(AU ABC) These Women Are Tackling Australia's Climate Change Crisis Through Photographs

ABC Radio Canberra - Adrienne Francis | Tahlia Roy

Tracey Nearmy took this stunning photo, "Nancy in North Nowra", and submitted it as part of a visual petition tacking climate change. (Supplied)

From fire to flood to drought, how you feel about climate change-related disasters can be tricky to express in words.

It can also leave you feeling helpless, as Queanbeyan-based professional photographer Hilary Wardhaugh knows all to well.

During 2020's horrific bushfire season, she came across countless dead ladybirds lying among ash at Potato Point, on the NSW South Coast.

"[I saw] lots of ash everywhere along the beach, and within the ash were millions of ladybirds. You could still see them, so they hadn't been burnt, but they were all dead," Ms Wardhaugh said.

The picture she took of that scene became the catalyst for a project now known as the Everyday Climate Crisis Visual Petition — a call to action from women and non-binary people.

This ladybird photo, taken by Hilary Wardhaugh, inspired the Everyday Climate Crisis visual petition. (Supplied)

"It was heartbreaking, and that's why I wanted to start this project," Ms Wardhaugh said.

 "I wanted to crowdsource images that illustrate climate change in Australia, and sourcing images from women and non-binary people only.

"I think it's important that women have a voice, and a voice through photography and creativity."

Ms Wardhaugh's goal is to collect 1,000 photographs; once that number is reached, the petition will be submitted to federal parliament as "a visual response to the Australian government's climate change policies".

"What I hope to do is have the prime minister at the time hold our petition up in parliament, rather than a lump of coal," Ms Wardhaugh said.

Hilary Wardhaugh, founder of the #EverydayClimateCrisis project. (ABC News: Mark Moore)

 
'1,000 pictures are screaming from the rooftops'

Despite only formally launching at the Women See Change event last week, the petition already has 500 climate change-themed images from both amateur and professional photographers in its collection.

Audio

Everyday Climate Crisis

14min 21sec

"There's been a lot of images where people have done something quite creative in response to how climate change makes them feel," Ms Wardhaugh said.

"We've got people from all over Australia who've submitted. All range in ages, backgrounds and culture, regions."

PhotoAccess's Caitlin Seymour-King helped launch the petition, and said photography is "a hugely helpful tool in the climate change discussion, to represent perspectives that aren't being listened to".

"I think an image tells us something immediately. We have a visceral response, a bodily, corporeal response that communicates things so much faster and so much more felt," she said.

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, then 1,000 pictures are screaming from the rooftops."

These branches were captured by Hilary Wardhaugh at Potato Point as part of her Everyday Climate Crisis visual petition. (Supplied)

One of the most moving petition images Ms Seymour-King has seen so far was submitted by Lib Ferreira.

Ms Ferreira captured a kangaroo mob against a backdrop of smoke during the 2019-20 bushfire season at Queanbeyan Lawn Cemetery in southern NSW.

"The kangaroos represent all of us just trying to stay alive in this huge climate crisis … and they are helpless, in a way," Ms Seymour-King said.

"They are just there to feed on the land of dead bodies with fake flowers popping through. It's a huge symbol.

"But the kangaroos are also kind of offset with comicalness, because it's kind of hilarious to see them unknowingly being part of this message and this campaign and this story." 

This photo of kangaroos on the Queanbeyan Lawn Cemetery was submitted to the visual climate change petition by Lib Ferreira. (Supplied)

Uniting voices from across the country

Artist and poet Dr Judith Nangala Crispin, based in Womboin in NSW, was inspired to join the project after the 2020 bushfires devastated her region.

"We all go through terrible times, and part of the way that we cope with that as humans is we overwrite it with the better time that we're in — but nothing brings back those times more clearly than a photograph," Dr Nangala Crispin said.

"If you lived through those fires, or even through the smoke of those fires and you couldn't breathe properly because of the smoke, if you sit there and you look at a photograph, it's going to remind you of that — and we need to keep that lesson fresh."

Hilary Wardhaugh took this picture of a plastic water bottle covered in sea molluscs as part of her visual petition.(Supplied)

Dr Nangala Crispin believes the petition could feature a "groundswell of voices".

"Women's voices, first nations voices, people who are gender fluid, they've all been overwritten by privileged male voices," she said.

"But with a project like this, every single person who puts in a photograph gives permission for somebody else to do the same."

Dr Nangala Crispin said photo stories are an important art form because every angle captured through the lens is unique, regardless of training.

"You are always the most important person in that moment, no matter what your skill level is, and that's why sometimes we see these incredible photographs taken by people who aren't terribly well known," she said.

"I think the moment you press the shutter, whether it's on a camera or a phone, what you have done is an act of bearing witness — and that is the art there."

Womboin artist Dr Judith Nangala Crispin and PhotoAccess production officer Caitlin Seymour-King believe the photos will be a powerful way to create change. (ABC Canberra: Adrienne Francis)

And, while the images are often confronting, Ms Seymour-King said the project was underpinned by a sense of collective hope.

"The word 'hope' came up as something quite important that we wanted as our anchor, as it's very easy to fall into a hole of despair," she said.

"But potentially we can do something [to affect change] together.

"Anyone can pick up a phone or a disposable camera, take a photo, and mean something with it. And we can validate each other in that process as well."

Links

• (BroadAgenda) How 1000 Moving Images Will Spur Climate Action
• Cop26: Women Must Be Heard On Climate, Say Rights Groups
• Malala Yousafzai Says Educate Girls To Fight Climate Change
• Living With The Legacy Of A Climate Emergency: The Women And Girls Determined To Build A Brighter Future
• (The Guardian) Climate Change One Day At At Time - In Pictures
• Stark Photos Show The State Of The Environment

(The Guardian) World Spends $1.8tn A Year On Subsidies That Harm Environment, Study Finds

The Guardian - Patrick Greenfield

Research prompts warnings humanity is ‘financing its own extinction’ through subsidies damaging to the climate and wildlife

An electoral poster objecting to a proposed ban on subsidies for Swiss farms. A 2021 report found almost 90% of global farming subsidies are harmful. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty

The world is spending at least $1.8tn (£1.3tn) every year on subsidies driving the annihilation of wildlife and a rise in global heating, according to a new study, prompting warnings that humanity is financing its own extinction.

 From tax breaks for beef production in the Amazon to financial support for unsustainable groundwater pumping in the Middle East, billions of pounds of government spending and other subsidies are harming the environment, says the first cross-sector assessment for more than a decade.

This government support, equivalent to 2% of global GDP, is directly working against the goals of the Paris agreement and draft targets on reversing biodiversity loss, the research on explicit subsidies found, effectively financing water pollution, land subsidence and deforestation with state money.

The authors, who are leading subsidies experts, say a significant portion of the $1.8tn could be repurposed to support policies that are beneficial for nature and a transition to net zero, amid growing political division about the cost of decarbonising the global economy.

The report calls for governments to agree a target to eradicate environmentally harmful subsidies by the end of the decade at the biodiversity Cop15 gathering in China later this year, where it is hoped a “Paris agreement for nature” will be signed, and for companies to reveal the subsidies they receive as part of environmental disclosure reporting.

Christiana Figueres, who was head of the UN climate change convention when the Paris agreement was signed, welcomed the research. She said the subsidies were creating huge risks for the businesses receiving them.

“Nature is declining at an alarming rate, and we have never lived on a planet with so little biodiversity,” she said. “Harmful subsidies must be redirected towards protecting the climate and nature, rather than financing our own extinction.”

The fossil fuel industry ($620bn), the agricultural sector ($520bn), water ($320bn) and forestry ($155bn) account for the majority of the $1.8tn, according to the report. No estimate for mining, believed to cause billions of dollars of damage to ecosystems every year, could be derived.

Lack of transparency between governments and recipients means the true figure is likely to be much higher, as is the implicit cost of harmful subsidies.

Last year, an International Monetary Fund report found the fossil fuel industry benefited from subsidies worth $5.9tn in 2020, but the vast majority of this figure comes from the hidden costs of failing to make polluters pay for the deaths they cause and global heating.

“Subsidy reform allows us to improve the price signals so that we are not protecting income in more polluting industries,” said Doug Koplow, founder of the organisation Earth Track, which monitors environmentally harmful subsidies, and co-author of the report, along with Ronald Steenblik, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s former special counsellor for fossil fuel subsidy reform.

“It creates space for alternative and cleaner forms of energy to enter the marketplace.”

‘We’ll get it done. Come hell, high water or Covid’: Can 2022 be a super year for nature? Read more

A draft target in the UN biodiversity agreement for this decade calls for $500bn a year in subsidies to be reformed, but The B Team and Business for Nature, which supported the research, have said this must be strengthened.

The world has never met a target on halting biodiversity loss, and the failure to act on subsidies was highlighted as a major issue from last decade’s targets.

Eva Zabey, executive director of Business for Nature, said businesses were often unaware of the extent of explicit and implicit subsidies they benefit from, but could use their influence to call for change.

“Many businesses are benefiting from these environmentally harmful subsidies. This cannot be a taboo topic. We need to speak using facts and understand where the financial flows are going,” she said.

“Typically, the subsidies were established with good intentions in mind. We need to level the playing field because right now, some are benefiting from a head start when it should be the other way round. It’s a wicked problem.”

Last year, a UN report found almost 90% of subsidies given to farmers every year are harmful, damaging people’s health, fuelling the climate crisis, destroying nature and driving inequality by excluding smallholder farmers.

Elizabeth Mrema, the UN’s biodiversity head, said the report was critically important.

“The report highlights how redirecting, repurposing, or eliminating subsidies could make an important contribution to unlocking the $711bn required each year to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030 as well as the cost of reaching net zero emissions,” she said.

Links

• Harmful subsidies: why is the world still funding the destruction of nature?
• Reform $1.8 trillion yearly environmentally harmful subsidies to deliver a nature-positive economy
• UN sets out Paris-type plan to cut extinctions by factor of 10
• Fossil fuel industry gets subsidies of $11m a minute, IMF finds
• World Spends More Than $1.8 Trillion Yearly On Harmful Subsidies Finds New Study
• World fails to meet a single target to stop destruction of nature – UN report
• Nearly all global farm subsidies harm people and planet – UN
• Paris Agreement

(AU SMH) British Financiers Say NT Indigenous Renewable Venture Could Lure $50 Billion

Sydney Morning Herald - Latika Bourke | Miki Perkins | Reuters

British financial services company Octopus Group will partner with Aboriginal communities in northern Australia on plans for renewable energy projects it says could attract investments of as much as A$50 billion over the next decade.

Octopus Group, which operates out of Melbourne as Octopus Australia, has announced a plan to invest £26 billion ($49.15 billion) over the next 10 years in Desert Springs Octopus, a company which it says will be majority Indigenous-owned and led.

Desert Springs Octopus ultimately plans to become a green hydrogen generator, exporting to landlocked Asian countries that can’t generate their own solar, wind or hydrogen power.

Any projects to fire up renewable energy in the Northern Territory would need to build up the grid across vast expanses of land. Credit: Istock

Octopus Australia managing director Sam Reynolds predicted investment would come from the UK as well as superannuation funds that already invest in Octopus Australia.

Octopus Australia employs 25 people and is based in Melbourne. It is part of the British-based Octopus Group which is a private company and does not disclose its value but manages a £12.4 billion portfolio for retail and institutional investors.

The Group’s subsidiary Octopus Energy is now the fifth biggest power supplier in the UK after taking on new customers following the collapse of smaller suppliers.

The British government heralded the partnership as another example of collaboration between Australia and Britain to diversify the world’s energy supply, which has been thrown into sharp focus in recent weeks because of Europe’s reliance on Russian gas.

From left to right: Rohan Mannix, Hakon Dyrting, Naomi Antess, the general manager of the Northern Territory Indigenous Business Network, Jerome Cubilo, its CEO, Lumi Adisa, of Octopus Australia, Bevan Mailman, of Jaramer Legal and co-chair of Desert Springs Octopus, Sam Reynolds, co-chair of Desert Spring Octopus, Deborah Anstess-Vallejo and Donald Betts Jr of Jaramer Legal.

The announcement was one of several made by Number 10 Downing Street in lieu of Boris Johnson’s trip to Australia which was shelved when the Prime Minister opted to stay at home in Britain.

The northern Australia plan stemmed from a chance meeting at a wedding between Octopus Australia’s head of energy markets, Lumi Adisa, and ex-US senator Donald Betts.

Mr Betts is part of the world’s largest indigenous law firm, Jaramer Legal, and introduced Dr Adisa to his colleague Bevan Mailman.

Mr Mailman and the Northern Territory Indigenous Business Network had long been searching for a financial suitor to realise his dream of transforming northern Australia into a community-led economic powerhouse, Mr Reynolds said.

“They just couldn’t find anyone with the right culture and focus on the community, [but] at Octopus, that is what we are all about; we invest in the ideas, industries and people that will change the world,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Energy

Origin Energy to bring forward closure of Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant

Mr Mailman and Mr Reynolds will co-chair Desert Springs Octopus, with hopes they can start building its first solar site early next year. Desert Springs Octopus would be building an energy grid for the NT as well as off-grid projects, Mr Reynolds said.

Bevan Mailman, who will co-chair Desert Springs Octopus, said renewable energy technologies offered potential in northern Australia that hadn’t been “unlocked”, and new companies with an understanding of working with Indigenous people were needed.

Traditional owners are known as custodians and stewards of the land, he said. “When you talk about this renewable space and things going green, it seems a natural fit - in carbon trading, in traditional burning and in renewable energy.”

The brother of actor and singer Deborah Mailman, Mr Mailman has worked as a legal counsel for the National Australian Bank and as a corporate lawyer has negotiated for traditional owners in their dealings with mining companies.

A Bidjara man from south central Queensland, Mr Mailman is the director of Jaramer Legal. He said Desert Springs Octopus would look to announce its first project soon, in the Northern Territory.

“They’ve got a great trade body in the Northern Territory, strong community organisations and a growing presence with defence that AUKUS is going to propel. It just seems to be the right place.”

The Clean Energy Council, which represents companies who work in the clean energy sector, said Australia had an enormous opportunity to capitalise on the clean energy transition because of its abundance of sun and wind.

Renewables

Indigenous communities harness environmental, economic benefits of solar boom

“The Clean Energy Council welcomes genuine, respectful collaboration with First Nations communities and opportunities for employment and benefit-sharing while protecting ancient cultures,” a spokesperson said.

 Desert Springs Octopus plans to start with solar and battery storage, data centres and infrastructure to link the supply to mines, then develop wind farms before introducing green hydrogen in the longer term, the company said.

It will also build water and energy infrastructure and look to develop tradeable technologies which could be exported to other countries, including Britain.

Jerome Cubilo, the chief executive of the Northern Territory Indigenous Business Network, said it would play a critical role in connecting Octopus Australia into communities.

“We want to guide them through this journey and make sure they engage in culturally appropriate ways,” Mr Cubilo said. “That doesn’t always happen in the early stages - it’s always an afterthought or something that happens at the end.”

The Northern Territory government has been contacted for comment.

Links

• Octopus Investments
• Octopus Group Says Indigenous Energy Venture Could Lure $36 Billion
• Majority Indigenous-owned renewables developer launches in NT
• Boris Johnson talks up Britain's bromance with Australia
• First Nations Clean Energy Network
• First Nations clean energy network set up to deliver cheap and reliable power to Indigenous communities 
• NSW threatened species list grows by almost 20, environment report finds

(USA Washington Post) Facing The Effects Of Climate Change, Skiers Want To Save Their Snow — And Their Sport

Washington Post - Denise Hruby

‘If we don’t start taking action now, then when are we going to?’

Article Audio

10min 44sec

Windmills power part of the Lachtal ski resort in the eastern stretches of the Austrian Alps. (Denise Hruby for The Washington Post)

OBERWÖLZ, Austria — At the Lachtal ski resort, high in the eastern Alps of Austria, skiers immediately pull out their phones after sliding off the chairlift — not to take selfies, but rather to snap pictures of the windmills that have become part of the mountainous vista.

When the first windmills were built here in 2002, at about 7,290 feet, many tourists saw the massive blades as an eyesore. But as the wind park grew and expanded, so did skiers’ environmental conscience. Today, locals and tourists are proud to ski among the backdrop.

“When I ride up with them and eavesdrop, they’re usually impressed,” says Rudolf Wiesnegger, who maintains the wind park and adjacent solar panels. “They comment that it’s great for the environment,” he says.

There are few places where climate change is as tangible as in the Alps; Europe’s largest mountain range has been warming at twice the global average.

Snow has become scarcer, and glaciers are receding dramatically. Skiers see it when they ride down slopes sprayed with artificial snow, and they are increasingly concerned that their favorite sport helps damage the very environment they’re seeking.

Skiers and spectators have been flabbergasted by this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing. Just as the LED snowflakes that sparkled during the Opening Ceremonies weren’t real, the snow that skiers and snowboarders are competing on isn’t natural, either.

The Alpine competitions are held in the brown mountains around Zhangjiakou, on white bands of snow entirely created with machines that need massive amounts of water and electricity.

“It’s just crazy,” says Cécile Burton, a French-British national who grew up skiing but switched to snowboarding when she moved to the village of Morzine, a popular ski destination in the French Alps.

Burton heads Montagne Verte, or Green Mountain, an association trying to make skiing more sustainable. She is among those who have begun to counteract the sport’s impact on the planet. In making their favorite sport more sustainable, an increasing number of skiers are hoping to secure its future.

“We’re definitely seeing that people worry about this, that they are aware that ski holidays are not very sustainable — but [they] can be,” the 30-year-old says.

A windmill in the eastern Alps of Austria. (Denise Hruby for The Washington Post)

Counterproductive’ Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics, once a flagship ad for winter sports, have an increasingly negative reputation among skiers (and not just because the Games’ leaders ignore hosts’ human rights records).

Conditions during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and four years later in Sochi, Russia, were “too warm for even advanced snowmaking technology,” so snow had to be trucked or flown in from elsewhere.

Zhangjiakou, where the climate is so dry it basically never snows, might be the worst advertising for winter sports thus far, says Peter Zellmann, head of the institute for leisure and tourism research in Austria.

Instead of inspiring amateur athletes, “holding Olympic Games the way this is happening in China is counterproductive and has a negative impact on [winter] tourism,” Zellmann says.

And yet it might be a glimpse into the future.

Previous host cities already belong to the fastest-warming locations worldwide, and if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t dramatically reduced, 20 of the 21 destinations that have previously hosted the Winter Olympics wouldn’t be able to do so by the end of the century, according to recent research, led by the department of geography and environmental management at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

The only exception would be Sapporo in Japan.

“In terms of the climate, it’s complete madness,” says Laura Gantenbein, a 28-year-old who saw the images of Zhangjiakou on TV in her home in Switzerland, where she grew up skiing and snowboarding. Hefty ticket prices already keep the budding lawyer from hitting the slopes as frequently as she used to, but increasingly, she says, she’s also worried about the impact on the environment.

Even in the mountainous Engadin valley, birthplace of Gantenbein’s mother and of Alpine winter sports, she now finds that snow cannons are ubiquitous. “And all that does make you think: Is that still ok?” she says.

The industry is feeling that pressure, too, says Robert Steiger, who researches winter tourism at the department of public finance at the University of Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. Though skiers aren’t yet dropping their favorite sport, “it’s going to be a big topic in the future,” Steiger says.

The Lachtal ski resort in Austria. (Denise Hruby for The Washington Post)

Solar, wind and the world’s shortest subway

If you visit the ski resort of Morzine, you can stay in hotels that have installed solar panels and dine in restaurants that serve local produce rather than over-harvested fish — all thanks to help and nudging from Montagne Verte, the sustainable skiing association.

On a cable-car ride to Matterhorn, the iconic Swiss mountain shaped like a jagged tooth, you’ll find solar panels reflecting off the base station. And if you turn on a television in See, a municipality in Austria’s narrow Paznaun valley, you’ll learn that the hydropower plant along its mountain brooks generates enough electricity to run the cable cars and produce snow.

The excess of about 9.5 gigawatt hours, enough for more than 200 households, is fed into the grid.

Not just ski resorts, but the International Ski Federation (FIS) is taking a different tone, too. Just three years ago, Gian Franco Kaspar, then head of the FIS, said “there is no evidence” for “so-called climate change” in a Tagesanzeiger interview.

But the group’s new president, Johan Eliasch, a Swedish British billionaire, told The Washington Post that skiing needs to “act in harmony with nature and not against it,” and that he feels “a personal responsibility to reduce the impact of our activities on the climates.” Aside from buying a rainforest to protect it from logging, Eliasch also pledged that the FIS will cut its emissions by half by 2030.

The key will be to no longer chase wintry conditions across the globe, and for the race schedule to be optimized.

At least one site — Zermatt in Switzerland — will now begin to accommodate year-round training for all ski teams, and next season, Eliasch says, races will also be held by regional blocks to decrease travel.

That would address the single biggest source of emissions caused by the world’s 135 million skiers: Depending on the mode and distance to the destination, traveling accounts for up to 86 percent of emissions from a ski holiday, according to a report published in the journal Mountain Research and Development.

The Lachtal ski resort. (Denise Hruby for The Washington Post/FTWP) 

Some destinations have begun tackling that problem through electric buses or bicycles.

Skiers in Serfaus, Austria, can board the world’s shortest subway on one of four stops through the 1,100-resident village. And the Swiss village of Saas-Fee was already car-free when Wham filmed the music video for “Last Christmas” there in 1984.

Generally, however, visitors still get to both destinations by car and park in one of thousands of designated spots. Emissions from traveling to Morzine had Montagne Verte pondering, too. Most of its tourists are young Brits who fly to nearby Geneva, with round-trip fares going for less than $100.

To get people to opt for the pricier but environment-friendly railroad, Morzine now offers train travelers discounts for ski lessons, drinks and dinner — and, next year, even for expensive lift tickets.

That, however, addresses only the extra costs of train travel, not the nuisance of having to swap trains several times.

Looking at the rail network, Burton and her colleagues realized that a direct connection from Lille, a major hub for the Eurostar, would be possible. Next year, Montagne Verte plans to charter a train and fill it with 500 skiers.

“You want to go to the mountains on a ski holiday? Well, make sure it’s still there in 25 years. Start changing the way you do things,” Burton says.

With a successful pilot run, Montagne Verte hopes to convince the national train services of France to create a direct connection. It’s an uphill battle, Burton admits, especially given the vast subsidies granted to fossil-fuel-burning industries like airlines.

Tauernwind boasts a total of 10 windmills, each with a rotor diameter of 367 feet. (Denise Hruby for The Washington Post)

 Power in numbers

 It’s these bigger-picture policies on which local efforts often hit a wall, says Jeremy Jones, who founded Protect Our Winters (POW), a U.S.-based association trying to get politicians to take action.

Jones, a former professional snowboarder, became engaged in climate action after a 2005 trip to Prince Rupert, Canada, where locals showed him a small ski area that had been forced to stop operating.

He started switching to more efficient lightbulbs and saving water but soon realized that the sweeping changes necessary to reach climate goals had to come from politicians.

To get them to act, POW aims to “unify the outdoor state” — or the roughly 50 million Americans who ski, hike, surf or take part in similar activities. That potential voter base, Jones says, is 10 times larger than the National Rifle Association’s active members.

“There are a lot of politicians that are afraid to cross the NRA because they are afraid they’ll lose their job, that they will not get reelected,” says Jones, now 52 and a father of two.

“We need to make it so that politicians view climate in that same manner, where when they take a bad vote on climate, a pro vote for fossil fuels, they will lose their job in the next election,” he says.

Windmills in the eastern Alps. (Denise Hruby for The Washington Post) 

 Ski idols like Mike Douglas, known as the godfather of freestyle skiing — now an Olympic discipline — have joined POW, as have younger, emerging talents, like the teenage skier Kai Jones and snowboarder Bea Kim, who hopes to compete in the next Winter Olympics.

In the last national election cycle, POW’s nonpartisan “pledge to vote” campaign reached 30,000 people, many of them nonvoters or considered unlikely to vote.

“If we don’t start taking action now, then when are we going to?” Kim says.

In the 2018 election in Montana, POW pushed for climate coverage in local papers and helped 800 voters register.

Democrat Jon Tester — who says the impact of climate change on his own farm is “starting to scare the hell out of me” and who campaigned for an energy transition that would create high-paying jobs — secured reelection with 50.3 percent of the vote.

Across the Alps, too, politicians are increasingly addressing climate change, Steiger says — especially in areas like Tyrol, an Austrian province where every fourth job depends on the winter tourism industry. Last year, the state government ordered all ski resorts to become climate-neutral by 2035.

“The political will is there,” Steiger says, “just how it’s put into action remains to be seen.”

At Lachtal, for one, that means that the wind farm is going to be extended within the next five years, and the 2-megawatt solar panels will be increased to about 10 megawatts.

Four years from now, the Winter Olympics will return to Cortina d’Ampezzo, in the Italian Alps, which already hosted the Games in 1956. Back then, winter temperatures remained low, skiing conditions were excellent and the Olympic flag was framed by snow-covered mountains.

Much will have changed in 2026, when Kim, the POW snowboarder, hopes to compete. Until then, Kim, now 15 years old, wants to help “convince people to go outside and just to see how magical it is,” she says. “Hopefully, they’ll — out of their own conscious — start trying to protect it.”

Links

• Why Beijing lacks snow, and how climate change has the Winter Olympics on a slippery slope 
• (AU The Conversation) Time For A Reckoning: Cricket Australia, Fossil Fuel Sponsorship And Climate Change
• (Global Voices) Why Beijing’s Artificial Snow At The 2022 Winter Olympic Games Is Stirring Controversy
• (AU ABC) Climate Change Threatens Future Of Winter Olympics And All Snow Sports, Research Suggests
• (USA NPR) Could The World Become Too Warm To Hold Winter Olympics?
• (AU The Guardian) ‘We All Have A Role’: More Than 260 Australian Rules Footballers Sign Up To Climate Campaign
• (AU The Guardian) Every One Of Us Should Care About The Climate Crisis. Together We Can Make A Big Difference
• In Amsterdam, a community of floating homes shows the world how to live alongside nature
• Harnessing the energy of the ocean to power homes, planes and whisky distilleries

(AU ABC) Big Oil All Talk, No Action On Climate Change? Researchers Say They'Ve Got The Proof

ABC Science - Nick Kilvert

Some oil companies have engaged in climate change disinformation campaigns.(Getty Images: Anton Petrus)

Key Points Researchers looked at how four big oil companies performed against their clean energy claims They found that none of them were producing clean energy on a scale that indicates a move away from fossil fuels Clean energy investment targets were often not being met

The world's highest-polluting oil companies are promising big but delivering very little on climate change, according to damning new research published today.

Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP are failing to meet green energy investment pledges and lack consistent transparency in their reporting of investments, the researchers say in science journal PLOS ONE.

They say fossil fuel production was maintained or increased by Chevron, Shell and BP between 2009 and 2020, despite committing to, or in Chevron's case "aspiring to", net-zero emissions by 2050 or before.

To reach these conclusions, researchers from Tohoku and Kyoto University looked at the activities of Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP between 2009 and 2020.

They focused on these four because they're the highest greenhouse-gas-emitting investor-owned energy companies globally.

Specifically, the researchers tallied the frequency that climate change and clean energy-related keywords were referred to in those companies' annual reports during that 2009-2020 period, and what each company pledged to do to decarbonise and invest in clean energy.

They then compared that to each companies' actions during the same period — their investments and profits from fossil fuels, and investments in clean energy.

Clean energy generation in megawatts by each company between 2009 and 2020.(Supplied: PLOS ONE/Li, Trencher, Asuka)

Neither of the American companies — ExxonMobil and Chevron — disclosed the size of their clean energy investments for any years during the period, "despite claims of increasing investments for low-carbon energy and technologies", the researchers said in the paper.

European companies Shell and BP disclosed sporadically, and the researchers took data for all four companies from external sources where it wasn't disclosed.

The researchers concluded that accusations of greenwashing against these companies "appear well founded".

No indication of shifting away from fossil fuels

Between 2009 and 2020, none of the four companies generated renewable energy on a scale that would "indicate a shift away from fossil fuels", despite all showing a significant increase in references to "climate change", "transition", "emissions" and "low carbon energy" in their annual reporting.

According to the research, ExxonMobil generated no electricity from clean energy sources between 2009 and 2020. Chevron generated just 65.5 megawatts.

Of the four, BP generated the most with around 2,000 megawatts, or "the equivalent of around two large gas-fired power-plants", the researchers said.

In energy equivalent terms, this pales in comparison to the 2 million or more barrels per day each company produced on average during the study period.

Youtube Between 2010 and 2018, more than 98 per cent of Shell's investments were in oil and gas

It's also at odds with the image these companies are trying to project to the public, the researchers said.

"Over the study period that we looked at — 12 years — there's been a big increase in green rhetoric," said study co-author Gregory Trencher from Kyoto University.

"If that was reflected in actions, we would expect in the same period, to see a big surge in green activity.

"That is not the case. For the entire study period … we actually see also an increase in fossil fuel production."

This is despite the websites of BP and Chevron stating that they support the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement; Shell's website says the company's net-zero aim supports the Paris Agreement; and ExxonMobil says it is "advancing effective solutions to address climate change".

Among the Paris Agreement's goals are to limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and to pursue efforts to keep it below 1.5C.

We're currently on track to hit 1.5C in the early 2030s.

BP, Shell say change is happening

The two European companies — BP and Shell — had the most ambitious clean energy pledges of the four, which the researchers still described as "highly conservative".

"Even with these very conservative indicators, [we] don't see much action, especially in the US," Dr Trencher said.

i pledge not to spill 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf of mexico https://t.co/UnnVVeVA3Q

— Andrew Henderson (@andrwfhenderson) October 24, 2019

"[With] BP and Shell, it's really only in the last two years that we see meaningful action occurring, but that's obviously far from sufficient, and there are still contradictions."

Both BP and Shell met their targets of investing more than 1 per cent of capital expenditure on clean energy for multiple years throughout the study period.

But they failed to meet other targets. Shell's investment of $0.9 billion on clean energy in 2020, for instance, fell short of its pledge of $1 billion-$2 billion annually between 2018-2020.

The companies' investment data from 2018 and 2019 was not published, according to the researchers.

A spokesperson for BP said that because the study was between the years 2009-2020, it didn't take recent "developments and [their] progress fully into account".

"In 2020, BP set out our new net-zero ambition, aims and strategy, and in 2021 completed the largest transformation of the company in our history to deliver these," the spokesperson said.

In 2020, BP's new chief executive officer Michael Looney claimed the company could get to net zero.

He laid out a raft of measures, which included reducing future production by 40 per cent, or about 1 million barrels, of oil a day, and selling off about $25 billion in fossil fuel assets by 2025.

A Shell spokesperson also said they had taken big steps recently that wouldn't have been captured by the study.

"Shell's target is to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, in step with society," they said.

A comparison of capital expenditure on "low-carbon" investments by each company as a percentage of total capital expenditure. (Supplied: PLOS ONE/Li, Trencher, Asuka)

"Our short-, medium- and long-term intensity and absolute targets are consistent with the more ambitious 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement."

If both BP and Shell are to reach their net-zero emissions by 2050, Dr Trencher said it would be "an amazing challenge" given their continued interests in fossil fuels.

"How do you bring your fossil fuel products in the form of oil or gas to [net]-zero?"

Chevron, ExxonMobil dragging the chain

Investment in "clean energy" by the two American companies — Chevron and ExxonMobil — made up less than a quarter of a per cent of their total capital expenditure.

But the researchers urged caution even over these modest figures.

"We can have one company claiming that it's invested, you know, X amount of dollars in clean energy, but we don't really know what's meant by clean energy," Dr Trencher said.

"There's no industry accepted definition of this."

Chevron has expanded its gas interest in Australia, including at Wheatstone and its troubled CCS facility Gorgon. (Chevron)

It could include research and development, business development, and controversial carbon capture and storage technologies, which made up a large proportion of clean energy investment by Chevron, they said.

ExxonMobil has made no secret that it lacks interest in some renewable technologies, said study lead author Mei Li from Tohoku University.

"ExxonMobil is the only major [oil company] to refuse to invest in solar and wind. It's quite a surprising thing for me," Dr Li said.

Attempting to derail climate action

According to ExxonMobil's website, the company is "working to be part of the solution".

"ExxonMobil scientists have been involved in the forefront of climate research for four decades, understanding and working with the world's leading experts on climate," the website states.

But ExxonMobil has also been accused of funding climate sceptic organisations, and promoting climate disinformation.

Back in 2006, the Royal Society slammed the company for promoting "inaccurate and misleading" climate information.

ExxonMobil said it would stop funding such groups in 2007 after pressure from activists, but was accused of the same thing again in 2009.

Last year the City of New York filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute for "systematically and intentionally deceiving" New Yorkers about the impact their products have on climate change.

Similar lawsuits have previously failed.

Oil companies are accused of 'greenwashing' while continuing with business as usual. (AP: Nabil al-Jurani)

And ExxonMobil has been reticent to address climate change in its annual reporting, according to the researchers.

"Only in 2018 did ExxonMobil recognise, indirectly and weakly, the link between fossil fuels and climate change in its annual report," they said.

"This position did not carry over into the 2020 version."

A range of questions were put to ExxonMobil, including whether they still fund climate sceptic groups, but a response wasn't received by deadline.

But it's not just ExxonMobil that has attempted to derail climate action. It's an industry-wide practice, according to Polly Hemming from independent think tank The Australia Institute, based in Canberra.

She said there were plenty of examples in Australia where companies had campaigned against climate action.

Woodside ran a campaign against an EPA proposal for offsetting all emissions on new large projects. (Supplied)

"[In 2019] the Western Australian [Environmental Protection Agency] suggested that all high-carbon activities would be completely offset," she said.

"Woodside [Energy] in The West Australian newspaper ran a scare campaign and within a week it was ditched."

A concerted effort by the industry has held back action on climate change in Australia, according to Ms Hemming.

"I would say [fossil fuel lobbyists] have been behind the last 10 years of delay on climate change [in Australia].

"There's a revolving door of fossil fuel industry executives and employees coming in and out of government."

The fossil fuel industry's assertions that they can continue to produce oil and gas with zero net emissions — described by Ms Hemming as "a complete fantasy" — allows governments to continue supporting the industry, she said.

"Our own government's net-zero plan — there's a sentence in there that says that gas and coal production will continue.

"No fossil fuel company is proposing to offset all their emissions. Even if they were, there wouldn't be enough offsets in the world to do that.

"It might work on paper, but in reality, the physics don't work."

In response to questions from the ABC regarding today's research, a spokesperson for Chevron said it was difficult to respond without first seeing the report, but the company was committed to reaching net-zero in 2050 on its scope 1 and scope 2 emissions — that's emissions from its owned or controlled sources, and indirect emissions from the generation of energy it has purchased.

Scope 3 emissions are those produced by burning the fuel by consumers, such as in vehicles.

"Chevron is focused on lowering the carbon intensity of our operations and seeking to grow lower carbon businesses along with our traditional business lines," the spokesperson said.

"Globally, the corporation is planning $10 billion in lower carbon investments by 2028.

"In Australia, we are working to advance a lower carbon future using our unique capabilities, assets, and expertise."

Links

• BP announces plans to offset all carbon emissions, as energy producer works to rebrand
• Three big changes may have heralded the end of Australia's $300bn gas boom
• (The Guardian) The Forgotten Oil Ads That Told Us Climate Change Was Nothing
• (Truthout) How Big Oil Rigs The System To Keep Winning
• Snowy 3.0? Greens plot $40 billion takeover of electricity sector to eliminate coal by 2030
• Closure of Australia's largest power station 'unlikely' to hit prices, but concern for grid stability