying it would be the least economically damaging way to cut greenhouse gas emissions and could deliver the technological solutions the Morrison government says are needed.

In interviews on ABC TV’s Four Corners on Monday, several ex-top advisors expressed frustration and in some cases anger about the country’s failure to introduce durable policies to address climate change.

Ken Henry, the Treasury secretary between 2001 and 2011, said the question the government should be asking itself on climate was how to put a cap, or limit, on national emissions at least cost to the country.

“The answer to that question – and everybody will tell this – is an emissions trading scheme,” he said.

Martin Parkinson, a former secretary of Treasury and the now defunct climate change department, said it was incorrect to categorise carbon pricing as being “about taxing people”.

“The carbon price is actually about creating the right sort of incentives to develop the technology and then use it,” he said.

On national climate policy, Parkinson said: “What climate policy? I mean it’s basically … it’s a mess. It’s incoherent and has been for a decade.”

Peter Shergold, the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in the final years of the Howard government, was asked what he would say to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, if he held that position now.

He said he would tell him: “My sense, prime minister, is that there is a mood to follow such leadership if it exists. Tell it honestly, and tell it truthfully, and don’t try and pretend there are not going to be costs imposed on industry and costs imposed on individuals, but it is worth that for the sake of your children and your grandchildren.”

The former bureaucrats made the comments while reflecting on the bipartisan support for carbon pricing between 2007 and 2009. Their shared position is consistent with advice given to governments since before that period.

ABC Four Corners: Climate Wars
How brutal politics derailed climate policy in Australia. Several former senior public servants speak about flawed decision making and squandered opportunities by parties on all sides of the political spectrum over a decade.

The Morrison government has rejected calls for fossil fuel industries to have to pay for their emissions. Its central climate policy, the $2.5bn emissions reduction fund, uses taxpayer money to pay some businesses and landowners to limit carbon pollution, often by restoring and protecting native habitat.

Angus Taylor, the energy and emissions reduction minister, told Four Corners the answer to reducing emissions was to use incentives and focus on “technology, not taxes”. The government has promised a “technology investment roadmap” this year.

“Ultimately, reductions in emissions will happen when technologies that work, that are at parity with their higher-emitting alternatives, where rational people choose them because they’re good choices,” Taylor said.

“That’s how we’ll bring down emissions globally, and Australia is absolutely committed not just to using those technologies within Australia, but playing a role in areas like hydrogen, integration of household solar, land management, to help other countries to reduce their emissions in that longer term timeframe as well.”

Henry said the past decade of climate politics had left him in no doubt that “we have failed”.

“I look back on it now and I still feel gutted,” he said. “I feel angry. I know that’s not a good thing, and I probably should get therapy, but I’ve asked myself this question many, many times: why do I still feel angry about it? And the reason I feel angry about it is that I feel angry about what Australia has lost.”

There is a growing push internationally for governments and business to back a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 120 countries and Australia’s six states have set a goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The Morrison government has not set this target, and has emphasised that gas, a fossil fuel, will be central to its economic recovery plans. It has also promised a long-term emissions strategy this year.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was commissioned at the 2015 Paris climate summit to report on what would be involved in limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. It found it was likely it could be achieved by cutting global emissions 45% between 2010 and 2030 and reaching net zero by about 2050.

Until this year, Australia’s emissions had largely flatlined since 2014, when the Coalition repealed the emissions trading scheme introduced by Labor with the support of the Greens and independents. Though often mis-described as a carbon tax, it was designed to become a trading scheme after three initial years of a fixed carbon price imposed on emitting businesses.

Both Australian and global emissions have fallen this year due to the economic shutdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but analysts say they are expected to rebound unless recovery plans incorporate policies to address climate change.

Links

• Seizing the moment: how Australia can build a green economy from the Covid-19 wreckage
• Australia's Reserve Bank fuels call for post-pandemic renewables push
• Australian businesses call for climate crisis and virus economic recovery to be tackled together
• Labor's climate change policy explained: here's what we know
• Woodside Petroleum joins BHP and Rio Tinto to call for carbon price
• Coalition could indemnify new coal projects against potential carbon price
• Australians could save $100bn on electricity 'if government had clear policy'
• Pressure mounts on Finkel energy review to consider price on carbon
• Australia must put a price on carbon, say institutional investors
• South Australia says states could go it alone after Turnbull rules out carbon tax
• The government can reduce emissions without reinstating a carbon tax – this is how

Humans Coexisted With Three-Tonne Marsupials And Lizards As Long As Cars In Ancient Australia

The Conversation - Scott Hocknull | Anthony Dosseto | Gilbert Price
                                  Lee Arnold | Patrick Moss | Renaud Joannes-Boyau

We now know people and megafauna overlapped by up to 20,000 years, until changes to vegetation, water and fire

Life and death in tropical Australia, 40,000 years ago. Giant reptiles ruled northern Australia during the Pleistocene with mega-marsupials as their prey. Image Credit: R. Bargiel, V. Konstantinov, A. Atuchin & S. Hocknull (2020). Queensland Museum.

Authors Scott Hocknull is senior curator of geosciences at the Queensland Museum, and an honorary research fellow at the University of Melbourne Anthony Dosseto is a professor at the University of Wollongong Gilbert Price is a lecturer in palaeontology at the University of Queensland Lee Arnold is associate professor in earth sciences at the University of Adelaide Patrick Moss is a professor at the University of Queensland Renaud Joannes-Boyau is a senior research fellow at Southern Cross University

When people first arrived in what is now Queensland, they would have found the land inhabited by massive animals including goannas six metres long and kangaroos twice as tall as a human.

We have studied fossil bones of these animals for the past decade.

Our findings, published today in Nature Communications, shed new light on the mystery of what drove these ancient megafauna to extinction.

The first bones were found by the Barada Barna people during cultural heritage surveys on their traditional lands about 100 kilometres west of Mackay, at South Walker Creek Mine.

Our study shares the first reliable glimpse of the giants that roamed the Australian tropics between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago.

These megafauna were the largest land animals to live in Australia since the time of the dinosaurs. Understanding the ecological role they played and the environmental impact of their loss remains their most valuable untold story.

Fossils are found eroding out of the ancient flood plains of South Walker Creek. Rochelle Lawrence, Queensland Museum.

While megafauna lived at South Walker Creek, people had arrived on the continent and were spreading across it. Our study adds new evidence to the ongoing megafauna extinction debate, but importantly underscores how much is left to learn from the fossil record.

The megafauna welcoming party

We excavated fossils from four sites and made detailed studies of the sites themselves to find the age of the fossils and understand what the environment was like in the past.

Our findings give us an idea of what megafaunal life was like in the tropical Australian savanna over a period of about 20,000 years, from around 60,000 to 40,000 years ago. During this time, the northern megafauna were different to those from the south.

Mega-reptiles of Pleistocene tropical Australia. V. Konstantinov, A. Atuchin, R. Allen, S. Hocknull. Queensland Museum.

We have found at least 13 extinct species so far at South Walker Creek, with mega-reptiles as apex predators, and mega-mammals their prey. Many of the species discovered are likely new species or northern variations of their southern counterparts.

Mega-mammals from Pleistocene tropical Australia. V. Konstantinov, A. Atuchin, S. Hocknull. Queensland Museum.

Some, like the extinct crocodiles, were thought to have gone extinct long before people were on the scene. However, we now know they survived in at least one place 60,000-40,000 years ago.

The giant kangaroo of South Walker Creek may be the largest kangaroo ever found. Pictured here next to the previous titleholder, Procoptodon goliah. Scale bar equals 1 m. V. Konstantinov, A. Atuchin, R. Allen, S. Hocknull. Queensland Museum.

Imagine first sighting a six-metre goanna and its Komodo Dragon-sized relative, or bumping into a land-dwelling crocodile and its plate-mail armoured aquatic cousin. The mammals were equally bizarre, including a giant bucktoothed wombat, a strange “bear-sloth” marsupial, and enormous kangaroos and wallabies.

A yet-to-be named giant kangaroo is the largest ever found. With an estimated mass of 274 kg, it beats the previous contender, the goliath short-faced kangaroo, Procoptodon goliah.

The biggest of all the mammals was the three-tonne marsupial Diprotodon, and the deadliest was the pouched predator Thylacoleo. Living alongside these giants were other megafauna species that still survive today: the emu, the red kangaroo and the saltwater crocodile.

Whodunnit? The evidence points to environmental change

Why did these megafauna become extinct? It has been argued that the extinctions were due to over-hunting by humans, and occurred shortly after people arrived in Australia.

However, this theory is not supported by our finding that a diverse collection of these ancient giants still survived 40,000 years ago, after humans had spread around the continent.

Fossil seeds, leaves and insects help palaeontologists reconstruct the megafauna’s environment. Scale bar equals 1 mm. Paul Tierney, Queensland Museum.

LARGE IMAGE

The extinctions of these tropical megafauna occurred sometime after our youngest fossil site formed, around 40,000 years ago. The timeframe of their disappearance coincided with sustained regional changes in available water and vegetation, as well as increased fire frequency. This combination of factors may have proven fatal to the giant land and aquatic species.

The megafauna extinction debate will no doubt continue for years to come. New discoveries will plug up the key gaps in the record. With the gaps in the north of the continent the greatest yet to fill.

With an overlap between people and megafauna of some 15,000–20,000 years, new questions arise about co-habitation. How did people live with these giants during a period of such drastic environmental change?

How much more change can Australia bear?

Major environmental change and extinctions are not an unusual part of our geological past, but this time it’s personal; it involves us. Throughout the Pleistocene (the time that ended with the most recent ice age), Australia has undergone major climatic and environmental change.

Within the same catchment of these new megafauna sites, one study shows how major climatic upheaval beginning around 280,000 years ago caused the disappearance of a diverse rainforest fauna. This set in motion a sequence of changes to the ecosystem that culminated in the loss of the megafauna at South Walker Creek around 40,000 years ago.

It’s still unclear what impact these long-term environmental changes and the loss of the megafauna had on the species that survived.

This long-term trend of extinctions has now been given a kick along by the major changes to the environment created by humans which continue today. In the early 21st century in Australia we have seen increases in floods, droughts and bushfires, and we expect these increases to continue.

The fossil record provides us with a window into our past that can help us understand our present. As our study shows, dramatic environmental change takes a heavy toll on species survival especially for those at the top of the food chain. Will we heed the warnings from the past or suffer the consequences?

Links

• Aboriginal Australians co-existed with the megafauna for at least 17,000 years
• Did people or climate kill off the megafauna? Actually, it was both
• Blood, brains and foul murder: evidence of Australia's massacres is in its newspapers
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Doomsday: By 2300, Global Sea Levels Could Rise by An Astounding 16 Feet

The National Interest - Ethen Kim Lieser

Today, about 770 million people, or about 10 percent of the global population, live on high-risk land that is less than 16 feet above the high-tide line. 

Image: Reuters

International scientists recently warned that if Earth’s surface temperature warms another 6 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, oceans will likely rise as much as four feet by the year 2100.

In a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Climate Atmospheric Science, the world looks even grimmer by 2300, when ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland will have shed trillions of tons of mass. In this catastrophic scenario, sea levels could swell by more than 16 feet, which would redraw the globe’s coastlines.

Benjamin Horton, acting chair of the Nanyang Technical University’s Asian School of the Environment in Singapore, headed the survey that aimed to give “policymakers an overview of the state of the science,” a statement said.

Today, about 770 million people, or about 10 percent of the global population, live on high-risk land that is less than 16 feet above the high-tide line.

Compared to various reports released by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), these new projections for both 2100 and 2300 paint a much more frightening picture about what’s to come.

“It is clear now that previous sea-level rise estimates have been too low,” the study’s co-author Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told AFP.

“The IPCC tends to be very cautious and conservative, which is why it had to correct itself upwards already several times.”

Experts warned that although sea-level rise might not garner the same media attention of punishing hurricanes and crop-destroying droughts, this particular threat might ultimately prove to be the most devastating of all climate-change effects. Only a couple of extra inches of ocean water could make tropical storms and hurricanes that much more lethal and destructive.

Scientists noted that for much of the 20^th century, sea-level rise was caused chiefly by melting glaciers and the expansion of ocean water as it warms. Over the last two decades, however, the main culprit has been the melting of Greenland and West Antarctica.

These two massive ice sheets are losing at least six times more ice today than during the 1990s. From 1992 through 2017, these two bodies shed roughly 6.5 trillion tons of mass.

Combined, Greenland and West Antarctica hold enough ice to lift oceans by about 43 feet. The much more stable East Antarctica has enough ice to potentially have a 160-foot impact.

Links

• (AU) Erosion From Surging Seas Threatens Roads, Homes And Beaches
• Climate Crisis: Sea Level ‘On Course To Rise By One Metre By 2100’ If Global Emissions Targets Are Missed
• Satellites Show Melting Ice Sheets In Antarctica And Greenland Have Contributed To 14 mm Sea Level Rise In 16 Years
• ’A Life Too Often Lived Underwater’: How Tidal Flooding Is Wreaking Havoc In Bangladesh
• (US) Climate Change Turns The Tide On Waterfront Living
• Greenland's Melting Ice Raised Global Sea Level By 2.2mm In Two Months
• (AU) Thousands Of Kilometres Of Australia's Beaches At Risk From Rising Seas

(AU) Erosion From Surging Seas Threatens Roads, Homes And Beaches

Sydney Morning Herald - Royce Millar | Benjamin Preiss | Miki Perkins

Surging seas have battered beaches and rattled communities along Victoria’s 2500 kilometre coastline since Easter, raising confronting questions about how to respond to rising oceans and rapid erosion.

High tides, big swells and storms have combined to pummel dunes and roads as anxious communities face the reality that homes and businesses may soon be at risk.

Coastal erosion in Inverloch, Victoria, is threatening businesses and homes.

At erosion hotspots like Inverloch, 150 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, and Apollo Bay 200 kilometres to the south-west, emergency defences including sand walls and fences have been swept away as debate intensifies over whether to defend assets or retreat to higher ground.

Despite the state’s ‘stay at home’ rules, imposed due to the coronaviruFs pandemic, anxious locals have gathered in numbers at beaches around Inverloch to watch waves tear at sand dunes, trees, roads and piers.

The main focus of concern is the low-lying road east toward Cape Paterson which has twice been closed as waves crashed onto bitumen and the sea-change dreams of nearby residents.

Last week traffic faced long delays as the government trucked in 7000 tonnes of boulders in a desperate bid to fortify the threatened stretch of road before winter. The new works came just weeks after an emergency 500-tonne rock wall was undermined by erosion.

A rock wall being built to try and halt erosion at the beach in Inverloch. Credit:Royce Millar

Locals are also anxious about the Inverloch surf life saving club which is under threat since erosion pushed the shoreline back 60 metres over the past eight years.

The latest defence for the surf club is a 70-metre emergency wall of ‘geotextile’ sandbags. While the bags are supposed to last up to 10 years, some have already been damaged by the relentless thrashing by waves and debris.

So dramatic is the erosion that the local conservation society has warned that the remaining sand dunes along the surf beach could be lost within 18 months, further exposing the coast road and nearby housing, and highlighting the much bigger challenge of sea level rise.

In September the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that inaction on climate change would likely result in sea level rise of 1.1 metres by 2100 – up from the 2013 projection of more than 90 centimetres. Without action, the seas will be five metres higher by 2300.

While the IPCC says cutting emissions is the number one priority for dealing with rising sea levels, some change is already locked in. How we adapt is an increasingly urgent question.

As anxiety grows at Inverloch, so too has pressure for a massive rock wall along the entire length of the surf beach.

Experts query the wisdom of such walls, pointing out that they are incompatible with wide sandy beaches, and that erosion is made worse at either end.

Local environmentalists say the long-term solution is to tackle climate change. Meanwhile, a retreat to higher ground may be necessary.

Aileen Vening is a retired geography teacher who has spent almost a decade studying the causes and impacts of erosion along the Bass Coast. She is calling on her own community, and governments, to recognise that the dramatic erosion at Inverloch is not just a local phenomenon.

“We’ve got these issues everywhere on the coast. They’re not going to go away because we built a few rock walls here and there.”

Erosion at Inverloch is now threatening the coast road and nearby homes

While erosion at Inverloch is part of the natural cycle of shifting sand at the mouth of the Anderson Inlet, Bass Coast Shire has no doubt the extent of change is due in part to climate change and rising seas.

It is one of more than 30 Victorian councils to have declared a climate emergency since 2016.

“My view is that sea level is definitely rising, the climate is changing and the seasons are shifting,” said mayor Brett Tessari. “We have to do what we can to reverse some of the damage we’ve created.”

He acknowledges the “cries” from the community for a wall along the length of the sandy surf beach at Inverloch. But he is also aware that a rock wall would likely result in the disappearance of Inverloch surf beach.

The state government is now working on a longer-term solution for Inverloch through a local hazard assessment study in partnership with the council and community.

Decisions about defending or retreating, walls or beaches, are also especially topical at Apollo Bay which, like Inverloch, has been battered by angry seas since early April.

As The Age revealed in 2019, experts have proposed the inland re-routing of the heritage-listed Great Ocean Road at Apollo Bay amid warnings that it is at risk of being washed away in the next few years.

The government has resisted the re-routing push and has instead focused on building sea walls and other defences and supports.

Local surfer Peter Filmore said short-term government responses had failed to address the long-term reality of rising sea levels.

“Seventeen reports have been completed in the last 30 years on sand movements around Apollo Bay but no long-term planning is in place yet,” said Mr Filmore, also a member of the local Otway Forum.

He said governments were not being realistic about erosion, pointing to Colac Otway Shire’s plan for a $5 million coastal walking track from Apollo Bay to Skenes Creek – a track, he said, that was almost certain to be washed away.

Environmental lobby Friends of the Earth has worked closely with community groups along the Victorian coast.

Climate spokesman Leigh Ewbank said people were connecting the dots between burning fossil fuels, climate change and local impacts. “They say governments need to do more to tackle the climate crisis, it can’t just be Band-Aid fixes of dumping more rock and moving sand around.”

Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the government was assessing the erosion caused by recent “unexpected storm activity”.

She said coastal managers would install more warning signs and close sections of the foreshore as required.

Ms D’Ambrosio said the Victorian government had spent $60 million on a range of coastal and marine projects, including sand renourishment and reinforcement.

“Our precious coastline is facing significant climate challenges and we’re working hard to address this in the short and long term,” she said.

Links

• This Victorian surf club is under threat as climate change eats away at the coast
• Hotter oceans, wilder weather, less ice: the IPCC upgrades projections to catastrophic
• Andrews government rules out re-routing Great Ocean Road at risk of erosion
• Climate Crisis: Sea Level ‘On Course To Rise By One Metre By 2100’ If Global Emissions Targets Are Missed
• Satellites Show Melting Ice Sheets In Antarctica And Greenland Have Contributed To 14 mm Sea Level Rise In 16 Years
• ’A Life Too Often Lived Underwater’: How Tidal Flooding Is Wreaking Havoc In Bangladesh
• (US) Climate Change Turns The Tide On Waterfront Living
• Greenland's Melting Ice Raised Global Sea Level By 2.2mm In Two Months
• (AU) Thousands Of Kilometres Of Australia's Beaches At Risk From Rising Seas
• While the world looked the other way, corporate giants abandoned coal
• Australia's climate future to evolve as economy is rebuilt