11/09/2021

(National Geographic) Why Climate Change Is Still The Greatest Threat To Human Health

National Geographic - Amy McKeever

Polluted air and steadily rising temperatures are linked to health effects ranging from increased heart attacks and strokes to the spread of infectious diseases and psychological trauma.

Workers fumigate for mosquitoes on a city street in New Delhi, India, as a preventive measure against the spread of dengue, malaria, and chikungunya. The impact of vector-borne diseases will increase as global temperatures rise. An editorial co-published in hundreds of medical journals called for urgent action to reduce emissions. Photograph by Raj K Raj, Hindustan Times via Getty Images

People around the world are witnessing firsthand how climate change can wreak havoc on the planet. Steadily rising average temperatures fuel increasingly intense wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters that are now impossible to ignore.

And while the world has been plunged into a deadly pandemic, scientists are sounding the alarm once more that climate change is still the greatest threat to human health in recorded history.

As recently as August—when wildfires raged in the United States, Europe, and Siberia—World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement that “the risks posed by climate change could dwarf those of any single disease.”

On September 5, more than 200 medical journals released an unprecedented joint editorial that urged world leaders to act. “The science is unequivocal,” they write. “A global increase of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.”

Despite the acute dangers posed by COVID-19, the authors of the joint op-ed write that world governments “cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.” Instead, they argue, everyone must treat climate change with the same urgency as they have COVID-19.

Here’s a look at the ways that climate change can affect your health—including some less obvious but still insidious effects—and why scientists say it’s not too late to avert catastrophe.

Air pollution

Climate change is caused by an increase of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, mostly from fossil fuel emissions. But burning fossil fuels can also have direct consequences for human health.

That’s because the polluted air contains small particles that can induce stroke and heart attacks by penetrating the lungs and heart and even traveling into the bloodstream. Those particles might harm the organs directly or provoke an inflammatory response from the immune system as it tries to fight them off.

 Estimates suggest that air pollution causes anywhere between 3.6 million and nine million premature deaths a year.

 “The numbers do vary,” says Andy Haines, professor of environmental change and public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and author of the recently published book Planetary Health. “But they all agree that it’s a big public health burden.”

A family has dinner in their flooded home in Central Java, Indonesia. For over 40 years, they witnessed their productive agricultural land slowly disappear under the sea. They have physically raised everything in their home to cope. Photograph by Aji Styawan, National Geographic

People over the age of 65 are most susceptible to the harmful effects of air pollution, but many others are at risk too, says Kari Nadeau, director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University.

People who smoke or vape are at increased risk, as are children with asthma.

Air pollution also has consequences for those with allergies. Carbon dioxide increases the acidity of the air, which then pulls more pollen out from plants. For some people, this might just mean that they face annoyingly long bouts of seasonal allergies. But for others, it could be life-threatening.

“For people who already have respiratory disease, boy is that a problem,” Nadeau says. When pollen gets into the respiratory pathway, the body creates mucus to get rid of it, which can then fill up and suffocate the lungs.

Even healthy people can have similar outcomes if pollen levels are especially intense.

In 2016, in the Australian state of Victoria, a severe thunderstorm combined with high levels of pollen to induce what The Lancet has described as “the world’s largest and most catastrophic epidemic of thunderstorm asthma.” So many residents suffered asthma attacks that emergency rooms were overwhelmed—and at least 10 people died as a result.

Climate change is also causing wildfires to get worse, and wildfire smoke is especially toxic. As one recent study showed, fires can account for 25 percent of dangerous air pollution in the U.S.

 Nadeau explains that the smoke contains particles of everything that the fire has consumed along its path—from rubber tires to harmful chemicals. These particles are tiny and can penetrate even deeper into a person’s lungs and organs. (Here’s how breathing wildfire smoke affects the body.)

Extreme heat

Heat waves are deadly, but researchers at first didn’t see direct links between climate change and the harmful impacts of heat waves and other extreme weather events.

Haines says the evidence base has been growing. “We have now got a number of studies which has shown that we can with high confidence attribute health outcomes to climate change,” he says.

Workers pick tomatoes in a field in Los Baños, California, under a scorching sun. Not only are rising temperatures impacting people's health and ability to work, agriculture in California is threatened by drought. Photograph by Karla Gachet, National Geographic

Most recently, Haines points to a study published earlier this year in Nature Climate Change that attributes more than a third of heat-related deaths to climate change.

As National Geographic reported at the time, the study found that the human toll was even higher in some countries with less access to air conditioning or other factors that render people more vulnerable to heat. (How climate change is making heat waves even deadlier.)

That’s because the human body was not designed to cope with temperatures above 98.6°F, Nadeau says.

Heat can break down muscles. The body does have some ways to deal with the heat—such as sweating. “But when it’s hot outside all the time, you cannot cope with that, and your heart muscles and cells start to literally die and degrade,” she says.

If you’re exposed to extreme heat for too long and are unable to adequately release that heat, the stress can cause a cascade of problems throughout the body.

The heart has to work harder to pump blood to the rest of the organs, while sweat leeches the body of necessary minerals such as sodium and potassium. The combination can result in heart attacks and strokes.

Dehydration from heat exposure can also cause serious damage to the kidneys, which rely on water to function properly. For people whose kidneys are already beginning to fail—particularly older adults—Nadeau says that extreme heat can be a death sentence. “This is happening more and more,” she says.

Studies have also drawn links between higher temperatures and preterm birth and other pregnancy complications. It’s unclear why, but Haines says that one hypothesis is that extreme heat reduces blood flow to the fetus.

Food insecurity

One of the less direct—but no less harmful—ways that climate change can affect health is by disrupting the world’s supply of food.

Climate change both reduces the amount of food that’s available and makes it less nutritious.

According to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report, crop yields have already begun to decline as a result of rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can leech plants of zinc, iron, and protein—nutrients that humans need to survive.

A woman faces heavy winds during a seasonal sandstorm in Beijing, China. Scientists believe that desertification and climate change are playing a role in their frequency and intensity. Air pollution is detrimental to human health. Photograph by Kevin Frayer, Getty Images
Malnutrition is linked to a variety of illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. It can also increase the risk of stunting, or impaired growth, in children, which can harm cognitive function.

Climate change also imperils what we eat from the sea. Rising ocean temperatures have led many fish species to migrate toward Earth’s poles in search of cooler waters. Haines says that the resulting decline of fish stocks in subtropic regions “has big implications for nutrition,” because many of those coastal communities depend on fish for a substantial amount of the protein in their diets.

This effect is likely to be particularly harmful for Indigenous communities, says Tiff-Annie Kenny, a professor in the faculty of medicine at Laval University in Quebec who studies climate change and food security in the Canadian Arctic.

It’s much more difficult for these communities to find alternative sources of protein, she says, either because it’s not there or because it’s too expensive. “So what are people going to eat instead?” she asks.

Infectious diseases

As the planet gets hotter, the geographic region where ticks and mosquitoes like to live is getting wider. These animals are well-known vectors of diseases such as the Zika virus, dengue fever, and malaria. As they cross the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Nadeau says, mosquitoes and ticks bring more opportunities for these diseases to infect greater swaths of the world.

“It used to be that they stayed in those little sectors near the Equator, but now unfortunately because of the warming of northern Europe and Canada, you can find Zika in places you wouldn’t have expected,” Nadeau says.

In addition, climate conditions such as temperature and humidity can impact the life cycle of mosquitoes. Haines says there’s particularly good evidence showing that, in some regions, climate change has altered these conditions in ways that increase the risk of mosquitos transmitting dengue.

There are also several ways in which climate change is increasing the risk of diseases that can be transmitted through water, such as cholera, typhoid fever, and parasites. Sometimes that’s fairly direct, such as when people interact with dirty floodwaters.

But Haines says that drought can have indirect impacts when people, say, can’t wash their hands or are forced to drink from dodgier sources of freshwater.

Mental health A common result of any climate-linked disaster is the toll on mental health. The distress caused by drastic environmental change is so significant that it has been given its own name—solastalgia.

Solar and wind farms west of Mojave, California, provide a glimpse of the future. The Biden administration announced a plan to scale up production and installation of solar panels from 3 percent of the nation’s electricity to 45 percent over the next three decades to reduce the carbon emissions contributing to global warming. Photograph by David Guttenfelder, National Geographic

Nadeau says that the effects on mental health have been apparent in her studies of emergency room visits arising from wildfires in the western U.S. People lose their homes, their jobs, and sometimes their loved ones, and that takes an immediate toll.

“What’s the fastest acute issue that develops? It’s psychological,” she says. Extreme weather events such as wildfires and hurricanes cause so much stress and anxiety that they can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder and even suicide in the long run.

Another common factor is that climate change causes disproportionate harm to the world’s most vulnerable people. On September 2, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an analysis showing that racial and ethnic minority communities are particularly at risk.

According to the report, if temperatures rise by 2°C (3.6°F), Black people are 40 percent more likely to live in areas with the highest projected increases in related deaths. Another 34 percent are more likely to live in areas with a rise in childhood asthma.

Further, the effects of climate change don’t occur in isolation. At any given time, a community might face air pollution, food insecurity, disease, and extreme heat all at once.

Kenny says that’s particularly devastating in communities where the prevalence of food insecurity and poverty are already high. This situation hasn’t been adequately studied, she says, because “it’s difficult to capture these shocks that climate can bring.”

Why there’s reason for hope

In recent years, scientists and environmental activists have begun to push for more research into the myriad health effects of climate change. “One of the striking things is there’s been a real dearth of funding for climate change and health,” Haines says. “For that reason, some of the evidence we have is still fragmentary.”

Still, hope is not lost. In the Paris Agreement, countries around the world have pledged to limit global warming to below 2°C (3.6°F)—and preferably to 1.5°C (2.7°F)—by cutting their emissions. “When you reduce those emissions, you benefit health as well as the planet,” Haines says.

Meanwhile, scientists and environmental activists have put forward solutions that can help people adapt to the health effects of climate change. These include early heat warnings and dedicated cooling centers, more resilient supply chains, and freeing healthcare facilities from dependence on the electric grid.

Nadeau argues that the COVID-19 pandemic also presents an opportunity for world leaders to think bigger and more strategically. For example, the pandemic has laid bare problems with efficiency and equity that have many countries restructuring their healthcare facilities.

In the process, she says, they can look for new ways to reduce waste and emissions, such as getting more hospitals using renewable energy.

“This is in our hands to do,” Nadeau says. “If we don’t do anything, that would be cataclysmic.”

Video: U.N. report warns some effects of climate change are ‘irreversible’ (NBC News)

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10/09/2021

(Inverse) How To Save A Planet: To Avoid Catastrophe, This Shocking Amount Of Fossil Fuels Must Stay In The Ground

Inverse - Tara Yarlagadda

Fossil fuel companies have used smoke and mirrors for decades to assure us that air pollution isn’t so bad.

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A new study doesn’t examine that idea. Rather, it asks: We know that extraction and production processes are not as clean as they could be. So, essentially, what is the impact of those?

In the United States, burning fossil fuels account for 74 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, which isn’t new information exactly. However, scientists suggest that focusing on just the air pollution doesn’t show the full extent of the damage done.

“There needs to be a serious discussion around the regional distribution of fossil fuel production decline, allowing for a managed and equitable solution,” Dan Welsby, lead author on the study from University College London, tells Inverse.

What’s new

A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature asserts that humans also need to significantly limit the percentage of fossil fuels that are pulled from the ground.

The research team wanted to know how much fossil fuel we would need to leave undisturbed to avoid allowing the global average air temperature to rise 1.5° Celsius above what it was between 1850-1900, a 50-year period known for “pre-industrial temperature.”

The scientists came up with two takeaways after analyzing the data from a simulation model. The percentage of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas, and methane — that humans need to leave unextracted in the Earth is:
  • Sixty percent of the world’s oil and methane gas will need to remain unextracted
  • A shocking 90 percent of the world's coal will need to remain unextracted

The 1.5°C and 2°C meaning: Why it matters

Even though a 2°C increase doesn’t seem like a lot, on a global scale, this is the stuff of apocalyptic scenarios: Extreme heat, permanent flooding, vegetation die-off, severe air contamination, mass extinctions, the erosion of entire ecosystems, all of it.

In many locations around the world, it’s essentially the beginning of a movie like Mad Max.

Definitely crack open “Differential climate impacts for policy-relevant limits to global warming: the case of 1.5 ◦C and 2 ◦C” (2016) in the journal Earth System Dynamics for precise statistical forecasts on grim matters such as lower agricultural yields and the rapid death of coral reefs. It is a blast.

You can consider this summer’s climate-change-driven extreme weather events a teaser trailer of sorts. Catastrophes have been increasing since the 1970s, an uptick documented recently by United Nations: “Disasters surge five-fold over 50 years” is the headline.

Now that we know why those tiny global air temperature increases are such a big deal, here’s how they play into this latest study asserting we need to leave more fossil fuels in the ground:

In January 2015, climate scientists Paul Ekins, a co-author of this new study, and Cristophe McGlade published a report on the percentage of fossil fuels humans would need to leave in the ground.

Later that year, when world leaders and climate policymakers signed the Paris Climate Agreement, they realized that a more stringent benchmark below 2°C would be necessary to avoid more extreme risks and human suffering due to the climate crisis. Specifically, they agreed upon 1.5°C as the revised target. (That’s 2.7°F.)

In a 2018 report, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted: “Climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5°C than at present but lower than at 2°C.” So, obvious. 1.5°C is still bad, but maybe we could avoid hitting it.

In a 2021 report, unofficially known as the IPCC’s ”reality check” report, we learned that 1.5°C might already be out of our reach because greenhouse emissions in the atmosphere are already too powerful.

The researchers define “unextractable fossil fuels” as the volumes that need to stay in the ground, regardless of end-use, in order to avoid the “1.5 °C scenario” of global warming. For example, you can see that the yellow of the United States on the coal section means that all the coal in the U.S. needs to stay in the ground to avoid a climate tipping point. Dan Welsby , James Price , Steve Pye & Paul Ekins

How the scientists came to their findings

These researchers determined we need to leave 60 percent of oil and methane and 90 percent of coal untouched with a simulation model.

This model captured the global energy system from production to transport to distribution to predict the specific percentages of fossil fuels we would need to leave unextracted by 2050 and 2100.

These findings far surpass the percentages reported in the previous 2015 study, suggesting we will need to leave a considerable majority of the world’s fossil fuel in the ground if we want to keep Earth habitable for humans in the decades and centuries to come.

The study authors further find that oil and gas production will need to decline by 3 percent annually until 2050 to meet our climate target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Setting targets on limiting fossil fuel production is absolutely critical if we have any chance of remaining within carbon budgets which limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees,” Welsby says.

The researchers also looked at different energy-producing regions of the world. Although some countries like the U.S. contribute an oversized share of the world’s greenhouse gases, the nation will only need to leave 31 percent of its oil unextracted under the scientists’ estimates (though it will need to leave 97 percent of coal in the ground by 2050).

Instead, three of the most significant regions and nations that will need to reduce their oil extraction by 2050 are:
  1. Canada will have to leave 81 percent of its methane gas, 83 percent of its coal, and 83 percent of its infamous oil sands in the ground by 2050.
  2. Central and South America — This region will need to leave 73 percent of its oil, 67 percent methane gas, and 84 percent of its coal in the ground by 2050.
  3. China and India — These nations will need to leave 76 percent of their coal in the ground by 2050. China and India are the top two coal-producing countries globally.
But richer developed nations like the U.S. can play a big role in helping other countries successfully transition to a future without fossil fuel emissions.

“There is potentially a significant leadership role here for developed countries/financial institutions in terms of helping the financing of capital for large-scale renewable power generation and other low carbon ventures in developing countries,” Welsby says.

Ultimately, to meet our climate goals, most nations will need to reach “peak [fossil fuel] production now or during the next decade,” the researchers write. However, they also suggest their predictions are likely an “underestimate,” and fossil fuel production may need to be halted even more quickly.

Why extraction matters

Fossil fuels support entire countries’ economies and the livelihoods of millions of people, not to mention the lifestyles of billions more.

But their extraction and production also release significant carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, increasing global warming and making life a living hell for millions of more people.

This study also shows how essential it is for humans to leave fossil fuels in the ground over the next three decades. Still, it also poses a conundrum: How can we stop extracting fossil fuels to save our planet while preventing economic devastation in the near future? Huge investment in climate change-proof infrastructure and more jobs building green energy infrastructure — like ones included in the current federal infrastructure bill — create a path toward the answer.

“There is undoubtedly huge fossil fuel inertia within our global energy system, however, there are signs this may be changing,” Welsby says.

What’s next

The researchers have five specific suggestions to help policymakers and fossil fuel companies make the transition toward renewable energy.
  1. Remove production subsidies for fossil fuels
  2. Placing taxes on the production of fossil fuels
  3. Implementing penalties for companies that fail to comply with fossil fuel regulations, especially on methane leaks
  4. Banning new fossil fuel exploration
  5. Developing international initiatives such as a treaty on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels
Welsby calls these kinds of measures “low hanging fruit' for emissions reductions in the near term,” but also stresses “the production decline pathways we suggest can also only be achieved with a price on carbon.” In short: the solutions won’t come without a cost — literally.

It’s not all bad news

Their findings are grim, but not as much as you might think. The study’s authors note that global coal production already peaked in 2013, and oil output may even have peaked in 2019 or 2020. Other recent reports suggest that the costs of renewable energy are becoming comparable to fossil fuels, making electric vehicles more affordable.

So, if world leaders and fossil fuel companies step up the plate and assume the daunting task of rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels, we might have a fighting shot at saving planet Earth — and ourselves.

“We need to think of this as a global problem, with a global solution,” Welsby says.

Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5°C world
Parties to the 2015 (United Nations Climate Change Conference) Paris Agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial times. However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the global energy system and a sharp decline in their use must be realized to keep the temperature increase below 1.5°C. Here we use a global energy systems model to assess the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be left in the ground, regionally and globally, to allow for a 50 percent probability of limiting warming to 1.5°C. By 2050, we find that nearly 60 percent of oil and fossil methane gas, and 90 percent of coal must remain unextracted to keep within a 1.5°C carbon budget. This is a large increase in the unextractable estimates for a 2°C carbon budget, particularly for oil, for which an additional 25 percent of reserves must remain unextracted. Furthermore, we estimate that oil and gas production must decline globally by 3 percent each year until 2050. This implies that most regions must reach peak production now or during the next decade, rendering many operational and planned fossil fuel projects unviable. We probably present an underestimate of the production changes required, because a greater than 50 percent probability of limiting warming to 1.5°C requires more carbon to stay in the ground and because of uncertainties around the timely deployment of negative emission technologies at scale.

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(AU ABC) Most Fossil Fuels 'Must Stay Unburned' For One-In-Two Chance Of Meeting 1.5c Warming Limit

 ABC Science - Belinda Smith

To limit global warming, almost 90 per cent of the world's coal reserves must not be extracted, according to a new study. (Getty Images: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg)

Key Points
  • The Paris Climate Agreement's goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels
  • About 60 per cent of oil and gas and 90 per cent of coal reserves must be "unextractable" for a 50 per cent chance of meeting that target, researchers say
  • This decline in fossil fuels required globally by 2050 implies many regions face peak production now or during the next decade
Australia must leave almost all its coal in the ground, as well as a good chunk of its oil and gas, if the world is to have an even chance of keeping global warming to 1.5C.

That's according to calculations published in Nature today, which found the lion's share of fossil fuel reserves worldwide must remain untapped if we're to stay at the lower end of the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

Coal requires the biggest drop in production overall — around 90 per cent worldwide by 2050, compared to 60 per cent for oil and gas, according to Dan Welsby, a researcher at University College London's Institute of Sustainable Resources and co-author of the study.
"For coal, all regions need to have already reached peak production."
And Australia is no exception, Mr Welsby added.

"For some … countries in the Pacific region, for example Australia, they have unextractable coal reserves of 95 per cent."

"Unextractable" reserves are those that must be left in the ground to limit warming.

The study comes days after federal Resources and Water Minister Keith Pitt said Australia has no plans to stop mining and exporting coal "well beyond 2030".

"Coal consumption throughout Asia is forecast by the International Energy Agency to grow over the next decade to meet the energy demands of countries like China, India and South Korea," Mr Pitt said in a statement on Monday.

"Australia has an important role to play in meeting that demand."

Shifting goalposts

About 80 per cent of the world's energy needs are supplied by burning fossil fuels, with coal releasing more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than oil or gas.

Keeping fossil fuels in the ground has been a mantra in climate change circles for years.

For instance, then-United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres said in a 2013 speech that most of the world's coal reserves should not be extracted.

NSW produces around 250 million tonnes of raw coal every year. (Getty Images: Airphoto Australia)

It wasn't until 2015 that UCL Institute of Sustainable Resources researchers first quantified the proportion of "unextractable" fossil fuels if the world hoped to stay under 2 degrees of warming.

They found 82 per cent of coal, 49 per cent of gas and 33 per cent of oil reserves would need to remain in the ground.

Beautiful one day, uninsurable the next?

Carbon emissions have since steadily increased (with a fleeting pandemic-related dip) and focus has shifted from 2 degrees of warming to 1.5,  said Will Steffen, a climate researcher with the Australian National University and author of the Climate Council report Unburnable carbon: Why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

The goalposts have shifted, and the newest calculations from UCL, he said, depict a more urgent situation.

"In 2015, they were looking at a 2-degree target. Now, of course, there's a lot more consensus that 2 degrees is really dangerous," Professor Steffen said.

"What it's showing is that inaction is really deadly now."
What must be left in the ground, by 2050, in Australia ...
  • Coal: 95 per cent of reserves or 80 billion tonnes
  • Oil: 40 per cent or 1.7 billion barrels
  • Gas: 35 per cent or 0.8 trillion cubic metres
... and the world
  • Coal: 89 per cent of reserves or 826 billion tonnes
  • Oil: 58 per cent or 744 billion barrels
  • Gas: 59 per cent or 92 trillion cubic metres

Source: Welsby et al., Nature


For Australia, which relies heavily on mining and exporting coal, the new study's recommendations are particularly daunting, Professor Steffen said.

"By 2050, we basically have to leave 95 per cent of it in the ground."

The figure applies to coal reserves — that is, coal in mines that are already operational or being developed, such as Waratah Coal's proposal in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

Reserves are a fraction of the nation's actual coal resources, which is all the coal we know exists from geological surveys.

"The critical calculation we need to do is to find out just how many reserves we have on the books. How many of those are already operating?" Professor Steffen said.

"And if that [adds up to] more than 5 per cent of reserves, then that means absolutely we cannot open up any new ones, including in the Galilee Basin."

'Glimmers of hope'

The researchers acknowledge that their calculations paint a "bleak picture", with no guarantee that the world will stay under 1.5 degrees of warming, even if fossil fuel production is drastically cut.

"We use a carbon budget in our modelling that's compatible with only a 50 per cent probability of meeting the 1.5C target, which is one of the headline goals of the Paris agreement," Mr Welsby said.

"And if we want a higher chance of staying below 1.5C, then we have to, of course, keep more carbon in the ground, more fossil fuels in the ground, and therefore there has to be higher rates of decline of production from today."

'Electrify everything'
Australia could rapidly get most of the way to net zero emissions by using existing technology to electrify "low-hanging fruit", according to some experts. Read more

Australia could rapidly get most of the way to net zero emissions by using existing technology to electrify "low-hanging fruit", according to some experts.

Their estimates of "unextractable" fossil fuels are likely to be at the lower end, as they don't take into account future feedback systems that could release additional carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating warming even further.

For instance, if northern hemisphere permafrost melts, it can release huge quantities of stored methane and other greenhouse gases, which melts more permafrost.

Carbon removal technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) had little effect on the researchers' calculations.

"The speed of the transition [away from fossil fuels] has to be so rapid … that when you adjust for the role of CCS, it does change things a bit, but not dramatically," Mr Welsby said.

Indeed, CCS has been implemented to an extent in Australia, such as the Gorgon gas facility in Western Australia, but fell well short of its target.

But there are, Mr Welsby added, "glimmers of hope" as the cost of renewables, such as solar and wind power, continues to drop.

"By no means are we suggesting these are easy reductions, no matter the region in question.

"So, it really is a case of having the political will to resist the temptation of extracting every last bit of fossil fuels … and focusing on really pushing hard on the low-carbon economy.
"It is definitely feasible, but it really comes down to the politics of the situation."
Professor Steffen sees vast opportunities for Australia to export renewable electricity via undersea cables from northern Australia, or hydrogen generated using solar or wind power.

World's largest solar farm could help power Singapore from NT desert. YouTube 

"We have enormous renewable opportunities, solar and wind, more than any other OECD country. And we have a potentially huge market on our doorstep, up in South-East and East Asia in particular," he said.

"And technologically, we can produce massive amounts of electricity using renewables at very low cost, because solar is much, much cheaper than a coal-fired power station, for example.

"The handwriting's on the wall economically. This is where we're going globally."

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(UK The Times) Climate Change Promises Dropped From UK-Australia Trade Deal

The Times - Oliver Wright
Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, will not commit to targeting net-zero emissions by 2050. DOMINIC LIPINSKI/REUTERS


Ministers have bowed to pressure from Australia to drop binding climate change commitments from a UK-Australian trade deal, a leaked government memo suggests.

In a concession condemned by environmental groups the Department for International Trade is understood to have agreed to Australian demands not to include commitments to limit global warming to two degrees under the Paris climate change agreement.

Trade lawyers warned last night that the omission would leave the UK with “no remedies” if future Australian governments failed to act to reduce carbon emissions in line with those of the UK.

Last month Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, refused to commit to targeting net-zero emissions by 2050, a key aim of the Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November. Britain is leading attempts to corral large industrialised countries into further commitments.

Yesterday Alok Sharma, the UK’s climate envoy, returned from China as government sources expressed optimism that Beijing would unveil substantive commitments on emissions.

An internal Whitehall memo, passed to Sky News, suggests that other ministers are keen to avoid trade deals being scuppered by climate commitments.

It suggests that the business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, trade secretary Liz Truss and Brexit minister Lord Frost agreed to drop UK demands that multilateral environmental agreements should take precedence over the Australian trade agreement.

The note, written by a senior official in the Cabinet office, also makes clear that the deal would also not “reference to Paris Agreement temperature goals”. This was a key part of the UK’s trade deal with the EU.

A government source did not dispute the substance of the decision but claimed that the references to temperature were “implicit” within the agreement. “The final text of the agreement will contain a commitment to address all the Paris climate goals — so therefore implicitly includes temperature,” they said.

Markus Gehring, an international trade law specialist at Cambridge University, said that he was “very concerned” that the UK risked being undercut if its trading partners did not share its climate objectives.

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09/09/2021

(The Conversation) New Research Reveals Animals Are Changing Their Body Shapes To Cope With Climate Change

The Conversation -  | 

Shutterstock

Authors
  •  is a PhD Candidate in ecology and evolution, Deakin University
  •  is an Associate Professor and evolutionary ecologist, Deakin University
Global warming is a big challenge for warm-blooded animals, which must maintain a constant internal body temperature. As anyone who’s experienced heatstroke can tell you, our bodies become severely stressed when we overheat.

Animals are dealing with global warming in various ways. Some move to cooler areas, such as closer to the poles or to higher ground. Some change the timing of key life events such as breeding and migration, so they take place at cooler times. And others evolve to change their body size to cool down more quickly.

Our new research examined another way animal species cope with climate change: by changing the size of their ears, tails, beaks and other appendages. We reviewed the published literature and found examples of animals increasing appendage size in parallel with climate change and associated temperature increases.

In doing so, we identified multiple examples of animals that are most likely “shape-shifters” – including species in Australia. The pattern is widespread, and suggests climate warming may result in fundamental changes to animal form.

The great roundleaf bat is among the animals found to be ‘shape shifting’ Shutterstock
Adhering to Allen’s rule

It’s well known that animals use their appendages to regulate their internal temperature. African elephants, for example, pump warm blood to their large ears, which they then flap to disperse heat. The beaks of birds perform a similar function – blood flow can be diverted to the bill when the bird is hot. This heat-dispersing function is depicted in the thermal image of a king parrot below, which shows the beak is warmer than the rest of the body.

All this means there are advantages to bigger appendages in warmer environments. In fact, as far back as the 1870s, American zoologist Joel Allen noted in colder climates, warm-blooded animals – also known as endotherms – tended to have smaller appendages while those in warmer climates tend to have larger ones.

This pattern became known as Allen’s rule, which has since been supported by studies of birds and mammals.

Biological patterns such as Allen’s rule can also help make predictions about how animals will evolve as the climate warms. Our research set out to find examples of animal shape-shifting over the past century, consistent with climatic warming and Allen’s rule.

Thermal image of a king parrot, showing that the beak is warmer than the rest of the body. Alexandra McQueen
Which animals are changing?

We found most documented examples of shape-shifting involve birds – specifically, increases in beak size.

This includes several species of Australian parrots. Studies show the beak size of gang-gang cockatoos and red-rumped parrots has increased by between 4% and 10% since since 1871.

Mammal appendages are also increasing in size. For example, in the masked shrew, tail and leg length have increased significantly since 1950. And in the great roundleaf bat, wing size increased by 1.64% over the same period.

The variety of examples indicates shape-shifting is happening in different types of appendages and in a variety of animals, in many parts of the world. But more studies are needed to determine which kinds of animals are most affected.

A red-rumped parrot, one of the species shown to increase beak size in response to climate change. Ryan Barnaby

Other uses of appendages

Of course, animal appendages have uses far beyond regulating body temperature. This means scientists have sometimes focused on other reasons that might explain changes in animal body shape.

For example, studies have shown the average beak size of the Galapagos medium ground finch has changed over time in response to seed size, which is in turn influenced by rainfall. Our research examined previously collected data to determine if temperature also influenced changes in beak size of these finches.

These data do demonstrate rainfall (and, by extension, seed size) determines beak size. After drier summers, survival of small-beaked birds was reduced.

But we found clear evidence that birds with smaller beaks are also less likely to survive hotter summers. This effect on survival was stronger than that observed with rainfall. This tells us the role of temperature may be as important as other uses of appendages, such as feeding, in driving changes in appendage size.

Our research also suggests we can make some predictions about which species are most likely to change appendage size in response to increasing temperatures – namely, those that adhere to Allen’s rule.

These include (with some caveats) starlings, song sparrows, and a host of seabirds and small mammals, such as South American gracile opossums.

The gracile opossum is among the animals most likely to change appendage size under climate change. Shutterstock
Why does shape-shifting matter?

Our research contributes to scientific understanding of how wildlife will respond to climate change. Apart from improving our capacity to predict the impacts of climate change, this will enable us to identify which species are most vulnerable and require conservation priority.

Last month’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed we have very little time to avert catastrophic global warming.

While our research shows some animals are adapting to climate change, many will not. For example, some birds may have to maintain a particular diet which means they cannot change their beak shape. Other animals may simply not be able to evolve in time.

So while predicting how wildlife will respond to climate change is important, the best way to protect species into the future is to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent as much global warming as possible.

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(AU SMH) ‘Insufficient’: Audit Office Lashes Lack Of Climate Planning In NSW

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

The NSW Audit Office has released a scathing report on the government’s ability to cope with the effects of a heating climate, finding critical assets and services had yet to conduct risk assessments, such as for the state’s $50 billion public housing portfolio.

The findings, released on Tuesday, examined how effectively the Treasury and Planning departments supported agencies to get ready for increased threats from flooding, extreme heat, coastal erosion and other perils.

The NSW government is not taking the necessary steps to prepare agencies for climate change risks, the Audit Office has found. Credit: Nick Moir

It noted the government in 2016 pledged to create a statewide adaptation plan by the following year for public assets but had failed to complete it. All other states of Australia have such a plan.

“The absence of an overall adaptation strategy, and a statewide action plan, means that the [Planning] department’s climate risk and adaptation-related activities...have been occurring for at least four years without strategic direction, strong levers for co-ordination across agencies, and clear resourcing towards defined outcomes,” the Audit Office concluded.

Treasury had separately estimated that the annual fiscal and economic costs associated with natural disasters due to climate change will more than triple by 2061. Even so, there was little co-ordination between agencies, with nine government entities responsible for $120 billion alone in assets failing to complete risk reviews.

NSW has endured a battering from the elements in recent years, ranging from a severe drought, the worst bushfires on record during the 2019-20 Black Summer, and last March’s extensive flooding around Sydney.

Despite setting emissions reductions targets – such as reaching net-zero carbon pollution by 2050 – climate change readiness policies have generally been lacking, with the National Parks and Wildlife Service among the few exceptions, the Audit Office said.

The Herald approached Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, Planning Minister Rob Stokes and Environment Minister Matt Kean for comment.

“The NSW government is determined to take decisive and responsible action to reduce emissions to net zero and manage the physical and financial impacts of climate change,” a Planning spokeswoman said, adding it would “closely consider its recommendations to bolster the state’s response”.

Among the gaps identified was the failure of the Land and Housing Corporation, which holds $50 billion of social housing assets to conduct a review. Projections for “significant increases in the number of heatwaves” mean it will get harder to limit the risk of heatstroke and other poor health outcomes for residents, the report found.



The problems are not just confined to the public sector either. The Building Sustainability Index (BASIX), a sustainable planning measure to drive cuts in residential water and energy use, is under review, but Planning is not considering the potential impact of climate change to these requirements, the Audit Office said.

“[H]omes in NSW are currently being built for the present, but not for a potential future climate,” it said.

Even in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, energy cooling requirements are set to rise 70 per cent by 2030 compared with 2020, and 300 per cent by 2070, the Audit Office said, according to a report commissioned by one council in January.

Labor’s climate spokesman Jihad Dib said the government “might promise a big game on climate change, but this report clearly shows they do not have the ability or desire to meet their own promises”.

“The people of NSW should be concerned that the Strategic Plan for the Climate Change Fund has never been finalised,” he said.

Independent NSW MP Justin Field said “a failure to plan is a plan to fail, and it is clear that the NSW government’s plan to mitigate and adapt to climate change is inadequate”.

Brad McCutcheon, a resident of St George Caravan Park, surveys the scene during flooding of the Hawkesbury River near Sydney in March 2021. Credit: Nick Moir

“We see ongoing resistance to climate planning and adaptation strategies within the Coalition, particularly when it comes to water policy, land-use planning and development controls,” he said. “These short-term political considerations are leaving NSW communities seriously exposed to climate shocks in the future. This report serves as just the latest warning that we’re not doing enough.”

Local government was also getting little assistance from Planning, the Audit Office said, noting that the department’s 2018 Guide to preparing Local Environmental Plans (LEPs) for councils does not mention climate change.

Extreme weather
Even 1.5C warming will still leave world’s coasts exposed to extremes
“Of the 143 council LEPs we examined in March 2020, all make a reference to climate change, but this is only in relation to flood planning, reflecting guidance from the Department’s 2005 Floodplain Development Manual,” the Audit Office said.

Another gap is in Crown Lands, an agency that oversees about 42 per cent of NSW’s land area including coasts and infrastructure, but had failed to develop adaptation plans.

“Crown lands will be increasingly exposed to climate risks, including risks associated with sea level rises,” the report said, noting CSIRO data showing sea levels already risen by about 25 centimetres since 1880.

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