A Biden Victory Positions America For A 180-Degree Turn On Climate Change

The Washington Post - Juliet Eilperin | Dino Grandoni | Darryl Fears

New administration will seek to shift U.S. off fossil fuels and expand public lands protections, but face serious opposition from Senate GOP.

Former vice president Joe Biden exits his car for a flight at the New Castle Airport in New Castle, Del., on Sept. 21. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

Joe Biden, the projected winner of the presidency, will move to restore dozens of environmental safeguards President Trump abolished and launch the boldest climate change plan of any president in history. While some of Biden’s most sweeping programs will encounter stiff resistance from Senate Republicans and conservative attorneys general, the United States is poised to make a 180-degree turn on climate change and conservation policy.

Biden’s team already has plans on how it will restrict oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters; ratchet up federal mileage standards for cars and SUVs; block pipelines that transport fossil fuels across the country; provide federal incentives to develop renewable power; and mobilize other nations to make deeper cuts in their own carbon emissions.

“Joe Biden ran on climate. How great is this?” said Gina McCarthy, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency during President Barack Obama’s second term and now helms the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’ll be time for the White House to finally get back to leading the charge against the central environmental crisis of our time.”

Biden has vowed to eliminate carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2035 and spend $2 trillion on investments ranging from weatherizing homes to developing a nationwide network of charging stations for electric vehicles. That massive investment plan stands a chance only if his party wins two Senate runoff races in Georgia in January; otherwise, he would have to rely on a combination of executive actions and more-modest congressional deals to advance his agenda.

Still, a number of factors make it easier to enact more-ambitious climate policies than even four years ago. Roughly 10 percent of the globe has warmed by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature rise the world has pledged to avoid. The price of solar and wind power has dropped, the coal industry has shrunk, and Americans increasingly connect the disasters they’re experiencing in real time — including more-intense wildfires, hurricanes and droughts — with global warming. Biden has made the argument that curbing carbon will produce high-paying jobs while protecting the planet.

Biden’s advisers are well aware of the potential and pitfalls of relying on executive authority to act on climate. Obama used it to advance major climate policies in his second term, including limits on tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks and the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Trump has overturned them, along with 125 others.

League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski pointed to California — which has already adopted a low-carbon fuels standard and requirement that half its electricity come from carbon-free sources within five years — as a model. “You look at where California is now going, the federal government needs to get there."

Some of the new administration’s rules could be challenged in federal court, which have a number of Trump appointees on the bench. But even some conservative activists said that Biden could enact enduring policies, whether by partnering with Congress or through regulation.

Myron Ebell, who directs the Center for Energy and the Environment at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, said that if Biden faces a GOP-controlled Senate, “it means that all of the nuttiest and most radical ideas on the left are dead on arrival in the Congress. And that means he is much more likely to be successful because he can just tell his left-wing supporters, ‘Hey, we just can’t do this.’ ”

McKie Campbell, managing partner of the bipartisan energy consulting firm BlueWater Strategies and a former top aide to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), said he hopes divided government “means we may have a return of people working with each other to work out some solutions. The question is, in the middle, do you have compromise, or do you have stalemate, and nothing happens.”

An oil pipeline stretches across the landscape outside Prudhoe Bay in North Slope Borough, Alaska. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

The new administration may be able to broker compromises with key industries that have experienced regulatory whiplash in the past decade, including the auto industry and power sector, while offering tax breaks for renewable energy that remain popular with both parties. And Biden can rebuild diplomatic alliances that will spur foreign countries to pursue more-ambitious carbon reductions.

Some activists are pressing for the creation of a White House interagency group, similar to the National Security Council and National Economic Council, that could steer decisions across the federal government. Even without such a body, Biden’s advisers have said that they plan to elevate climate change as a priority in departments that have not always treated it as one, including the Transportation, State and Treasury departments. It will influence key appointments, affecting everything from overseas banking and military bases to domestic roads and farms.

“It’s really important to remember that personnel is policy,” said Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmentalist who ran against Biden during the primary but who then raised money for him. “And every Cabinet position has to be staffed by somebody who has an awareness about climate.”

Mustafa Santiago Ali, vice president of environmental justice, climate, and community revitalization at the National Wildlife Federation, said these policies will also be shaped by how they affect communities of color.

“When we talk about new jobs being created in the renewable energy sector, just because they’re being created doesn’t mean they are going to the communities that have been ignored in the past,” said Ali, who left his post at the EPA early in Trump’s term. “This administration is going to have a diverse set of voices on the outside and inside who are connected to what’s going on on the ground. We can’t just have voices from people who went to Ivy League schools that come from a place of privilege.”

Biden’s campaign has been eyeing a range of candidates for top environmental posts, including two New Mexico Democrats — retiring senator Tom Udall and Rep. Deb Haaland — for interior secretary. Mary Nichols, who has implemented many of the nation’s most liberal climate policies for more than a dozen years as chair of the California Air Resources Board — is a leading contender to head the EPA.

Retiring senator Tom Udall is said to be on Biden's shortlist for the interior secretary position. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

It is unclear who might coordinate climate policy at the White House. Possible contenders include several Obama administration veterans, including Ali Zaidi, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s (D) top climate adviser; Biden’s former national security adviser Jake Sullivan; and Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo, a former deputy national security adviser and deputy director of the National Economic Council. While former secretary of state John F. Kerry may get involved with climate policy, according to two individuals familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, it is less likely that he will join the White House staff and could seek a different spot in the Cabinet.

Biden’s vow to reinvigorate climate diplomacy, including rejoining the Paris accord, is one of the easiest ones to fulfill. He could also capitalize on Republican senators’ support for slashing the use of hydrofluorcarbons, chemicals widely used in air conditioners and refrigeration that are warming the planet and that are supposed to be phased out under a separate international climate agreement.

“Joe Biden’s win ratifies what’s been clear all along: despite Trump’s best efforts, the American people have remained committed to the Paris Agreement. Business, investors, cities, and states redoubled their efforts to solve the climate crisis, proving that the path to a sustainable economy is inevitable,” said former vice president Al Gore in a statement Saturday.

While Biden has said he would “transition” away from using oil, and target fossil fuel subsidies, steps like that would be much harder under a Republican-controlled Senate. Unless Democrats take over, the seats of two senators from coal states — John Barrasso (Wyo.) and Shelley Moore Capito (WVa.) — are slated to helm the Energy and Natural Resources and Environment and Public Works Committee, respectively. Those committees also have say over whom Biden puts in top-level positions at the EPA and other agencies.

Democrats are eager to take sweeping acts to conserve public lands and waters, many of which have been opened up to drilling, logging and fishing under Trump. He’s vowed to block permits for the Keystone XL pipeline and the proposed Pebble Mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay, and protect vast swaths of the landscape that Trump has opened up to mining and logging.

He is also likely to soon restore the original boundaries of national monuments Trump has shrunk, including Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, and he’s already signed onto a pledge to protect 30 percent of America’s land and waters by 2030.

Landscape south of Colt Mesa in Garfield County, Utah. The area is part of the Circle Cliffs region that was removed from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by the Trump administration and is now open to development. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

Udall said in a recent interview that Biden is poised to sign an executive order on the “30 by 30” pledge early on and that it will serve as “an organizing principle” for environmental policy decisions. “We don’t have any other options when it comes to facing down the climate crisis, and the nature crisis."

But some of Biden’s most ambitious environmental pledges will be difficult to fulfill. His climate plan calls for “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters,” something no administration has ever done on a permanent basis.

And Republican attorneys general like West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey are ready for battle. In an interview Thursday, Morrisey — who successfully challenged Obama’s Clean Power Plan — said before the race was called for Biden that he backs the president and sees “a pathway” for him to win reelection.

But, he added, “If Biden were to somehow prevail, we would fight to prevent the administration from advancing the same kind of unlawful approaches they pursued under the Obama administration.”

Biden’s pledge to achieve a carbon-free U.S. power sector within 15 years would mean the closing or revamping of nearly every coal- and gas-fired power plant around the country, and the construction of an unprecedented number of new wind turbines and solar farms. On top of that, engineers still need to devise a better way of storing energy when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing.

“If I were advising Biden on energy, my first three priorities would be storage, storage and storage,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who worked in the alternative energy businesses before running for office.

Industry representatives are more wary of a Biden presidency but hold out hope they can persuade him that the commodities they produce are necessary for a healthy economy.

Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Spigelmyer, whose Pittsburgh-based group represents companies that drill horizontally for natural gas, said that their product helps warm homes, produce steel for windmills and solar panels, and make plastics that businesses need. “We wrap ourselves in plastic every time we get in a car or a bus or a plane."

Still, climate activists who pushed Biden during the campaign don’t intend to let up on the pressure. “We’re seeing that Joe Biden has a climate mandate,” said Varshini Prakash, head of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, “and we expect him to do everything in his power to act on climate change.”

Links

• Trump's declared war on his own government, including its scientists
• President Trump has rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. Here's how
• Australia warned it could be isolated over climate inaction after Joe Biden victory
• Australia will not be invisible to Joe Biden, especially when it comes to China and climate change
• Australia the outlier in Biden's brave new zero-emissions world
• Joe Biden win will put pressure on Scott Morrison over climate change
• Biden to change US tune on climate, China
• Australian govt will feel the heat when a Biden administration rejoins the Paris climate agreement
• Trump-picked head of energy panel says he was ‘demoted for my independence’ on climate change
• How Joe Biden’s surprisingly ambitious climate plan came together
• Biden calls for 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. Here’s how far we have to go.

Australia Warned It Could Be Isolated Over Climate Inaction After Joe Biden Victory

The Guardian - Adam Morton

Experts say they believe the US president-elect will exert significant pressure on Australia to lift its climate commitments

Australia faces increasing pressure to act on climate change as US president-elect Joe Biden says he would ‘use every tool of American foreign policy to push the rest of the world’ to combat the problem. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Australia risks becoming an isolated laggard in addressing the climate crisis, without obvious allies to shelter it from rising international pressure to act, as the US takes a leadership role under Joe Biden, experts say.

The president-elect has declared addressing climate change “the No 1 issue facing humanity” and promised $2tn in climate spending and policies to put the US on a path to 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net zero emissions no later than 2050.

Biden last week promised to rejoin the Paris agreement, which due to a quirk of timing the US officially left on the day after the election, on his first day in office and has said he would “use every tool of American foreign policy to push the rest of the world” to increase their ambition to combat the problem.

With the Democrats in the White House, every member of the G7 and the European Union will be committed to net zero emissions by 2050. China – comfortably the world’s biggest annual emitter – says it will be carbon neutral before 2060. The Morrison government has resisted setting a specific long-term emissions goal, saying it would reach net zero “in the second half of the century”.

Howard Bamsey, Australia’s former special envoy on climate change, said Biden’s win demonstrated “even more clearly that the world is indeed changing” in its response to the issue. Japan and South Korea – the world’s fifth and seventh-biggest emitters respectively and, with China, the biggest markets for Australia’s fossil fuel exports – last week set carbon neutrality targets for 2050.

Bamsey said Biden’s election would likely affect climate action in two ways – by increasing the confidence of major investors to back clean solutions as it became even clearer the world was moving away from fossil fuels, and by “radically” transforming climate change diplomacy ahead of the major international conference in Glasgow in November 2021.

He said the Morrison government risked being left with no obvious allies on the issue if it continued to stand apart from increasing action and co-operation.

“There’s no cover any longer with this,” Bamsey said. “I think in Joe Biden’s first conversation with Scott Morrison, or the second, climate change will be mentioned. It’s been such an important part of his campaign and he clearly recognises the economic imperative for change.”

Dean Bialek, a former Australian diplomat to the UN now working with the British government in preparing for the Glasgow conference, said much of the world was increasingly seeing climate action as an economic opportunity, rather than a burden.

He said Australia had faced significant pressure to lift its climate commitments at the UN climate conference in Madrid last year, and risked being further isolated as a climate laggard alongside only Brazil, Russia and Saudi Arabia among G20 countries if it stuck to its current position.

“It means that the shadows that Australia has been hiding in are much smaller now, particularly with China, Korea and Japan having moved on net zero in recent weeks,” Bialek said. “It starts to smell like a government that doesn’t care about climate change.”

With most major economies now promising net zero emissions by mid-century, it is expected attention in climate diplomacy will turn to countries increasing their commitments to act over the next decade, a period scientists have advised is crucial if countries are to live up to the commitment under the Paris agreement to “pursue efforts” to limit global heating to 1.5C.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated hitting that mark would require about a 45% cut in global emissions below 2010 levels by 2030. With global action falling far short of that – global emissions rose slightly last year – scientists say the globe is on track for more than 3C of heating, a change they say would have far-reaching and catastrophic consequences.

The Morrison government has a 2030 emissions target of a 26%-28% cut below 2005 levels, having rejected a science-based recommendation by the Climate Change Authority of a reduction of between 45% and 60% over that timeframe. Prior to Covid-19, national emissions had reduced just 2.2% since the Coalition was elected in 2013 and official data released last December suggested Australia would miss its 2030 target unless it used a contentious carbon accounting measure rejected by other countries.

The Coalition has backed a “technology, not taxes” approach to climate change, setting “stretch goals” to reduce the cost of five low-emissions technologies to make them competitive, but the goals are not tied to a timeframe or an emissions reduction trajectory.

Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University, said Biden would be expected to announce a stronger 2030 target (the US’s current short-term goal is a 26%-28% cut by 2025) before the Glasgow summit, as expected under the Paris agreement.

While the Democrats appear only an outside chance to control the Senate – likely to be necessary if it is to pass significant national climate legislation – Jotzo said a Biden administration would be expected to re-strengthen institutions and bring back climate friendly regulations abolished under Donald Trump. 

A taskforce led by former secretary of state John Kerry and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez identified 56 policy steps on climate and energy that would not need Congress support.

Jotzo said he expected the US to exert significant pressure on Australia “to stop being a recalcitrant on this issue”.

“They will find some common ground, maybe a lot, on the tech development side of things,” he said. “But the US will say this is not enough, not nearly enough, and that Australia also needs to move ahead and deploy low-carbon technology and transition from a fossil fuel based economy to a renewables based economy.”

Speaking on the ABC on Saturday, moderate Liberal backbencher Trent Zimmerman said one of the pluses of a Biden presidency would be a re-engagement and increased focus on climate change.

“I actually see opportunities for Australia in that,” he said. “We have said, as Joe Biden has said, that we want to develop a technology roadmap to ensure that we are playing our role in emissions reduction, and I actually see the opportunity for us to be working with the United States on many of those areas.”

He said the government had similar arrangements with Germany and Korea on clean hydrogen. “I think that the closeness of our relationship with the United States means there will be considerable and new economic opportunities as we explore some of the natural strengths that Australia has in areas like renewable energy,” Zimmerman said.

Links

• A Biden Victory Positions America For A 180-Degree Turn On Climate Change
• Net zero: what if Australia misses the moment on climate action?
• A Joe Biden victory could push Scott Morrison – and the world – on climate change
• Scott Morrison refuses to commit to net zero emissions target by 2050 
• Climate Change Authority: Final Report on Australia’s Future Emissions Reduction Targets
• Morrison’s tech roadmap flags more investment in carbon capture and storage
• Trump's declared war on his own government, including its scientists
• President Trump has rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. Here's how
• Australia will not be invisible to Joe Biden, especially when it comes to China and climate change
• Australia the outlier in Biden's brave new zero-emissions world
• Joe Biden win will put pressure on Scott Morrison over climate change
• Biden to change US tune on climate, China
• Australian govt will feel the heat when a Biden administration rejoins the Paris climate agreement
• Trump-picked head of energy panel says he was ‘demoted for my independence’ on climate change
• How Joe Biden’s surprisingly ambitious climate plan came together
• Biden calls for 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. Here’s how far we have to go.

(AU) Reefs At WA's Rowley Shoals Make Surprise Recovery From 'Significant' Coral Bleaching

ABC News - Ben Collins

Scientists inspect healthy coral on the slope of Clerke Reef at the Rowley Shoals. (Supplied: Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions)

Coral Comeback Widespread coral deaths were feared after 60 per cent of coral in areas of the Rowley Shoals bleached in April The latest survey has found much of the bleached coral is recovering The Rowley Shoals are a chain of three coral atolls 300km off Broome, Western Australia

It was a depressing, if expected inevitability when Western Australia's Rowley Shoals showed the first signs of mass coral bleaching earlier this year, but a follow-up survey has found a remarkable recovery looks likely to preserve the reef's near-pristine health — at least for now.

Tom Holmes, the marine monitoring coordinator at the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, said that while his team was still processing the data, it appeared the coral had pulled off an "amazing" return towards health over the past six months.

"We were expecting to see widespread mortality, and we just didn't see it … which is a really amazing thing," Dr Holmes said.

Dr Tom Holmes prepares to dive in the ocean off Western Australia. (Supplied: DBCA)

The survey was a follow-up to one conducted in April that found as much as 60 per cent of corals on some Rowley Shoals reefs had bleached after the most widespread marine heatwave since reliable satellite monitoring began in 1993.

It has long been known that high sea temperatures cause coral bleaching which can kill coral — as seen by the devastation of the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast — but what is less well known is that bleached corals do not die immediately.

"So when a coral bleaches, it's actually just a sign of initial stress," Dr Holmes said.

"Tiny little microscopic algae that live in the coral are expelled by the corals themselves, so the actual coral animal underneath is still alive."

However, corals rely on these microscopic algae as a food source and cannot survive for long without them.

"If that stress continues for a long time and those corals remain white, then it can lead to mortality," Dr Holmes said.

"But there are some cases of bleaching around the world where … that stress hasn't continued for a long time, and the corals have been able to take that algae back in from the water."

Dr Holmes believes that vital time gap between bleaching and dying created a chance for the reefs to recover at the Rowley Shoals, a chain of three coral atolls 300 kilometres off Broome on the edge of Australia's continental shelf.

Coral bleaching observed on the Rowley Shoals' Clerke Reef slope in April 2020. (Supplied: Chris Nutt, DBCA)

Marine heatwave

Last summer, as bushfires raged across Australia's east coast, an unprecedented marine heatwave enveloped the west coast, reaching from South Australia all the way up to the Kimberley in northern Western Australia.

The high seawater temperatures killed crabs, abalone and other molluscs in the south-west, and killed fish and oysters and caused widespread coral bleaching in north-west WA.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science teamed up with WA's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions to survey the effects of the marine heatwave on offshore reefs, including those at the Rowley Shoals.

"It was actually the most significant bleaching event we've ever recorded out there," Dr Holmes said.

"Based on the original images that we were getting back in April, we were really quite worried at the extent of the bleaching."

Divers conduct coral and fish surveys at the Imperieuse Reef, the largest in the Rowley Shoals Marine Park. (ABC Kimberley/Supplied

Natural protection

The devastating effect of mass bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef is well known but many people may not be aware of similar catastrophes that have occurred in remote reefs off WA.

In 2016, scientists documented bleaching of 60-90 per cent of corals at Scott and Seringapatam reefs, about 400 kilometres north-west of Broome.

But something different was occurring in the Rowley Shoals further to the south.

"This is a reef that many of us hold in high esteem and I guess it has a special place in our hearts," Dr Holmes said.

"It's one of the only places in WA, and only one of the places in Australia, where we've had long-term stability in coral cover and to date it's been largely free of widescale bleaching events."

A survey boat floats in one of the coral lagoons of the Rowley Shoals. (Supplied: DBCA)

The ocean currents off north-west Australia seemed to direct the increasingly warm summer currents away from the Rowley Shoals, until April this year.

"This particular event was not predicted and it was a little bit unusual, but what happened was that warmer water moved a little bit further south than we've previously seen it," Dr Holmes said.

But as the change in water currents came at the end of summer, the unusually warm sea temperatures did not bathe the Rowley Shoals for long.

"We had this sudden temperature peak, which is when the bleaching occurred," Dr Holmes said. "But then the water temperatures dropped down fairly quickly."

This likely would have reduced the stress on the coral and enabled it to recover.

Calm before long-term storm

A large school of humphead parrotfish on the slope of Clerke Lagoon. (Supplied: DBCA)

The relief that perhaps only 10 per cent of the coral at the Rowley Shoals has been killed, rather than the feared 60 per cent, is tempered by the knowledge that worse is almost certain to come.

"We feel like we may have dodged a little bit of a bullet in terms of a widespread bleaching event," Dr Holmes said.

"But looking forward, there's a degree of pessimism there I think … it's not great."

James Gilmour, from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, agrees that reefs in the Rowley Shoals appear to have escaped widespread coral mortality this time, but he fears they may not fare as well over the next 10 years.

"With ongoing climate change and ocean warming, we expect repeated bleaching events in the coming decade, and perhaps severe mass bleaching," Dr Gilmour said.

"Climate change will also result in more severe cyclones, and cyclones are the most common disturbance to coral communities at the Rowley Shoals."

Documenting the demise of Australia's once pristine coral reefs is the downside of what might at first look like a dream job for Dr Holmes as he dives at the Rowley Shoals.

"To the tour operators who go out there, to the fishermen who utilise it, to the scientists who study it, it's quite devastating to see it," Dr Holmes said.

"If we don't deal with the climate-change issue and the warming waters, then we're going to have some serious issues here."

Links

• As Australia bakes, a marine heatwave of historic scale is killing sea life along the west coast
• Coral bleaching leaves reefs off WA coast badly damaged
• Big Parts Of The Great Barrier Reef Are Dying
• More Than Half Of Remote Reefs In Coral Sea Marine Park Suffered Extreme Bleaching
• (AU) Great Barrier Reef Found To Be Coral Bleached From North To South For First Time
• Great Barrier Reef Likely To Be Hit With Another Mass Bleaching This Summer, Forecast Shows
• Bleaching Of The Great Barrier Reef Could Happen Every Two Years, Report Finds
• Study Of Reefs Reveals Benefits Of Keeping Global Warming In Check
• 2019 Was A Record Year For Ocean Temperatures, Data Show
• 'Death Blow': Corals, Algae Don't Acclimatise To More Acidic Seas
• Deep-Water Corals Also Bleaching Badly
• Study Of Reefs Reveals Benefits Of Keeping Global Warming In Check
• Coral Reefs ‘Will Be Overwhelmed By Rising Oceans’
• Saving The World’s Coral To Avert A Wipeout Of Irreversible Costs
• Global Warming’s Toll On Coral Reefs: As If They’re ‘Ravaged By War’

Climate Change And Food Demand Could Shrink Species' Habitats By Almost A Quarter By 2100

Phys.org - University of Cambridge

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Mammals, birds and amphibians worldwide have lost on average 18% of their natural habitat range as a result of changes in land use and climate change, a new study has found. In a worst-case scenario this loss could increase to 23% over the next 80 years.

The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed changes in the geographical range of 16,919 species from 1700 to the present day. The data were also used to predict future changes up to the year 2100 under 16 different climate and socio-economic scenarios.

A diverse abundance of species underpins essential ecosystem functions from pest regulation to carbon storage. Species' vulnerability to extinction is strongly impacted by their geographical range size, and devising effective conservation strategies requires a better understanding of how ranges have changed in the past, and how they will change under alternative future scenarios.

"The habitat size of almost all known birds, mammals and amphibians is shrinking, primarily because of land conversion by humans as we continue to expand our agricultural and urban areas," said Dr. Robert Beyer in the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, first author of the report.

Climate change: Most recently, it is the animals in tropical areas who have felt the hardest hit from climate change and human activity. (Image: GETTY)

Some species are more heavily impacted than others. A worrying 16% of species have lost over half their estimated natural historical range, a figure that could rise to 26% by the end of the century.

Species' geographical ranges were found to have recently shrunk most significantly in tropical areas. Until around 50 years ago, most agricultural development was in Europe and North America. Since then, large areas of land have been converted for agriculture in the tropics: clearance of rainforest for oil palm plantations in South East Asia, and for pasture land in South America, for example.

As humans move their activities deeper into the tropics, the effect on species ranges is becoming disproportionately larger because of a greater species richness in these areas, and because the natural ranges of these species are smaller to begin with.

"The tropics are biodiversity hotspots with lots of small-range species. If one hectare of tropical forest is converted to agricultural land, a lot more species lose larger proportions of their home than in places like Europe," said Beyer.

Climate change leading to devastating loss of habitat for wildlife. (Image: GETTY)

The results predict that climate change will have an increasing impact on species' geographical ranges. Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns will alter habitats significantly, for example: other studies have predicted that without climate action, large parts of the Amazon may change from canopy rainforest to a savannah-like mix of woodland and open grassland in the next 100 years.

"Species in the Amazon have adapted to living in a tropical rainforest. If climate change causes this ecosystem to change, many of those species won't be able to survive—or they will at least be pushed into smaller areas of remaining rainforest," said Beyer.

He added: "We found that the higher the carbon emissions, the worse it gets for most species in terms of habitat loss."

Animals are losing habitat at an alarming rate. (Image: GETTY)

The results provide quantitative support for policy measures aiming at limiting the global area of agricultural land—for example by sustainably intensifying food production, encouraging dietary shifts towards eating less meat, and stabilizing population growth.

The conversion of natural vegetation to agricultural and urban land, and the transformation of suitable habitat caused by climate change are major causes of the decline in range sizes, and two of the most important threats to global terrestrial biodiversity.

"Whether these past trends in habitat range losses will reverse, continue, or accelerate will depend on future global carbon emissions and societal choices in the coming years and decades," Professor Andrea Manica in the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, who led the study.

He added: "While our study quantifies the drastic consequences for species' ranges if global land use and climate change are left unchecked, they also demonstrate the tremendous potential of timely and concerted policy action for halting—and indeed partially reversing—previous trends in global range contractions. It all depends on what we do next."

Links

• Due to humans, extinction risk for 1,700 animal species to increase by 2070
• Mediterranean and tropical biodiversity most vulnerable to human pressures
• Interactions between human modified habitat change and climate change shape tropical butterfly biodiversity in Yunnan
• Protected areas help waterbirds adapt to climate change
• Species 'pushed out of the tropics' by climate change
• Climate change may push some species to higher elevations—and out of harm's way
• More plant diversity, less pesticide

Species More Likely To Die Out With Rapid Climate Change

 Phys.org - Steinar Brandslet

Great tits have to adapt to the behaviour of their prey quickly. Otherwise things can go really wrong. Credit: Shutterstock, NTB scanpix

An ever warmer climate could be bad news for species that depend on stable and abundant access to food at certain times of the year.

"If changes happen too fast, species can become extinct," says Emily Simmonds, an associate professor at NTNU's Department of Biology.

She is the first author of an article in Ecology Letters that addresses how great tits can be affected if the supply of larvae changes in the spring.

Spring, plants and larvae arriving earlier

Several bird species depend on the abundance of larvae while their young are small. If the larvae supply peaks earlier in the spring than normal, there may simply be too little food for the hatchlings.

A warming climate can bring about changes like this. An earlier spring causes trees to leaf out earlier, which in turn causes the larvae that feed on the plants to hatch out earlier.

"When the climate changes, the interactions between different species changes too," Simmonds says.

She and a team of researchers at the University of Oxford used population models to calculate the consequences of different climate scenarios. They wanted to see at what point the changes would happen too fast for the great tit to modify its behavior quickly enough to keep up with the larvae.

Several bird species depend on the abundance of larvae while their young are small. Here is the great tit with a woodpecker. Credit: Shutterstock, NTB scanpix

Able to adapt—up to a point

Great tits have genetic variations and varying abilities to adapt to different conditions. This means that they can evolve in tandem with their prey—up to a point.

An earlier larvae hatch can be advantageous for the great tits whose young also hatch earlier in the spring. This advantage can be transferred to the next generation of birds, which can in turn become early birds. And so on.

For this advantage to persist, however, the great tits have to evolve fast enough and be flexible enough to keep up with the genetic variation in their prey.

Keeping up is hard

"If the conditions are such that greenhouse gas emissions are high, great tits won't always be able to keep up with the changes in the larvae supply," says Simmonds.

In the worst case scenario, whole populations of great tits will simply disappear by the year 2100 because they aren't able to procure enough food for their young.

"This could happen even if great tits also modify their behavior more quickly in a rapidly changing environment. The larvae might be changing even faster than the great tits," Simmonds says.

Under conditions where greenhouse gases emissions are high and temperatures rise rapidly, great tits will not always be able to keep up with the changes in the supply of larvae. Credit: Shutterstock, NTB scanpix

Rubber band effect

The researchers found that populations of great tits would be guaranteed to become extinct by the year 2100 if the larvae appeared about 24 days earlier than the current norm in 2020. This also applies to populations that appear to be completely stable now.

"It could be that the apparent stability today is hiding a future collapse," says Simmonds.

The reason is that we might reach a kind of threshold where the great tits aren't keeping up. The rubber band gets stretched too much, you could say.

"The good news is that the populations will be able to survive scenarios with lower or medium warming trends," Simmonds says.

Links

• David Attenborough Leads Call For World To Invest $500 Billion A Year To Protect Nature
• Global Warming Is Driving Polar Bears Toward Extinction, Researchers Say
• While We Fixate On Coronavirus, Earth Is Hurtling Towards A Catastrophe Worse Than The Dinosaur Extinction
• Restoring Farmland Could Drastically Slow Extinctions, Fight Climate Change
• World Failed To Meet A Single Goal To Save Nature: UN Biodiversity Report
• Sir David Attenborough Delivers Stark Warning In BBC Doc 'Extinction: The Facts'
• The World Lost Two-Thirds Of Its Wildlife In 50 Years. We Are To Blame

Green Hydrogen: Could It Be Key To A Carbon-Free Economy?

Yale Environment 360 - Jim Robbins

Green hydrogen, which uses renewable energy to produce hydrogen from water, is taking off around the globe. Its boosters say the fuel could play an important role in decarbonizing hard-to-electrify sectors of the economy, such as long-haul trucking, aviation, and heavy manufacturing.

Green hydrogen can be stored in a liquid form. Wolfgang Kumm/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Saudi Arabia is contructing a futuristic city in the desert on the Red Sea called Neom. The $500 billion city — complete with flying taxis and robotic domestic help — is being built from scratch and will be home to a million people. And what energy product will be used both to power this city and sell to the world? Not oil. The Saudis are going big on something called green hydrogen — a carbon-free fuel made from water by using renewably produced electricity to split hydrogen molecules from oxygen molecules.

This summer, a large U.S. gas company, Air Products & Chemicals, announced that as part of Neom it has been building a green hydrogen plant in Saudi Arabia for the last four years. The plant is powered by 4 gigawatts from wind and solar projects that sprawl across the desert. It claims to be the world’s largest green hydrogen project — and more Saudi plants are on the drawing board.

Green hydrogen? The Saudis aren’t alone in believing it’s the next big thing in the energy future. While the fuel is barely on the radar in the United States, around the world a green hydrogen rush is underway, and many companies, investors, governments, and environmentalists believe it is an energy source that could help end the reign of fossil fuels and slow the world’s warming trajectory.

“It is very promising,” said Rachel Fakhry, an energy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Experts like Fakhry say that while wind and solar energy can provide the electricity to power homes and electric cars, green hydrogen could be an ideal power source for energy-intensive industries like concrete and steel manufacturing, as well as parts of the transportation sector that are more difficult to electrify. “The last 15 percent of the economy is hard to clean up — aviation, shipping, manufacturing, long-distance trucking,” Fakhry said in an interview. “Green hydrogen can do that.”

Germany has allocated the largest share of its clean energy stimulus funds to green hydrogen.

Europe, which has an economy that is saddled with high energy prices and is heavily dependent on Russian natural gas, is embracing green hydrogen by providing funding for construction of electrolysis plants and other hydrogen infrastructure. Germany has allocated the largest share of its clean energy stimulus funds to green hydrogen. “It is the missing part of the puzzle to a fully decarbonized economy,” the European Commission wrote in a July strategy document.

Hydrogen’s potential as a fuel source has been touted for decades, but the technology has never gotten off the ground on a sizeable scale — and with good reason, according to skeptics. They argue that widespread adoption of green hydrogen technologies has faced serious obstacles, most notably that hydrogen fuels need renewable energy to be green, which will require a massive expansion of renewable generation to power the electrolysis plants that split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Green hydrogen is also hard to store and transport without a pipeline. And right now in some places, such as the U.S., hydrogen is a lot more expensive than other fuels such as natural gas.

While it has advantages, says Michael Liebreich, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst in the United Kingdom and a green hydrogen skeptic, “it displays an equally impressive list of disadvantages.”

“It does not occur in nature so it requires energy to separate,” Liebreich wrote in a pair of recent essays for BloombergNEF. “Its storage requires compression to 700 times atmospheric pressure, refrigeration to 253 degrees Celsius… It carries one quarter the energy per unit volume of natural gas… It can embrittle metal; it escapes through the tiniest leaks and yes, it really is explosive.”

In spite of these problems, Liebreich wrote, green hydrogen still “holds a vice-like grip over the imaginations of techno-optimists.”

Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy, making it a CO2-free source of fuel. SGN

Ben Gallagher, an energy analyst at Wood McKenzie who studies green hydrogen, said the fuel is so new that its future remains unclear. “No one has any true idea what is going on here,” he said. “It’s speculation at this point. Right now it’s difficult to view this as the new oil. However, it could make up an important part of the overall fuel mix.”

Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical in the universe. Two atoms of hydrogen paired with an atom of oxygen creates water. Alone, though, hydrogen is an odorless and tasteless gas, and highly combustible. Hydrogen derived from methane — usually from natural gas, but also coal and biomass — was pioneered in World War II by Germany, which has no petroleum deposits. But CO2 is emitted in manufacturing hydrogen from methane and so it’s not climate friendly; hydrogen manufactured this way is known as gray hydrogen.

Green is the new kid on the hydrogen block, and because it’s manufactured with renewable energy, it’s CO2-free. Moreover, using renewable energy to create the fuel can help solve the problem of intermittency that plagues wind and solar power, and so it is essentially efficient storage. When demand for renewables is low, during the spring and fall, excess electricity can be used to power the electrolysis that is needed to split hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Then the hydrogen can be stored or sent down a pipeline.

Such advantages are fueling growing interest in global green hydrogen. Across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, more countries and companies are embracing this high-quality fuel. The U.S. lags behind because other forms of energy, such as natural gas, are much cheaper, but several new projects are getting underway, including a green hydrogen power plant in Utah that will replace two aging coal-fired plants and produce electricity for southern California.

The Middle East, with the world’s cheapest wind and solar power, is angling to be a major player in green hydrogen.

In Japan, a new green hydrogen plant, one of the world’s largest, just opened near Fukishima — an intentionally symbolic location given the plant’s proximity to the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster. It will be used to power fuel cells, both in vehicles and at stationary sites. An energy consortium in Australia just announced plans to build a project called the Asian Renewable Energy Hub near Pilbara that would use 1,600 large wind turbines and 30 square miles of solar panels to run a 23-gigawatt electrolysis factory that would create green hydrogen to send to Singapore.

As Europe intensifies its decarbonization drive, it, too, is betting big on the fuel. The European Union just drafted a strategy for a large-scale green hydrogen expansion, though it hasn’t been officially adopted yet. But in its $550-billion clean energy plan, the EU is including funds for new green hydrogen electrolyzers and transport and storage technology for the fuel. “Large-scale deployment of clean hydrogen at a fast pace is key for the EU to achieve its high climate ambitions,” the European Commission wrote.

The Middle East, which has the world’s cheapest wind and solar power, is angling to be a major player in green hydrogen. “Saudi Arabia has ridiculously low-cost renewable power,” said Thomas Koch Blank, leader of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Breakthrough Technology Program. “The sun is shining pretty reliably every day and the wind is blowing pretty reliably every night. It’s hard to beat.”

BloombergNEF estimates that to generate enough green hydrogen to meet a quarter of the world’s energy needs would take more electricity than the world generates now from all sources and an investment of $11 trillion in production and storage. That’s why the focus for now is on the 15 percent of the economy with energy needs not easily supplied by wind and solar power, such as heavy manufacturing, long-distance trucking, and fuel for cargo ships and aircraft.

The Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R), a green hydrogen facility that can generate as much as 1,200 normal meter cubed (Nm3) of hydrogen per hour, opened in Japan in March. Toshiba ESS

The energy density of green hydrogen is three times that of jet fuel, making it a promising zero-emissions technology for aircraft. But Airbus, the European airplane manufacturer, recently released a statement saying that significant problems need to be overcome, including safely storing hydrogen on aircraft, the lack of a hydrogen infrastructure at airports, and cost. Experts say that new technologies will be needed to solve these problems. Nevertheless, Airbus believes green hydrogen will play an important role in decarbonizing air transport.

“Cost-competitive green hydrogen and cross-industry partnerships will be mandatory to bring zero-emission flying to reality,” said Glen Llewellyn, vice president of Zero Emission Aircraft for Airbus. Hydrogen-powered aircraft could be flying by 2035, he said.

In the U.S., where energy prices are low, green hydrogen costs about three times as much as natural gas, though that price doesn’t factor in the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels. The price of green hydrogen is falling, however. In 10 years, green hydrogen is expected to be comparable in cost to natural gas in the United States.

A major driver of green hydrogen development in the U.S. is California’s aggressive push toward a carbon-neutral future. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, for example, is helping fund the construction of the green hydrogen-fueled power plant in Utah. It’s scheduled to go online in 2025.

A company called SGH2 recently announced it would build a large facility to produce green hydrogen in southern California. Instead of using electrolysis, though, it will use waste gasification, which heats many types of waste to high temperatures that reduce them to their molecular compounds. Those molecules then bind with hydrogen, and SGH2 claims it can make green hydrogen more cheaply than using electrolysis.

California officials see green hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels for diesel vehicles.

California officials also see green hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels for diesel vehicles. The state passed a Low Carbon Fuel Standard in 2009 to promote electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. Last month, a group of heavy-duty vehicle and energy industry officials formed the Western States Hydrogen Alliance to press for rapid deployment of hydrogen fuel cell technology and infrastructure to replace diesel trucks, buses, locomotives, and aircraft.

“Hydrogen fuel cells will power the future of zero-emission mobility in these heavy-duty, hard-to-electrify sectors,” said Roxana Bekemohammadi, executive director of the Western States Hydrogen Alliance. “That fact is indisputable. This new alliance exists to ensure government and industry can work efficiently together to accelerate the coming of this revolution.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $100 million investment to help develop large, affordable electrolyzers and to create new fuel cell technologies for long-haul trucks.

In Australia, the University of New South Wales, in partnership with a global engineering firm, GHD, has created a home-based system called LAVO that uses solar energy to generate and store green hydrogen in home systems. The hydrogen is converted back into electricity as needed.

All these developments, says Blank of the Rocky Mountain Instiute, are “really good news. Green hydrogen has high potential to address many of the things that keep people awake at night because the climate change problem seems unsolvable.”

Links

• (AU) Don’t Rush Into A Hydrogen Economy Until We Know All The Risks To Our Climate
• Why Hydrogen, Why Now? Because Climate, Economy And Finance Say So.
• (AU) Government Offers $300m To Boost Hydrogen Investment Under Clean Energy Financing
• Why The Coal Sector Is So Excited About Australia's Move To 'Clean' Hydrogen
• Hydrogen’s Plunging Price Boosts Role As Climate Solution
• The Age of Megafires: The World Hits a Climate Tipping Point
• How a Climate Corps Could Put Youth to Work in Greening America
• As Waters Warm, Ocean Heatwaves Are Growing More Severe
• Our Burning Planet: Why We Must Learn to Live With Fire
• For Indigenous in the Amazon, a Dual Threat: Big Oil and the Virus
• How Native Tribes Are Taking the Lead on Planning for Climate Change

(AU) Victoria Plans 300mw Tesla Battery To Help Stabilise Grid As Renewables Increase

The Guardian - Adam Morton

New battery near Geelong would be one of the biggest in the world, and is due to come on stream for next summer

The Tesla installation at Hornsdale in South Australia. Victoria’s proposeed new battery near Geelong will be twice the size, at 300 megawatts.

One of the largest lithium-ion batteries in the world is planned for Victoria after the renewable energy company Neoen won a contract to build it near the regional city of Geelong.

If constructed as promised, the battery will have a power capacity of 300 megawatts and a storage capacity of 450 megawatt-hours, making it more than twice the size of the battery at Hornsdale, South Australia, which was the biggest in the world when it began operating in 2017.

Like the Hornsdale facility, the Geelong battery will be built using Tesla equipment. The Victorian energy and climate change minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said it would be installed near Moorabool Terminal Station and would be ready for the 2021-22 summer.

It is expected to store enough energy to run about 500,000 homes for half an hour.

It has been scaled back since it was first flagged in April when it was expected to be 600MW and cost $300m. While among the largest batteries in the world, it is smaller than batteries planned in California and New York.

D’Ambrosio said it would improve the reliability of the power grid as ageing coal-fired power stations became less reliable and the state increased its reliance on wind and solar power. The Andrews government aims to source 40% of the state’s electricity from renewable energy by 2025, and 50% by 2030.

“By securing one of the biggest batteries in the world Victoria is taking a decisive step away from coal-fired power and embracing new technologies that will unlock more renewable energy than ever before,” she said.

She said consumers would pay for the use of the battery through their power bills, but suggested it would lead to a reduction in wholesale energy prices so that Victorians were charged less for electricity.

Independent analysis found that Victorians would receive $2 in benefits for every $1 invested in the battery, she said. Energy consultancy Aurecon found the Hornsdale Power Reserve saved consumers $116m in 2019.

Neoen won the right to build the Victorian battery through a tender run by the Australian Energy Market Operator. Its contract, which runs until 2032, requires the battery to fill the breach if there is an unexpected network outage. It will also provide network services needed to support variable renewable energy, such as fast frequency control. The tender process was initiated by the Victorian government.

The Victorian Greens welcomed the announcement, saying it was part of what it had proposed under its “green new deal” plan. But the acting leader, Ellen Sandell, said the battery should have been publicly owned and the state needed to plan to move away from coal.

“Now the government needs to go one step further and actually admit we need to get off coal in Victoria,” Sandell said.

The conservation group Environment Victoria said it was a “game-changer for Victoria’s transition from old coal-burning power stations to clean energy”.

“This big battery gets us halfway to the storage target we need to prepare for the closure of Yallourn [coal] power station,” the group’s chief executive, Jonathan La Nauze, said.

The state opposition said it was “committed to supporting a considered clean energy transition” but argued the government had not made the case for the project to be at Geelong. The Coalition energy spokesman, Ryan Smith, said it had called in June for a battery to be based further west, at Mortlake near the state’s main renewable energy production zone.

“If it is located at Labor’s proposed site, too much energy from renewables projects will be lost in the transmission to the battery storage,” Smith said.

There are expected to be 80 jobs during construction of the battery, but just six full-time permanent positions once it is built.

The introduction of another large battery into the grid will further chip away at the extent to which it relies on gas-fired power for “dispatchable” generation that can be called on to support variable renewable energy.

Aemo has estimated the national grid is likely to need between six and 19 gigawatts of dispatchable power by 2040 as the system is increasingly dominated by solar and wind. It found renewable energy may at times provide nearly 90% of electricity by 2035, the amount of gas-fired power would fall as pumped hydro and batteries came online and there was no place for new coal-fired generation.

Despite this, the Morrison government says new gas-fired power is essential for the stability of the grid as ageing coal plants close.

The market operator’s chief executive, Audrey Zibelman, said Neoen’s proposal was “a significantly more cost competitive and attractive market response than other recent major battery developments in Australia”.

A portion of the battery’s capacity will be reserved to increase electricity supply over an interconnector cable between Victoria and New South Wales.

Links

• New gas-fired power not needed as renewable energy expands, grid operator says
• Renewables cut Australia's emissions more than Covid, energy analysis finds
• 'Orwellian': Coalition accused of planning to open green bank to fossil fuel investments
• Greens warn Labor not to do clean energy deal that protects coal power
• Jay Weatherill renews warning Labor states could go it alone on energy policy
• What will fill the hole left by coal?
• Victoria demands government let it establish its own renewable energy target
• Almost two-thirds of Australia's coal-fired generation will be out by 2040, Aemo says
• Electricity prices forecast to fall 2.1% in two years due to wind and solar
• ‘Everyone wants employment’: Morwell waits for 'white knight' in divided election