11/08/2021

(AU The Guardian) Coalition’s Misleading Tactics Will No Longer Cut It – The IPCC Report Shows Our Future Depends On Urgent Climate Action

The Guardian - 

The Morrison government’s ‘technology, not taxes’ mantra ignores the fact that taxes pay for technology, and affordable technology can make a difference

A car is submerged by flood water in Traralgon, Victoria in June 2021. The IPCC report predicts parts of Australia will be more prone to drought, while others will see more severe storms and increased flooding. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

How many wake-up calls on the climate does Australia need?

It is an unanswerable question, of course – we’ve been here too many times before to pretend otherwise – but everyone should read the summary of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, regardless.

Using careful scientific language, it tells the story of what is happening across the planet with a bracing clarity that is at once familiar and alarming.

From an Australian perspective, it confirms that on average temperatures are 1.4C hotter than early last century. It is unequivocally – unarguably, unambiguous and indisputably – due to human influence.

Deadly heatwaves have increased, there are more extreme fire days, the bushfire season is longer and sea levels are rising faster than the global average, pushing back the shoreline in many places. There is a high confidence that all of this will get significantly worse.

There is also high confidence that emissions have already slashed rainfall in southern WA, where it will become drier and more drought prone under all scenarios. In the east, rainfall is down in the cooler months and droughts will get worse if the temperature rises to 2C.

When the rain does come, it will really come – there will be more damaging extreme storms, and river flooding is expected to increase.

We know all this, of course – the IPCC report is an authoritative statement on research that has already been published.

We know the catastrophic bushfires that burned across Australia two summers ago were the most extensive on record and had a climate signal. We know the Great Barrier Reef suffered three mass coral bleaching events in five years. We know the country’s ecosystems are being pushed to the edge. We know that seasonal changes linked to climate change led to farm profits in Australia falling 23% over 20 years.

‘Not too late’: Australian scientists call for urgent action to avoid worst of climate crisis.  Read more

And we know damage across the planet in this extraordinary year is consistent with previous scientific warnings.

An unprecedented heat dome over the American Pacific north-west, wildfires in Europe and North America, devastating floods in western Europe and China, a climate-linked famine in Madagascar – this is how it happens, how we have been told for years it will happen.

Recent studies suggest there are signs that the Gulf Stream is losing stability, that a study found the Amazon – which by rights should be a massive carbon sink – has been releasing more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, and that a destabilisation of the massive Greenland ice sheet is likely under way. Each would be a tipping point with global consequences.

It is worth remembering that the IPCC is by nature a conservative organisation, in the true sense of the word. The report is the work of 234 scientists based on evidence from more than 14,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and signed off by the world’s governments, including Australia. In the past, the reality of climate change has at times outpaced the IPCC’s published consensus.

One month in the global climate crisis and what it means for Australia, with Lenore Taylor – video 2m16sec

Without ever straying into politics, the latest report illustrates the vast gulf between what qualifies as climate policy and debate in Australia and what is required to address the problem. The Morrison government’s response to criticism of its climate performance is to list what it says is evidence of action where there is next-to-none. It gets away with this, in part, through tricks of carbon accounting.

As Scott Morrison said in parliament on Monday, the most recent national greenhouse accounts released in June suggests emissions have fallen 20% over the past 15 years, a statistic that you could assume represents some (limited) progress.

In reality, as analyses by government officials and others have shown, fossil fuel use in Australia has barely moved. The government has been able to claim it is taking action purely because the historically rapid rate of forest clearing for farming, logging and development slowed – but not stopped – earlier this decade.

This land-based fall in emissions mostly happened under Labor, not the Coalition, and mostly had nothing to do with federal policy. It was possible only because Australia has not yet finished cutting down its native forests. Most other wealthy nations were cleared centuries ago.

Here is the key point, as spelled out this week in a study by energy analyst Hugh Saddler: if changes in farming and land-clearing are excluded, fossil fuel emissions in Australia increased by more than 6% between 2005 and when Covid-19 struck. Try selling that number as evidence of an inevitable economic transformation under way.

It makes the government’s target of cutting emissions by at least 26% by 2030 compared with 2005 appear particularly hollow. The goal, unchanged in six years, looks worse again when held up against recent commitments by G7 countries to make minimum cuts of between 40% and 63% over the same period, and entirely without basis when measured against the rapidly advancing science of the IPCC.

The government’s response on Monday was to repeat its mantra that “technology, not taxes” could solve the problem. It’s a slogan that ignores that taxes pay for technology development, and technology that can make a difference already exists and, in the words of the ClimateWorks Australia chief Anna Skarbek, is in many cases “mature and available”.

The world still needs better technology, but it also needs policy that deploys the available technology at a pace that recognises the scale of the threat.
What does the IPCC’s report mean for Australia, and what can we expect in the future?  Read more

With less than three months until the Cop26 global climate conference in Glasgow, the main question being directed at the Morrison government on climate is whether it will belatedly join more than 100 other countries in adopting a target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, and lay out a plan to get there.

The IPCC report makes clear the main game is what countries – and particularly the biggest 20 or so emitting nations including Australia and, yes, China – are willing to do now.

This still matters because, though it may be easy to miss amid the dire headlines, the report lays out some reason for hope, however qualified. The crisis is in motion, with some changes in oceans and ice possibly irreversible for millennia, and global heating of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a benchmark enshrined in the Paris agreement – is almost certain to be reached. But the scientists found aggressive action could see it dip back below that level later this century.

Scientists involved with the report are at pains to stress that, whatever the outcome, every fraction of a degree will make a difference.

Many of the world’s biggest developed countries now have commitments that could put the world on a 1.5C path if delivered and matched elsewhere. Business and global investors worth trillions are increasingly singing from a similar sheet, and not all of it is greenwash. More than ever, there are potential solutions within reach.

But the IPCC report shows there is no room for countries the size of Australia to engage in political sophistry based on misleading data, or to hide behind technology-focused delaying tactics that echo positions held by the Howard government nearly 20 years ago.

The scientists would never use this language, but its central point could be summarised as: the bullshit has to end.

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(AU SMH) Seven Top Takeaways From The IPCC’s Latest Climate Science Assessment

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Every seven years or so, like a recurring global spasm, scientists from around the world update their understanding of how the planet is heating up, what the impacts will be and what we might do about it.

Known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the resulting reports serve as what one contributing author calls a “golden book” of climate science in three volumes plus a synthesis report.

The first volume of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) was released on Monday and lays out in exacting detail in about 4000 pages how jamming our atmosphere with greenhouse gases is altering the climate.

What’s changed from previous Assessment Reports?


Temperatures, for one thing. The mean temperature at the surface – where we live – has warmed 0.24 degrees since the 2013-14 Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) evaluated data to 2011. Let’s call it a quarter. We’re now about 1.1 degrees warmer than the 1850-1900 baseline and, given the slow process of how our extra emissions trap more heat from the sun, we will heat further even if carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gas pollution ceased today. (Spoiler: They won’t.)

Apart from more refined estimates, AR6 has stepped up regional forecasts including carving Australia into four zones. The blame humans carry for altering the climate – known as attribution research – also gets more prominence. (Spoiler: we are responsible for virtually all of it.)


 

Do these reports do much?


These IPCC reports aren’t meant merely to gather dust (though they do), but inform governments (Intergovernmental is a clue) and the public (that might nudge those policymakers to act).

Since the first assessment report (presciently dubbed FAR) in 1990 said, “the climate is warming, folks”, we’ve belched 1 trillion tonnes (1,000,000,000,000) of CO2 by burning fossil fuels and clearing land. It’s also 41 per cent of all the estimated emissions since 1750, so if it’s a pedal we’re hitting, it’s not the brake. Temperatures, particularly since the 1970s have been going one way, and the best climate models are doing an increasingly good job at matching observations.


 

1.5 degrees and all that


Remember Paris and that 2015 climate summit where almost 200 nations agreed to keep warming to between 1.5 degrees and “well below 2 degrees”? Well, this instalment of AR6 is meant to guide leaders when they gather (or Zoom into) a summit in the less glamorous Glasgow in November. (The other two reports, on impacts and what emissions action we could take, won’t land until next year.)


 
Remember, though, that 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees are both arbitrary. Look at Greece this week, Canada or California last month, or our home-fired Black Summer last year to get a glimpse of how juicing the climate is already raising the odds of extreme nasties. Heatwaves are one of them.

Oh, and as the 1.5-degree target represents a 20-year average, don’t be surprised if we cross that marker in an El Nino year (when the Pacific Ocean unhelpfully doesn’t absorb as much heat and gives some back) this decade. We hit that mark in a month during the 2015-16 El Nino, according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s Blair Trewin.

As the atmosphere’s greenhouse gas concentration rise, we’re trapping more heat and energising our weather systems. Credit: Nick Moir

Barbecued and soaked Australia


The improved resolution of climate models has allowed this IPCC report to provide a closer look at how regions of the world might fare as the planet heats up.

Land warms faster than the ocean, and that happens to be where most of us live. In Australia, we’ve warmed about 1.4 degrees so far, since 1910. Projected warming doesn’t make for a happy scene, particularly for maximums, and that’s not considering heatwave spikes.



Rainfall is likely to be heavier when it comes, as the atmosphere holds about 7 per cent more moisture per degree. Unfortunately, southern Australia will remain on its drying trend, particularly in winter, as west-to-east storm tracks shifting closer to Antarctica. Other unpleasant outcomes await those living near the coast as sea levels rise, while the “intensity, frequency and duration of fire-weather events are projected to increase throughout Australia” the report states with “high confidence”.

Mid-century carbon neutrality?


The third AR6 report will explore in more detail what fossil pathways we might saunter down, but this one gives us a taste of what we can expect. It presents five specific options, ranging from low to high emissions, and includes methane, nitrous oxide (think fertiliser) and other heat-trapping gases.

Taking the lowest scenario (awkwardly named “shared socio-economic pathway”) won’t get us to net-zero emissions or so-called climate neutrality this side of 2050.



Remember, that target is what many rich nations have signed up for, while the Morrison government says it’s a “preferred” goal. Better not get stuck on a higher or moderately high emissions path or we’ll never get there.

So, how much can we burn?


Let’s say every time you flip on an electric toaster or drive your car (assuming you’re not offsetting both by buying renewable energy or planting a tree, or so on), you’re helping warm up our planet. (Big picture: every trillion tonnes of CO2 likely causes a best-estimate of 0.45 degrees warming.)



Now, we burn or emit about 42 billion tonnes of CO2 a year. The AR6 report puts a range of probability risks around what we might aim for. If it’s to keep warming to 1.5 degrees or stay thereabouts, and we think we’d like a 50-50 chance, then we have 500 billion tonnes of C02 to go, or 12 years of current pollution levels.

Or as Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes puts it: “I don’t want my future based on the toss of a coin.” Who flies in a plane with a 50 per cent of crashing?

Tipping points and other unfathomables (for now)


Professor Pitman is not alone in thinking we’re all but set for 1.5 degrees of warming. Pep Canadell, one of the AR6 report authors and senior CSIRO researcher says “there’s a lot of warming all the way to 2050. And it’s coming fast”.

The report, if anything, errs on the side of caution, noting the limited data on so-called “low probability, high impact” events such as the disintegration of Antarctic ice sheets (think more than 15 metres of sea-level rise) or the halt of the Gulf Stream. For the latter, (fancy name: Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation), the report says “there is medium confidence that there will not be an abrupt collapse before 2100″. Not so reassuring if you live in northern Europe.


 
Extreme weather
Australian weather extremes to get more extreme as climate heats: IPCC

What keeps people like Professor Pitman awake at nights, though, is the prospect that the biosphere won’t behave as it has for the past couple of centuries of our carbon-plus experiment.

The AR6 report notes that as emissions rise, the land and ocean won’t be so cooperative and take up as much of the extra emissions we’re sending up.

“That’s a big, big deal,” he said. “The specific human cuts of emissions necessary to achieve any particular CO2 level becomes harder.“

If the atmosphere keeps it, we’d better come up with some good ways to take it back out, and fast.



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10/08/2021

(AU ABC) Climate Change Report A 'Code Red For Humanity', United Nations Chief Warns

ABC News - Michael Slezak | Penny Timms

Fires are projected to get worse and more frequent due to climate change. (ABC News: James Carmody)

Key Points
  • Global warming would likely increase to 1.5C by about 2030, the IPCC report says, based on our current trajectory
  • The effects of rising temperatures include rising sea levels, longer fire seasons and worse droughts
  • In 2015, as part of the Paris Agreement, all governments had agreed to try to stop warming at 1.5C
The Earth could be just 10 years from heating by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius — a threshold beyond which even more serious and frequent fires, droughts, floods and cyclones are expected to wreak havoc on humanity.

That is one of the key conclusions of the most comprehensive climate report ever released — produced by the world's most authoritative body on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Globally, warming has now reached about 1.1C since industrialisation (1850-1900), according to the hundreds of scientists and governments that make up the IPCC. In Australia, warming has reached 1.4C.

The new report was a "code red for humanity", United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres declared.

"The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable: Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk," he said.

"This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.

"The viability of our societies depends on leaders from government, business and civil society uniting behind policies, actions and investments that will limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius."

The UK government immediately called for the rest of the world to take urgent action.

"I hope today's IPCC report will be a wake-up call for the world to take action now, before we meet in Glasgow in November for the critical COP26 summit," UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

If it was not for aerosol pollution emitted by humans, which cools the Earth, they said the greenhouse gasses we have emitted would already have heated the world by 1.5C.

World likely to hit 1.5C by 2030 if nothing changes

The new report found that even in its most ambitious scenario, which the world is failing to stick to, global warming would likely hit 1.5C by about 2035.

On our current trajectory, we are likely to hit 1.5C of warming about 2030.

Even if we radically and immediately cut emissions now, the world is still likely to warm to 1.6C, before dropping again.

In all scenarios, getting the world back under that extra 1.5C would require massive reforestation, or technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Technology like that has not yet been proven to work at scale.

The UN secretary-general said there must be no new coal plants built after 2021. (Supplied: Lothar M Peter) 

In 2018, the UN body produced a report estimating that warming rates seen at the time meant the 1.5C barrier would be breached between 2030 and 2050, with the most likely time being around 2040.

The new report said many of the effects of that warming had particular relevance to Australia:
  • Sea levels around Australia and New Zealand, which have already risen higher than the global average, causing coastal erosion, are set to continue rising
  • Fires are projected to get worse and more frequent, and fire seasons will last longer
  • Heavy rainfall and river floods are projected to worsen across Australasia
  • Eastern Australia is projected to get fewer days of rain in winter, but heavier rains when they do occur
  • In eastern Australia, if warming exceeds 2C, then droughts are projected to increase
  • Across southern Australia drought has already increased, and projections suggest that will worsen
Australia committed to reaching net zero 'as soon as possible'

In 2015, as part of the Paris Agreement, the world's governments agreed to pursue efforts to stop warming at 1.5C — a promise they have now all but failed to come good on.

Australia is widely considered to be a laggard on efforts to stop climate change, and it was recently ranked last among 200 countries for its actions.

Strip out the politics, and the climate change story is very different to the one we've been told. Read more
Minister for Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor said Australia was committed to reaching net zero "as soon as possible", preferably by 2050, but did not flag any changes to the government's approach.

He said the government's Technology Investment Roadmap would drive billions of dollars of investment in low-emissions technologies that would make net zero achievable.

"Our technology-led approach to reducing emissions will see Australia continue to play its part in the global effort to combat climate change without compromising our economy or jobs," he said.

One of the authors of the IPCC report is Malte Meinshausen, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne and former scientific adviser to the German government's climate negotiators.

"I think everybody in the international community would laugh if they would hear that Australia thinks they're doing enough. Of course they're not doing enough," Dr Meinshausen told the ABC.

"They neither have upped their targets for 2030 nor have they put a net zero target onto the table. They are not invited to many of the talks where international climate diplomacy is now going on because they are seen — and rightly so — as a laggard."

Heavy rainfall and river floods are projected to worsen across Australasia. (ABC News: Brendan Esposito, File photo)

Labor's Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Chris Bowen, said the report was "yet more evidence of the costs of inaction, and it was past time the government stop spinning and start delivering for Australians".

"We have a government divided even on the basic science of climate change, let alone able to deliver on the opportunities the changing global economy presents for Australia's future," he said.

Greens leader Adam Bandt took aim at both major parties.

"The rest of the world understands that if we don't do more by 2030, we all go over the climate cliff, so the Liberals' 2030 denial and Labor's 2030 silence are putting Australian lives at risk," Mr Bandt said.

"After this report, failure to lift 2030 targets is criminal negligence."

1.5C limit a promise the world is set to break

Chair of the IPCC, Mark Howden from ANU, said to keep climate change at relatively safe levels, changes needed to be implemented quickly.

"We really need to be heading towards 45 per cent reduction by 2030 and keeping that going post 2030," he said.

"At the moment, those emission reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement are not sufficient to keep temperatures down to 2 degrees, let alone 1.5 degrees."

Reaching the target of net zero emissions needed to happen much earlier than most were considering, said Nerilie Abram, a climate scientist from ANU and the ARC Centre for Excellence for Climate Extremes.

"For Australia to be doing its fair share, actually we really should be trying to get to net zero emissions in the 2030s," she said.

Leslie Hughes, professor of Biology at Macquarie University and councillor at the Climate Council, agreed.

"What we do by 2030 would determine our future," she said.

On that, Professor Hughes said the solutions were clear.

"There must be no new oil, coal or gas exploration or infrastructure. We've got to stop subsidising fossil fuels. We've got to electrify everything and then run everything from renewable energy. We've got to change our diets," she said.

"We've really got to change most of the ways that we do things. But we know how to do it and there are ample opportunities to do so."

That message was echoed by Mr Guterres.

"There must be no new coal plants built after 2021. OECD countries must phase out existing coal by 2030, with all others following suit by 2040," he said.

"Countries should also end all new fossil fuel exploration and production, and shift fossil fuel subsidies into renewable energy.

"By 2030, solar and wind capacity should quadruple and renewable energy investments should triple to maintain a net zero trajectory by mid-century."

Sea level rise of up to five metres

The report again warned that every incremental increase in warming raised the risk of cataclysmal effects, some of which would be irreversible over millennia.

The loss of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet, the second largest body of ice on Earth, was expected to continue over the next century regardless of what we do now, contributing to between 28cm and 55cm of sea level rise expected by 2100.

The Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets hold enough water to raise sea levels significantly if they melt. (Supplied: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Matt Osman, File photo) 
But the report warned two metres of sea level rise by 2100 and a catastrophic five metres by 2150 could not be ruled out, since there were uncertainties about how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would change.

Professor Howden said the possibility of that amount of sea level rise was "seriously scary".

"In the longer term, sea level is committed to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt, and will remain elevated for thousands of years," the report concluded.

Droughts and flooding rains

As the report was being prepared, the world was being ravaged by extreme weather. 

At the time of writing, wildfires were devastating parts of Greece, in what the Prime Minister called a "nightmarish summer". He blamed the fires on climate change.

Less than a year ago, Australia was shaken by the Black Summer bushfires, which were exacerbated by climate change.

Those natural disasters will intensify as the climate continues to warm.

"We're going to see impacts right across the climate system," Professor Abram said.

"We're losing ice. The sea levels are rising. Temperature extremes are getting worse.

"We just need to look around the world over the past couple of months to see the effects of those extremes that would have been essentially impossible without the human influence on climate."

Greece's Prime Minister blamed the country's wildfires on climate change. (AP: Thodoris Nikolaou)
She said if heating went beyond 1.5C, the risk of much worse effects would increase.

"We also run a greater risk of passing some of these tipping points in the climate system," she said.

The report was reassuring when it came to some of the worst tipping points.

It found that Arctic permafrost, which contains vast quantities of trapped greenhouse gases, did not seem to be on the brink of collapse, and its melting could be limited.

Similarly, the collapse of the Gulf Stream, a huge ocean current that plays a part in regulating the northern hemisphere's climate, did not appear imminent, the report concluded, although it was weakening.

Global reaction ahead of crucial climate meeting

The first IPCC report was released in 1990 and updates since have set the stage for international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

This report comes out just months before the world meets as part of COP26 in Glasgow, where countries are expected to ratchet up their ambition under the Paris Agreement in pursuit of stopping warming at 1.5C.

Alok Sharma, UK Minister for State and COP26 president, called on governments around the world to keep that target alive.

"The science is clear, the impacts of the climate crisis can be seen around the world and if we don't act now we will continue to see the worst effects impact lives, livelihoods and natural habitats," Mr Sharma said.

"We can do this together by coming forward with ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets and long-term strategies with a pathway to net zero by the middle of the century, and taking action now to end coal power, accelerate the rollout of electric vehicles, tackle deforestation and reduce methane emissions."
The 'epoch of incredulity'
Australians are three times more worried about climate change than COVID-19, and a mental health crisis is looming. Read more
Teresa Ribera, Deputy Prime Minister of Spain said: "This report provides unequivocal evidence that we must scale up efforts to adapt to climate change, including through stepping up financing to build resilience.

And we cannot afford to delay real and rapid emissions cuts — not only with the long horizon of 2050, but by 2030."

The IPCC Working Group 1 report was written by hundreds of scientists and synthesised more than 14,000 pieces of research.

The final summary for policymakers was approved, after changes, by 195 countries through the United Nations.

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(AU The Guardian) Australia ‘Lagging At The Back Of The Pack’ Of OECD Countries On Climate Action, Analysis Finds

The Guardian - 

Australia ranks 20th or worse in seven of eight categories despite Coalition claim it is leading the way in reducing emissions

Energy analyst Dr Hugh Saddler says ‘over the past 15 years Australia has squandered its golden opportunity to decouple its energy sector from fossil fuels’. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Claims by the Morrison government that Australia has done more to cut greenhouse gas emissions than other countries have been challenged by an analysis that found it has gone backwards compared to similar countries over the past 15 years.

Energy analyst Dr Hugh Saddler ranked the performance of 23 OECD countries and Russia on eight climate measures, including share of electricity from non-fossil fuels, per capita emissions from transport and overall emissions intensity of each economy.

He found Australia was ranked 20th or worse in seven of the eight categories. In relative terms, it had not improved in any category since 2005 and had gone backwards compared to other developed countries in four.

Saddler, an honorary associate professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, said his research – published by the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute – showed the country was “lagging at the back of the pack” among developed countries in transforming its economy.

He contrasted it with Morrison’s claim, made ahead of a virtual climate summit hosted by the US in April, that Australia’s record in reducing emissions was better than many of the other major countries appearing at the event.

Australia has been talking up its climate credentials – but do the claims stack up?  Read more
“Despite the last decade of growth in solar and wind energy, fossil fuels still dominate Australia’s energy sector and its rate of electrification – that is, getting off coal, oil and gas for energy – is one of the worst in the OECD,” Saddler said.

The emissions analysis precedes the release on Monday night of a landmark report by the world’s leading climate scientists that will assess the state of the global climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report is a comprehensive review of the world’s knowledge of the climate crisis and how rapidly human actions are altering the planet.

Saddler said his research showed the government’s “so-called gas-fired economic recovery”, under which the Coalition has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to fossil fuel power and opening up new gas basins, was “absolutely counter to the needs of Australia’s energy system transition”.

“Over the past 15 years, Australia has squandered its golden opportunity to decouple its energy sector from fossil fuels, unlike so many other OECD countries,” he said. “As a result Australians are left with high-polluting and inefficient power, heating, housing and transport. This also drives up our cost of living and drives down our energy productivity.”

The government defends its performance on climate by arguing the fall in Australia’s emissions since 2005 – about 20%, according to the most recent national accounts – is better than many comparable counties.

Morrison and other government MPs have repeatedly cited the figure when asked why Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target is only half that set by the US and European Union, and less than half that promised by Britain. They say Australia has a record of “over-achieving” on emissions targets.

But Saddler’s research backs earlier analyses that suggest this claim is misleading.

We’re on the brink of catastrophe, warns Tory climate chief. Read more
He found all of Australia’s emissions reductions since 2005 have been due to farming activities, mainly due to a large fall in the amount of “land-clearing”.

In basic terms, the annual destruction of forests and other ecosystems for agriculture and timber collection decreased over the decade from 2007 to 2017 – it still happens, but at a slower rate.

Saddler’s report said if this change in how land was used was excluded from national emissions accounts Australia’s emissions had increased by 7% since 2005.

He said it was a key, and often overlooked, point when comparing Australia’s emissions were compared to other countries.

“Large one-off reductions in land-clearing are in no way evidence of a trend towards the decarbonisation of the Australian economy,” the report said.

“For the purposes of international comparison, it is important to note that most other developed countries have no capacity to benefit from large reductions in land-clearing for the simple reason that they cleared most of their land centuries ago.”

Saddler excluded changes in land use by choosing indicators that measured changes in energy consumption and emissions. They included energy combustion emissions, energy consumption, energy productivity (the amount of economic output for each unit of energy consumed), non-fossil fuel share of electricity and transport emissions.

Findings included:

  • Australia had the second most emissions-intensive energy system after Poland, a big coal producer.

  • It achieved the second smallest increase in energy productivity across the 15 years, ahead of only Portugal. This is despite federal and state energy ministers releasing a national energy productivity plan in 2015.

  • It has significantly increased its share of wind and solar energy but other countries have moved faster – it slipped from 13th (in 2005) to 14th (in 2019) on a ranking of the share of electricity from new renewable energy generation.

  • It was one of only three countries to have increased total energy combustion emissions.

  • Prior to Covid-19, it had the third highest per capita transport emissions, behind the US and Canada. Both North American countries reduced per capita transport emissions faster between 2005 and 2019 than Australia.
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(UK BBC) Climate Change: Time Running Out To Stop Catastrophe - Alok Sharma

BBC - Francesca Gillett

Former Business Secretary Alok Sharma is now leading COP26, the climate summit in Glasgow in November. PA Media

The world is "dangerously close" to running out of time to stop a climate change catastrophe, the UK government's climate chief Alok Sharma has said.

Mr Sharma - who is leading COP26, the climate summit hosted by the UK this year - said the effects were already clear with floods, fires and heatwaves.

"We can't afford to wait two years, five years, 10 years - this is the moment," he told the Observer.

But he did not condemn the government for allowing more fossil fuel projects.

And he defended his decision to travel to more than 30 countries in seven months.

Mr Sharma's interview with the Observer comes ahead of a major report being released on Monday from the United Nations' climate change researchers.

The report is set to be the strongest statement yet from the UN group on the science of climate change - and will likely give details about how the world's oceans, ice caps and land will change in the next decades.

The summary has been approved in a process involving scientists and representatives of 195 governments, which - having signed off on the findings - will be under pressure to take more action at COP26 in November.

Doug Parr, chief scientist with Greenpeace UK, said "world leaders have done a terrible job of listening" to warnings about climate change.

"This year, this has to change. We don't need more pledges, commitments and targets - we need real action right here right now."

Wildfires are currently raging in Greece, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes - and fires have also been burning in Turkey and California in the US. This summer, western Europe also saw its worst flooding in decades, which killed dozens of people.

Mr Sharma said if urgent action was not taken, the consequences would be "catastrophic".

"I don't think there's any other word for it," he said. "You're seeing on a daily basis what is happening across the world. Last year was the hottest on record, the last decade the hottest decade on record."

What is climate change? 3min 14sec

He added: "We're seeing the impacts across the world - in the UK or the terrible flooding we've seen across Europe and China, or forest fires, the record temperatures that we've seen in North America. Every day you will see a new high being recorded in one way or another across the world."

 Mr Sharma said the report released on Monday is "going to be the starkest warning yet that human behaviour is alarmingly accelerating global warming".

"I don't think we're out of time but I think we're getting dangerously close to when we might be out of time. We will see [from the IPCC] a very, very clear warning that unless we act now, we will unfortunately be out of time."

"Africa has been waiting for the rest of the world to catch up and act on climate change for years," Fredrick Njehu, Christian Aid's senior climate change and energy adviser for Africa, highlighting the "changing rainfall patterns or overbearing heat" endured by the continent in recent years.

He added: "The important thing now is that rich world governments make up for lost time and act quickly to reduce emissions and deliver promised financial support for the vulnerable."

Fossil fuel criticism

Glasgow is set to host the COP26 summit in November - which is the UN climate change conference.

The summit is seen as vital if climate change is to be brought under control, and leaders from 196 countries will meet to try and agree action.

But campaigners have accused the UK of hypocrisy, as there are plans to tap a new oil field off Shetland. The government has also said more oil and gas wells can be drilled in the North Sea, and there are plans for a new coal mine in Cumbria.

Earlier this year, the global energy watchdog the International Energy Agency said there cannot be any new investment in oil, gas or coal projects if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C. Experts say the impacts of climate change are far more severe when the increase is greater than 1.5C.

Mr Sharma refused to criticise the government's plan for the projects, saying: "Future [fossil fuel] licences are going to have to adhere to the fact we have committed to go to net zero by 2050 in legislation.

"There will be a climate check on any licences."

Climate change: How 1.5C could change the world. 2min 21sec

Mr Sharma's interview comes after he was criticised for flying abroad for meetings - and visiting more than 30 countries in seven months.

However, since then some environmental campaigners including Greenpeace have defended him, saying face-to-face meetings are important to persuade other nations to tackle climate change.

Mr Sharma told the Observer that in-person meetings were "incredibly vital and actually impactful".

"It makes a vital difference, to build those personal relationships which are going to be incredibly important as we look to build consensus," he said.

It also emerged in the Sunday Mirror that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab did not self-isolate after returning from France, which was on the amber plus list meaning all arrivals must quarantine.

A government spokesman said it was Mr Raab's job to represent the UK abroad and he followed Covid guidelines on return.

There is an exemption for ministers to avoid quarantine when returning from abroad.

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09/08/2021

(AU The Conversation) Australians Are 3 Times More Worried About Climate Change Than COVID. A Mental Health Crisis Is Looming

The Conversation -  |  | 

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Authors
  •  is Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow in Knowledge Translation, Monash University
  •  is Senior Research Fellow, Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI), Monash University
  •  is Director, Sustainable Health Network, Deakin University
As we write this article, the Delta strain of COVID-19 is reminding the world the pandemic is far from over, with millions of Australians in lockdown and infection rates outpacing a global vaccination effort.

In the northern hemisphere, record breaking temperatures in the form of heat domes recently caused uncontrollable “firebombs”, while unprecedented floods disrupted millions of people. Hundreds of lives have been lost due to heat stress, drownings and fire.

The twin catastrophic threats of climate change and a pandemic have created an “epoch of incredulity”. It’s not surprising many Australians are struggling to cope.

During the pandemic’s first wave in 2020, we collected nationwide data from 5,483 adults across Australia on how climate change affects their mental health. In our new paper, we found that while Australians are concerned about COVID-19, they were almost three times more concerned about climate change.

That Australians are very worried about climate change is not a new finding. But our study goes further, warning of an impending epidemic of mental health related disorders such as eco-anxiety, climate disaster-related post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and future-orientated despair.

Which Australians are most worried?

We asked Australians to compare their concerns about climate change, COVID, retirement, health, ageing and employment, using a four-point scale (responses ranging from “not a problem” to “very much a problem”).

A high level of concern about climate change was reported across the whole population regardless of gender, age, or residential location (city or rural, disadvantaged or affluent areas). Women, young adults, the well-off, and those in their middle years (aged 35 to 54) showed the highest levels of concern about climate change.

The latter group (aged 35 to 54) may be particularly worried because they are, or plan to become, parents and may be concerned about the future for their children.

The high level of concern among young Australians (aged 18 to 34) is not surprising, as they’re inheriting the greatest existential crisis faced by any generation. This age group have shown their concern through numerous campaigns such as the School Strike 4 Climate, and several successful litigations.

Of the people we surveyed in more affluent groups, 78% reported a high level of worry. But climate change was still very much a problem for those outside this group (42%) when compared to COVID-related worry (27%).

Recent flooding in Germany and Belgium killed more than 200 people. Boris Roessler/dpa via AP 

We also found many of those who directly experienced a climate-related disaster — bushfires, floods, extreme heat waves — reported symptoms consistent with PTSD. This includes recurrent memories of the trauma event, feeling on guard, easily startled and nightmares.

Others reported significant pre-trauma and eco-anxiety symptoms. These include recurrent nightmares about future trauma, poor concentration, insomnia, tearfulness, despair and relationship and work difficulties.

Overall, we found the inevitability of climate threats limit Australians’ ability to feel optimistic about their future, more so than their anxieties about COVID.

How are people managing their climate worry?

Our research also provides insights into what people are doing to manage their mental health in the face of the impending threat of climate change.

Joining protests, such as the School Strike 4 Climate, helps some Australians deal with their anxiety about climate change. AAP Image/James Ross
Rather than seeking professional mental health support such as counsellors or psychologists, many Australians said they were self-prescribing their own remedies, such as being in natural environments (67%) and taking positive climate action (83%), where possible.

Many said they strengthen their resilience through individual action (such as limiting their plastic use), joining community action (such as volunteering), or joining advocacy efforts to influence policy and raise awareness.

Indeed, our research from earlier this year showed environmental volunteering has mental health benefits, such as improving connection to place and learning more about the environment.

It’s both ironic and understandable Australians want to be in natural environments to lessen their climate-related anxiety. Events such as the mega fires of 2019 and 2020 may be renewing Australians’ understanding and appreciation of nature’s value in enhancing the quality of their lives. There is now ample research showing green spaces improve psychological well-being.

Walking in nature can improve your mental well-being. Sebastian Pichler/Unsplash

An impending epidemic

Our research illuminates the profound, growing mental health burden on Australians.

As the global temperature rises and climate-related disasters escalate in frequency and severity, this mental health burden will likely worsen. More people will suffer symptoms of PTSD, eco-anxiety, and more.

Of great concern is that people are not seeking professional mental health care to cope with climate change concern. Rather, they are finding their own solutions. The lack of effective climate change policy and action from the Australian government is also likely adding to the collective despair.

As Harriet Ingle and Michael Mikulewicz — a neuropsychologist and a human geographer from the UK — wrote in their 2020 paper:
For many, the ominous reality of climate change results in feelings of powerlessness to improve the situation, leaving them with an unresolved sense of loss, helplessness, and frustration.
It is imperative public health responses addressing climate change at the individual, community, and policy levels, are put into place. Governments need to respond to the health sector’s calls for effective climate related responses, to prevent a looming mental health crisis.

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