25/03/2017

Two Quit Australian Climate Authority Blaming Government 'Extremists'

The Guardian - 

John Quiggin and Danny Price resign over Coalition’s ‘rightwing anti-science activists’ and climate change political point-scoring
A marsh area in the Simpson Desert. Two climate change experts have quit the government’s advisory panel over its refusal to tackle rising emissions. Photograph: De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images
Two members of the Climate Change Authority have resigned, with one accusing the government of being beholden to rightwing, anti-science “extremists” in its own party and in the media.
John Quiggin told Guardian Australia he informed the federal minister for environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, of his resignation on Thursday. It follows the resignation of fellow climate change authority member, Danny Price, who quit on Tuesday.
“The government’s refusal to accept the advice of its own authority, despite wide support for that advice from business, environmental groups and the community as a whole, reflects the comprehensive failure of its policies on energy and the environment,” Quiggin said.
“These failures can be traced, in large measure, to the fact that the government is beholden to rightwing anti-science activists in its own ranks and in the media. Rather than resist these extremists, the Turnbull government has chosen to treat the vital issues of climate change and energy security as an opportunity for political point-scoring and culture war rhetoric.”
Quiggin said his immediate reason for resigning was the government’s failure to respond to the authority’s third report of the special review into potential climate policies, which the government had requested and which it was legally required to respond to.
“The government has already indicated that it will reject the key recommendations of the review, particularly the introduction of an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity industry.”
Quiggin said he didn’t believe there was anything to be gained “by giving objective advice based on science and economic analysis to a government dominated by elements hostile to both science and economics”.
Price told Guardian Australia he had resigned because he “didn’t think it was appropriate for a member of a government agency to be openly critical of government policy”.
“I think the authority does really good work, but I didn’t think I could stay if I was going to continue to criticise the government’s policy making and I didn’t see any chance that it would get any better,” he said.
“I really hate the complete ad hocery of it all … the idea that anything at all can be thrown out by a government in a political panic.”
Quiggin was appointed to the authority in 2012, and Price in 2015. Both were appointed for five-year terms.
The Climate Change Authority’s special review was undertaken last year, and recommended the government institute two emissions trading schemes and strengthen regulations if it was to meet Australia’s 2030 emission reduction targets.
The report was criticised by the Climate Institute, the Greens, and other climate groups and experts criticised elements of the report, and in August Guardian Australia revealed a split in the ranks of the authority, with three members writing a dissenting report.
However many groups – including the Business Council of Australia, Energy Networks Australia, retailer Energy Australia, electricity provider AGL, the Climate Change Authority, the National Farmers Federation and the CSIRO – have also called for the introduction of an emissions intensity trading scheme.
Frydenberg canvassed a trading scheme in December, but the the idea was dumped after three days following objections from senior ministers.
The government’s openness to a scheme has also been cited as a reason for Cory Bernardi’s resignation from the party in February.
The Climate Change Authority was set up in 2011 as an independent statutory agency, and the Coalition has maintained that it should be abolished after failing to get its legislation to do just that through the Senate.
Frydenberg told Guardian Australia: “the government thanks both Danny Price and John Quiggin for their service and the government will continue to engage constructively with the authority”.
The Greens climate and energy spokesman, Adam Bandt, said the government’s “dangerous pandering to climate change deniers” had left it friendless.
“When added to previous resignations, this exodus is the equivalent of half the reserve bank board resigning over the government’s economic policies.”

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Cities Shop For $10 Billion Of Electric Cars To Defy Trump

Bloomberg - Joe Ryan
  • L.A., New York among 30 cities seeking up to 114,000 vehicles
  • Trump said planning to re-examine Obama fuel-economy standards             

QuickTake: The Drive Towards Cleaner Cars

Dozens of U.S. cities are willing to buy $10 billion of electric cars and trucks to show skeptical automakers there’s demand for low-emission vehicles, just as President Donald Trump seeks to review pollution standards the industry opposes.
Thirty cities including New York and Chicago jointly asked automakers for the cost and feasibility of providing 114,000 electric vehicles, including police cruisers, street sweepers and trash haulers, said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is coordinating the effort. That would be comparable to about 72 percent of total U.S. plug-in sales last year.
While urban leaders want more low-emission vehicles to ease the role city traffic plays in altering the climate, automakers say there aren’t enough buyers. They also have advocated for relaxing rules on traditional fuel vehicles. The Trump administration, which seeks to cut regulations it sees as too costly or onerous, is poised to announce Wednesday that it will reconsider tighter standards finalized a week before President Barack Obama left office.
“No matter what President Trump does or what happens in Washington, cities will continue leading the way on tackling climate change,” Matt Petersen, Los Angeles chief sustainability officer, said in an email.
The initiative is still in the early stages, and the cities haven’t actually ordered any of the 114,000 vehicles. Rather, they’ve taken what’s typically the first step in a formal bidding process by inviting manufactures to outline plans to supply them. Plus, some cities are asking about vehicles that don’t exist yet, such as electric fire engines and heavy-duty trucks.
“I wouldn’t underestimate this,” McKerracher said. “What automakers really want in investing in electrification, whether that’s for passenger vehicles or commercial-use vehicles, is certainty.”
Trump plans to announce his intentions to re-examine vehicle-efficiency standards on Wednesday during a meeting with auto executives near Detroit. Automakers including General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV have pushed for the move, saying the standards drive up costs and don’t reflect motorists’ driving preferences.

Demonstrating Demand
The mayors, mostly Democrats, want to demonstrate that demand for low-emission vehicles is robust. “If you build it, we will buy it,” Chris Bast, Seattle’s climate and transportation policy adviser, said in an interview.
Myron Ebell, the former head of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team, said consumers are the ones who want less stringent fuel economy standards. “This is not coming from the auto industry -- it’s coming from consumers and the auto dealers association,” said Ebell, who left the Trump transition team in January.
Carmakers have invested heavily in cutting emissions, offering 95 different varieties of hybrids and electric vehicles last year, said Wade Newton, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers trade group. However, Americans still prefer gasoline-powered vehicles, he said.
“Combined, those models were all outsold by a single model of pickup truck,” Newton said.
Los Angeles began spearheading the effort for a joint electric-vehicle order during the run-up to the Paris climate accord in late 2015. The request to automakers went out earlier this year, initially with an order for 24,000 vehicles from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Twenty-six other cities have since joined, including Boston, Denver, Kansas City and Houston.
Nearly 40 automakers, truck makers, bus makers and others have responded so far, Petersen said.

‘Cities’ Leadership’
Tail-pipe fumes are crucial in the fight to stop global warming. Emissions from cars and trucks became the largest U.S. source of greenhouse gases last year, surpassing power plants for the first time since 1979. That makes the EPA standards that Trump is eyeing central to help the U.S. meet its goals under the Paris climate deal.
“Now more than ever there is a need for cities’ leadership on climate,” Daniel Zarrilli, New York City’s senior director of climate policy and programs, said in an interview. “We really want to send a message that there is a growing market for electric vehicles -- regardless of what is happening in D.C.”

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China Electric Bus Sales Still Exploding

CleanTechnica - 

 We wrote a couple of weeks ago about China's dramatic electric bus growth, but the numbers we had at the time only covered fully electric buses. We now have numbers for plug-in hybrids as well, again thanks to Jose Pontes and his helpful EV sales obsession.
Thanks to the new numbers, below is a chart I created visualizing the dramatic growth in the plug-in bus market in China.

Electrified Bus Sales in China (2011–2016)
Source: CleanTechnica Get the data
As mentioned several times before, China's electric bus growth dwarfs electric bus growth everywhere else in the world, but the economics of electric buses are clear — they are already cheaper than conventional buses, and they will be much, much cheaper before long. Plus, they offer dramatic quality of life benefits and help to stop global warming.
China has unique circumstances due to its overall economic growth and rapid development that help to make its electric bus growth so dramatic, but the shift to electric buses worldwide should catch on in a similar fashion before long.
The good news — aside from China — is that stories of electric bus orders have been increasing notably in the past year. We frequently get news of new electric bus orders all around the world, including some large ones.
I consider EV procurement to be one of the top 10 things cities and counties can do to advance a cleaner world, fight global warming, and cut air pollution. One huge part of that is switching to electric buses. Luckily, companies like BYD and Proterra make that an easy choice anyway — their electric buses can save these cities and counties money, in addition to cleaning their air and offering a smoother ride for passengers.
China has taken an obvious leadership role in the EV production and demand market. It deserves a great deal of credit for that. Who will start buying thousands of electric buses a year next?


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24/03/2017

Ocean 'Tropicalisation' Radically Changing Southern Coastal Environments, Senate Inquiry Hears

ABC Rural - David Claughton


Fears Tasmania's giant kelp forests almost extinct (ABC News)

Warming water moving south along the New South Wales and Western Australian coasts from their tropical north is leading to fisheries contamination, more frequent storms and the destruction of kelp forests, a Senate inquiry has heard.
The 'Current and future impacts of climate change on marine fisheries and biodiversity' inquiry has completed hearings in Sydney and Hobart, and is due to report by June 30.
Senators heard that fishermen have registered warm ocean currents making their way down the NSW coast, bringing fish contaminated with toxins such as ciguatera.
The toxin is only present in larger Spanish mackerel, which led to a food poisoning outbreak and subsequent ban on the larger fish at the Sydney Fish Market.
"Three people off Evans Head got ciguatera so we've had to stop catching large mackerel and the fish market won't take any ... over 10 kilograms," said Tricia Beattie, the chief executive of the Professional Fishermen's Association.
The inquiry also heard that coral fish are migrating much further south on the warmer currents leading to radical change in the underwater environment.
The migrating fish are eating plant life, including kelp, which underpins major fisheries in southern waters.
In Tasmania, kelp forests have almost disappeared due to rapidly warming waters and the spread of sea urchins.
Adriana Verges of the University of NSW said the tropical fish are destroying seaweed beds all along the east and west coasts of Australia, affecting key industries based on lobster and abalone stocks.
"It's the seaweeds that provide the habitat," she says.
"They can overgraze them and that causes a profound shift, whereby the entire ecological community changes and that's already been shown in northern NSW and the west coast of Australia."
Rabbitfish feed on kelp, filmed by researchers investigating its disappearance in southern oceans. (Supplied: Adriana Verges)
One kelp species has already been listed for protection, but researchers want more to be protected.
Professor David Booth from the Centre for Environmental Sustainability at University of Technology Sydney singled out the need for more resources to protect the ocean environment in places like the 2,900 square kilometre Perth Canyon on the west coast.
"I don't think we have enough data on what is actually in some of these areas and we're flying blind with a lot of the management," he said.
Cameras on the sea floor recorded migrating coral fish feeding where kelp has disappeared. (Supplied: Enric Ballesteros)
While Professor Booth said the oceans can not be climate proofed, he said they could be made climate ready, including the addition of additional marine sanctuaries in Commonwealth and northern trawl fishery waters.
Fishermen are opposed to an increase of ocean sanctuaries arguing that the industry has suffered too many cuts in recent years, and pollution and the causes of climate change itself need to be dealt with first.

'Slapped' by twin bleaching events
The coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef was happening more frequently, Professor Booth told the inquiry, occurring in 1998, 2004, 2006, 2011 and the past two years.
"Two bleaching events in a row, that's devastating," he said.
"It's like being slapped twice and not having a chance to recover.
"You can see there's a bit of a gap between them, but now we're now talking 2016-17 and if we get 2018 as well ... uncharted waters is a good way to put it."
NSW fishermen have also registered more frequent storms, the latest in January damaging processing facilities, retail outlets and slipways on the state's north coast.
Ms Beattie said the Wallis Lake Cooperative suffered a lot of damage.
"They lost their roofs, they lost their slipway ... pipes were broken, it was like a small hurricane had gone through the area," she said.

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Climate Change Is Killing The Great Barrier Reef

PBS NewsHour - Miles O'Brien
Coral reefs are more than examples of natural beauty; they harbor fish that feed millions and shield us against storms and floods. Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure on the planet, is dying. As ocean waters steadily warm, extensive coral destruction continues, part of an unprecedented global crisis. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on what's at stake.

 Judy Woodruff: The Great Barrier Reef along the coast of Australia is considered one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. It actually consists of more than 2,900 smaller reefs and 900 islands and countless species of fish.
But its health and future are very much in doubt.
Miles O'Brien has the story for our weekly segment on the Leading Edge of science and technology.

Miles O'Brien: Half the size of Texas, spanning 1,400 miles, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet. It is rich in beauty and diversity, but it is dying, as the ocean waters steadily warm.
David Wachenfeld, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority: It's a very confronting situation. And I hope the people of the world take this as a call to action to do more about climate change.

Miles O'Brien: Coral reef ecologist David Wachenfeld is director for reef recovery at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It's the second consecutive summer of extensive coral destruction, or bleaching, on the reef.
David Wachenfeld: We are using aerial surveys and underwater surveys to try and cover that whole enormous area of the Great Barrier Reef to get a handle on the extent and severity of the event. But, certainly, this year is shaping up to be another very bad year, as was last year.

Miles O'Brien: Last year, two-thirds of the corals in the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef died, the worst die-off in history. As for this year, it is too early to tell. But the outlook is grim, as this is one big piece of an unprecedented global coral crisis.
C. Mark Eakin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Watch: Since June of '14, we have had continuous bleaching somewhere in the world. Globally, over 70 percent of the coral reefs around the globe have been exposed to the high temperatures that cause bleaching.

Miles O'Brien: Coral reef ecologist Mark Eakin is the coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch.
He relies on data from scientific satellites operated by NOAA, the Europeans, and the Japanese that measure ocean water temperature. He, along with David Wachenfeld, is co-author of a new study published in the journal "Nature" documenting the link between warm waters and dying coral in the Great Barrier Reef.
C. Mark Eakin: What we did here at Coral Reef Watch was to provide the satellite data that gives the information on the areas where the high temperatures occurred.
So, there are charts in there showing where the bleaching was worst and where the temperatures were highest for the longest time, and the correlation between that heat stress and where the bleaching occurred was very high.

Miles O'Brien: Coral reefs are the rain forests of the sea, brimming with mind-boggling diversity that is still not fully explored.
Jennifer Smith, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD: Despite the fact that coral reefs occupy a very small footprint of the overall Earth's surface, less than 0.1 percent, an area about the size of the country of France, they're home to more species of marine organisms than any other marine ecosystem on the planet.

Miles O'Brien: Jen Smith is associate professor in marine biology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
We met at Scripps' Birch Aquarium, home to some spectacular displays of reef ecosystems to nurture curious minds and, behind the scenes, an extensive nursery to nurture the coral itself.
Most corals are nourished through a symbiotic relationship with algae, that convert sunlight into energy, which the corals tap into.
Jennifer Smith: So, it's like having a garden growing in your stomach where 90 percent of your daily nutrition comes directly from that garden in your stomach.

Miles O'Brien: The pigments in the algae are the source of the vivid rainbow of colors in a healthy coral reef. But the algae are very temperature-sensitive. A few degrees warmer than normal, and their photosynthesis is enhanced. That may sound good, but the unfortunate byproduct is a toxin.
So, the coral is forced to spit out its food source, revealing its white color, thus the term bleaching. Jen Smith showed me Birch's display of an unhealthy bleached coral reef.
Jennifer Smith: As long as you still see white skeleton, that's usually an indication that the coral is still alive, because, as soon as the tissue starts dying, your seaweed will start settling on that skeleton and start growing over it.
So, within a matter of a few weeks or even a month during a bleaching event, you will have an idea of whether that coral is dead and getting overgrown by seaweed, or whether it's on its way to recovery.

Miles O'Brien: The sustained global bleaching event is not giving corals a chance to recover. Many coral reefs are further stressed by other types of human activity: runoff from sewage, agriculture, and overfishing.
But scientists say the current bleaching is happening whether those local factors are present or not. It is clear warming water is the culprit, and reducing our use of fossil fuels is the only solution.
Scientists say the world must adhere to obligations to do just that made by 195 nations in Paris in 2015.
C. Mark Eakin: This is really the only thing that's going to deal with this global coral bleaching problem. Even if we do, though, we're going to lose a lot of coral reefs.

Miles O'Brien: But the Trump administration is filled with climate change skeptics pushing to roll back Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.
So, what if we do nothing to slow climate change?
Jennifer Smith: Corals reefs as we know them will not exist in the next 10, 20, 30 years. We could single-handedly be responsible for the extinction of an entire ecosystem.

Miles O'Brien: Coral reefs are more than spectacular, vivid examples of nature's beauty. The fish they harbor are also a food source for a half-billion people, and natural barriers against storms and floods.
But, before too long, they may only exist behind glass.
Miles O'Brien, the PBS NewsHour, La Jolla, California.

Judy Woodruff: Clearly, they are a global treasure. Let's hope more attention is paid to how to save them.

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Coral Crisis: The Great Barrier Reef Needs Us To Speak Up

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

The Great Barrier Reef is dying on our watch, and that's almost all we're doing.
The scale of the second mass bleaching in two years won't be known for several weeks but early indications suggest the corals in the tourist heartland between Townsville and Port Douglas have been hammered.

Great Barrier Reef's coral crisis
The Great Barrier Reef is on track for another year of coral decline, this year affecting prime tourism areas.

Even as scientists from James Cook University and the reef's Marine Park Authority complete aerial surveys of the 2300-kilometre natural treasure, researchers such as Line Bay from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) are returning from dives with grim tidings.
"We saw bleaching on every reef we went to," Bay tells me. "And it was quite significant", reaching as much as 90 per cent in shallow reefs.
Despite the imminent blow to their industry, tourism bodies are largely silent in calling for help for their prize asset.
Col McKenzie, who heads the Association of Marine Park Tourism Organisations, concedes the sector is reluctant to present a negative image that could turn off visitors.
"Farmers have 10 times our voice," he says, even though reef tourism alone probably keeps 70,000 people in jobs and generates about as much revenue – $6 billion a year – as mining for the Queensland.
For now, scientists aren't expecting the damage to reach last year's extent, when about 25 per cent of the reef's corals died. But that's hardly cause for celebration.
An AIMS researcher surveying thermal stress and bleaching at Taylor Reef off Mission Beach in the central Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Eric Matson, AIMS
John Gunn, AIMS' chief executive, says scientists had forecast global warming to trigger the sorts of the bleaching seen this year and last, but not for another 10-15 years.
"It is now crisis time," Gunn tells me. "If you found a massive cancer clusters and cancer deaths, you've suddenly got to restart your thinking, and say well you've got to tackle this problem now."
Corals aren’t the only organisms on the reef that suffer from bleaching – this anemone on Farquharson Reef, east of Mission Beach on the GBR, would normally have colouring similar to a healthy coral polyp. Photo: E.Matson, AIMS
But those looking for leadership at the federal or Queensland level are likely to be sorely disappointed. Attention, if anything, seems to be focused on making things worse.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was busy leading a delegation to India last week, begging Adani to begin a monster coal mine that will – if the Galilee Basin as a whole gets developed – lead to billions of tonnes of extra greenhouse gases that are already cooking the reef.
Extended periods with temperatures above normal prompt corals to expel algae, causing them to start to bleach but also to begin starving.  Photo: Eric Matson, AIMS
Claims Galilee coal is cleaner than what India would otherwise burn are debatable but anyway miss the point: the great bulk of all fossil fuel deposits must stay in the ground if corals at home or abroad are to have much of a future.
Warren Entsch, the Liberal National Party member whose electorate takes in Cairns, tells me "we need a cyclone badly" to stir up the becalmed region and provide cooling cloud cover. (And he may get his wish, with weather models suggesting the season's first cyclone off Queensland may form early next week.)
Bleaching corals display vivid fluorescent colours before turning completely white. Photo: E.Matson, AIMS
However, he has no patience for "anti-fossil fuel campaigners" – such as former Greens leader Bob Brown, who on Wednesday launched the Stop Adani Alliance to block the new mine.
"The reef should not become collateral damage," Entsch told me last week. Even so, he also had little time for researchers such as Terry Hughes, a leading scientist who is conducting this week's aerial surveys of the reef and last week published a major paper on the 2016 and previous bleaching events.
The structure of coral reefs will change as some corals rebound faster than others after bleaching and mortality events. Photo: AIMS
"He'll be having an absolute ball," Entsch told me.
The reality is more than a few scientists rely on Hughes to get the message out that the reef is in serious trouble.
As if the threat from climate change – including more acidic oceans hindering corals to form skeletons at all – weren't enough.
Even where the federal and state governments are throwing money at the reef, such as trying to limit the Crown of Thorns starfish or reducing sediment and nutrient-rich run off from farms – the efforts are likely to be insufficient.
"There's a really, really major outbreak of the crown of thorns starfish in the same area off Townsville that is bleaching at the moment," Gunn says.
And, according to WWF Australia, farmers have told the Queensland government that they want to clear more than 270,000 hectares, more than half of which are in Great Barrier Reef catchments.
"It can only have dire impacts on the reef to have so much clearing promised," Martin Taylor of WWF says. "This is a ticking time bomb."
And we need some bomb defusers in a hurry.

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23/03/2017

Warming Earth Threatens To Release Huge Amounts Of Carbon – UN Agency

UN News Centre

Soil erosion and deforestation shown in the mountains of Guatemala's Quiche province. UN Photo/John Olsson
Rising temperatures could release massive amounts of carbon trapped in the Earth's soil, the United Nations agricultural agency today reported, warning that soil management could make or break climate change response efforts.
Plants and organic residues take in carbon and then sequester it into soil, creating a vast reservoir of carbon. But when soil is disturbed or degraded, trapped carbon and other greenhouse gases resulting from decay are re-released back into the atmosphere, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) explained in a press release.
"This means that the Earth's soil carbon reservoir could either release massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or sequester more of them, depending on the management decisions we make going forward," according to the report, Soil Organic Carbon: The Hidden Potential.
The report is being presented today at the start of the Global Symposium on Soil Organic Carbon, in Rome.
Speaking at the event, the FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said that beyond its role as carbon sinks, healthy soils are the foundation for global food security.
"Soils with high organic carbon content are likely to be more fertile and productive, better able to purify water, and help to increase the resilience of livelihoods to the impacts of climate change," Mr. da Silva said.
Improving the health of the planet's soils and boosting their organic carbon content is critical to achieving several of the international development goals established by the Sustainable Development Goals, including those related to eradicating hunger and malnutrition, he added.

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