Most People Alive Today Set To Witness Dangerous Global Warming In Their Lifetime, Scientists Warn

The Independent - Ian Johnston

Average temperature could rise to two degrees Celsius above the norm by 2050 or 'even sooner'

Pictures that show we are killing our planet (first of  21)

The world could hit two degrees Celsius of warming – the point at which many scientists believe climate change will become dangerous – as early as 2050, a group of leading experts has warned.
In a report called The Truth About Climate Change, they said many people seemed to think of global warming as "abstract, distant and even controversial".
But the planet is now heating up "much faster" than anticipated, said Professor Sir Robert Watson, a former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and one of the authors of the report.
If their analysis is correct, it means the majority of people alive today will experience what it is like to live on a dangerously overheated planet.

At the Paris Climate Summit last year, world leaders agreed to try to limit global warming to as close to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels as possible – amid concerns the 2C target may not be safe enough.

But in the same year the level of warming reached 1C after an astonishing 0.15C rise in just three years.
Droughts, floods, wildfires and storms are all set to increase as the world warms, threatening crops and causing the extinction of species.

A raging wildfire closes in on a tree as people flee near Clayton, California

The new report warned the 1.5C target had "almost certainly already been missed"
Even if all the pledges to cut emissions made by countries at Paris are fulfilled, the average temperature is set to reach that level in the early 2030s and then 2C by 2050, they said.

Professor Watson, a chemist who has worked for Nasa, the World Bank, the US president and now at the renowned Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich, said: "Climate change is happening now and much faster than anticipated.
"While the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is an important step in the right direction, what is needed is a doubling or tripling of efforts.
"Without additional efforts by all major emitters, the 2C target could be reached even sooner."
The report said an extra 0.4 to 0.5C of warming was expected to take place because of greenhouse gases that have already been emitted due to the slow response of the ocean and atmosphere.
The report said that full implementation of the pledges made at Paris would require wealthy countries to give a total of $100bn a year – as promised at the summit – to poor countries to help them transition to a zero-carbon economy.
"About 80 per cent of the pledges are subject to the condition that financial and technological support is available from developed countries," Professor Watson said.
"These conditions may not be met, which means that these pledges may not be realized."

Nigel Lawson says global warming is real

The UK has already indicated its share of this total will come from the foreign aid budget, meaning poor countries will actually not get any more cash than they do at present.
The report suggested there was little chance the world would not see 2C of warming at some point.
"The main concern is not when the 2C target will be exceeded, but the impacts of climate change resulting from such an increase in global temperature," it said.
"Weather-related events due to climate change have doubled in number since 1990.
"An increase in global average temperature of 2C within the next couple of decades implies an additional doubling in the number of these events.
"As the number of weather-related events due to climate change continues to rise, their impact on water resources, food production, human health, services and infrastructure in urban and rural areas, among other sectors, will be more frequent and intense.
"Some of the impacts of climate change may be beneficial, while most will not, negatively impacting lives and livelihoods everywhere."


Proof of Global Warming? Grass Bubbles Bizarrely in Siberia

But there was "still time to slow down the current path towards the 2C target", the report stressed.
The experts called for drastic changes to the way the world produces and uses energy with a switch to electric cars among steps that should be taken quickly.
They also said carbon capture-and-storage (CCS) of emissions from fossil fuel power stations and industrial plants could be part of the solution if the system could be made to work.
Deforestation should be reduced and more trees – which absorb carbon from the atmosphere as they grow – should be planted.
But humanity should also take steps to deal with the "unavoidable" adverse effects of climate change that are already in the pipeline.

Is Geoengineering to Stop Global Warming Too Risky?

Professor James McCarthy, an oceanographer at Harvard University and one of the report's authors, said: "Climate change is already causing harm. Although implementation of the Paris Agreement will slow the rate of change, we will still need widespread adaptation to reduce its risks.
"It is important that appropriate adaptation measures be planned and implemented with sensitivity to specific regional context."
Mark Lynas, in his award-winning book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, laid out just what will happen as the world's average temperature increases.
He described the report's findings as "extremely worrying".
"If we hit 2C by 2050 then we will be well on the way to a really terrifying 3C-plus scenario by the end of the century," Mr Lynas said.
"The world's ice-caps will be in full-scale meltdown, and large areas of what are now breadbaskets could become deserts, threatening serious global food shortages.
"We would likely lose all the tropical coral reefs, combined with a devastating mass extinction of plants and animals more widely.
"And we would be condemning our children and grandchildren to multi-metre sea level rise, and the eventual evacuation of major coastal cities."

Links

• Leading environmentalist James Lovelock: Humans should save themselves, not the planet
• Insurers call climate change 'the mother of all risks' as Government fails to meet renewable energy targets
• Donald Trump not deleting climate change denial tweets, despite 'Chinese hoax' global warming claims
• Coffee could be extinct by 2080 due to climate change destroying areas suitable for growing beans

Investors Threaten Car Industry On Climate

Climate News Network - Terry Macalister

Car manufacturers warned they must address climate change by switching to low-emission models − or face a sell-off of their shares.

Low-carbon vehicles such as Tesla’s pump in electric instead of petrol. Image: Windell Oskay via Flickr

Major investors have warned the automotive industry it needs to accelerate its readiness for a low-carbon world if it is to retain their support and prosper.
Vehicle makers must put climate change specialists on their boards, engage better with policy-makers, and invest more heavily in low-emission cars, says a network of 250 global investors with assets of more than $24trillion.
The demands come in a new report, Investor Expectations of Automotive Companies, published this week by the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC).
“Long-term investors want to ensure that automotive companies are prepared for the challenges stemming from climate change, new technologies, changing policies and shifts in demand caused by global trends,” says Dr Hans-Christoph Hirt, co-head of investment house Hermes EOS, a member of the IGCC.
“Investors expect the industry to embark upon a smoother route to future prosperity by developing and implementing long-term business strategies that are resilient to climate change and resulting regulatory shifts.”

Sustainable returns
Chris Davis, senior programme director of the Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk, agrees. “A growing number of institutional investors recognise that climate change will impact their holdings, portfolios, and asset values in the short and long-term,” he says.
“To achieve sustainable returns for clients and beneficiaries, investors in the automotive sector must engage to ensure companies are prepared to thrive in a carbon-constrained environment and support robust policy action sufficient to drive the transition to clean vehicles.”
The traditional car industry has gradually been increasing its output of pure electric and hybrid diesel/electric models, but in small numbers. It has failed to shrug off its image as a foot-dragger in the fight against climate change – similar to the way most big oil companies are seen.

“Investors in the automotive sector must engage to ensure companies are prepared to thrive in a carbon-constrained environment”

The recent Volkswagen emissions scandal, in which the German car manufacturer used “cheat devices” that underplayed pollution on its cars, has further tarnished the industry’s image over the last 12 months. And critics have long claimed that few vehicles live up to the fuel consumption levels claimed of them.
Making sure the industry has “closed the gap between real world and emissions testing” is highlighted by the IIGCC as one of the key issue that must be fixed.
But the finance houses also want car and truck makers to set more meaningful targets and metrics to reduce greenhouse gases in their own supply chain. And car companies need to engage more meaningfully with international policy-makers and their own investors on climate change.
Big investors point out that large car companies face serious threats inside their own sector from innovators such as the California-based automaker Tesla, evangelists for climate change and producers of low-carbon electric vehicles.

Climate agreement
And the finance houses say the move towards driverless vehicles, being pioneered by the likes of Google, poses a threat of even more severe potential new competition for the traditional car firms.
Last year’s Paris climate change agreement has increased the urgency for the big manufacturers such as Ford, VW and Toyota to move more quickly, the report warns.
They point to a recent study by the Moody’s credit agency that highlighted the potential dangers of tighter regulations for vehicles.
And the new IIGCC report warns that the automotive industry is already exposed to “a plethora of CO₂ and pollutant emission reduction targets in all major markets”.
It says that tougher vehicle standards have already been implemented or are on their way in Australia, Brazil, China and India, as well as the US and Europe.
And it stresses that governments are increasingly incentivising the use of electric vehicles in countries such as Norway and Holland.

Links

• Investor Expectations of Automotive Companies 2016
• Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk
• Moody's: Auto sector faces rising credit risks due to carbon transition
• Fossil fuel industry must halt expansion
• Paris Climate Agreement to Take Effect Nov. 4

Global Sea Levels Are Rising Fast, So Where Does That Leave The Cities Most At Risk?

The Guardian - Amy Lieberman

The severe risk of climate change and rising sea levels on urban areas has not been addressed in the UN’s proposed New Urban Agenda, so flood-risk cities will have to learn from each another and share solutions

New reports suggest nearly 1.9 million US homes could be under water by the end of the century. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Current projections of global average sea level rise are now expected to double by 2100, which would be severely damaging – if not disastrous – for many of the world’s coastal cities, from Ho Chi Minh City and Mumbai to New Orleans and Miami.
Yet the upcoming United Nations conference on sustainable urban development, Habitat III, is unlikely to create the international platform needed to tackle such a global threat, according to Dan Lewis, head of UN Habitat’s urban risk reduction unit.
“The communication of risk is something that most UN member states are not prepared to openly discuss, unless they happen to be Tuvalu or the Maldives or other South Pacific or Caribbean islands,” Lewis told the Guardian.
“Massive [climate-induced] displacement is a big problem that a lot of member states have dressed up as other kinds of issues. But when it comes to the real nuts and bolts of ‘how do you accommodate 100,000 people from Kiribati in the next decade or so?’, I don’t think we are going to see much of an expression emerging about the practical aspects of a major situation like that.”

The 20 world cities with the highest number of people at risk from flooding, accounting for future climate and socioeconomic change. Source: OECD    CLICK FOR LARGE VIEW

Sea level rise – along with flooding, storms, heatwaves and other effects of climate change – receives only one (admittedly lengthy) mention in the 175-point New Urban Agenda which member states are due to adopt at Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador:

“We also recognise that urban centres worldwide, especially in developing countries, often have characteristics that make them and their inhabitants especially vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change and other natural and man-made hazards, including earthquakes, extreme weather events, flooding, subsidence, storms including dust and sand storms, heatwaves, water scarcity, droughts, water and air pollution, vector borne diseases, and sea level rise particularly affecting coastal areas, delta regions and small-island developing States, among others.”

There are no direct references to climate-forced displacement nor potential remedies, Lewis notes. Yet he says there are an estimated 12 million people displaced worldwide because of climate events.
The conference, which starts on 17 October, will also include announcements of specific commitments, such as helping local Florida authorities address sea level rise in low-lying, low-income areas.

More than 1,800 people were killed after Hurricane Katrina hit the US in 2005. Photograph: Vincent Laforet/Pool/EPA

Of  course, several factors that climate scientists are still working to understand – such as the fragility and likely collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet – mean questions about exactly how fast sea levels will rise, and where the effects will be most severe, must be left open.
While the New Urban Agenda is a global, non-binding plan that aims to promote socially and environmentally sustainable cities, Lewis says the best option for many flood-risk cities looking to take action is to develop independent partnerships and networks to learn from each other – adding that this is the “cheapest and most effective way of doing work”.
For example, the Netherlands embassy in Washington DC consults and collaborates with a number of vulnerable US cities, including Norfolk, Virginia, and New Orleans, Louisiana. According to Dale Morris, a senior economist at the embassy, some of the shared ideas follow the principle of adapting to living with water, not keeping it out. (About a third of the Netherlands is below sea level, with another third presently at sea level.)
UN Habitat is gearing up to connect 20 cities, including St Petersburg and Beirut, through a “city resilience” programme that provides direct technical assistance to measure cities’ resilience and training.

Dutch experts are advising the US city of Norfolk on how to prepare for the dangerous effects of climate change. Photograph: Bill Tiernan/AP

“There is a lot of work cities are already doing together that is going to get showcased [in Quito],” Lewis says. “There is a lot of sharing going on around specific hazards cities are facing, and there has been a kind of explosion around awareness in activities. Instead of older, historic approaches like creating levees, it will be positive to see how cities have progressed, and are adapting.”
Of 533 cities, 89% recognise climate change as a significant risk, according to a recent report. But just 210 of 490 surveyed cities report an active climate adaptation plan.
Individual city plans to mitigate the impacts of flooding and storm surge are often extremely expensive. They are also developed for fairly short-term timeframes – for example, in the case of Miami and its neighbouring cities – and without the support of the state or federal government.
C40, a 10-year-old network of the world’s largest cities working to address climate change, provides an outlet to share both innovative solutions and the particular challenges facing the world’s poorer cities.
“It’s very hard for poor cities to handle this, by and large,” says Seth Schultz, director of research and planning at C40’s New York office. “Many of them don’t have plans, and it is also just a question of the hazards they are facing in the short and long term.”
“If we come in at the high end of the [sea level rise] projections, there will be many cities whose persistence will be difficult to imagine,” says Ben Strauss, director of Climate Central, a New Jersey-based independent organisation of scientists and journalists. “New Orleans can build levees higher and higher – but then they are just pearls on a necklace at some point, and everything around it could become water.”
Projections of global sea level rise by 2100 range from 0.2 metres to 2.0 metres (0.66 to 6.6 feet). Strauss co-authored a recent study (working with projections of 2 to 7 feet during this time period, and 3 feet as a reasonable global average estimate for some areas) which found that even a sudden elimination of CO2 emissions would still leave 30 million Americans below the ocean’s high-tide line by the end of the century.

Links

• Slow-motion wrecks: how thawing permafrost is destroying Arctic cities
• Global warming is melting the Greenland Ice Sheet, fast
• Can a new 'global alliance' rethink disaster response in cities?
• Warmer seas could cause faster melting of Antarctic ice leading to rising sea levels, says study
• Lethal Heating: climate change - sea level rise

Meet The 16-Year-Old Climate Change Activist Suing The U.S. Government

Huffington Post - Lonnie Nadler | Zac Thompson

Huffington Post

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is a 16-year-old, indigenous hip-hop artist hailing from Boulder, Colorado. He also happens to be one of the most vocal climate change activists out there today. Martinez is the youth director of the Earth Guardians, "a tribe of young activists," looking to change the world now for the sake of the future generations who will inherit the planet.
Martinez has been prolific in his efforts to combat climate change. He's a member of Obama's youth council, he's addressed the U.N., and has participated in countless protests. Perhaps his most noted accomplishment came back in April of this year when Martinez and twenty other youth activists, all under the age of 21, filed a lawsuit against the federal government for violating their constitutional right to life, liberty and property by their affirmative actions that have contributed to global climate change.
His age has never stopped him from making a difference. Martinez has been fighting on behalf of his generation pretty much his entire life, knowing that someone has to be their voice, speaking up about environmental issues.
Outspeak recently spoke to Martinez about climate change, how other youth inspire hope, and the upcoming presidential election.

What is the biggest threat facing our environment currently?
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez: The biggest threat currently facing our environment is our global climate crisis because of the impacts that it has on nearly every human and natural systems.

Who is the current leader of renewable energy and how can we support them?
XM: Several countries around the world are beginning to understand the importance of shifting away from the fossil fuel based energy economy to renewable energy.
The amazing thing about renewable energy is you don't have to be a billionaire, like Elon Musk to make a difference. Tesla is making great advances in the storing capacity for solar energy, but renewable energy innovation is also coming from the grassroots level. There are stories like that of 14-year-old William Kamkwamba of Malawi, who overcame poverty and famine to build a wind turbine that powered his family home, using found materials and knowledge from the local library. These are the kind of leaders we need to support. We the people of this nation need to look towards a renewable energy infrastructure as a way to boost our economy as just as much as a way to protect the environmentally.

What do you think is the greatest hope for environmental reform?
XM: Myself and 20 other youth plaintiffs from around the country are suing the federal government for violating our constitutional right to life, liberty and property by failing to act on global climate change.
If we win this lawsuit it will mean that the federal courts in the United States will force the government to put massive climate recovery plans in the place to cut greenhouse gas emissions. This recovery plan will remain active, year by year, until our Planet's atmosphere has recovered to a reasonable, safe, and sustainable level: 350 ppm of carbon dioxide.
Countries around the world are adopting this template. Young people are standing up in their countries to demand the rights to protect our atmosphere and save our planet. This is an attempt by the young people of our planet to work together to sway our own governments to take action on climate change immediately.

What do you think of the new environment law just passed in California? How do you believe other states should respond? Is it enough?
XM: The law that recently passed in California that aspires towards a goal of 50 percent renewables across the entire state by 2030 is simply not ambitious enough. Although it is a step in the right direction we need concentrate our collective action and transition away from a fossil fuel energy economy even sooner than 2030. Various states across United States and many nations across the world have begun to adopt similar methods, but we need to achieve progress at a faster rate. For every year we delay the greater and more potentially insurmountable the issue becomes.

What is the biggest lie being spread in the media about climate change?
XM: One of the biggest misconceptions that I hear about climate change is that is solely an environmental issue and only environmentalists should care about it. The truth of the matter is that climate change is a human rights issue. Climate change impacts human lives of all ages and nationalities across our planet. It is a impacting our children. It's one of the unsung factors and a driving force in the refugee crisis. It is hitting families at home on Main Street in the United States and it's damaging the fabric of communities and delicate ecosystems in every corner of the world.

What if anything inspires hope/optimism in you around the environment in this election?
XM: I am inspired by the opportunity to join forces on this issue with young people across the country that are also on the front lines of this movement. I am discovering similar movements that are uniting around climate change and learning about relevant issues that are affecting my generation.
All of these experiences and interactions inspire me everyday to continue the work that I do to protect the environment. This is a fight for the rights of nature. This is the fight for the survival of our generation and the generations that will follow in our footsteps. As I travel this world I see the staggering beauty of our planet. The beauty of planet Earth and the people I meet along the way remind me of my purpose and what we are fighting to protect.
What weight do you feel on your shoulders in respect to climate change? What makes you feel responsible for pushing change?
XM: As a member of a generation that is affected by the problems we see in the world today, I feel it is my responsibility to take action right now, without hesitation, so future generations will not have to suffer the way our generation has already suffered at the hands of climate change. It's imperative that we take action now. As a young person I have an incredibly powerful voice that has the potential to create change. I believe all youth on the planet have this potential. As a leader in this movement my responsibility is to act upon this crisis for every generation.

Why shouldn't young people fall into apathy and hopelessness about the environment?
XM: It's so easy to fall into a state of apathy and hopelessness about the daunting task of helping a world that is under attack from so many different angles. Our race against time, the weight of the world, and even even old habits can make you believe the opportunity for action has already been missed. But there is still just enough time if we unite as a generation to take action. We must remain hopeful. We must remain vigilant. We must connect with the community and support the people in our lives that inspire us towards positive change. Only together can we continue to fight to change the systems that are destroying the planet.

What can young voters fight for in the upcoming election?
XM: In this upcoming election I am pressing young voters to make their voices heard on all issues affecting our county and the world we live in. We must demand strong action on climate change. We must hold corporations, our US president, and all political leaders accountable for the continued degradation of our planet and it's people. We also need to play a greater role in how laws are written (and enforced) and how our resources are being consumed. But not only in our country. We must help empower and share our information and resources with those around the world that want to make a difference in the world.
We need our youth to see how climate change and environmental issues are affecting us, because honestly climate change is one of the most important and defining issues of our time. We are the generation of change and action. We need our youth to stand up for our planet and the generations to come. We need to inspire people to take to the streets and the voting booth to appeal to the local and national court systems to demand change from our political leaders we can vote in or out of office.

Links

• Earth Guardians
• This Teenager Is Fighting Climate Change by Suing the Government
• A Dramatic New Plan To Fight Climate Change: Sue The Federal Government
• Our Children's Trust
• Young People Suing Their Government Over Climate Change Just Won Another Big Case
• Kids Win Again In Lawsuit Blaming Gov't For Not Fighting Global Warming

Australia’s Car Industry Ignored The Elephant In The Room: Carbon Emissions

The Conversation - Anna Mortimore

Australia’s car industry got left behind on emissions standards. Exhaust image from www.shutterstock.com

Ford’s closure of its Geelong manufacturing plant on Friday is part of a broader story about Australia’s manufacturing sector. But one side of this story has so far been overlooked: the role of Australia’s lax attitude to vehicle emissions.
Globally, car manufacturers are taking climate action seriously by significantly improving fuel economy, in turn reducing a car’s CO₂ emissions.
Repeated policy failure and a marked reluctance by the Australian car industry to shift from manufacturing mostly high CO₂-emitting vehicles contributed to Ford ending operations. The Australian car industry ignored the elephant in the room.
This effectively contradicts former-Treasurer Joe Hockey’s assertion that climate change has no impediment on economic growth, as Australia gets left behind in a world embracing action on climate change.

Warning signs
In 2008, the international community launched the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) to facilitate and promote large reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by establishing a global target to improve fuel efficiencies. The target included a 50% improvement in vehicle fuel economy in new light duty vehicles by 2030. The GFEI offered to assist successive Australian governments in the development of better fuel policy.
European car manufacturers made slow progress and continued manufacturing larger high-performance vehicles. But in 2009, the European Parliament introduced CO₂ emission standards of 130 grams of CO₂ per km by 2015 and long-term target of 95g CO₂ per km by 2021.
By 2013, 80% of global passenger vehicle sales were subject to CO₂ standards. Complementary economic measures were introduced to support the standards by influencing consumers into choosing low CO₂-emitting vehicles.

Australia left behind
In 2005, the Australian car industry adopted voluntary targets of 222g CO₂ per km by 2010. This wasn’t in line with international standards and masked the poor fuel efficiency of locally manufactured vehicles as shown in the chart below.

Average CO2 emissions (grams per kilometre) for new vehicles

Source: National Transport Commission (NTC) Reports 2010–2015 Get the data

With voluntary standards, the local car industry was under no pressure from the government to improve its fleet’s fuel efficiency. The Australian car industry failed to meet the target. Average emissions from cars manufactured in Australia in 2010 were 247g per km – 11% higher than the voluntary target.
In April 2012, the Australian government mandated that 100% of all Commonwealth vehicles would be Australian made. This explicitly excluded acquiring vehicles on the grounds of “environmental considerations, such as fuel efficiency”.
In 2013, the government announced a Productivity Commission review of the industry that would examine international competitiveness, exports, trade barriers and long-term sustainability. At this point the local car industry announced its decision to abandon manufacturing in Australia. As a result, the commission didn’t examine the impact of climate policy measures on the local car industry, although it did suggest that environmental policies could serve as a barrier to international trade.
Industry actors also criticised other measures such as vehicle or excise taxes that it said would impede Australian exports.
For example, Ireland’s 36% vehicle tax on new light passenger vehicles with emission greater than 225g per km would apply to most Australian-made vehicles. Such measures support emission standards, and are imposed on all vehicles sold (whether imported or manufactured domestically) for the protection of the environment. They have been effective in shifting consumer demand to fuel-efficient vehicles.
Under the rules of the World Trade Organization national governments can ban imports that do not comply with product standards, if they do not constitute non-tariff barriers. To meet this exception, the policy must be measurable (such as an excise tax based on CO₂ emissions), apply to all goods sold (domestic and imports), and contribute to the fight against climate change.
The adoption of regulatory standards and supporting economic instruments, meant car manufacturers/importers will not be able to sell as many larger high CO₂-emitting vehicles. To sustain economic production runs, manufacturers will seek to sell these vehicles to countries with lenient or no standards, such as Australia, which then become “dumping grounds”.

Government and industry caught off guard
In 2014, the Abbott government supported the G20 Energy Efficiency Action Plan, which included “improving vehicle energy efficiency and emissions performance” by strengthening domestic standards in vehicle emissions and vehicle fuel efficiency. Despite the plan, there was no recommendation to introduce emissions standards in the government’s 2015 Energy White Paper.
Successive Australian governments, trade unions, and industry actors have all failed to appreciate the impact of climate action on the economic interest of the local car industry. The Australian government is now examining fuel efficiency standards and complementary measures, but will only report next year. It’s a little too late to save the industry.
Forcing the local car industry to meet similar standards would have been to its benefit and would have outweighed the costs of being shut out from the market. As more global car manufacturers began adopting emissions standards more pressure was placed on car manufacturers to remain competitive.
Car manufacturers were known to lobby their governments to adopt European emission standards to increase their competitiveness and restrict importation of high CO₂-emitting vehicles. The former Vice-Chairman on General Motors, Bob Lutz, said the fall of GM in the United States was largely a result of a terrible government policy on fuel economy, which gave its competitors, the Japanese automakers, a free pass.
The European Commission stated that if a car industry fails to embrace a shift towards more fuel-efficient vehicles, it will continue to be structurally unprepared for the future.
To compete globally, the Australian car industry had to decide whether to embrace cleaner technology to meet the standards of its importers, or abandon the export market. Unfortunately for the workers, Ford chose to close its operations on October 7, and GM Holden and Toyota will close by the end of 2017.

Links

• Could Australia become a dumping ground for high-emission vehicles?
• Australia’s weaker emissions standards allow car makers to ‘dump’ polluting cars
• No, cutting your car’s carbon emissions won’t cost you more
• Australian car industry needs lower emissions, not handouts

5 Places To Visit Before They're Lost To Climate Change

Huffington Post - Tyler Moss

As ice caps melt and wildfires rage, scientific assertions that climate change is occurring at a rate faster than formerly expected have become manifest in locales around the world. The effects of global warming have put many of the world's prime travel destinations at risk of suffering serious consequences, with some facing the prospect of vanishing entirely. From the Amazon, to Mumbai, to Napa Valley, here are places to add to your itinerary before they change irrevocably. Photographs from Getty.

1. The Great Barrier Reef
Spanning more than 1,400 miles, the Great Barrier Reef — located off the northeast coast of Australia — is the largest coral reef system in the world. Replete with marine life, the reef draws slews of scuba divers each year. But rising ocean temperatures have caused coral bleaching in vast portions — a condition in which the coral turns white and is prone to mass die-offs. Recent studies have revealed that more than 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef has experienced bleaching to some degree.

2. The Alps
This European mountain range has long served as a Shangri-La for skiers, stretching across eight countries and providing some of the most sought-after slopes in the world. With increasing temperatures, however, significant snowmelt continues to shorten the season for winter sports. Many resorts have already begun to compensate by offering spa treatments and outdoor activities like horseback riding or tennis to lure more off-season visitors.

3. The Rhone Valley
Situated in the south of France, the Rhone Valley is among the most vaunted winemaking regions in the world. Covering a corridor of more than 120 miles in length, visitors could spend a full week driving from one tasting to the next, admiring the sprawling vineyards surrounded by mountainous backdrops. But as global temperatures rise, making the environment inhospitable for grapevines, many experts predict production will shrivel and winemakers will creep further north toward cooler climates.

4. Venice
It's impossible to walk the streets of Venice without being seduced by its anachronistic charm: The Adriatic Sea coursing through its canals, the romance of a gondolier's serenade as you float beneath the Bridge of Sighs. In a place so at one with water, locals have come to expect flooding in Piazza San Marco and other parts of the low-lying city — but as ocean levels rise, Venice inches toward more serious inundation. Activists have taken on the challenge, investing in advanced flood gates and other technologies to stymie the impending swells, but only time will tell how these systems fare.

5. The Amazon
The largest rainforest on Earth, the Amazon covers roughly 40 percent of South America. Travelers will find scarlet macaws and blue poison dart frogs living side-by-side with jaguars and brown-throated sloths in the wet broadleaf rainforest. Yet despite its size, climate change has made the Amazon a fragile habitat. Extreme droughts have left tree species throughout the tropical jungle parched, leaving them vulnerable to large-scale dieback — as well as more susceptible to forest fires.

Links

• Complete list of places to visit before they’re lost to climate change
• Colourful Coral Pulses With Life In Stunning Time-Lapse Video
• Everyone Wants Leo DiCaprio To Come And See The Reef For Himself

Australia Facing Questions At UN Over Post-2020 Climate Change Stance

Fairfax - Adam Morton

Australia is facing renewed international pressure to explain what it is doing to tackle climate change, with a United Nations review finding its emissions continue to soar and several countries calling for clarity about what it will do after 2020.
Countries including China and the US have put more than 30 questions to the Turnbull government, asking for detail about how Australia will meet its 2030 emissions target and raising concerns about a lack of transparency over how the government calculates and reports emissions.
It comes as the federal government has been facing calls at home - sparked by its own criticism of ambitious state renewable energy targets - to reveal what it would do on climate change and clean energy beyond 2020.
An expert review commissioned by the UN found, based on data submitted by Australia, its emissions would be 11.5 per cent higher in 2020 than they were in 1990.
Industrial emissions – not counting those from forestry and land-clearing – were expected to rise 33.5 per cent over the three decades.
The reviewers found a recent Australian report lacked transparency about how it estimated its future emissions. And they noted the report failed to mention the abolition of the carbon price scheme, or explain what impact scrapping the policy would have on it meeting targets.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressing the Paris climate summit last year. Photo: AP

Australia's previous report two years earlier put the carbon price at the centre of its response to global warming.
Separately, countries have put questions that Australia is expected to answer before the end-of-year climate summit in Morocco, including:

• China wanting to know what the repeal of the carbon price has done to Australia's emissions, and whether it has considered other approaches to carbon pricing.
• The US asking whether Australia is introducing any longer-term policies that will help it meet its 2030 target that it may not know about.
• New Zealand following up a pledge Australia made to release modelling this year of what its emissions would be in 2030.

Alden Meyer, of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said the review and questions put to Australia made it made clear it was yet to convince the world it was up to playing its part in meeting the goals agreed at the Paris climate summit.

Hazelwood brown coal power plant in Victoria's Latrobe Valley. Photo: Arsineh Houspian

He  said those goals implied reaching net zero emissions by mid-century. The Paris agreement will take effect next month after the world's biggest emitters ratified the deal more quickly than expected.
"The US, China, Europe and other major economies are clearly making low-carbon development a priority," Mr Meyer said.

Average global temperatures from 1880 to 2016 (covering January to June). Photo: NASA

"There will be diplomatic and economic consequences for any country that's perceived as not joining in this effort... That's a risk that Australia shouldn't, and doesn't need to, take."
Physicist Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Action Tracker and an adviser to developing countries at climate negotiations, said the questions asked of Australia showed deep scepticism and frustration beneath a diplomatic veneer.
"It is very strange that the government had put forward no projections, which are the sine qua non [essential ingredient] of this area of policy," he said.
"It is as if the Treasury produce a report for the International Monetary Fund with no future numbers in it. It raises alarm bells."
A Climate Action Tracker analysis found Australia's emissions were headed to be more than 27 per cent greater than 2005 levels in 2030.
The Coalition's emissions targets are a 5 per cent cut by 2020 compared with 2000 levels, and a 26-28 per cent cut by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. It has committed to reviewing its climate policies next year.
Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said Australia was making an important contribution to the global effort on climate change, and was on track to beat its 2020 Kyoto Protocol target.
He said Australia was in the process of ratifying the Paris agreement and its 2030 target was one of the highest in the G20 on a per capita basis.
"Whether it's through the ambitious set of targets we took to Paris or our significant levels of investment in renewables, we have a strong suite of policies to manage our transition to a lower emissions future," he said.
The UN expert review suggests Australia's emissions are likely to be higher in 2020 than in 2000, but this does not necessarily mean it would fail to meet its 2020 target. Under Kyoto Protocol rules, the target is measured against average emissions between 2013 and 2020.
The questions Australia is facing are part of an assessment introduced to boost transparency about climate policies. Australia received more questions than the other countries examined in the current assessment round, including most of Europe and New Zealand.
Some questions submitted included praise for what Australia is doing. Japan was impressed that Australia updates emissions projections nearly every year; Brazil offered congratulations that it had listed 26 actions to cut emissions, up from six in a previous report.
But Jake Schmidt, international program director with the US National Resources Defence Council, said many countries were questioning the disconnect between Australia's international targets and what it was doing at home, including expanding coal mines and cutting its incentives for renewable energy.
Climate Institute deputy chief executive Erwin Jackson said the scrutiny Australia was facing was an example of a new global reality.
"The world is moving inexorably into a future that will be driven by clean energy," he said.
Liz Gallagher, of British think tank E3G, said Australia had been a force for good at the Paris summit last December, but it needed to have a transparent and credible plan.
"Words are important but action is what matters," she said.

Links

• Paris climate accord to go into force, Australia misses out
• Australia on outer as Paris Agreement comes alive
• Bishop welcomes Paris climate deal as Australia slow to ratify
• Australia lags behind as Paris climate deal swings into action
• Australia a 'No-Show' on Historic Paris Climate Deal