(US) Meet Biden’s Climate Crisis Army

The Independent - Louise Boyle

‘I believe in this team, and together, we will show the world that America is once again ready to take a leading role in the fight against climate change,’ Mr Biden said.

Incoming president, Joe Biden, has assembled a team who he calls “a tested cohort of bold thinkers” to tackle the climate crisis. (Getty/AP)

The hopes of millions of Americans demanding climate action now rest with president-elect Joe Biden and after four years of Donald Trump’s rampant regulatory rollbacks and cynical climate misinformation, the list of priorities is a long one.

The new president’s executive orders on day one are expected to include instructions to rejoin the 2015 Paris Climate Accord and cancel the Keystone XL oil pipeline permit. 

Mr Biden has  outlined the most ambitious climate plan in US history including an injection of $2trillion into clean energy to shift the country to carbon-free electricity by 2035 and overhauling transport, building and manufacturing, creating new jobs along the way.

It’s a staggering to-do list on which there’s no time to waste. The impacts of the climate crisis are striking more rapidly, and scientists estimate that roughly a decade remains in which to prevent a runaway catastrophe. 

While no single government - let alone one leader -  can solve the global crisis, Mr Biden’s approach, both at home and abroad, could lead to a sea change in driving down the greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet. 

To achieve the goal, Mr Biden has assembled a team which he’s called “a tested cohort of bold thinkers who know how to pull every lever of government”.“I believe in this team, and together, we will show the world that America is once again ready to take a leading role in the fight against climate change,” Mr Biden said.

The list has been largely welcomed by climate scientists and activists. “We're pleased that Biden's nominees support renewable energy, climate justice and keeping fossil fuels in the ground so that they can work with him to really come through on his climate agenda,” Denali Nalamalapu, from 350.org told The Independent.

Here we take a closer look at the megawatt names, trusted Obama alum, and diverse newcomers on the team who will lead climate action.

►Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary

Janet Yellen

If confirmed, Ms Yellen will be the first woman to hold the post in US history.  And with the economy “spiraling down” as another Biden adviser said on Sunday, the president-elect has turned to a trusted and seasoned operator to right the ship.

Ms Yellen is the first person to have held all three top economic posts, having served as lead in the Council of Economic Advisers and Federal Reserve chair before being nominated for Treasury.

She was appointed as Fed chair, the central banking system which adjusts interest rates, by President Obama in 2014 to help rehab the still-lagging economy after the 2008 recession.

Early on she made it clear that “our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street", placing greater emphasis on alleviating historically-high unemployment than on price inflation.

Brooklyn-born Ms Yellen, 74, has spoken of her parents - father Julius Yellen,  doctor and son of Polish immigrants, and her mother Anna, an elementary-school teacher, as greatly influencing her world-view.

The Senate Finance Committee will hold Ms Yellen’s confirmation on Tuesday before the Inauguration. Respected on both sides of the aisle, Ms Yellen is expected to be a shoo-in.

Ms Yellen has long viewed climate change as a threat to the financial system and supported an international climate treaty in the 1990s which President George W Bush ultimately got rid of.

The incoming treasury lead “has backed the idea of taxing carbon emissions and returning the proceeds to Americans as a quarterly check — an idea popular with many economists”, the Washington Post reported. 

However in a recent paper with Mark Carney, UN special envoy on climate and finance and former Bank of England governor, she wrote that “the scale of the challenge means that carbon prices alone are not enough”.

Ms Yellen will be at the heart of how the climate crisis and the pandemic are handled, overseeing the spending of any new economic recovery package.

Mr Biden has promised to end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, also falling under Ms Yellen’s remit. And as the treasury department controls tax credits, she could direct incentives towards renewables and carbon capture systems, that draw down emissions from the atmosphere.

►John Kerry, climate czar

John Kerry

John Kerry, who served as secretary of state when Mr Biden was vice president, has been nominated for perhaps the most senior climate job in US history.

Mr Kerry, 77, will have a seat on the National Security Council, the first time it has an official dedicated to climate. It makes the issue a core consideration in major foreign and domestic policy decisions by the president, VP and Cabinet.

The dyed-in-the-wool Democrat from Massachusetts was among the architects of Paris deal and a familiar face in geopolitics.

A longtime friend and ally of Mr Biden, Mr Kerry is likely to be viewed as reliable and in lock-step with the president by foreign leaders left with lingering distrust towards America after the Trump years, marked by mistreatment of allies and erratic exiting of global agreements.

Mr Kerry will likely take on big-ticket issues. In September, he spoke to Salon about the importance of getting China on board to tackle the climate crisis, and focusing on the global issue of climate migration which will impact borders and security.

But Mr Kerry’s high-profile also makes the wealthy and well-connected elder statesman a familiar punching bag for conservatives wishing to undermine climate action.

“We look forward to the anti-carbon lectures from a guy who travels the globe on private jets and luxury yachts,” the New York Post wrote after Mr Kerry was nominated.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who has repeated misleading statements on climate change, tweeted: “John Kerry thrilled at prospect of returning to his dream job of living in Central European luxury hotels while negotiating deals that are bad for America."

►Congresswoman Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior

Deb Haaland

The congresswoman from New Mexico makes history as the first-ever Native American Cabinet Secretary. 

A member of the Laguna Pueblo people, if confirmed Rep. Haaland will oversee America’s land and natural resources, and is keeper of the government’s legally-binding obligations to hundreds of tribal nations.

As vice-chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, she’s had to sharpen her skills in bipartisanship. But her nomination has also given heart to progressives as sheis a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal.

“I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet, and all of our protected land,” Rep. Haaland, 60, said in her nomination speech. 

She also paid emotional tribute to what her nomination meant for Indigenous peoples.

“This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed it his goal to, quote, ‘civilize or exterminate’ us. I’m a living testament to the failure of that horrific ideology,” she said.

At the Department of Interior, Rep Haaland would oversee one-fifth of all America’s land, more than 450 million acres. This includes national parks, wildlife refuges and resources like gas, oil and water.

She will almost certainly do a 180 on the Trump’s administration’s agenda which attempted to sell-off public lands for fossil fuel development and removed regulations to protect natural resources and wildlife.

Last year Rep Haaland sponsored a bill that would commit the US to protect 30 per cent of the nation’s land and oceans by 2030. Mr Biden has vowed to make this a priority via execution action.

Among her first priorities as secretary, it is believed that she will restore the protections stripped from Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante in southeast Utah by Mr Trump. The vast areas of public land are full of sacred meaning for Indigenous peoples.

►Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation

Pete Buttigieg

In “Amtrak Joe” Biden’s climate platform, transportation plays a vital role in tackling emissions. Ahead of electricity production and industry, transport generates the most greenhouse gas emissions in the US (28 per cent).

Mr Buttigieg, 38, will be tasked with implementing the new president’s ambitious clean public transport plan which includes expanding dedicated bicycle paths and implementing “the second great railroad revolution” of high-speed trains and new tracks across the midwest and western states.

The openly gay former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, he ended his own White House campaign in March and was a passionate supporter for president-elect Biden on the campaign trail. 

And Mr Buttigieg is not the only one in the Cabinet with city hall experience, an indication of Mr Biden’s faith in those who can get things done in local government. Marty Walsh, nominee for Labor, was mayor of Boston and Rep. Marcia Fudge for Housing and Urban Development, was formerly mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio. 

►Governor Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy

Jennifer Granholm

A two-term Governor of Michigan, if confirmed Ms Granholm will be the second woman ever to hold the top energy job. As governor, she was credited with helping save the auto industry in Detroit.

Like many Cabinet picks, Gov. Granholm, 61, goes back a long way with Mr Biden. The former governor worked with him on the 2009 bailout of automobile manufacturers General Motors Co and Chrysler when he was vice president.

She has advocated for US development of zero-emission vehicles in recent years, arguing to pull the industry ahead of its international competitors.

She currently teaches law and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

In 2015 Ms Granholm launched the American Jobs Project, to focus on promoting state policies to create middle-class jobs in batteries and other forms of advanced energy technology. A bulk of the Energy Department’s budget, more than $27bn, is focused on maintaining the nation’s nuclear program, but it oversees more than a dozen labs tasked with developing renewable energy production. 

The department also plays a role in developing standards for building emissions and appliances, areas that the Biden administration will also target in its emissions battle. 

►Gina McCarthy, national climate advisor

Gina McCarthy

With decades of public service at state and federal level, Gina McCarthy, former administrator of the EPA under President Obama, will become the first-ever National Climate Advisor.

The idea is for Ms McCarthy, 66 to drive an “all government” approach to the climate crisis, in tandem with Sec. Kerry’s efforts internationally.

During the Obama era, Ms McCarthy was a driving force behind the Clean Power Plan - to curb emissions from power plants and vehicles -

which President Trump went on to reverse. 

She was a key player in the US brokering of the Paris Agreement as well as the 2016 Kigali agreement, signed by nearly 200 countries, to phase out potent substances known as hydrofluorocarbons which drive global heating.

Ms McCarthy comes to the job from her role as head of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which sued the Trump administration more than 100 times over environmental rollbacks.

While regulations from the EPA, Interior and Energy departments will be the framework for tackling emissions and pollution, Ms McCarthy’s role at the newly-installed “White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy” will focus on how to tackle the climate crisis via other avenues like in agriculture, transport, treasury, housing, for example.

►Michael Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Michael Regan

Mr Regan has been North Carolina’s top environmental regulator for the past three years, and will be the first Black man to run the EPA.

The 44-year-old’s role will focus on the Biden environmental justice plan, tackling how the burdens of pollution and climate change disproportionately impact poorer Americans and communities of color.

“Growing up as a child, hunting and fishing with my father and grandfather in eastern North Carolina, I developed a deep love and respect for the outdoors and our natural resources, but I also experienced respiratory issues that required me to use an inhaler on days when pollutants and allergens were especially bad,” said Mr Regan in his nomination speech.

One of Mr Regan’s greatest achievements in North Carolina was negotiating a multibillion-dollar payout from Duke Energy, the largest settlement in US history for the clean up of hazardous coal ash. 

High on his agenda will be tackling vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, emissions from plants running on fossil fuels, and oil and gas sector pollution.

The Trump administration rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations and protections over four years, plowing ahead with as many as possible in his final days in office. Some have been overturned after court battles with environmentalists but the EPA under Mr Regan will likely try to unwind the decisions as part of the strategy to reduce GHG emissions.

►Brenda Mallory, Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality

Brenda Mallory

A longtime environmental attorney, Ms Mallory is returning to lead a department she was part of during the Obama era. She is currently the director of regulatory policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which also sued the Trump administration over climate change rollbacks. 

If confirmed, she will be the first African-American to run the council - which oversees how the public are informed about projects which can cause pollution in their communities.

With a lower-profile than some of the other climate hires, Ms Mallory is viewed as one of America’s leading experts on environmental regulations, including in-depth knowledge of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is one of the country’s landmark environmental laws which low-income and minority communities have used for decades to fight back against potential polluters. President Trump significantly weakened the act last year. 

Environmental group, NRDC, said that “Mallory is in an excellent position to work with President Biden to untangle the mess that Trump has made of NEPA—and to return the White House Council on Environmental Quality to its proper role as an agency that places the interests of people and the environment above the interests of corporate polluters”.

►Ali Zaidi, deputy national climate advisor

Ali Zaidi

Currently New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top climate adviser, Mr Zaidi has been driving the state’s effort to decarbonize along with prioritizing environmental justice projects. The 32-year-old will be Ms McCarthy’s deputy.

Mr Zaidi was born in Pakistan and moved to the small town of Edinboro, Pennsylvania on the shore of Lake Erie when he was a child. He worked on the Obama administration’s climate action plan and was also part of Paris negotiations.

During the Obama years, Mr Zaidi warned that climate change was already impacting the US taxpayer, from costs associated with rising sea levels, more extreme weather and intensifying wildfires.

“But the costs we are incurring today will be dwarfed by the costs that lie ahead. Without action, taxpayers will face hundreds of billions of dollars in additional costs every year by late in this century as the effects of climate change accelerate,” he wrote in a white paper.

In a podcast with Columbia University this summer, Mr Zaidi backed the idea of creating clean energy jobs in communities that have long suffered from pollution, a suggestion in line with Mr Biden’s climate plan.

“You're talking about all these really cool jobs and wind and solar, where the hell you're going to hire those people from,” he said.

“You're going to hire them from the same old, same old, or you're going to create new roads of opportunity into the communities that have been taxed in six different ways from this pollution over the years.”

Links

• What Is the Paris Climate Agreement That Joe Biden Will Rejoin, Why Did Donald Trump Leave?
• The Biden Administration and International Climate Change Policy and Action
• President-elect Biden to end Keystone XL pipeline in fight on climate change 
• Biden’s focus on climate change could turn up the pressure on China’s mega infrastructure program
• Japan welcomes expected U.S. return to Paris climate accord under Biden
• (US) Biden Plans To Fight Climate Change In A Way No U.S. President Has Done Before
• (USA) Joe Biden Takes Climate Change Seriously
• (USA) Biden Calls Climate Change ‘Existential Threat of Our Time’

The Biggest Coalition Conspiracy Theory Is Climate Change Denial

The Guardian - Greg Jericho

MPs’ unfounded claims about the US Capitol attack and Covid treatments pale next to the granddaddy of misinformation

‘Remember when climate change deniers would proclaim that “the world has not warmed since 1998”? Since then there have been 16 years when it has been hotter – including nine of the past 10 years. ’ Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

NASA announced this week that 2020 – a year which included a La Niña event normally associated with lower temperatures – was the hottest year on record.

It was also the week in which the Morrison government used racist tropes to distract and excuse conspiracy statements made by its MPs.

Remember the good old days when climate change deniers would proclaim that “the world has not warmed since 1998”? Since then there have been 16 years when it has been hotter – including nine of the past 10 years.


NASA confirmed what other agencies have found – last year was (depending on your measurement) either the hottest, equal hottest or close second-hottest year on record.

The previous record holder, 2016, experienced a strong El Niño, which usually means it is abnormally hotter than other years. But the latter part of last year was affected by La Niña.

In effect, in five years the impact of climate change has been so great that cooler years are now equivalent to previously warmer years.

So, God help us when the next El Niño hits.

As it is, we are already well on our way to 1.5C and 2C above pre-20th century levels.

Climate change deniers and the Morrison government (apologies for the repetition) better hope the past 10 years don’t reflect what is about to come.

The trend of the past 20 years has us reaching 2C above pre-industrial averages by 2054, but if we go by the past decade, we’ll get there by 2036.

Pity that the federal government is utterly bereft of the ability to face up to this.

This week Australia’s acting prime minister, Michael McCormack, when asked by ABC’s Sally Sara whether Donald Trump should be removed from office before his term ends, answered that “it is unfortunate that we have seen the events at the Capitol Hill that we’ve seen in recent days, similar to those race riots that we saw around the country last year”.

When he was challenged the next day he went further, referring to human rights groups as “bleeding hearts” and said that “all lives matter”.

The “all lives matter” line has been used for more than five years now by racist groups and political parties to belittle and criticise the Black Lives Matter movement.

Craig Kelly (top) and George Christensen.;Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

This is not a secret. Even someone of McCormack’s capacity for ignorance could not claim to be unaware of the meaning of his words – after all, just last year Pauline Hanson attempted to move a motion in the Senate that “all lives matter”.

And yet, while that implication must not be ignored and let pass, we need to realise his response may have been more about deflecting from the comments made by Craig Kelly and George Christensen.

Both have been variously posting unfounded claims on Facebook that the attack on the US Capitol building was done by members of “antifa”, promoting the use of unproven drugs for treating coronavirus, and pushing the conspiracy theory of “the great reset” – which falsely suggests “global elites” are using the pandemic to usher in a radical socialist or environmentalist new order.

Before he went on holidays, Scott Morrison refused to criticise Christensen, and this week McCormack has done the same.

It’s not surprising, for criticising Christensen and Kelly as conspiracy theorists would mean pulling on a thread that would threaten to unravel the Coalition.

For it quickly leads to the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories – climate change denial.

If you are calling out your members for refuting the FBI or health authorities around the world, then why are you not calling them out for suggesting the UN, Bureau of Meteorology, NASA and government agencies around the world are involved in what would be the greatest conspiracy in history?

If Morrison and McCormack start doing the right thing now, they’ll be challenged to keep doing it – and there are many more within their parties willing to push the lie of climate change denial than just Kelly and Christensen.

Indeed, climate change denial remains at the core of their economic policy of more fossil fuels through a “gas-led recovery”.

Alas, for them – and us – reality keeps happening and the planet keeps warming.

Links

• 2020 was hottest year on record by narrow margin, NASA says
• Climate crisis: record ocean heat in 2020 supercharged extreme weather
• Carbon capture is vital to meeting climate goals, scientists tell green critics
• Climate change pushed ocean temperatures to record high in 2020, study finds
• Climate change saw the world's oceans absorb 20 zettajoules of heat in 2020, driving seas to record temperatures
• Human activity is responsible for nearly all global warming, new research says
• An international team of researchers has found nearly all global warming can be directly contributed to human activity.
• Top judge urges lawyers to take stand on climate change
• Lawyers should take a 'Good Samaritan' approach to climate change, says Justice Brian Preston
• Scientists warn climate change is harming children's diets
• Climate change could undo decades of work reducing malnutrition
• Peat bogs: restoring them could slow climate change – and revive a forgotten world
• The UK's marshes, bogs and fens provided the bare necessities of daily life for many centuries.
• One, two, tree: how AI helped find millions of trees in the Sahara
• Efforts to map the Earth's trees are growing – and could change our understanding of the planet's health.
• Outdated carbon credits from old wind and solar farms are threatening climate change efforts

Annual Heat Records Tumble As Global Warming Trend Continues

Sydney Morning Herald - Miki Perkins

Was 2020 the record hottest year on earth or did it tie with 2016?

The answer lies in tiny differences in how scientific agencies collect data, but their results all reveal the same urgent reality: the past seven years on earth have been the hottest on record, a global warming trend that is driven by climate change and set to continue.

Data shows 2020 was a year of record temperatures. Credit: Getty

New temperature analysis from NASA reveals Earth's 2020 global average surface temperature effectively tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, despite the cooling La Nina weather pattern.

The globally-averaged temperature last year was 1.02 degrees warmer than the NASA baseline (1951-1980) and edged out the record set in 2016 by a tiny amount.

Earth's average temperature has risen more than 1.2 degrees since the late 19th century, according to NASA.

"The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend," said Gavin Schmidt, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA.

NOAA: 2020 the second warmest year on record
Average 2020 temperature compared to the 1981-2010 average

Note: 0 degrees Fahrenheit is equivalent to -17.78°C. Source: NOAA climate.gov, NCEI

"Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important – the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken."

In a slight contrast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released its own results, which show the rise in temperature for 2020 was just 0.02 degrees shy of 2016's record.

NOAA scientists use much of the same raw temperature data in their analysis as NASA, but have a different baseline period (1901-2000) and methodology. Similarly the United Kingdom Met Office ranked 2020 as the second-warmest year on record.

Climate change is driving rapid global warming and worsening the impacts of natural variability, said Climate Council expert Will Steffen.

China has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060. Credit: Getty

"Right now, we are on track for catastrophic climate change of 3 degrees celsius of heating and maybe more," Professor Steffen said.

"At just over 1 degree of heating, we are already paying a serious price, as we have seen with the recent Black Summer bushfires, prolonged drought and the third mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in five years. 

"Year after year, decade after decade, temperature records continue to tumble because we continue to burn coal, oil and gas. It must stop."

In 2020, the Australian bushfires burned 46 million acres of land, and smoke and particles in the atmosphere blocked sunlight and probably cooled the atmosphere slightly, NASA's analysis found.

Year after year, decade after decade, temperature records continue to tumble because we continue to burn coal, oil and gas.
Professor Will Steffen

However, the agency also said global shutdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic reduced air pollution in many areas, allowing more sunlight to reach the earth's surface and producing small but potentially significant warming.

Overall, carbon dioxide concentrations continued to increase, and since warming is related to cumulative emissions, the overall amount of avoided warming will be minimal, according to NASA.

Professor Steffen said he was encouraged to see state and territory governments stepping up their climate commitments: "2021 needs to be a year of climate action because failure is not an option."

Land and ocean temperatures

Source: NOAA climate.gov, NCEI

Links

• (AU) Climate Change Pushed Ocean Temperatures To Record High In 2020, Study Finds
• Climate Crisis: Record Ocean Heat In 2020 Supercharged Extreme Weather
• (AU) Australia Records Fourth-Warmest Year In 2020, Despite La Niña
• This Year Was A Disaster For The Planet
• 2020 Closes Hottest Decade On Record Due To Climate Change
• (AU) Record Spring Heat A One-In-500,000 Chance Without Climate Change
• (AU) BOM Says Australia Just Had Its Hottest November On Record
• The State Of The Climate In 2021
• (AU) Last Decade Hottest On Record For Australia With Temperature Almost 1c Above
• (AU) 2020 Annual Climate Statement - Bureau of Meteorology
• 10 Steamy Signs In 2020 That Climate Change Is Speeding Up
• 2020 Was A Year Of Climate Extremes. What Can We Expect In 2021?
• Black Summer bushfires made worse by climate change, risk to 'rapidly intensify'
• National parks get $400 million boost to help recover from Black Summer bushfires

(AU) Climate Change Pushed Ocean Temperatures To Record High In 2020, Study Finds

ABC Weather | Ben Deacon

Oceans warmed to record levels in 2020, which is likely to have serious impacts on marine ecosystems.(Supplied: Grant Thomas, The Ocean Agency)

Key Points Last year the world's oceans absorbed 20 zettajoules of heat Higher ocean temperatures can lead to an increase in extreme weather Seas are warming at twice the global average in Australia's south-east

The world's oceans absorbed 20 sextillion joules of heat due to climate change in 2020 and warmed to record levels, a study has found.

That quantity — expressed numerically as 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules — is equivalent to the energy from 10 Hiroshima atomic bombs being released every second of the year.

Report co-author Kevin Trenberth, from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, said oceans absorbed more than 90 per cent of the solar energy trapped by greenhouse gases.

"There's a tremendous amount of energy that's actually involved in this — it's not surprising that it has consequences," he said.

"Since about the mid-1990s, at least, the oceans have been warming very steadily.

"In fact, they are the best single indicator that the planet is warming."

The mercury has been rising steadily since the 1990s.(Supplied: Kevin Trenberth)

Danger by degrees

The study came as scientists confirmed that global air temperatures in 2020 were equal to 2016 — the hottest on record — and as Australia experienced its fourth hottest year on record.

"The ocean is a key controller of the climate that we see on the continent of Australia," CSIRO oceanographer Bernadette Sloyan said.

She said warmer oceans could lead to increases in extreme weather.

The seas to the north-east of Australia (yellow and red) are warmer than average water because of La Niña. (Supplied: earth.nullschool.net)

"That heat is actually providing the fuel that can bring in monsoons, rains and tropical cyclones," Dr Sloyan said.

"We've already dialled in what we're going to see over the next 20, 30, 40 years.

"That's because the oceans have the heat and will slowly release it back to the atmosphere and impact weather and severe weather events."

She said increased heat was also directly affecting ecosystems like coral reefs.

"Corals live within a really small temperature range," Dr Sloyan said.

"Once we exceed those temperature ranges – and if we exceed them for long periods of times – we have significant coral bleaching."

Coral bleaching is a direct result of increased ocean temperatures. (Supplied: The Ocean Agency)

Simmering south-east

Australia's south-east has been identified as an ocean surface warming hotspot, according to Jessica Benthuysen, an oceanographer with the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

"We've had a number of dramatic marine heat waves in the Tasman Sea over the past five years, including in 2016," she said.

"That was the longest, most intense marine heat wave on record — and that was associated with a shift in fish species and Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome for the first time."

Sea surface temperatures to the south-east of Australia are increasing at twice the global average. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

In its State of the Climate 2020 report, the Bureau of Meteorology said the average sea surface temperature in the Australian region had warmed by more than one degree Celsius since 1900.

Eight of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2010.

Links

• Warm Arctic temperatures drive 2020 to equal world's hottest year record
• BOM's preliminary 2020 data is in and it was the fourth hottest year on record
• Climate Crisis: Record Ocean Heat In 2020 Supercharged Extreme Weather
• More Than Half Of World's Oceans Already Being Affected By Climate Change
• Climate Change Will Make World Too Hot For 60 Per Cent Of Fish Species
• Rising Tides, Troubled Waters: The Future Of Our Ocean
• (AU) Unwelcome Sea Change: New Research Finds Coastal Flooding May Cost Up To
• 20% Of Global Economy By 2100
• (AU) We Can't Beat The Planet Into Submission. We Can Retreat
• (AU) Wamberal Beach Erosion: Seawall Would Deliver No Net Benefit, Study Finds
• (AU) How Coastal Communities On Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula Are Dealing With The Reality Of Sea Level Rises

(AU) Corporate Watchdog Puts Climate Change Warnings Into Action

The Australian - David Ross

The release of the heavily redacted document from the corporate regulator comes after ASIC has repeated warnings to business on climate change risk. Source: Facebook / NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly

An internal briefing document to the corporate regulator has shown the regulator putting its climate change warnings into action, revealing deep-dive surveillance of five of the nation’s biggest listed companies.

The document, prepared for internal eyes in August last year, came only two months after ASIC temporarily suspended its investigations in June on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These deep-dive surveillances of five companies in the energy, real estate, materials, consumer staples and industrials sectors have seen corporate regulators examine climate-related disclosures in public documents released by the companies. These include annual reports from those five companies, and any sustainability, environmental or climate change reports or policies.

The document reveals regulators from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission also exercised their compulsory information gathering powers to obtain and review internal company books and records.

The regulators observed those five companies’ internal deliberations and considerations, governance and risk frameworks of climate change. ASIC’s document notes their focus on a task force on Climate Change Related Financial Disclosures.

“We have provided preliminary feedback to, and are continuing to engage with, these five deep-dive target companies in relation to their climate risk governance and disclosure practices,” it said.

The deep-dive investigations come on top of “desktop” examinations of climate-related disclosure practices at 12 large ASX-listed companies.

ASIC targeted a range of companies across energy, finance, industrials, property and consumer discretionary sectors.

Corrs Chambers Westgarth partner Sandy Mak said climate change-related disclosure and risks were becoming increasingly critical for boards and shareholders.

“Recent examples in the Australian market have shown us that even if economic returns are adversely impacted, as they were at the height of the pandemic, shareholders are still holding boards ­accountable from an [environmental social and corporate governance] perspective and are unwilling to put short-term financial returns ahead of strong corporate governance,” she said.

“In 2021, boards should also take the time to conduct comprehensive scenario planning.”

Ms Mak said it was interesting that ASIC had exercised its compulsory information disclosure powers in order to find out what companies thought they should disclose.

“This suggests that ASIC is taking this sort of disclosure very seriously. It’s wanting to police the police that it put in place,” she said.

“Companies need to not take the tick-the-box approach to climate change disclosure.”

She said Australian businesses were behind their global partners on environmental, social and corporate governance.

The release of the heavily redacted document from the corporate regulator comes after ASIC has repeated warnings to business on climate change risk.

In September 2018 ASIC released the findings of its report into climate risk disclosure by Australia’s listed companies.

In August 2019 ASIC published updates to its existing regulatory guidance around climate change-related risks and opportunities.

The Council of Financial Regulators Working Group on Climate Risk has been targeting the financial fallout for businesses exposed to climate change.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority will undertake a climate change vulnerability assessment of authorised deposit taking institutions. ASIC and the Reserve Bank will co-ordinate with APRA on ensuring a consistent application of analysis and disclosure recommendations.

Links

• A 'high risk' jurisdiction: climate change and directors' duties
• Climate change risk disclosure: A practical guide to reporting against ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations (pdf)
• Understanding and managing the financial risks of climate change
• RBA says climate change already having profound impact on Australian economy
• Big banks and super funds to face climate change risk checks
• Australian auditors lag on climate risk disclosure, expert warns
• (AU) Why Climate Change Is Keeping Directors Awake
• AU) Corporate Climate Risk Disclosures Must Show More: IGCC
• (AU) 'Breakthrough Moment': Woodside Investors Revolt On Climate Change

(AU) Top Judge Urges Lawyers To Take Stand On Climate Change

 AFR - Michael Pelly

Lawyers have an obligation to follow the lead of "climate-conscious" practitioners and help repair a "wounded" planet, according to the nation's leading environment law judge.

Justice Brian Preston, chief judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court, says that on top of advising their clients on legal issues, there are myriad ways for lawyers to follow "the path of climate consciousness".

Writing in the latest issue of The Australian Law Journal, the judge, who helped found the NSW Environmental Defenders Office in 1985, says lawyers "need to integrate ethical thinking and ethical action into their day-to-day legal practice".

"A climate-conscious approach requires an active awareness of the reality of climate change and how it interacts with daily legal problems," writes Justice Brian Preston. James Brickwood

Justice Preston says this could involve "moral counselling with clients", in which lawyers might "discuss the rightness or wrongness of the client’s projects or business activities and the impact of those projects or activities on people and the planet, including the climate change consequences of different courses of action".

"By the lawyer’s moral persuasion and negotiation, the client may be prepared to modify its behaviour so as to mitigate the climate change consequences of its projects or activities and promote climate change justice," he writes.

He says other ways include promoting human rights and encouraging industry to "advance efforts towards sustainable business models that mitigate their contribution to climate change".

He also suggests lobbying the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government "to address the climate change crisis", engaging in "intellectual activism" and acting pro bono.

Justice Preston stresses the professional obligation to advise clients against risk, a point also made by former banking royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne.

"A climate-conscious approach requires an active awareness of the reality of climate change and how it interacts with daily legal problems,'' he writes.

"A climate-conscious approach demands, first, actively identifying the intersections between the issues of the legal problem or dispute and climate change issues and, second, giving advice and litigating or resolving the legal problem or dispute in ways that meaningfully address the climate change issues ...

"If the failure to provide advice on the relevant climate change issues meant that the advice was not to the standard expected of a reasonably competent lawyer, this may amount to professional negligence."

He notes that company directors have not been targets for litigation but that could soon change given the greater awareness of the risks of climate change.

Lawyers would also need "to predict what courts are likely to pronounce to be the legal responsibilities in future litigation, rather than look backwards to what courts have held to be legal responsibilities in past judgments".

"The courts of the future will be asked to determine the legality of present action and inaction of governments and enterprises in relation to climate change."

He cites the example of Gloucester Resources, which appealed the minister’s refusal of consent to the Land and Environment Court, in warning against a "climate blind" approach.

"Neither party initially raised the impact of the mine on climate change as an issue in the proceedings."

The NSW Environmental Defenders' Office succeeded in being named as a party to the action last April and widened the argument to include the effect of the open-cut coal mine on climate change. It was cited by Justice Preston as another reason for its refusal.

Justice Preston invokes the parable of the Good Samaritan in suggesting that ethical approaches "can be shaped by following the example of climate-conscious lawyers and emulating their climate conscious attitudes and behaviours".

"An intuitive understanding of the parable is that lawyers should act likewise to climate conscious lawyers.

"Climate-conscious lawyers have compassion for people and a planet wounded by climate change and are, in their daily legal practice, providing advice and taking action to heal these wounds."

Links

• Doctrine of Public Trust
• Senior Environment Judge Brian Preston Tips Wave Of Climate Change Litigation
• 'We Won': Landmark Climate Ruling As NSW Court Rejects Coal Mine
• These Residents Stopped A Coal Mine, Made History And Sent Ripples Through Boardrooms Around The World
• 'New Weapon': Courts Offer Hope For Driving Serious Climate Action
• Climate Change Activists Worldwide Look To Courts As A Powerful New Ally
• A Surge Of Climate Lawsuits Targets Human Rights, Damage From Fossil Fuels

(AU) Net-Zero, Carbon-Neutral, Carbon-Negative … Confused By All The Carbon Jargon? Then Read This

The Conversation - Jessica Allen

Shutterstock

Author Jessica Allen is Senior Lecturer and DECRA Fellow, University of Newcastle.

Countries around the world are taking steps to tackle climate change and become net-zero emitters of carbon dioxide (CO₂) by 2050.

Most recently, Joe Biden’s presidential election win means the US is the latest nation to adopt the goal. So what does net-zero mean? Completely eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions?

Not necessarily. The “net” part of net-zero means we can still emit CO₂, as long as we offset (or remove) those emissions from the atmosphere by the same amount in other places.

You might have heard a lot of talk about “going net-zero” in the media lately. China recently announced it intends to achieve the goal by 2060.

France, the United Kingdom and New Zealand will go net-zero by 2050. In Australia, all states and territories have a net-zero strategy and the federal government is under pressure to make a national commitment.

You might also have heard references to “zero emissions”, “low emissions” and going “carbon-neutral” So let’s get clear on what all these terms mean in practice.

Many of Australia’s peers have adopted net-zero emissions targets. Shutterstock

Getting to grips with net-zero

It’s not just countries that can produce net-zero emissions. The term can also apply to a state, city, company or even a single building.

Under a net-zero scenario, emissions are still being generated but they’re offset by the same amount elsewhere. Examples of offset activities include planting trees to absorb CO₂ or using other natural ecosystems to increase carbon stored in the biosphere.

The term “carbon-neutral” is sometimes used instead of net-zero, and they broadly mean the same thing. There are also two specific categories of carbon-neutral technologies that are relevant here:

• a process that generates CO₂ in a short-term cycle which does not add to global warming. An example of this is bioenergy, where CO₂ is initially absorbed by organic material, then released on conversion to energy. Overall, emissions are stable and there is no net increase in CO₂.
  
  
• a process that generates CO₂ but captures and sequesters (stores) it, rather than releasing it to the atmosphere. An example of this is a coal-fired power plant fitted with carbon capture and storage technology.
  
  

Bioenergy is a carbon-neutral technology. Shutterstock

Don’t get confused with these terms

To understand the term “net-zero emissions”, we must also understand what it is not. It should not be confused with the following related, but separate, concepts:

►Zero emissions: this refers to a process where no CO₂ is released at all. In fact, in our current global mining and manufacturing system, no technology produces zero emissions.

Technologies such as solar panels and wind energy are often said to be zero-emissions but technically, they’re not. They have what are known as “embedded emissions” – those created in manufacturing the technology. However wind and solar produce no ongoing emissions after installation, unlike fossil fuel energy.

►Carbon-negative: This means removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, or sequestering more CO₂ than is emitted. This might include a bioenergy process with carbon capture and storage.

►Low emissions: Generating greenhouse gases at a lower rate than business as usual. Examples include switching from coal-fired to gas-fired power to generate the same amount of electricity, but with fewer emissions.

Wind energy produces no ongoing CO2 emissions. Shutterstock

OK, back to net-zero There are a few key ways to move to net-zero emissions, which are reflected in most national plans:

• drastically reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the energy sector (including transport)
  
  
• improve efficiency and/or develop new technology in other sectors generating emissions but unable to easily reduce them, such as manufacturing and agriculture
  
  
• invest in bio-sequestration (also known as reforestation or tree-planting) and carbon-negative technologies to offset any continuing or unavoidable emissions.
  
  

No technology or quantity of trees planted could offset the emissions currently generated globally. That’s why nearly every net-zero plan includes first reducing, and eventually replacing, fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels could be used to achieve net-zero with offsets or carbon capture and storage, but in many cases this is not actually the most cost-effective or practical pathway to net-zero.

Achieving only the first two points would not take the world to net-zero. Carbon-negative approaches – removing CO₂ from the atmosphere – will also be needed.

Most national plans achieve this through land management techniques such as reforestation. However the amount of CO₂ offset through natural carbon-negative solutions can be difficult to measure.

Additionally the long-term delivery of the carbon offsets cannot always be guaranteed – for example, a replanted forest may die or be burnt in a bushfire releasing CO₂ back to the atmosphere.

Other more engineered solutions can also remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. They include the use of biochar – a charcoal-like material added to soil. It promotes microbial activity and soil clumps which prevents organic plant matter breaking down and releasing carbon. But this method is still not perfect.

Biochar helps boost soil carbon stores. Shutterstock

CO₂: problem or opportunity?

Global progress on emissions reduction has been so slow that simply cutting emissions won’t avert a climate catastrophe.

Even if the world manages to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, we may still blow our “carbon budget” – the amount of CO₂ that can be emitted if Earth’s temperature rise is to stay below 1.5℃ this century. So we must find ways to first eliminate emissions, then remove existing CO₂.

It is foreseeable Earth will one day rely on carbon-negative technologies that draw CO₂ from the air and stabilise it in useful products. For example, direct air carbon capture and storage (which is still under development) could one day remove CO₂ and use it in products such as building materials and plastics.

Such a process would treat CO₂ as a valuable input material – turning Earth’s biggest problem into an opportunity for innovation.

The move towards net-zero is crucial to avoid a climate catastrophe. And the time to move is not tomorrow or “by 2050” – it’s now.

Links

• NT Puts Australia on Track for Net-Zero Climate Target
• IPCC: Bioenergy
• The Morrison government wants to suck CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Here are 7 ways to do it
• China just stunned the world with its step-up on climate action – and the implications for Australia may be huge 
• Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp
• Enjoy them while you can? The ecotourism challenge facing Australia’s favourite islands
• These tiny oceanic creatures are essential to tackling climate change