World Has Six Months To Avert Climate Crisis, Says Energy Expert

The Guardian - Fiona Harvey

International Energy Agency chief warns of need to prevent post-lockdown surge in emissions

The cooling tower of a coal-fired power plant in Datteln, Germany. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images

The world has only six months in which to change the course of the climate crisis and prevent a post-lockdown rebound in greenhouse gas emissions that would overwhelm efforts to stave off climate catastrophe, one of the world’s foremost energy experts has warned.

“This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

Governments are planning to spend $9tn (£7.2tn) globally in the next few months on rescuing their economies from the coronavirus crisis, the IEA has calculated. The stimulus packages created this year will determine the shape of the global economy for the next three years, according to Birol, and within that time emissions must start to fall sharply and permanently, or climate targets will be out of reach.

“The next three years will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond,” Birol told the Guardian. “If we do not [take action] we will surely see a rebound in emissions. If emissions rebound, it is very difficult to see how they will be brought down in future. This is why we are urging governments to have sustainable recovery packages.”

Carbon dioxide emissions plunged by a global average of 17% in April, compared with last year, but have since surged again to within about 5% of last year’s levels.

In a report published on Thursday, the IEA – the world’s gold standard for energy analysis - set out the first global blueprint for a green recovery, focusing on reforms to energy generation and consumption. Wind and solar power should be a top focus, the report advised, alongside energy efficiency improvements to buildings and industries, and the modernisation of electricity grids.

Creating jobs must be the priority for countries where millions have been thrown into unemployment by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns. The IEA’s analysis shows that targeting green jobs – such as retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, putting up solar panels and constructing wind farms – is more effective than pouring money into the high-carbon economy.

The sustainable recovery plan could create
nearly 9m new green jobs each year

Guardian graphic. Source: IEA

Sam Fankhauser, executive director of the Grantham Research Institute on climate change at the London School of Economics, who was not involved in the report, said: “Building efficiency ticks all the recovery boxes – shovel-ready, employment intensive, a high economic multiplier, and is absolutely key for zero carbon [as it is] a hard-to-treat sector, and has big social benefits, in the form of lower fuel bills.”

He warned that governments must not try to “preserve existing jobs in formaldehyde” through furlough schemes and other efforts to keep people in employment, but provide retraining and other opportunities for people to “move into the jobs of the future”.

Calls for a green recovery globally have now come from experts, economists, health professionals, educators, climate campaigners and politicians. While some governments are poised to take action – for instance, the EU has pledged to make its European green deal the centrepiece of its recovery – the money spent so far has tended to prop up the high-carbon economy.

At least $33bn has been directed towards airlines, with few or no green strings attached, according to the campaigning group Transport and Environment. According to analyst company Bloomberg New Energy Finance, more than half a trillion dollars worldwide – $509bn – is to be poured into high-carbon industries, with no conditions to ensure they reduce their carbon output.

Only about $12.3bn of the spending announced by late last month was set to go towards low-carbon industries, and a further $18.5bn into high-carbon industries provided they achieve climate targets.

In the first tranches of spending, governments “had an excuse” for failing to funnel money to carbon-cutting industries, said Birol, because they were reacting to a sudden and unexpected crisis. “The first recovery plans were more aimed at creating firewalls round the economy,” he explained.

But governments were still targeting high-carbon investment, Birol warned. He pointed to IEA research showing that by the end of May the amount invested in coal-fired power plants in Asia had accelerated compared with last year. “There are already signs of a rebound [in emissions],” he said.

Climate campaigners called on ministers to heed the IEA report and set out green recovery plans. Jamie Peters, campaigns director at Friends of the Earth, said: “A post-Covid world must be a fair one. It will only be equitable if the government prioritises health, wellbeing and opportunity for all parts of society. As if the case was not compelling enough in a dangerously heating planet, it is even more urgent post-Covid.”

Putting the IEA’s recommendations into action would boost the economy, added Rosie Rogers, head of green recovery at Greenpeace UK. “Government putting money behind sustainable solutions really is an economic no-brainer. It can see us build a recovery that both tackles the climate emergency and improves people’s lives through cleaner air and lower bills.”

Investors were also keen to put private sector money into a green recovery, alongside government stimulus spending, said Stephanie Pfeifer, chief executive of the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change, representing funds and asset managers with $26tn in assets. “The IEA has shown [a green recovery] is not only desirable, but economically astute. Investors are fully committed to playing their part in this process.”

Links

• International Energy Agency: Shaping a secure and sustainable energy future for all
• Leading UK charities urge PM to demand a green Covid-19 recovery
• Is the Covid-19 crisis the catalyst for greening the world's airlines?
• Carmakers accused of trying to use crisis to avert emissions crackdown
• Budget: missed chance to lead on climate crisis
• Trees on commercial UK plantations 'not helping climate crisis'
• Tackling degraded oceans could mitigate climate crisis - report
• Firms ignoring climate crisis will go bankrupt, says Mark Carney
• 'The crisis is already here': young strikers facing climate apartheid

Reversing The Climate Crisis Isn't On You. We Need To Change The Entire System

VICE - Tristan Kennedy

For starters, 71 percent of all global carbon emissions come from just 100 companies.

A controlled surface burn following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in 2010. Photo: US Navy Photo / Alamy Stock Photo

Cast your mind back to the middle of March. This wasn't quite the pre-Covid era – those halcyon days when the only place publishing articles about "curves" and "flattening" was the sidebar of shame – but it still feels like a lifetime ago. By the third week of that month, we all knew that lockdown was coming. We'd seen what was happening in Italy. Yet, somehow, the British government seemed to be incapable of delivering clear instructions.

On Monday the 16th, four days after telling the country that "many more families would lose loved ones", Boris Johnson stood at the podium in Downing Street and announced: "You should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres […] and non-essential contact." He didn't order venues to close. He didn't make guidance legally binding, or introduce any enforcement measures. Instead, he effectively abdicated responsibility, leaving it up to the general public to decide which actions were appropriate. For the next week, until lockdown was finally introduced on the 23rd of March, confusion reigned. The consequences, as we've seen, were catastrophic.

It's far from a perfect analogy, but in many ways that third week of March is where we're currently at with the climate crisis. The British government, and indeed governments around the world, know that this is an emergency (today, one of the world's leading energy experts warned we have just six months to avoid a climate crisis). They're well aware that radical action is needed, and that any delay will be disastrous. But rather than legislate, they prefer to shift the burden of responsibility onto companies (which all too often can't see past their immediate bottom line), and onto us as individuals.

There's a long-held misconception that individual consumer choices can make a significant difference when it comes to tackling climate change. You see it in the many thousands of articles listing ways to cut your carbon footprint. You see it in the campaigns to stop people driving to work, drinking from single-use plastic, or buying clothing from fast fashion brands. These initiatives are usually well-intentioned, and can help kickstart useful conversations. But most climate activists agree that unless they include calls for concrete, legislative change, consumer-focused campaigns make little difference – and may even do more harm than good.

"You hear it all the time on the news, items on how individuals can change their habits," explains Angus Satow, from the campaign group Labour for a Green New Deal, "but that's something we really need to move away from."For starters, 71 percent of all global carbon emissions come from just 100 companies. While these fossil fuel producers continue to pump out pollution unabated, using a refillable coffee cup makes about as much difference as moving a deckchair on the Titanic two centimetres to the left. But focusing on consumer choices doesn't just fail to address the scale of the problem, it misunderstands the nature of the problem completely.

"The way you consume is determined by the free time you have, and the economic system which dictates that," argues Satow. As long as it's quicker to travel by car, more convenient to buy Coke in plastic bottles and cheaper to wear disposable, polyester dresses from Boohoo, people can't really be expected to make positive decisions for the planet.

"We're all living in this toxic system," says Alice Wilby, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. Even when there are good options, taking "individual responsibility is often not a matter of choice, but a matter of privilege". Which is why, in common with most climate groups, XR argues that it's the system itself that needs to change, not just the way individuals operate within it.

Alice is one of the coordinators of XR's fashion action team, working on ways to clean up what’s arguably the most consumerist industry of all. She explains that their aim is never to shame individuals for their purchasing choices, but to stop companies from producing clothes like that in the first place. Unfortunately in fashion – and, indeed, in most industries – "the current capitalist system provides zero incentive for corporations to change", she explains. "So we have to pursue it at a legislative level."

The idea that individuals, not governments, should somehow be responsible for fighting climate change isn't just misguided. It's more pernicious than that. As Canadian writer Martin Lukacs has pointed out, the world's worst polluters have a vested interest in the neoliberal ideology which convinces people "you are responsible for bearing the burden of potential ecological collapse", because as long as the public is talking about individual actions, it's distracted from the real issues.

It's not just climate activists who are convinced by this argument. Fossil fuel companies have quite literally bought into it too. Between 1974 and 2004, ExxonMobil pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into a coordinated, 30-year-long campaign of misinformation, spearheaded by weekly "op-ads" in the New York Times.

Designed as conversation starters, these articles were often crude attempts to muddy the waters around established facts (the "Unsettled Science" advertorial from 2000 is an oft-cited example). But "perhaps the[ir] most insidious narrative", according to Amy Westervelt, a journalist and podcaster who's written extensively on the issue, was "instilling in the American public the idea that solving global warming is up to individuals, not systems. That it's about you driving too much, or eating too much meat, or changing your light bulbs – not any sort of broader systemic change."

This misleading narrative is one fossil fuel companies continue to push to this day. In October, seemingly without irony, BP launched a carbon footprint calculator and invited people to make pledges on reducing their individual emissions.

"It's like a sleight of hand magic trick," says Alice Wilby of XR. "While [individuals] are focused on getting something small scale done, and feeling quite rewarded, the larger polluters go unchecked."

A lot has been written in recent weeks about how it was "everyone doing their bit" that flattened the curve of the coronavirus epidemic. Right-wing commentators have fondly invoked the spirit of Dunkirk (somehow missing the point that the public having to bail out a shambolic retreat is hardly an aspirational example of leadership). But although the extent of the collective endeavour has been impressive, the lockdown was far from spontaneous or self-imposed.

If that disastrous week of dithering in the middle of March taught us anything, it's that you need the government to provide clear guidance if you want the kind of coordinated, society-wide response needed to tackle problems of this scale. Radical changes are perfectly possible. You just need elected leaders to actually lead.

"We've shown what societies can do when they want to," the climate activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot said recently, in a podcast interview about the pandemic. "If [the] government gave us a clear steer and said, 'We've got a climate emergency, we need to do something fast,' we would do it," he argued. "We just need that clear steer."

Links

• World has six months to avert climate crisis, says energy expert
• 7 Instant Ways To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
• Are 100 companies causing 71% of carbon emissions?
• The Carbon Majors Database (pdf)
• Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals
• How Exxon Used the New York Times to Make You Question Climate Science

Three Years And $3 Trillion To Save The World Climate And Economy

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley

For a cost of $US3 trillion ($4.35 trillion) spent over three years from 2021 the world could force greenhouse gas emissions into permanent decline and boost global economic growth by 1.1 per cent a year under a post-pandemic economic plan outlined by the International Energy Agency last night.

"Governments have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reboot their economies and bring a wave of new employment opportunities while accelerating the shift to a more resilient and cleaner energy future," said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA executive director, launching the so-called Sustainable Recovery Plan as part of its flagship World Energy Outlook series.

Dr Fatih Birol. Credit: Sean Davey

The cost would constitute 0.7 per cent of the current world GDP and would include both public and private spending, designed to save or create nine million jobs a year and cut 4.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases – leaving 2019 as the high tide mark for emissions.

The analysis is being released as governments around the world begin the second phase of stimulus spending, designed to rebuild economies rather than simply respond to the unfolding crisis.

"Policymakers are having to make hugely consequential decisions in a very short space of time as they draw up stimulus packages," said Dr Birol. "Our Sustainable Recovery Plan provides them with rigorous analysis and clear advice on how to tackle today's major economic, energy and climate challenges at the same time.

"The plan is not intended to tell governments what they must do. It seeks to show them what they can do."

According to the IEA's analysis, about 3 million jobs have already been lost or are at risk of being lost in the energy sector around the world, with a similar amount lost or at risk in related areas, such as manufacturing and construction.

The largest portion of new jobs created should the plan be adopted would be in retrofitting buildings to improve energy efficiency and in the electricity sector, particularly in investment grids and renewables, the report says.

According to the report investment new clean energy has benefits that extend beyond the environment or the energy sector, because it boosts employment while delivering more affordable and reliable power to the wider economy.

"This in turn helps to support higher employment and activity levels in all parts of the economy," the report says.

It says that enhancing electricity grids, upgrading hydropower facilities, extending the lifetimes of nuclear power plants, and increasing energy efficiency would improve electricity security by lowering the risk of outages, reducing losses and helping integrate larger shares of variable renewables such as wind and solar power.

The report notes that the stimulus packages introduced by governments after the 2009 financial crisis caused greenhouse gas emissions to spike during the recovery, but that since then the cost of clean energy technologies has fallen dramatically – and some emerging technologies like batteries and hydrogen are ready to scale up.

As a result such an emissions rebound could be avoided if governments adopt the right policies.

Dr Birol said that IEA – which in the past has been criticised for its support for fossil fuels – was seeking to support a "grand coalition" of government and business leaders and investors to help tackle climate change through the pandemic response.

Links

• World Energy Outlook Special Report: Sustainable Recovery
• International Energy Agency offers world governments a Sustainable Recovery Plan to boost economic growth, create millions of jobs and put emissions into structural decline
• Electric car sales this year resist Covid-19’s blow to global car market
• The pandemic and a mild winter have delivered a historic shock to the global natural gas market
• Uneven progress on clean energy technologies faces further pressure from the Covid-19 crisis
• Global energy leaders highlight need for greater investment in clean, secure and sustainable electricity systems amid Covid-19 crisis
• Covid-19 is intensifying the urgent need to expand sustainable energy solutions worldwide
• The Covid-19 crisis is causing the biggest fall in global energy investment in history
• In new policy review, IEA commends Austria’s efforts to accelerate its clean energy transition
• The Covid-19 crisis is hurting but not halting global growth in renewable power capacity
• Dan Dorner starts as new Head of the Clean Energy Ministerial Secretariat
• Global energy demand to plunge this year as a result of the biggest shock since the Second World War
• IEA and Denmark host ministerial roundtable discussion on making clean energy a key part of the global economic recovery

(AU) West Australian Dry Spell Worsens With Record Water Deficiency Declaration In Cascade

ABC Esperance - Emma Field | Isabel Moussalli

A water deficiency declaration will ensure adequate water supplies for livestock. (ABC Esperance: Emma Field) 

Key Points Cascade near Esperance has been declared water deficient for the first time Water will be carted to the townsite for animal welfare reasons It marks an unprecedented 12 water deficiency declarations across WA in a year

The West Australian Government will begin carting emergency water supplies to another dry agriculture region in the state's south-east today after it made its 12th water deficiency declaration in a year.

The small town of Cascade, about 100 kilometres north-east of Esperance, was yesterday declared water deficient for the first time in its history.

It means the State Government will cart about 640 kilolitres of water a week to temporary tanks at the Cascade townsite.

This water must only be used for animal welfare and emergency firefighting.

For Cascade farmer, Scott Pickering, it has been the driest period his family has seen for five decades and last year he only recorded 169 millimetres of rain, well under half his average annual rainfall.

He said the declaration decision was "fantastic" for farmers who had been struggling with dry conditions for the past few years.

"We've only got about 25 dams; there's only three that have water in it at the moment," Mr Pickering said.

"So we've been carting water internally for probably 18 months and we've been carting water from the town dam since December."

Scott Pickering is one of the farmers affected by water shortages in Cascade. (ABC Esperance: Emma Field)

'The outlook is very grim'

At Kanga Downs, Cascade farmers Ray and Bonnie Arnold recorded two consecutive years of well-below average rainfall and said recent rain did not produce enough runoff into dams.

"It seems to be if we don't get the summer rain … the outlook is very grim," Mr Arnold said.

"We've got an average of 420 [millimetres], but we haven't had that for three years, and it's really showing in the [crop] yields; we are suffering."

The emergency water is not allowed to be accessed by farmers who need water for crop spraying, something that makes Cascade farmers worried.

The Cascade declaration comes after Salmon Gums received the same declaration in March, and Grass Patch was declared in December, both of which are also in the Shire of Esperance.

Ray Arnold carting water from the Cascade standpipe, before the declaration this week. (ABC Esperance: Emma Field)

WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the unprecedented dry conditions due to climate change had affected water supplies in the area.

"This 12th water deficiency declaration highlights the climatic challenges facing our farmers, who are doing their best to employ sustainable land use strategies to remain viable," she said.

Last week, Gairdner in the Shire of Jerramungup received water deficiency declarations, adding to other declarations in the shires of Ravensthorpe, Lake Grace, Kent, and Dumbleyung.

The WA Government spent more than $2.8 million in the 12 months to June carting water to areas which are classified water deficient.

Links

• 'Enough to dampen the dust — if that': WA farmers face driest conditions in 40 years
• Water deficiency declared on WA's south coast amid animal welfare concerns
• Drought a bigger impact on Australian agriculture than coronavirus, new figures show
• Indigenous groups earn millions in carbon credits to burn country to cut emissions — but only in northern Australia 
• Savanna burns reduce emissions by half a million tonnes
• 'A tinder box': why do we burn the Top End black every year?

(AU) Two Dry Wet Seasons Spark Early Start To NT's Grass Fires, Leaving Experts Worried

ABC News - Laetitia Lemke

Bushfires NT lighting a series of fires for a mitigation burn at Acacia Hills. (ABC News: Laetitia Lemke)

Key Points Bushfires NT says there have been more fires than usual this year It is worried about a bad fire season because of fuel loads in the bush One of the tools for managing fires in northern Australia is under funding threat

In Australia's tropical savannas, property owners are accustomed to the risk of wildfires in the long months of the dry, but one specialist team is warning of an early start to this year's fire season.

Bushfires NT works with firefighters and landowners to help manage the environment to protect lives and property from fire.

One of the greatest challenges is gamba grass, a quick-burning savannah grass introduced in the NT in the 1930s and originally from Africa.

"Over 50 per cent of the fires that I've been to this year would have been impacted by Gamba," Bushfire NT's Fire Management Officer Nathaniel Staniford said.

"It means a faster-moving fire that's more intense [and] a greater spotting potential, which is where embers will fly ahead of the fire front," he said.

"So we are constantly having to be vigilant and look beyond the control lines."

Bushfires NT run mitigation burns in Australia's Top End. (ABC News: Laetitia Lemke)

And it's not just gamba grass changing the risks.

After two record-breaking dry wet seasons in the NT, Mr Staniford said the landscape had received just enough rain to deliver grass and shrub growth, but that flora was now drying much earlier in the season.

"The fuel is curing at a rapid rate, we are already at 90 per cent cured across most of the Top End, so we are very close to reaching a level where we will start seeing fire ban days declared," he said.

Mr Staniford, who is part of the team that helped fight the recent bushfires in the Shoalhaven Region in New South Wales, is now back in the Territory, moving the Bushfires NT into its new purpose-built facility in Rural Darwin's Acacia Hills area.

The team is working to achieve total compliance on firebreaks and encouraging mitigation burns.

"It's really important to have these mitigation burns in place," he said.

The North Australia Fire Information website can show up a fire within an hour of it starting across parts of Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the NT. (ABC News: Laetitia Lemke)

"The firebreaks that people put in might be the 4-metre depth but with a mitigation burn on top of that, it increases the strength of that containment line and gives us more options when we are out fighting a wildfire."

Bushfires NT Chief Fire Control Officer Andrew Turner said the strong message was that the window of opportunity to do that work safely was closing quickly.

"We've had 16 wildfires to date just in the last two weeks predominantly and a number of those have caused some significant damage to properties," Mr Turner said.

"Our fires are every bit as dangerous as those down south.

"Every year, there are many cases of people losing property, losing their livelihood and potentially putting themselves in a great deal of danger."

But as preparations ramp up, one of the key resources used to manage blazes in northern Australia is under threat because of a lack of certainty over funding.

Bushfires NT staff create a fire plan. (ABC News: Hamish Harty)

The North Australia Fire Information (NAFI) website can detect a fire within an hour of it starting.

It covers 5 million square kilometres of land stretching across parts of Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and all of the NT.

Dr Andrew Edwards is a research fellow at the Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research that runs the NAFI website at Charles Darwin University.

Dr Edwards said NAFI could show where fires had burned and when, which he said was vital information for large property owners and Indigenous rangers.

"We've gone from huge figures of fire frequency down to 20 or 25 per cent of what was going on before," Dr Edwards said.

"We're talking about hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions abatement in Northern Australia over the last seven or eight years."

A back-burn underway in the NT. (ABC News: Laetitia Lemke)

"It's world's best practice, there is not another website like it in the world."

"In fact, we are about to export it to Africa and to South America, where they are hoping to implement similar programs in their savannas," Dr Edwards said.

"We are not for profit, we are not out to make squillions of money, we're just out to help a lot of people do really good fire management."

The University said as of this week it may have secured another 12 months of funding from the Federal Government for the NAFI site.

But with a growing focus on fires across Australia and around the world, the University said it hoped more permanent funding could be secured.

Links

• Indigenous groups earn millions in carbon credits to burn country to cut emissions — but only in northern Australia 
• Savanna burns reduce emissions by half a million tonnes
• 'A tinder box': why do we burn the Top End black every year?
• 'Enough to dampen the dust — if that': WA farmers face driest conditions in 40 years
• Water deficiency declared on WA's south coast amid animal welfare concerns
• Drought a bigger impact on Australian agriculture than coronavirus, new figures show

Climate Worst-Case Scenarios May Not Go Far Enough, Cloud Data Shows

The Guardian - Jonathan Watts

Modelling suggests climate is considerably more sensitive to carbon emissions than thought

Experts say the projections have the potential to be ‘incredibly alarming’. Photograph: Alamy

Worst-case global heating scenarios may need to be revised upwards in light of a better understanding of the role of clouds, scientists have said.

Recent modelling data suggests the climate is considerably more sensitive to carbon emissions than previously believed, and experts said the projections had the potential to be “incredibly alarming”, though they stressed further research would be needed to validate the new numbers.

Modelling results from more than 20 institutions are being compiled for the sixth assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is due to be released next year.

Compared with the last assessment in 2014, 25% of them show a sharp upward shift from 3C to 5C in climate sensitivity – the amount of warming projected from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from the preindustrial level of 280 parts per million. This has shocked many veteran observers, because assumptions about climate sensitivity have been relatively unchanged since the 1980s.

“That is a very deep concern,” Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said. “Climate sensitivity is the holy grail of climate science. It is the prime indicator of climate risk. For 40 years, it has been around 3C. Now, we are suddenly starting to see big climate models on the best supercomputers showing things could be worse than we thought.”

He said climate sensitivity above 5C would reduce the scope for human action to reduce the worst impacts of global heating. “We would have no more space for a soft landing of 1.5C [above preindustrial levels]. The best we could aim for is 2C,” he said.

Worst-case projections in excess of 5C have been generated by several of the world’s leading climate research bodies, including the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre and the EU’s Community Earth System Model.

Timothy Palmer, a professor in climate physics at Oxford University and a member of the Met Office’s advisory board, said the high figure initially made scientists nervous. “It was way outside previous estimates. People asked whether there was a bug in the code,” he said. “But it boiled down to relatively small changes in the way clouds are represented in the models.”

The role of clouds is one of the most uncertain areas in climate science because they are hard to measure and, depending on altitude, droplet temperature and other factors, can play either a warming or a cooling role. For decades, this has been the focus of fierce academic disputes.

Previous IPCC reports tended to assume that clouds would have a neutral impact because the warming and cooling feedbacks would cancel each other out. But in the past year and a half, a body of evidence has been growing showing that the net effect will be warming. This is based on finer resolution computer models and advanced cloud microphysics.

“Clouds will determine humanity’s fate – whether climate is an existential threat or an inconvenience that we will learn to live with,” said Palmer. “Most recent models suggest clouds will make matters worse.”

In a recent paper in the journal Nature, Palmer explains how the new Hadley Centre model that produced the 5+C figure on climate sensitivity was tested by assessing its accuracy in forecasting short-term weather. This testing technique had exposed flaws in previous models, but in the latest case, the results reinforced the estimates. “The results are not reassuring – they support the estimates,” he wrote. He is calling for other models to be tested in a similar way.

“It’s really important. The message to the government and public is, you have to take this high climate sensitivity seriously. [We] must get emissions down as quickly as we can,” he said.

The IPCC is expected to include the 5+C climate sensitivity figure in its next report on the range of possible outcomes. Scientists caution that this is a work in progress and that doubts remain because such a high figure does not fit with historical records.

Catherine Senior, head of understanding climate change at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said more studies and more data were needed to fully understand the role of clouds and aerosols.

“This figure has the potential to be incredibly alarming if it is right,” she said. “But as a scientist, my first response is: why has the model done that? We are still in the stage of evaluating the processes driving the different response.”

While acknowledging the continued uncertainty, Rockström said climate models might still be underestimating the problem because they did not fully take into account tipping points in the biosphere.

“The more we learn, the more fragile the Earth system seems to be and the faster we need to move,” he said. “It gives even stronger argument to step out of this Covid-19 crisis and move full speed towards decarbonising the economy.”

Links

• Football pitch-sized area of tropical rainforest lost every six seconds
• UK considers ending financial support for fossil fuels overseas
• Russian mining firm accused of using global heating to avoid blame for oil spill
• Atmospheric CO2 levels rise sharply despite Covid-19 lockdowns
• Count international flights from UK in emissions targets, urges thinktank
• Markets not paying attention to climate crisis, IMF says
• 'The human fingerprint is everywhere': Met Office's alarming warning on climate
• Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow likely to be delayed by a year
• Climate change is turning parts of Antarctica green, say scientists

(AU) The Number Of Climate Deniers In Australia Is More Than Double The Global Average, New Survey Finds

The Conversation - Caroline Fisher | Sora Park

Shutterstock

Authors Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher is Co-author of the Digital News Report: Australia 2020, and Deputy Director of the News and Media Research Centre, and Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Canberra. Dr Sora Park is Lead Author of Digital News Report: Australia 2020, and Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Arts & Design, University of Canberra.

Australian news consumers are far more likely to believe climate change is “not at all” serious compared to news users in other countries. That’s according to new research that surveyed 2,131 Australians about their news consumption in relation to climate change.

The Digital News Report: Australia 2020 was conducted by the University of Canberra at the end of the severe bushfire season during January 17 and February 8, 2020.

It also found the level of climate change concern varies considerably depending on age, gender, education, place of residence, political orientation and the type of news consumed.

Young people are much more concerned than older generations, women are more concerned than men, and city-dwellers think it’s more serious than news consumers in regional and rural Australia.

15% don’t pay attention to climate change news

More than half (58%) of respondents say they consider climate change to be a very or extremely serious problem, 21% consider it somewhat serious, 10% consider it to be not very and 8% not at all serious.

Out of the 40 countries in the survey, Australia’s 8% of “deniers” is more than double the global average of 3%. We’re beaten only by the US (12%) and Sweden (9%).

Percentage of climate change deniers by country
Australia ranks third in the world

Table: The Conversation Source: News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra Get the data

While most Australian news consumers think climate change is an extremely or very serious problem (58%), this is still lower than the global average of 69%. Only ten countries in the survey are less concerned than we are.

Strident critics in commercial media

There’s a strong connection between the brands people use and whether they think climate change is serious.

More than one-third (35%) of people who listen to commercial AM radio (such as 2GB, 2UE, 3AW) or watch Sky News consider climate change to be “not at all” or “not very” serious, followed by Fox News consumers (32%).

This is perhaps not surprising when some of the most strident critics of climate change science can be found on commercial AM radio, Sky and Fox News.

Among online brands, those who have the highest concern about climate change are readers of The Conversation (94%) and The Guardian Australia (93%), which reflects their audiences are more likely left-leaning and younger.

More than half of Australians get their information about climate change from traditional news sources (TV 28%, online 17%, radio 5%, newspapers 4%).

However, 15% of Australians say they don’t pay any attention to news about climate change. This lack of interest is double the global average of 7%. Given climate change impacts everyone, this lack of engagement is troubling and reflects the difficulty in Australia to gain political momentum for action.

The polarised nature of the debate

The data show older generations are much less interested in news about climate change than news in general, and younger people are much more interested in news about climate change than other news.

News consumers in regional Australia are also less likely to pay attention to news about climate change. One fifth (21%) of regional news consumers say they aren’t interested in climate change information compared to only 11% of their city counterparts.

Given this survey was conducted during the bushfire season that hit regional and rural Australia hardest, these findings appear surprising at first glance.

But it’s possible the results simply reflect the ageing nature of regional and rural communities and a tendency toward more conservative politics. The report shows 27% of regional and rural news consumers identify as right-wing compared to 23% of city news consumers.

Perceptions of climate change reporting

How people believe news media performs on providing accurate information about climate change, by political orientation.

Chart: The Conversation Source: News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra Get the data

And the data clearly reflect the polarised nature of the debate around climate change and the connection between political orientation, news brands and concern about the issue. It found right-wing news consumers are more likely to ignore news about climate change than left-wing, and they’re less likely to think reporting of the issue is accurate.

Regardless of political orientation, only 36% of news consumers think climate change reporting is accurate. This indicates low levels of trust in climate change reporting and is in stark contrast with trust in COVID-19 reporting, which was much higher at 53%.

Perceptions of climate change reporting

How people believe news media helps them know what they can do about climate change, by political affiliation.

Chart: The Conversation Source: News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra Get the data

The findings also point to a significant section of the community that simply don’t pay attention to the issue, despite the calamitous bushfires. 

This presents a real challenge to news organisations. They must find ways of telling the climate change story to engage the 15% of people who aren’t interested, but are still feeling its effects.

19% want news confirming their worldview

Other key findings in the Digital News Report: Australia 2020 include:

• the majority of Australian news consumers will miss their local news services if they shut down: 76% would miss their local newspaper, 79% local TV news, 81% local radio news service and 74% would miss local online news offerings
• more than half (54%) of news consumers say they prefer impartial news, but 19% want news that confirms their worldview
• two-thirds (62%) of news consumers say independent journalism is important for society to function properly
• around half (54%) think journalists should report false statements from politicians and about one-quarter don’t
• news consumption and news sharing have increased since 2019, but interest in news has declined
• only 14% continue to pay for online news, but more are subscribing rather than making one-off donations
• TV is still the main source of news for Australians but continues to fall.

The ‘COVID-trust-bump’

In many ways these findings, including those on climate change reporting, reflect wider trends. Our interest in general news has been falling, along with our trust.

This changed suddenly with COVID-19 when we saw a big rise in coverage specifically about the pandemic. Suddenly, the news was relevant to everyone, not just a few.

We suspect that key to the “COVID-trust-bump” was the news media adopting a more constructive approach to reporting on this issue. Much of the sensationalism, conflict and partisanship that drives news – particularly climate change news – was muted and instead important health information from authoritative sources guided the coverage.

This desire for impartial and independent news is reflected in the new report. The challenge is getting people to pay for it.

Links

• Media 'impartiality' on climate change is ethically misguided and downright dangerous
• We want to learn about climate change from weather presenters, not politicians
• Bushfires, bots and arson claims: Australia flung in the global disinformation spotlight
• Digital News Report: Australia 2020
• Digital News Report 2020
• How Much Do People Around The World Care About Climate Change? We Surveyed 80,000 People In 40 Countries To Find Out
• How People Access News about Climate Change
• Climate Change in the American Mind: November 2019
• Public Opinion In A Time Of Climate Emergency (pdf)