(CA) The World's Major Climate Zones — Polar, Temperate And Tropical — Are Transforming As We Watch

CBC Canada - Amanda Buckiewicz, CBC Radio Quirks & Quarks

Several recent studies look at how climate change is redrawing the map

A firefighter watches as a wildfire burns in California. Wildfire intensity has increased in recent years, and researchers believe this is partly due to the dry, arid edges of the tropics stretching more towards the poles. (RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images)

Beyond the receding glaciers and disappearing coastlines, several recent studies have taken a big picture view of how climate change is affecting the globe's major climate zones and has brought about alarming transformations.

Climate zones — like tropical, temperate or polar — represent more than just temperature; they represent water resources, vegetation, animal life and even where and how humans can live.

"Often in our community, we say climate is what you expect and weather is what you get. And in this case, it's almost like we don't really know what to expect anymore," climate researcher Laura Landrum told Quirks & Quarks producer Amanda Buckiewicz.

Climate Zones Audio 17:34

Over the years, scientists have painted a stark picture of how climate change is altering the world's biomes in a fundamental way. A global 2018 study published in the journal Science showed that every ecosystem on Earth could face a dramatic shift if climate change continues unabated. Now scientists are reporting those shifts are beginning to happen — and showing how much worse it could get if it goes unchecked.

The Arctic is transitioning to a new climate

A recent study published in the journal Nature says that the Arctic is beginning to shift into a new climate regime.

"The Arctic climate is changing very rapidly and extremely, so it's in a different climate, meaning that the statistics of it now are very different than they were in the 20th century," said Landrum, the lead author of the paper.

A guide walks along a winding channel carved by rushing water on the surface of the melting Longyearbreen glacier during a summer heat wave in Norway. A recent study shows that the Arctic is shifting into a new climate zone. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Using decades of observations in the Arctic, combined with models and computer simulations, Landrum was able to statistically define the boundaries of a supposedly "normal" Arctic climate. And this showed that current conditions are well beyond normal.

They looked at indicators like sea ice cover, surface temperature and days of rain, and found that the year-to-year fluctuations have now moved completely outside the bounds of natural variability. 

The researchers then projected the trajectory of these shifts out to the year 2100. They found that a new, largely unrecognizable Arctic will have emerged by then. It will be completely ice-free for three to four months of the year; fall and winter temperatures could be 16 C to 28 C warmer than they are now; and the rainy season would be extended by two to four months each year.

A climate regime like this has never seen before in human evolutionary history. 

"It usually takes thousands of years to make these changes, and it certainly has not warmed up on a planetary scale over the last several thousand years, as warm as we're seeing now," said Landrum.

The Tropics are expanding

Another study looked at how the Earth's tropics are expanding — and found that the ocean is to blame.

The tropics wrap around the globe closest to the equator and get the most direct sunlight throughout the year. The interior of the tropics is hot and lush, and home to the world's rainforests. However, the edges of the tropics — the subtropical region — is hot and dry, and is where many of the world's deserts can be found.

A 2006 study in the journal Science found that the tropics were expanding toward the poles, causing those dry, arid regions to spread. This has caused the paths of tropical storms to shift, and led to more severe droughts — and seasonal wildfires — around the Mediterranean and in California and Australia.

The remains of houses can be seen after a wildfire in California. (SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images)

"Under an expanding tropic, the Sahara-like, desert-like climate will move toward the North, then the Mediterranean countries will have a serious problem of water resources. Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey will suffer more drought in the future," said Hu Yang, a climate scientist at the Alfred Wegner Institute.

Yang recently led a study looking at whether ocean circulation could be the cause of this expansion. 

By analyzing water temperatures in the major ocean currents as well as satellite observations of sea surface temperature, they discovered that excess heat build up in the ocean is what is driving the expansion of the tropics.

"When we found the answer of expanding topics, of course, we are very excited because we worked on this topic for more than five years," said Yang. "But on the other hand, we're also very sad because our result shows that expanding tropics are not some natural climate variability. It is really climate change."

Amazon rainforest could shift to a savannah

Another study found that shifting rainfall patterns in the tropics could see large parts of the Amazon rainforest shift into a drier, savannah-like ecosystem. 

"What we know is that the rainforest needs certain rainfall amounts to be sustained. And what happens with climate change is that the rainfall in Amazon decreases so much that you don't have a lot of areas with rainfall — about 2,000 millimetres — anymore, so you don't have a large zone with stable rainforest," said Lan Wang-Erlandsson, an author on the study.

Dead trees stand behind power lines in a recently degraded section of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. A recent study suggests that decreasing rainfall in the Amazon could see more of it turning into a savannah-like ecosystem. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The study, which was produced by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, looked at current rainfall levels, and found that they could support either a savannah or a rainforest ecosystem. But the team also looked ahead to the end of the century, and found that if greenhouse gas emissions remain at their current rate and rainfall levels continue to fall, by the end of the century the Amazon rainforest could shrink by 66 per cent, as vast swaths shift into open forest and grassland. 

Wang-Erlandsson cautions that while these results may seem catastrophic, they're not set in stone yet.

"What we show is this scenario of severe climate change. We don't have to head toward this severe climate scenario," she said.

"We can see where we could be heading if we don't do anything; that is what is at stake. That's a cost of inaction, but also that we still have that space for action, I think."

Links

• Arctic ice losses were at near record levels — with particular concerns about Greenland melt
• Why the way we talk about climate change makes some people stop listening
• What the Arctic's rapid transition into a 'new climate' looks like
• Why are the hottest temperatures measured in Death Valley?
• As emissions grow, more parts of the Amazon are likely to dry out
• Past and future global transformation of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change
• Extremes become routine in an emerging new Arctic (pdf)
• Tropical Expansion Driven by Poleward Advancing Midlatitude Meridional Temperature Gradients
• Hysteresis of tropical forests in the 21st century

Sydney Records Hottest November Night As Heatwave Sweeps City

Phys.org - AFP

A fiery sunset over the Members' Stand during the one-day cricket match between India and Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the sweltering city.

Sydney recorded its hottest November night as Australia's largest city suffered through a weekend heatwave that saw daytime temperatures peak above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

The overnight temperature did not drop below 25.3 degrees Celsius Saturday into Sunday in central Sydney, according to the meteorology bureau, making it the hottest November night since records began.

The temperature had already hit a scorching 30 degrees Celsius by 4:30 am Sunday, before reaching above 40 degrees for the second consecutive day.

"New South Wales is in the midst of a severe heatwave with very warm conditions already being experienced yesterday, and today being a repeat of some of those conditions," said the Bureau of Meteorology's Agata Imielska.

Daytime records for November fell elsewhere in Australia's southeast, with the outback towns of Griffith and Mildura reaching 43.2 and 45.7 degrees Celsius respectively on Saturday.

The heatwave saw bans on lighting fires imposed across large swathes of New South Wales (NSW) state, which was badly hit by catastrophic bushfires during the last southern hemisphere summer.

A number of blazes broke out Sunday, including one on Sydney's western outskirts that the NSW Fire and Rescue Service said damaged a property.

More than 60 bushfires were still burning across the state, but most had been brought under control by firefighters as a southerly wind change led to a rapid drop in temperatures.

It was the first burst of significant bushfire activity since the devastating 2019-2020 fires, which burned an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom and left 33 people dead as tens of thousands fled their homes.

The fire season also killed or displaced nearly three billion animals and cost the economy an estimated US$7 billion.

The latest heatwave comes just two weeks after government scientists warned the fossil-fuel reliant country should brace for worse to come, predicting climate change will continue to exacerbate bushfires, droughts and cyclones in Australia.

Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly played down the link between climate change and the bushfires, and has committed to keeping Australia as one of the world's leading fossil fuel exporters.

But Australians are increasingly concerned about climate change, with a recent poll by Sydney's Lowy Institute showing almost 90 percent believing it is a critical or important threat.

Links

• Climate change worsening Australia's extreme weather: scientists
• Severe to extreme heatwave conditions expected across south-east, eastern parts of Australia
• Queensland braces for record-breaking heatwave as Sydney enjoys short-lived reprieve
• Records set to tumble as heatwave continues across Queensland
• Birdsville breaks November overnight heat record with more hot days to come
• November heat records broken as east swelters
• Rising global temperatures tied to rising antibiotic resistance

(AU) Charities Commission Warns Australian Conservation Foundation Over Angus Taylor Open Letter

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Exclusive: ACF has been cautioned its charity status prevents it ‘opposing a political candidate’ over letter calling out climate change inaction

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission has issued a warning to the ACF about its open letter urging Scott Morrison to remove Angus Taylor from the emissions reduction portfolio. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission has fired a warning shot at the Australian Conservation Foundation, asking the environment group to “immediately read the guide on political advocacy” and consider withdrawing an open letter of complaint about Angus Taylor’s lack of action on climate change.

In correspondence seen by Guardian Australia, the ACNC has expressed objection to a climate change open letter to Scott Morrison published in early November on the ACF’s website.

The document was signed by the ACF as well as by thousands of doctors and health and medical professionals. The material also ran as an advertisement in the Australian newspaper.

The open letter brokered by the ACF urges Morrison to remove Taylor from the emissions reduction portfolio because he is “failing in his ministerial duties in three critical ways”.

The three ways specified in the open letter were:

• continuing to “allocate public money to gas and other polluting fossil fuel projects while overseeing a nationwide 50% decline in large-scale renewables investment from a record high in financial year 2018-19”;
• “failing to reduce Australia’s emissions in line with our international obligations”; and
• failing “to commit Australia to a 2050 net zero emissions target, isolating the federal government from its state counterparts, business, farmers, and civil society and Australia from the international community”.

The ACNC’s compliance division contacted the ACF in writing on 13 November. The charities watchdog told the ACF it had “come to [their] attention” that the organisation “has been engaging in activities that appear to be opposing a political candidate”.

Guardian Australia understands some other groups involved in crafting the open letter have also been approached by the commission.

The ACNC told the ACF: “While a registered charity can advocate issues that relate to its charitable purpose, it cannot have the purpose of promoting or opposing a political party or a candidate.

“This is not limited to candidates during election periods – it includes current members of parliament.”

The ACF has rejected that assessment and has told the commission there is no justifiable basis for the climate change open letter to be withdrawn.

The chief executive officer of the ACF, Kelly O’Shanassy, has told the commission the open letter was entirely “an exercise in advocacy in furtherance of the charitable purpose of ACF”.

O’Shanassy points out that the ACF is a charity registered for the advancement of the natural environment.

“ACF regularly undertakes advocacy in relation to climate change and, in particular, preventing catastrophic climate change on the scale that would destroy rather than protect our natural environment,” the ACF chief says in a letter back to the commission on 27 November.

“As a charity for the advancement of the natural environment it is of course entirely appropriate for ACF to make public comment about whether the minister for emissions reduction is succeeding at reducing Australia’s emissions of harmful greenhouse gasses.

“All such commentary is wholly in line with our charitable purpose.”

The ACF notes the open letter makes no mention of any political party, and it points out that Taylor is a sitting member of parliament, not a candidate for political office.

“In calling for minister Taylor to be removed from his ministerial position, the ACF makes no comment about whether he should remain as a member of parliament,” O’Shanassy said, adding the letter “relates only to minister Taylor’s role as minister for emissions reduction”.

The ACF says it believes it is fully compliant with the requirements.

But the commission has warned the ACF “entitlement to registration as a charity is based on continued compliance with the obligations under the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012 (ACNC Act) and Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act Regulation 2013 (Regulation).

“It is important that Australian Conservation Foundation Incorporated ensures its activities are furthering its charitable purposes and that the board is exercising its powers and duties with reasonable care expected of it.”

Charities are allowed to take part in public debate, and oppose or support policies, laws, or government practices, as long as it is relevant to their charitable purpose. But they are not allowed to directly promote or oppose a political party or a candidate running for office.

The commission warned publicly in 2017 it would crack down on improper political advocacy in the sector, citing a growing number of complaints about charities – which benefit from significant tax concessions – engaging in political advocacy. A report in that year found Australian charities were avoiding political advocacy and “self-silencing” out of a fear that dissent would attract political retribution.

The ACF has been audited by the commission during election cycles but the complaint about the open letter is unusual.

O’Shanassy has responded to the demand the organisation read the political advocacy guidelines by saying: “Thank you for your recommendation that ACF should familiarise itself with the ACNC guide on political advocacy.

“The board and staff are already familiar with the publication and receives great benefit from it. We remain focused on these important matters, in accordance with ACF’s ongoing good governance practices.”

Links

• Australian Conservation Foundation
• (ACF) Health professionals: Sign the open letter calling for climate action
• Angus Taylor says it is not Australian government policy to achieve net zero emissions by 2050
• Angus Taylor to announce shift in climate investment away from wind and solar
• 'Disgrace': Angus Taylor under pressure after failing to release emissions data
• Australia's emissions fell 3% in year to June amid Covid shutdown
• John Hewson: The Morrison government has abrogated responsibility for the climate crisis to the states
• Australia's government agencies increasingly refusing environment-related FOIs, audit finds

(AU) Scott Morrison's Climate Language Has Shifted – But Actions Speak Louder Than Words

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy | Adam Morton

Analysis: The PM changed tone as soon as Joe Biden was projected likely next US president. Will a policy pivot follow?

The recent shift in the prime minister’s language invites two questions: is there a pivot under way, and is the shift real?’ Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Scott Morrison’s language about Australia adopting an emissions reduction target of net zero by 2050, and about climate action more generally, is starting to warm up. The recent shift in the prime minister’s language invites two questions: is there a pivot under way, and is the shift real?

The story so far

We know the Coalition’s history on climate policy. The Abbott government repealed Labor’s climate price, attempted to gut the Renewable Energy Target and abolish agencies driving a transition to low emissions energy. Morrison while treasurer brandished a lump of coal in the parliament, telling his opponents not to be “scared”. For much of this year, the Coalition has ignored persistent entreaties from environmentalists and major business groups to adopt a target of net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest, and to use the economic recovery from Covid-19 to lock in the transition to low emissions. Morrison has never ruled out adopting a net zero target but has created the impression the government wasn’t interested – an impression reinforced by the government’s declaration that it would pursue a “gas-led recovery” after the pandemic.

When and why did the language change?

In the couple of weeks before the US presidential election on 3 November, Japan, China and South Korea adopted pledges taking them closer to net zero. Morrison also had a private conversation with the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, in which net zero was raised. Leaders were anticipating the likely election of Joe Biden. The Democrat had promised to end the backsliding of the Trump era and revitalise international climate negotiations, starting with bringing the US back into the Paris deal. Biden’s appointment of John Kerry as his climate envoy after winning the election is a further signal of seriousness. From the moment Biden was projected as the likely winner, Morrison’s language began to change. It became noticeably warmer. Morrison now says Australia wants to “reach net zero emissions as quickly as possible”.

What about 2030?

Before we get to 2050, Australia has an emissions reduction target for 2030, and the government will be under pressure to update that commitment with a higher level of ambition in the next round of international climate talks.

Australia’s current target is a 26%-28% cut below 2005 levels, and the government has been planning to meet that (not very ambitious) target using carryover credits from the Kyoto period. Official government emissions projections released in December last year found Australia was not on track to meet the 2030 target unless it used the credits. Australia’s use of the Kyoto-era concessions has been strongly opposed by a large number of nations in international climate discussions, and experts say there is no legal basis for their use under the Paris agreement.

After Biden’s victory, Morrison used a speech to business leaders to signal, hey presto, magic happens: Australia might not deploy the accounting trick to help meet the 2030 target after all. The prime minister said: “My ambition is that we will not need them and we are working to this as our goal, consistent with our record of over-delivering.” The hint from Morrison was that new projections, expected to be released in December, will show Australia is on track to meet the promised cut without carryovers.

How can that happen?

In part, because the Australian government has not been great at forecasting future emissions and tends to substantially change its estimates each year.

Estimating future emissions is difficult. Each year, officials make assumptions about what will happen in 50 areas of the economy and come up with projections of how much will be emitted. For more than a decade, they have significantly over-estimated how much CO₂ the country will emit in the years ahead before revising down the projections, sometimes significantly.

The biggest miscalculation has been in electricity generation. Renewable energy has come into the grid much faster than the government expected – the national 2020 renewable energy target was met ahead of time, state targets in Victoria and Queensland have started to have an impact and the cost of solar and wind energy continues to drop, making investment more attractive. Officials also overestimated how much grid electricity the country would use – demand has fallen, in part due to nearly a third of homes now having solar panels.

For reasons that are not clear, the official projections have assumed there would be less renewable energy in the system than the models used by the Australian Energy Market Operator, which runs the power grid. Addressing this will bring future projections down.

There are other anomalies. The projections do not factor in drought, which in recent years has reduced emissions from agriculture as farmers have had to substantially reduce cattle and sheep numbers.

Officials last year revised down the emissions forecast for the next decade by 344m tonnes. If a similar readjustment were to happen this year, it could lead to the government saying it was now on track to meet its modest 2030 target without the carryover credits.

Has anything else changed that could affect the projections?

The only new policy of note from the Morrison government this year has been its low-emissions technology roadmap. Released in September, it claimed developing five new technologies could “avoid” 250m tonnes of emissions a year by 2040.

There was been no explanation of how that number was reached, and with the arguable exception of “clean” hydrogen, the government has not yet committed significant new funding to develop the technologies. It is unclear how this policy could reasonably change the projections in a meaningful way.

More noteworthy is that, while the federal government has tried to slow the influx of solar and wind by neither continuing nor replacing the renewable energy target, the states keep stepping in to fill the gap.

The big one is the NSW plan to underwrite 12 gigawatts of new wind and solar over the next decade – a development that will be banked by Canberra as “progress” in terms of projected national emissions reductions, but also criticised by the federal energy minister, Angus Taylor, because it might bring forward the closure of coal plants, which is of course a necessary development if you are a government now wanting to trumpet a downward trend in emissions. You know it makes sense.

Would a lower emissions forecast be good news?

Lower emissions would, of course, be great. But if it happens it isn’t something we should get too excited about, for two reasons.

The first should be pretty obvious – the government will not have actually done anything yet. These are projections, not actual emissions.

Before Covid-19 hit, Australia’s national emissions remained stubbornly flat under the Coalition, having dipped only about 2% in the more than six years since it was elected. They will be lower this year due to the pandemic, but that is not something the government can claim credit for, and it may not continue.

The second reason is, as mentioned above, Australia’s target is nothing to crow about. It was a fudge from the beginning. The size of the cut – 26%-28% – was just a lift of the US commitment under the Paris agreement, with one notable difference – the Obama administration promised that target for 2025, while the Australian government pushed it back to 2030.

Getting to net zero emissions, as scientists say is necessary, isn’t just about the end goal. It’s about how much you emit as you get there. To play its fair part in meeting the goals of the Paris agreement, Australia can only emit so much over the next three decades.

Advice to the government in 2015 suggested playing its part would require a cut equivalent to between 45% and 65% by 2030. A recent analysis by analysts at the Climate Action Tracker found Australia’s fair share over that timeframe was 66%. The current target does not get the job done.

So will the government do more on climate?

It is not impossible, but it is far from guaranteed.

There will be pressure on Australia over the next year not only to set a target of net zero by 2050, but to go further by 2030 than promised. The US under Biden will be required to set a new target for that date and other major countries are expected to do the same. Dropping the plan to use carryover credits will not be enough to satisfy their expectations.

Apart from saying we can meet our (lowball) 2030 target without a Kyoto-era accounting trick (cue applause) there’s no sign at the moment the government is working up a higher 2030 target. It is working on a long-term climate strategy, which was a commitment under the Paris agreement. It was due this year, but has been pushed back to before the next major climate summit in Glasgow late next year. It is expected, but not guaranteed, to include modelling of what future action on climate will mean for Australia.

There are a couple of other policies in the works. The government has dumped a long-promised electric vehicle strategy and replaced it with the promise of a “future fuels” plan on hydrogen, electric and bio-fuelled vehicles, but it is not expected to deliver significant new commitments to accelerate an emissions cut.

Potentially more significantly, it has also said it will look at the safeguard mechanism, a Tony Abbott-era policy that was supposed to limit emissions from big industrial sites. So far, the scheme has barely justified its existence. Companies have mostly just been allowed to increase their CO2 limit, known as a baseline, and pollute more.

Presumably recognising this is not sustainable, the government earlier this year said it accepted a recommendation from a review headed by former Business Council of Australia president Grant King that the mechanism should be changed so that companies would be rewarded for cutting emissions below their baseline if they were undertaking “transformative” projects and not just producing less or shutting down. It sounds like a step back towards carbon pricing – rewarding cuts and, if the Coalition can stomach it, finally penalising increases in emissions.

Would the government go back to carbon pricing?

Morrison should use his political capital and his internal authority to drive a substantive change – but he won’t want to lose his job over it. Part of what’s going on with Morrison’s shift in language is the prime minister testing how much he can get away with: how positive can he sound about emissions reduction before the right of the Liberal party starts having a tantrum, or before the National party has a public meltdown because someone has whispered coal is not good for humanity after all? Think of Morrison as inching along a dimly lit ledge several stories above the ground.

But the rest of the world isn’t waiting for the Coalition to get its act together. Action on emissions is picking up elsewhere and at some point Australia will have to deal with rising CO2 from big industry and transport.

In the meantime, as the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO recently reported, climate change is already here and extreme weather events are getting worse.

Links

• Australian PM says net zero climate target not brought up in first call with Joe Biden
• By 2020 standards, Angus Taylor's low-emissions technology statement is not really a climate policy
• 'We'll be left behind': Australia's electric car inertia is getting it nowhere
• 'Trying to invert reality': Mathias Cormann's climate credentials will be a hard sell at the OECD
• Logging in NSW bushfire-hit coastal regions to be reviewed after stand-off between industry and EPA
• Plan to bulldoze almost 2,000 hectares of land in Great Barrier Reef catchment rejected
• 'Disastrous' or a smart move? How Victoria's case for an electric car usage tax stacks up
• State of the climate: five big issues from the report that will affect every Australian
• Green giants: the massive projects that could make Australia a clean energy superpower

Climate Graphic Of The Week: The Arctic Frontline

Financial Times - Leslie Hook

LARGE IMAGE 

Arctic sea ice hit the second-lowest level ever recorded this year, reaching its summer minimum level in mid-September.

Warm temperatures and an unusual summer heatwave in Siberia contributed to the ice reaching that threshold for only the second time in the 42 year records, just behind that of 2012, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Average air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were at record highs during May, July and August.

As the planet warms, the Arctic Sea is expected to undergo its first ice-free summer before the year 2050, according to a research paper in Geophysical Research Letters.

The average rate of sea ice decline is about 13 per cent per year.

During autumn the sea ice expands, and thickens, although by the end of October the extent of the sea ice was still about one-third below normal levels, based on the 1981-200 average.

As the ice melts, through the loss of its reflective surface the ocean absorbs more solar radiation which in turn exacerbates global warming. It can also have an effect on the water circulation, with far-reaching consequences for weather patterns and ecosystems.

Links

• Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis
  
• The Arctic Hasn’t Been This Warm For 3 Million Years – And That Foreshadows Big Changes For The Rest Of The Planet
• Melting Antarctic Ice Will Raise Sea Level By 2.5 Metres – Even If Paris Climate Goals Are Met, Study Finds
• The Tipping Points At The Heart Of The Climate Crisis
• Land In Russia’s Arctic Blows ‘Like a Bottle Of Champagne’
• 28 Trillion Ton Ice Melt Spells Danger For Sea Level Rise, Climate Change
• The Catastrophic Science Behind The Stunning Photos Of The Arctic Crater
• Canadian Ice Shelf Area Bigger Than Manhattan Collapses Due To Rising Temperatures
• Global Warming Is Driving Polar Bears Toward Extinction, Researchers Say
• Seven Things To Know About Climate Change
• What Antarctica’s ‘doomsday glacier’ means for the planet

(AU) Clean and green: powering through 'watershed week' for energy policy

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Two landmark energy events in the two most populous states this week sent some signals that the end of Australia's decade-long torment over climate policy is in sight.

NSW's parliament debated for 30 hours before pushing through its Electricity Infrastructure Investment Bill despite 249 amendments from One Nation MP Mark Latham. This set the state on what Energy Minister Matt Kean hopes will be the path to becoming a "clean energy superpower".

Matt Kean says a 'new brand of politics' helped win multi-party support for a plan to make NSW a 'clean energy superpower'. Credit: Janie Barrett

Kean's counterpart in the Victorian Labor government, Lily D'Ambrosio, this week secured $540 million dollars in the Victorian budget for six renewable energy zones, and nearly $800 million for energy efficiency programs that typically draw little fanfare but are often the cheapest low-carbon options.

Days earlier, D'Ambrosio dubbed the $200 million deal with the Morrison government to underwrite a major new transmission - similar to NSW's - as a "renewables superhighway".

It was the first instalment of what Victoria trusts will be a bilateral bonanza on the scale of the $3 billion deal agreed earlier this year between the Berejiklian and Morrison governments.

"It's been a real watershed week," Kane Thornton, the chief executive of the Clean Energy Council, says. "NSW has legislated an extremely progressive and aggressive agenda and there's been a big budget [for renewables'] in Victoria."

"It really sets us up for the energy transition."

Getting to these points in the two states was not an easy task.

Victorian Minister for Energy, Environment & Climate Lily D'Ambrosio has, with less fanfare than her northern counterpart Matt Kean, has also been steering her state down a low-carbon economic path. Credit: Joe Armao

Of the two, Kean's journey is indicative of the many obstacles to pushing the energy bill through.

He had to contend with opponents from within his own party and even pushback from his federal Coalition counterpart Angus Taylor. Then there was the big energy corporations.

"Those powerful vested interests – the big energy money, the coal barons, that have decided energy policy in this country for generations – finally, we wrested back control of the agenda from them and put it back in the hands of the community," Kean tells the Herald and The Age from his parliament office in Sydney.

Arguably Australia's most famous and notorious power station: AGL's Liddell coal-fired power plant in the NSW Hunter Valley. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

"What's different this time is we had a relentless focus on delivering cheap energy," he says. "It was all about the economics and I think that's a different approach [from what's] been taken in the past."

Kean's new energy road map takes in many policy destinations, such as auctions to bring in energy storage to support renewables, support for five renewable energy zones which he hopes will bring in $32 billion in new clean energy investments. There are also advocates to ensure consumers and local manufacturers are treated fairly.

The potential political roadblocks weren't inconsiderable either.

Matt Kean, the NSW Energy and Environment Minister (left) with NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro at the Perth COAG event in November 2019. Kean credits support from Barilaro as critical to getting his energy policy through.

Kean had to win over the Premier Gladys Berejiklian and her right-wing Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, Nationals leader John Barilaro, and lately Labor and the Greens to ensure that even a change of government would likely leave the policy framework intact.

"This is durable and lasting reform," Kean says. "This means energy policy in NSW is settled – this is so important for the private sector."

Such multi-party support has largely eluded policymakers at a state and federal level. Kean himself describes taking on the energy and environment portfolios in March 2019 not long before Malcolm Turnbull became the third prime minister to be rolled, in part, because of climate policy. He says he then found a "smouldering wreck" of an energy policy after Scott Morrison abandoned the National Energy Guarantee.

D'Ambrosio has been a long-serving energy minister in Victoria and has watched the prospects of a coherent national climate and energy policy wax and wane.

While overseeing a more pro-renewables policy mix than NSW, D'Ambrosio knows securing the same bipartisan support is getting harder as Victorian Liberals drift further right.

Likewise in Queensland, the policy divide between Labor and the opposition remains wide. Had Annastacia Palaszczuk's Labor Party lost last month's election, an incoming Liberal National government would have likely dismembered most of Labor's plans for renewable energy and hydrogen hubs.

All smiles: Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor (left) with NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean, at the Perth COAG energy ministers meeting in 2019.

The final passage of the NSW energy bill on Friday closed a chapter, but the victory was still "touch and go", with final turbulence coming from federal minister Taylor.

The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday that Taylor was demanding NSW hand over its energy modelling, warning that the policy could have "unintended consequences" of closing coal-fired power stations faster than scheduled. This was just as Latham was gearing up to ''stall'' the bill's passage with the hope of killing it.

A big summer blackout would be all that was needed to stoke fears about the grid's stability even though Kean's policy won't begin to make full traction until later this decade.

Behind the scenes, though, Kean had already telephoned Taylor after learning of the ''backgrounding'' his staff were doing on the NSW policy to journalists.

Taylor is understood to have told Kean he wouldn't go any further than the comments he had given to the AFR and that he would make these public at the AFR's energy summit on Monday.

"I've got a constructive relationship with Angus," Kean says. "When he gives me his word, I trust him ... I agreed to allow my officials to brief him [on the modelling] and we left it at that.''

The Morrison government is still concerned about early closures of coal-fired power plants triggering price spikes for consumers, as was the case when Victoria's Hazelwood plant shut in 2017 after barely six months' notice.

NSW and Victoria's policies have the effect of reducing the "national" and "market" functions of the National Electricity Market (NEM) as they expedite planning for their special renewable energy zones. In the process, they are also reducing the federal role in the power sector.

Taylor says his government would "continue to develop and implement policy that protects consumers, maintains downward pressure on electricity prices and develops the backbone of a reliable, lower emissions NEM for the next decade and beyond".

"The NEM will always have a future, it is a physically connected grid to efficiently deliver electricity to consumers across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT," he says, adding the federal government "will always have a role in the shaping [its] direction".

For their part, the big generators and retailers, such as AGL and EnergyAustralia, have concerns too. AGL, the largest generator and carbon emitter in the country, has said its 250 megawatt gas plant planned for Newcastle has been delayed because of the NSW bill.

"We only got the broad strokes a couple of weeks ago so we are rushing to do some modelling to put in place what we think it might mean," Brett Redman, chief executive of AGL, says. "[The details] could make an enormous impact on what it is that you will invest, when you will invest and how you will invest".

Similarly Liz Westcott, head of energy at EnergyAustralia, says there was some alignment.

"Industry, market bodies and governments actually all have a common goal: a common goal to get to an energy system that's going to be reliable, affordable and carbon-neutral," she says.

"But we are not fully aligned on the pace and maybe the sequence of things, and in particular now the role we each play – what's the role of the private sector ... of government and market bodies?"

For Tennant Reed, Ai Group's principal national advisor, the state road maps and ''superhighways'' may be under construction but the final destination is a long way off.

He says some studies indicate global electricity generation demand may need to more than double to decarbonise the economy. Reeds says the growth in Australian generation could be larger still if we are competitive in hydrogen exports.

Modernising the electricity sector "is the easy bit, actually," Reed says.

Links

• 'Renewables superhighway' to ease grid limits, open way for Snowy 2.0
• Angus Taylor calls for greater cohesion on energy plans as states go it alone
• New renewable energy zone to almost match NSW's coal-fired capacity
• 'From sunny north to windy east': What are Victoria's renewable energy zones?
• Closing Liddell power plant to have only short-term effects: report
• NSW narrowly avoided large-scale blackouts last summer. This year should be better
• NSW's coal heartland to host state's newest renewable energy zone
• Fourth mass coral bleaching event in six years feared by experts

The End Of The Internal Combustion Engine?

Al Jazeera - Nick Clark

It revolutionised the world, from transport to means of production, but after 160 years, a new electrical future awaits.

Muaz Kory/Al Jazeera

The internal combustion engine revolutionised human life.

It made the commonplace possible: the car, the Uber, the bus, the motorbike. We took to the skies in aircraft and spread our wings across the world. It even mobilised war with tanks, ships and submarines. Agricultural productivity soared with the development of the tractor and other farm machinery. It gave oil-producing countries unimaginable wealth.

But after 160 years of shaping the world we live in, the demise of this extraordinary force-for-change is in plain sight.

The growing push for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 means that a new revolution is upon us, one that will change the way we power our lives, in the home, in our farmers’ fields, and on the road.

Electric vehicles

While some would say that being carbon neutral by 2050 is not enough to stave off the worst effects of climate change, we can say for certain the era of the electric vehicle is upon us. From the United States to the European Union and beyond, nations are pledging to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles within 15 years.

In China, car buyers bought more plug-in vehicles in 2019 than the rest of the world combined. In Norway more than 60 percent of new cars registered in September this year were electric.

Globally, battery technology is getting cheaper. According to research by BloombergNEF, the cost of a lithium-ion battery pack for an electric car fell 87 percent from 2010 to 2019.

Right now Tesla is the most valuable carmaker in the world despite making far fewer cars than its competitors like Toyota and Volkswagen.

A Tesla charging station in California. Electric cars are becoming more popular in countries around the world. [EPA]Fossil fuels

Meanwhile, fossil fuels still account for 80 percent of the world’s energy. But as energy analyst Ramez Naam pointed out in a fascinating episode of the Outrage and Optimism podcast, fronted by Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, the balance is shifting fast.

“The cost of energy from wind power has dropped by a factor of 10. The cost of electricity from solar power has dropped by a factor of 30,” Naam said.

“None of this is happening as fast as we want. But it’s happening a lot faster than people in industry, especially in the fossil fuel industry or the automotive industry, think it’s going to happen.

“And what’s clear is the Internal Combustion Engine for ground transport is dead, dead, dead, dead.”

Challenges ahead

While car and truck tailpipe emissions slowly phase out in the coming decades, other transport sectors present an altogether more daunting challenge.

Aviation accounts for 3 percent of the world’s carbon footprint (some say more), but powering passenger planes sustainably is a tough call. Yet there is optimism that by 2050, short-haul flights at least, will be fuelled by green technology like hydrogen fuel cells.

One of the hardest areas to transition is shipping. The global merchant fleet carries 90 percent of world trade.

After moving from sail power in the mid-19th century, to coal-burning steamships, and then the modern era of heavy fuel oil, the industry now looks to natural sources of propulsion again. This is a considerable and difficult problem, especially for the colossal bulk carriers that ply our oceans.

But the transition has begun. China promises to be carbon neutral by at least 2060. US President-elect Joe Biden is proposing to make electricity production in the US carbon-free by 2035, providing millions of jobs in the process. And across the world, nations are upping their ambitions to reduce emissions.

Again, more needs to be done, but it all helps drive technological progress, in all sectors.

And in the coming years, the internal combustion engine, that extraordinary feat of scientific progress, will become a chapter of history as we quietly buzz about in our electric cars.

A portrait of Karl Benz and a copy of the patent for the world’s first car powered by a gas combustion engine, a three wheeler named “Velociped” which was issued January 29, 1886 for Benz’s invention. Internal combustion engine vehicles could soon be a thing of the past [AP]

The final word

And so you have to ask yourself ... am I the CEO of an oil and gas company or the CEO of an energy company? Because the first one is doomed. The second one, there’s massive growth, for the world’s going to use much more energy in 2050. But it’s going to be clean energy.
Ramez Naam, Energy Analyst

Links

• Electric Vehicle Outlook 2020
• The Future of Fuels (podcast)
• 'Tip of the iceberg': Aviation emissions three times larger than current estimates, scientists warn
• Climate under Trump: A blip or four lost years?
• It is time to revolutionise how we talk about the weather
• The 2020 US elections: A climate for change?
• Palm oil peril: Is your peanut butter putting primates at risk?
• How your chicken is linked to deforestation in Brazil
• Climate Scientists Turn Mount Everest Into a Lab
• Climate crisis making autumn leaves fall earlier, study finds
• Editorial: Biden’s challenge: Restoring the U.S. as a leader against global warming