Intelligence Director On Climate Change As “Underlying Meta-Driver Of Unpredictable Instability”

Center for Climate & Security -  Caitlin Werrell | Francesco Femia



Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, recently addressed the 2016 INSA & AFCEA Intelligence & National Security Summit. He spoke specifically to national intelligence during a time of transition between administrations, and how looking out at potential future failures and collapses over the coming decades, climate change will be "an underlying meta-driver of unpredictable instability."
Clapper's remarks covered the existing security landscape that will continue through to the next administration, regardless of who becomes Commander In Chief. He calls it "a world of unpredictable instability." From his remarks:

This upcoming transition will happen at a particularly, I think, difficult time as we're facing the most complex and diverse array of global threats that I've seen in my 53 years or so in the intelligence business. So we are living in what I've come to call a world of unpredictable instability, in which two-thirds of the nations around the world are at some risk of instability in the next few years.

The Intelligence Community spends a lot of time trying to predict where this "world of unpredictable instability" will lead to state failures and collapses, as well as trying to reduce uncertainty for decision-makers. Director Clapper continued:

Nearly everywhere, the IC can point out the potential for failures or collapses. We certainly can't anticipate the specifics, the when, where and how for our policymakers. This unpredictable instability has been a constant for certainly this administration and will be, I think, for the next one too no matter who our President is.

Despite the difficulty of predicting failure and collapse, Clapper pointed specifically to the role that climate change will play in this mix:

In the coming decades, an underlying meta-driver of unpredictable instability will be, I believe, climate change. Major population centers will compete for ever-diminishing food and water resources and governments will have an increasingly difficult time controlling their territories. And so because of all of these factors, after ISIL's gone, we can expect some other terrorist entity to arise and a cycle of extremism which will continue to control us for the foreseeable future. And by the way, our more traditional adversaries like Russia and China and Iran and North Korea will continue to challenge us.

Clapper expanded on this during the Q&A session where he was asked "How are we positioned to deal with impacts of such changes as climate and technology?"

Well, I alluded to that briefly in my remarks, and I do think climate change is going to be an underpinning for a lot of national security issues. The effect on climate, which drives so many things ‐‐ availability of basics like water and food, and other resources, which are increasingly going to become matters of conflict, and already are, between and among countries. And so this is going to give rise to national security insight that we'll need to understand this and hopefully help anticipate it. So I think climate change over time is going to have a (inaudible) effect on our national security picture.

Director Clapper highlighted that the Intelligence Community is a "pillar of stability" during elections and traditions between administrations. Decision-makers should heed their warning on climate change, now and throughout the coming decades. Otherwise, this world of "unpredictable instability" will get even more unpredictable, and more unstable.

Links

• U.S. Intel Chief: Climate Change Is Adding Fuel to the World's Extremist Fires
• Third annual Intelligence & National Security Summit
• Pentagon Report: U.S. Military Considers Climate Change a 'Threat Multiplier' That Could Exacerbate Terrorism
• Martin O'Malley's Link Between Climate Change and ISIS Isn't Crazy At All
• As Debate Goes On, the Military Prepares for Climate Change
• Worldwide Threat Assessment: Climate Magnifying Instability
• Climate in the U.S. 2014 National Intelligence Strategy
• Director of National Intelligence: Climate Change in the Worldwide Threat Assessment

Climate Change Authority's Move To Canberra Raises Independence Concerns

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

Exclusive: Department of Environment confirms agency's 'mid-September' move from Melbourne 'to improve operating efficiency'

The move comes after members David Karoly, left, and Clive Hamilton refused to endorse the Climate Change Authority's report. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

The Climate Change Authority will be moved from Melbourne to Canberra within the next fortnight, putting its independence from government under the spotlight.
A spokesperson for the Department of Environment has confirmed the move in "mid-September" to Guardian Australia, and said it was being done "in order to improve its operating efficiency".
Guardian Australia understands none of the authority's staff, besides the chief executive, will stay with it after the move, which has been known about in relevant circles for some time.
The move has raised concerns it will bring the authority, which was set up in 2011 in Melbourne as an independent statutory agency, closer to government and limit its independence.
The Department of Environment spokesperson said the authority would continue to have "its own staff". But whether those staff would be on secondment from the department is not yet known.
Several people close to the authority warned that since the expert staff of the authority did much of the agency's work – including writing the reports that are directed and signed off by the board members – how close they were to government could affect the degree of independence it maintained.
Bernie Fraser, former chair of the Climate Change Authority and former chair of the Reserve Bank of Australia, told Guardian Australia that "the independence is one of the great features of bodies like the Climate Change Authority".
Fraser said the personnel – both the staff and the board – need to work to uphold the independence of the authority. He said when he was head of the authority, the staff were "tremendously impressive".
"Unfortunately that started to erode, after the change of government, and the talk of abolishing the authority – those good people thought the government isn't going to listen and is going to get rid of the authority at the first opportunity," Fraser said.
He said there was "something to" the concerns about independence if it was moved to Canberra, and particularly if the staffing turned out to be seconded from the department rather than hired independently.
Ian Chubb, a former member of the authority and the former chief scientist of Australia, said if the board was expert enough, then the independence of the staff shouldn't impact the independence of the authority itself.
"I don't think moving the secretariat to Canberra is moving the authority closer to government, other than literally," he told Guardian Australia. "There are lots of organisations in Canberra at arm's length from government. The independent board ought to have enough knowledge collectively not to let the wool get pulled over their eyes."
The Coalition attempted to abolish the Climate Change Authority in its last term in government but failed to get the legislation through the Senate, and continues to maintain its policy that it should be abolished.
In the Coalition's 2016-17 budget, the Climate Change Authority was provided with an operating budget from existing Department of Environment funds until the end of 2016 only.
The move follows a dispute between members of the authority over a report on whether Australia should have an emissions trading scheme, leading to two members releasing a "minority report" and receiving a sharp rebuke from the authority's chair, Wendy Craik.
Craik released a statement saying their report was "misleading". She said while it "purports to be a minority report to the authority's third and final report of its special review", it "was not released or endorsed by the authority, and has no status as an authority report".
Asked about whether the two dissenting members would continue on the board of the authority, a spokeswoman for the Climate Change Authority told Guardian Australia: "Whether the two members who wrote the dissenting report continue as members of the authority is a matter for them."
Both dissenting members, the economist Clive Hamilton and the climate scientist David Karoly, said they would not resign over the matter, and they didn't believe there were any grounds for them to be dismissed.
Fraser said he had read both the majority report and the minority report. "I thought the points in the minority point were very well made and deserve serious consideration, he told Guardian Australia.
Asked about the dispute and the future of the organisation, the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, said the disagreement was a matter for the authority but the government had no plans to commission any further reports from it.
The authority is still required to complete two more reports: a review of the carbon farming initiative legislation and a review of the national greenhouse and energy reporting legislation.

Links

• Climate Change Authority's plan is 'a dog's breakfast', say dissenting members
• 'We're not going anywhere,' say Climate Change Authority dissenters
• Australia needs two emissions trading schemes, Climate Change Authority says
• Climate authority split is no surprise – Australia has fought the same battle for 10 years
• Climate Change Authority splits over ETS report commissioned by Coalition
• Letter signed by 154 Australian experts demands climate policy match the science
• Coalition climate plan 'assumes emissions trading', says government modeller
• Malcolm Turnbull: Labor's climate targets will destroy Australia's bargaining power
• Why Coalition climate scare campaign is not credible and makes no sense

Future Fisheries Can Expect $10-Billion Revenue Loss Due To Climate Change

Lab Manager - University of British Columbia

Climate change impacts such as rising temperatures and changes in ocean salinity, acidity, and oxygen levels are expected to result in decreased catches

"Developing countries most dependent on fisheries for food and revenue will be hardest hit," study's lead author says. Photo: twoblueday, Flickr

Global fisheries stand to lose approximately $10 billion of their annual revenue by 2050 if climate change continues unchecked, and countries that are most dependent on fisheries for food will be the hardest hit, finds new University of British Columbia research.
Climate change impacts such as rising temperatures and changes in ocean salinity, acidity, and oxygen levels are expected to result in decreased catches, as previous research from UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries has found. In this study, the authors examined the financial impact of these projected losses for all fishing countries in 2050, compared to 2000.
"Developing countries most dependent on fisheries for food and revenue will be hardest hit," said Vicky Lam, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, and the study's lead author. "It is necessary to implement better marine resource management plans to increase stock resilience to climate change."
While many communities are considering aquaculture, also known as fish farming, as a solution to ease the financial burden of fishing losses and improve food security under climate change, when researchers examined the growing industry, they found it may exacerbate the negative impact on revenues
"Climate adaptation programs such as aquaculture development may be seen as a solution," said William Cheung, associate professor at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and a study co-author. "However, rather than easing the financial burden of fishing losses and improving food security, it may drive down the price of seafood, leading to further decreases in fisheries revenues."
The researchers used climate models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to examine the economic impact of climate change on fish stocks and fisheries revenues under two emission scenarios. In a high emission scenario, the rates continue to rise unchecked, while a low emission scenario meant ocean warming is kept under two degrees Celsius.
"Global fisheries revenues amount to about $100 billion every year," said co-author, Rashid Sumaila, professor at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and Liu Institute for Global Studies. "Our modeling shows that a high emissions scenario could reduce global fishing revenue by an average of 10 per cent, while a low emissions scenario could reduce revenues by 7 per cent."
The researchers found the countries that rely highly on fish are the most vulnerable, including island countries like Tokelau, Cayman Islands, and Tuvalu. Meanwhile, many developed countries, such as Greenland and Iceland, could see revenue increases as fish move into cooler waters.
The study was published Sept. 7 in Scientific Reports.

Links

• Projected change in global fisheries revenues under climate change
• Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries
• Seafood Supply Altered by Climate Change
• Changing Global Diets is Vital to Reducing Climate Change
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
•  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Solar Power Sector Handed Huge Boost By ARENA Funding

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australia is set to triple its large-scale solar energy capacity after funding from a threatened federal agency helped drive down costs almost to those of wind farms.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced the 12 projects that will share part of its latest funding round of $92 million on Thursday.

UNSW researchers break world record for solar cell efficiency. Australian researchers find a way to hugely increase the efficiency of solar panels.

Queensland was a big winner, landing six of the projects, while NSW won five and WA the other one. (See map below.)

Solar energy costs continue to fall in Australia and overseas. Photo: FRV

The plants will generate about one-tenth of the power needed to meet Australia's 2020 Renewable Energy Target, supply enough electricity for 150,000 average homes and create 2,300 direct jobs alone, ARENA said.
The agency's chief executive, Ivor Frischknecht, said that when announced last September the funds had been expected to enable 200 megawatts of new solar capacity, compared with the 240 megawatts already in place.
Instead, the dozen ventures will deliver an extra 480 megawatts if all proceed, and drive $1 billion of investment in regional Australia.
The level of grant funding needed to make the large-scale solar photovoltaic projects had dropped from about half the cost to just 10 per cent in three years, Mr Frischknecht said.

Solar panels being installed at the Sydney Town Hall. Photo: Damian Shaw

"It's a phenomenal change from the Moree solar farm and AGL's [two plants in NSW], where it was a little less than one commercial dollar for every subsidy dollar," he told Fairfax Media.
The success of ARENA's solar support comes at a critical time for the program's future. The Turnbull government wants to end all grant funding by the agency and strip $1.3 billion from its budget.
Labor, which went to the July election quarantining $300 million of those cuts, may decide as soon as Tuesday's caucus meeting whether it will back the government's omnibus funding through Parliament.
Opponents of the grant cuts say the move would trigger the loss of possibly hundreds of research positions at universities, the CSIRO and elsewhere, and slow advances in renewable energy at a time when Australia has to shift to a low-carbon future.
While large-scale solar costs are about 10 per cent more than wind farms, many other technologies require support to make them less expensive, Mr Frischknecht said. These include large-scale batteries and so-called dispatchable renewables such as solar thermal and bio power that can be switched on and off as needed.
Josh Frydenberg, minister for environment and energy, said the latest round brought federal investment through ARENA to $1.2 billion for around 250 projects, drawing a further $1.6 billion from the private sector.
"ARENA will continue to be a major supporter of renewable energy through the $1 billion Clean Energy Innovation Fund [for concessional loans] which will see new jobs and investment in the sector," Mr Frydenberg said.

Biggest plant
The winners include what will become the country's largest solar farm, with ARENA chipping in $20 million towards the $216.7 million needed to build the 110 MW plant.
That project, to be owned by Origin Energy, will be on Queensland's Darling Downs. (See list of winning projects below.)
The title of largest plant, though, may be up for grabs. Genex's 50 MW Kidston Solar Plant, which has a 20-year supply deal with the Queensland government, has plans to extend to 150 MW.
For NSW, the ARENA-funded projects will support as many as 800 jobs during construction and, when fully operational, will provide enough electricity to power about 62,000 homes or 2,800 schools.
"These five new solar facilities save about 350,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, the equivalent of taking 78,000 cars off the road," Mark Speakman, the state's environment minister, said.

Falling costs
The recent steep drop in large-scale solar costs is mostly from domestic gains, ARENA said.
A falling Australian dollar had largely nullified the drop in global price of imported panels, inverters and other equipment, which typically make up 40 to 50 per cent of total costs, Mr Frischknecht said.
Banks were becoming more comfortable supporting large-scale solar, resulting in cheaper finance, he said, while expanded scale and improved construction process through experience also helped make plants more competitive.
Kellie Caught, a spokeswoman for WWF Australia, said the winning bids amounted to "one billion reasons" for the government to maintain full grant funding.
"ARENA plays a critically important role in building new technologies, reducing the cost of renewable energy, increasing renewable energy supply and diversity in Australia, improving grid stability and reliability, building industry skills, developing export capabilities and creating thousands of jobs," she said.

Open letter
Details of solar's advance came as 11 major energy companies issued an open letter to federal politicians calling on them to protect ARENA's funding.
The companies – which include AGL, General Electric, First Solar, wind turbine maker Vestas, electric car and battery maker Tesla and wind farm operator Infigen Energy – said investment confidence would be undermined in the sector if one of the new Parliament's first moves was to cut ARENA's support.
"The grants provided by the agency are modest investments that will lead to the jobs and investment of the future," Kane Thornton, chief executive of the Clean Energy Council, said.
"Hundreds of projects have been funded to date, and hundreds more are needed if we are to transform Australia's energy system at the lowest possible cost to consumers."
Queensland's Energy Minister, Mark Bailey, said additional support from the Palaszczuk government had helped boost the "competitiveness of so many Queensland projects in the ARENA process".
The backing is in the form of long-term revenue contracts to aid investor confidence.
Mr Frischknecht said the current funding round would be "a litmus test" to determine whether additional rounds would be needed in the future for large-scale solar PV – an outcome that could be known within six to 12 months.

Links

• Australia's carbon budget to be exhausted within six years: report
• Wilderness lost: A 10th wiped out in 20 years
• CSIRO board extends CEO Larry Marshall's contract until mid-2020
• Obama plans to keep fighting climate change after presidency
• 'Very poor': How Australia went to the bottom of the class

A New Type Of Politics Could Help Prevent Climate Disaster

The Guardian - Andrew Simms
A UK cross-party initiative addresses the appetite and mechanics for the cooperation needed to help us live within Earth's limits

'New alliances in the UK are being explored to reverse inequality and live within the Earth's limits.' Photograph: Deco / Alamy/Alamy

Four months and counting
China and the US's announcement that they will join the Paris climate accord comes at a time when the UK's own climate and energy policies appear at best in disarray, and worst at odds.
Imagine you're stuck in a burning building. Stay and you perish, but the complexity of the building means that to physically escape you have to work with the others also trapped. If everyone does their own thing, many valiant efforts will be made, but ultimately you'll all be doomed.
Tackling climate change is fundamentally a challenge of first accepting that action sufficient to prevent irreversible warming is non-negotiable – you need to get out of the burning building – and then of solidarity and cooperation, you need to make the escape plan happen together.
In the UK only the Green party has climate targets roughly in line with what climate science says is needed. Meanwhile, solidarity and cooperation within parties is proving hard enough to achieve after the vote for the UK to leave the EU, let alone presenting the electorate with an undivided progressive choice in elections.
Post-Brexit we can expect little of the UK government on sufficient and clear climate action. The great irony of the lobby to leave, which railed against the "red tape" of Brussels, is that it has triggered probably Britain's biggest ever open-ended, bureaucratic exercise. Forty years' worth of legislation and cross-border agreements need rewriting in a more complicated, multipolar world. Not only will this distract, decisively, from achieving much else, but international treaty negotiation will be dictated by the old economics of competition and division.
Fortunately, new alliances in the UK are being explored to reverse inequality and live within the Earth's limits.
Caroline Lucas has joined with Lisa Nandy, Labour's former shadow spokesperson on energy and climate change, and Liberal Democrats including the current leader, Tim Farron, to launch an initiative for greater direct political cooperation, called for in a new book, The Alternative: Towards a New Progressive Politics. The title echoes the name of the mould breaking new political party in Denmark of the same name, The Alternative, set up in 2013 to be a fresh, collaborative and progressive voice and change the divisive tone of domestic politics.
Writing in the book, Uffe Elbæk, its party leader, compares the emergence of The Alternative to Syriza and Podemos as a reaction to a failure of the political system so serious that it leaves democracy itself under threat. But, far from strident, their response is to advocate for new, shared values that are the inverse of the emergent chest-beating and fearful nationalism threatening international cooperation on everything, including climate change. They speak instead of political mobilisation based on humility, empathy, courage, generosity and even humour.
The scope and ambition of contributors to the UK initiative addresses the appetite and mechanics for cooperation.
In a chapter on re-imagining Britain's approach to the environment, I argue in the book that from government to anti-austerity groups in opposition, there is a kind of denial about the full economic implications of preventing irreversible climatic upheaval. The clamour for a return to growth inevitably results in a kind of business as usual consumerism.
In terms of alternative economic visions among progressive circles, if any are discernible they tend toward the vague promise of "fully automated luxury communism" - a world in which technology and redistribution deliver lives of leisure and plenty.
But not only does this founder on broken planetary, environmental boundaries, it also contains a kind of impoverished digital disengagement with the real, material world. The alternative is a green, circular and genuinely shared economy of "better not more". In this, reskilled and reconnected, rather than passive, disposable consumerism, we take back more control of our lives making, mending, re-using and sharing more of the things we need.
Not only does this bring greater independence, wellbeing, cost and resource savings, but it draws on long-standing working class traditions of self and mutual help that let people and communities flourish in tough economic times. The cultivation of new skills and craft also counter the alienation of much modern work.
A new more plural, progressive politics, capable of supporting the changes needed to prevent climate disaster, itself needs a new economic model, judged not by how quickly it grows, but by how well it allows us all to thrive within planetary environmental boundaries.

Links

• Britain shouts about immigration but is silent on one of the root causes: climate change
• It's the economy that needs to be integrated into the environment - not the other way around
• Imagine the fate of a global climate treaty without the EU
• We are making the wrong energy choices for future generations

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Tackles Climate Change, Disaster Mitigation At ASEAN Summit

NEWS.com.au - Tory Shepherd

Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull spoke to Pacific Island leaders, including the PM of the Cook Islands Henry Puna, in Pohnpei, Micronesia. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/News Corp. Source:News Corp Australia

THERE is “no more pressing need” in the region than climate change, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told Pacific leaders in Micronesia.

Mr Turnbull announced $300 million to help the Pacific “manage climate change and improve disaster resilience”.
The Prime Minister landed in Pohnpei on Friday for his third round of regional talks — having visited Hangzhou in China for the G20 and Vientiane in Laos for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.
“Over the next four years we’ll provide $300 million to Pacific island countries including $75 million for disaster preparedness. This is an additional $80 million on the current levels,” he said.
Mr Turnbull also said Australia would ratify the Paris climate change agreement this year or early next year.
“We will ratify it as soon as parliamentary processes allow ... Its ratification is not controversial,” he told the Pacific Island Forum in Pohnpei.
Earlier Mr Turnbull met with Federated States of Micronesia Peter Christian; Mr Christian said he was ashamed Micronesia did not have an embassy in Australia and that he would like to find “a little building somewhere in Canberra”.
The two also discussed the Pacific patrol vessels Australia will build, which will replace the existing boats used to stop illegal fishing in the area, for search and rescue, and for national security.
Held in the backdrop of green hills, blue water and palm trees, Mr Turnbull looked decidedly relaxed as he sported a green and blue leaf motif shirt at the 47th Pacific Islands Forum — themed ‘Small and Far: Challenge for Growth”.
Speaking in the lead-up to the forum, FSM Vice President Yosiwo George said due to the distance and smallness of forum countries they face transportation, economic growth and development and foreign investment barriers. “Many of our economies have the same characteristics: low productivity, low growth, and an inefficient public sector involvement in job creation,” he said.
How to solve these issues as well as grappling with the increasing threat of climate change and disaster mitigation will top the forum’s agenda.
According to the World Bank, FSM already incurs, on average, $US8.8 million ($A11.5 million) per year (about 3.1 per of GDP) in losses due to typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis.
Climate change will only increase this vulnerability — resulting in more intense typhoons, sea level rises storm surges, floods and droughts — adversely impacting agriculture, fisheries, coastal zones and water resources.

Malcolm Turnbull will discuss the increasing impacts of climate change with Pacific Island leaders in Pohnpei, Micronesia. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/News Corp. Source:News Corp Australia

On  the opening day of the forum on Thursday, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill heralded the recent commitment by the United States and China to ratify the Paris Agreement — something Australia aims to do by the end of the year.
“We must continue to show leadership and encourage all countries to ratify the agreement,” Mr O’Neill added.
In a report released earlier this week, Oxfam Australia said Australia was not doing enough in the Pacific to help them battle the effects of climate change and called on the government to commit $A3.2 billion by 2020.
Mr Turnbull has already flagged that he will be announcing a “substantial” assistance package at the forum, but details are yet to be released. Australia will also be giving up to 21 patrol boats to Pacific Island countries to promote air surveillance to monitor illegal maritime activities.
On Thursday Mr Turnbull’s invitation to South-East Asian leaders to attend a special meeting in Australia has been enthusiastically received.
Mr Turnbull invited leaders to a special Australia-ASEAN summit in 2018.
“That invitation has been received with great enthusiasm and we look forward to that as another building block in this already very strong relationship,” he told reporters in Vientiane on Thursday.

Links

• PM announces Pacific disaster cash
• CSIRO head gets 4 more years in top job
• Australia leads first ever all female scientific expedition to Antarctica
• Huge swathe of world’s wilderness lost since 1990s: study

Morale Falling, Staff Optimism About CSIRO Future Low, Survey Shows

ABC News - Jake Sturmer

The survey shows a disconnect CSIRO staff and management. (ABC News: Lucy Barbour)

Morale is falling among CSIRO workers and staff optimism about the future of the research organisation is low, according to a staff survey.

The survey commissioned by the organisation also reveals a massive disconnect between the organisation's management and its staff overall.
It comes as the organisation prepares to axe hundreds of jobs, largely in the oceans, atmosphere, land and water climate science teams.
The survey found 97 per cent of the leadership team believed in the next year CSIRO would change for the better — compared to just 21 per cent of staff who shared that view.
Staff at CSIRO are half as optimistic for the future compared to other organisations in Australia and similar research institutions around the world.
More than 3400, or around 64 per cent of staff, participated in the survey in July this year.
It sets out the scale of the task at hand for chief executive Larry Marshall, who has just had his contract renewed by the board until the end of the decade.
"Dr Marshall has our support to continue to implement [the] Strategy 2020," CSIRO chairman David Thodey said in an email to staff.

Optimism at the CSIRO is low compared to similar organisations around the world. (CSIRO)

In another report released today, a review of the decision-making processes that led to the controversial job cuts by consultants Ernst and Young found oversights in governance and risk management.
It found consistent problems in the way management handled the cuts, known internally as the Science Prioritisation and Implementation (SPI) process.
The review recommends CSIRO "reassess the existing organisational structure and practices … to provide appropriate management and coordination to all phases of the SPI process".
"The lack of proper planning and assignment of responsibility of each phase of the SPI process … led to perceived levels of inadequacy in rigour and consistency of Executive Team decisions," the consultant's report found.
"There was also limited documentation of the role each of these key stakeholders had to play; when they should be involved; or how they should coordinate activity.
"There was found to be a lack of rigour and protocols regarding the documentation of key meetings and decisions."
CSIRO said in its initial response to the review that by the end of the year, the chief executive would "continue to assess the appropriateness of the current organisation structure and practices and implement changes accordingly".

Links

• Hunt orders CSIRO U-turn on climate science
• CSIRO Melbourne climate science labs certain to close
• CSIRO workers 'stressed, upset' as they wait for information on job cuts
• 'Catastrophic' global loss of 10pc of wilderness over past two decades