05/04/2017

Labor To Drop Renewable Energy Target In Favour Of Emissions Scheme

The Guardian - 

RET will come to a natural end as emissions intensity scheme can reach goal of 50% renewable energy by 2030, says Andrew Leigh
Australia’s shadow assistant treasurer said renewables accounted for the majority of new investment in electricity generation in the last decade. Photograph: Tim Phillips Photos/Getty Images
Labor will abandon the renewable energy target after 2020 because an emissions intensity scheme will be sufficient to reach the goal of 50% renewable energy by 2030, Andrew Leigh has said.
On Sky News on Sunday the shadow assistant treasurer confirmed the opposition’s plan to reach the 50% goal without a hard target in comments that appeared to rule out extending the existing renewable energy target (RET).
“We’ve committed to getting 50% renewables but the mechanism that we’ve used in the past has been a renewable energy target. That comes to an end and we believe an [emissions intensity scheme] EIS can take us to the point of having 50% renewables ... without the RET,” Leigh said.
Asked to confirm that meant Labor would not support the RET when it expired in 2020, Leigh responded: “We believe that the emissions intensity scheme does that job ... without a RET.”
The environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, seized on the remarks, saying they “injected more confusion” into Labor’s policy.
“It is already apparent that Labor doesn’t know what its policy is called, whether it will be legislated, how much it costs or what impact it will have on power prices and energy security,” he said.
Frydenberg said Leigh’s comments were in contradiction to an adjournment speech on Tuesday by the shadow assistant minister for treasury, Matt Thistlethwaite, in which he said Labor intended to “boost the RET”.
When Labor announced its policy for emissions trading in the electricity sector and for heavy industries before the 2016 election, the opposition said it would consult on what extra policies might be needed to achieve the 50% renewables goal, with a further RET not the favoured option.
As Labor faced pressure on the cost of sourcing 50% of electricity from renewables, Bill Shorten clarified the figure is an “aspiration” and not a hard target to be achieved through an RET.
Leigh’s pronouncement echoes Malcolm Turnbull’s statement that the RET was “never intended to be perpetual”, indicating there could be bipartisan support to abandon it after 2020.
But unlike Labor, the Turnbull government has ruled out a carbon price or EIS to achieve Australia’s Paris targets of reducing emissions by 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030.
Pressure has been mounting on the Finkel review to recommend a market mechanism. A string of peak bodies have already called for market mechanisms, including the National Farmers’ Federation, the Investor Group on Climate Change and the Business Council of Australia, which explicitly called for an EIS.
Leigh noted that an EIS was supported by experts across the field, including the Business Council of Australia and many energy regulators. He noted renewables account for the majority of new investment in electricity generation in the last decade.
“One of the government’s favourite backers, Bjørn Lomborg, not somebody Labor would usually support, says that every $1 invested in renewables gives you a pay back of $11.”
Leigh said that Nick Xenophon, who abandoned his demand for an EIS in return for support for company tax cuts in favour of a payment to pensioners and a number of energy measures, had been “sold a pup”.
The measures include fast-tracking a solar-thermal plant in South Australia already promised, a study of a gas pipeline connecting the state with the Northern Territory, and a new national energy policy.
“[Xenophon] said he could get an EIS, which would bring down household power prices by $200, instead he’s got yet another report, yet another study,” Leigh said.
Leigh said the government had “absolutely” conned Xenophon, because the deal would not bring down emissions and energy prices.
On an earlier interview on Sky News, the Business Council of Australia’s chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, called for an end to state renewable energy targets and moratoriums on gas exploration and production.
Westacott said the RET had been introduced at a time when energy demand was falling, causing prices to increase, and the energy mix had not balanced renewables with base load power.
Bipartisanship was needed to give business a signal to invest in electricity production and extracting gas resources, she said.
“Most companies are not going to be willing to put very large licks of money, billions of dollars for projects that will go for 30 years, if they do not have a sense of the policy environment they are facing,” she said.
“Everybody knows that at some point, because of the global agreements we’ve done, some kind of price signal is likely to be put into the market.”

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Adani Plans To Export Low Quality, High Ash Coal To India, Court Told

ABC News - Stephen Long

The Australian Conservation Foundation has launched a court challenge against the Adani coal mine. (ABC News)
Key points
  • Supporters say Adani's coal would improve air quality, lower greenhouse gases
  • But report says Carmichael mine would produce "two coal products"
  • Coal bound for India could be a low-grade product
The ABC has unearthed previously unreported evidence that shows Adani plans to export a low-quality coal product to India — coal with a high ash content that could cause deadly air pollution.
Supporters of the Indian conglomerate's planned giant coal mine in Queensland claim it will improve air quality and lower greenhouse gases, because it would supply India with "high quality" Australian coal.
The Minister for Resources, Matthew Canavan, recently said if Australia did not supply India with coal from Queensland, "they will get that coal elsewhere — which they are doing right now".
"Generally speaking that coal is of lower quality than what we have in Queensland," he said.
But whether the coal from Adani's Carmichael mine would be better quality has not been made clear.
According to sworn evidence to the Land Court in Queensland, Adani plans to ship polluting, low-energy coal to India.
A report to the court made on its behalf said the Carmichael mine would produce "two coal products".
"Product one, a low ash/moderate energy product most suitable for Asian premium markets," the report said.
"And product two, a high ash/lower energy product most suitable for non-premium markets, particularly India."
So the coal bound for India could be a fairly low-grade product.
Mr Canavan said while it might not be the highest quality coal in Australia, "it's still much much higher than the coal quality in India".
When asked about whether he was aware of the plan to produce two different coal quality products, Mr Canavan said "different coal companies create different products for different circumstances".
"There is also the opportunity to blend and then officiate that coal at the other end. That's a commercial decision for themselves," he said.
Mr Canavan said it was not just the Government who thought it would be better for the environment if India used Australian coal.
"The Queensland Supreme Court itself also made the point that the Adani Carmichael coal mine itself won't increase greenhouse gas emissions, if it displaces coal from other sources," he said.
"That's exactly what it will do, because India will get coal from somewhere, [and] as I say, their own coal is generally lower quality than ours."

'Poor quality coal' at Galilee Basin
Associate Professor Gavin Mudd, from RMIT University, has mapped the quality of coal deposits across Australia.
"If you look at the Galilee Basin coal, there's a reason why it hasn't been developed — it's poorer quality coal, compared to other places of Australia," Dr Mudd said.
"It's certainly not as bad as brown coal from an energy point of view, but from an ash point of view it's almost 10 times more ash content."
The average energy content of coal at Adani's planned mine is about 18 per cent below benchmark Australian coal.
Adani conceded in court the ash content was about 26 per cent, roughly double the Australian benchmark.
Keep in mind the best coal from the mine will not go to India — it will get unwashed, high-ash coal.
Associate Professor Mudd said that raised serious health concerns.
"Major issues with respiratory illness — so asthma and all sorts of related things, heart disease increases in things like lung cancer and so on as well," he said.
"So we need to make sure that when we're using such quality coal we have really rigorous pollution control."
India's air quality rivals China as the worst in the world, with air pollution accounting for more than one million deaths a year.

Carmichael mine will reduce Indian plants' carbon footprint: Adani
Despite the sworn court evidence, Adani has publicly maintained that coal exports from the Carmichael mine will cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"The thing about Carmichael is, it will reduce the carbon footprint of existing [Indian] plants, which are using Indonesian or Indian coal today, by say 30 to 40 per cent," Adani Australia's CEO Jeyakumar Janakara told a forum in Brisbane last week.
Adani has repeatedly declined requests by the ABC for an interview about the Carmichael mine and the company's corporate structure in Australia.

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Is This The Worst Mistake Australia Could Make?

news.com.au - Charis Chang (With AFP)


Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk gets confronted in India over Adani mine plans 

SOON Australians will be asked to take sides as the opposition to the Adani coal mine reaches a crucial crunch point.
The owners of the proposed Carmichael coal mine in Queensland are due to make a final decision on its future after six years of delay caused by legal challenges to the $21.7 billion project.
The State Government this week gave Adani the final approval it needs to go ahead with the mine, a water licence that will give it access to 9.5 billion litres of groundwater.
A Department of Natural Resources and Mines spokesman said modelling assessed by the department found up to 4.55 gigalitres of groundwater could be taken per year.
“In granting this licence, the Department of Natural Resources and Mines has carefully considered a broad range of information,” he told news.com.au in a statement.
He said Adani would have to fairly compensate landholders for impacts on water resources, and there were 100 conditions relating to groundwater.
On Friday, the head of Indian mining giant Adani said the company was ready to start construction this year.
Adani Mining chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj told a business lunch in Brisbane that the company expected to start engineering work on a rail line the mine needs to transport its coal to Abbott Point by June, and to start major construction by September.
While he was defending the mine against environmental concerns, about 200 protesters gathered outside the Hilton Hotel in Brisbane’s CBD to voice their opposition.
It’s just the first stage in what is expected to be a relentless battle.
While the “lawfare” may be wrapping up, environment groups say the matter is far from over, and will actually ramp up their efforts in coming months.
More than 4000 people attended #StopAdani roadshow events across Australia., with dozens of new groups forming to stop the mine from going ahead.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown is leading the next stage of the fight against the mine and has described the campaign as this generation’s Franklin River, referring to the decades-long protest movement that eventually stopped the Tasmanian river being dammed in 1983.
“This is the environmental issue of our times and, for one, the Great Barrier Reef is at stake,” Mr Brown recently wrote in an opinion piece.
Alongside millionaire businessman Geoff Cousins, a former Howard government adviser, Mr Brown announced that 13 community groups would form the Stop Adani Alliance to oppose the mine.
If the previous track record of the two leaders is anything to go by, Adani should be very worried.
Mr Cousins was also involved in the successful campaign to stop the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania and the proposed Woodside gas hub in the Kimberley.
Before he was the Greens leader, Mr Brown led the non-violent campaign against the Franklin Dam.
Now the duo have their sights set on Adani.
Dr Bob Brown speaks to Tasmanians at a protest rally in 1983 to stop the Franklin Dam being built. Picture: Andrew de la Rue. Source: News Corp Australia
They are already being supported by prominent Australians including Australian Test cricket captains Ian and Greg Chappell, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks and rock group Midnight Oil, who signed a letter to Adani chairman Gautam Adani, urging him to abandon the project
Adani however rejected the demand as “a motivated attempt by a very small group of 76 misled people”, the Press Trust of India reported.
While there are a couple of outstanding legal issues, including an appeal in the Federal Court and a bill that needs to be passed in Parliament, the mine looks to be on track.
The last major government approval needed is a water licence and the State Government is expected to announce its decision in the next few days.
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland said the mine would be a big win for the state’s central and northern regions, particularly for Townsville where the project’s headquarters is expected to be located.
Charters Towers and Moranbah have also been earmarked as service centres for the mines, while Bowen is expected to be the base for rail construction.
“It’s about supporting our regions and not leaving them behind, creating new jobs and supporting our youth,” CCIQ policy adviser Catherine Pham said.
“Projects such as Adani is definitely a win for our regions, but all Queenslanders should see the positive economic impacts of the project once it kicks off.”
Not everyone agrees. GetUp environmental justice campaign director Miriam Lyons said Adani was a reckless company that threatened people’s lives and livelihoods across Australia.
“Their track record reveals they put profits ahead of people, every time. If Adani wins, the reef, our water and people everywhere will lose,” she said.
The Abbot Point coal terminal. Picture: Australian Marine Conservation Society. Source: Supplied
“They have avoided paying tax in Australia, preferring to hide their assets in the Cayman Islands. If the Turnbull Government can’t make them pay tax, how can we make sure they don’t ruin the Reef or wreck our water tables?
“It’s time someone actually stood up for farmers and tourism, they are billion-dollar industries that supply people with food, lasting employment, and the opportunity to access the Great Barrier Reef.”
This is what you need to know about this generation-defining project.

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO UPSET?
Once it’s built, the $21.7 billion Carmichael mine near Rockhampton will be one of the biggest in the world. It will include six open-cut pits and five underground mines across an area five times the size of Sydney Harbour.
Once it has been dug up, the coal will need to be transported to India. It will need to travel from the mine in central Queensland via a new 189 kilometre rail link, to a waterfront coal terminal at Abbot Point.
The giant mine will generate so much extra coal, the terminal south of Townsville will need to be expanded to accommodate it.
But there are concerns that the extra coal exports may damage the Great Barrier Reef as the terminal is located on the coastline of the heritage area.
The terminal, which stretches 2km out to the sea, already exports 50 million tonnes of coal per year, but expansion plans approved last year will more than double its capacity, allowing Adani to export an extra 70 million tonnes.
If Adani succeeds in getting a rail link built from its mine to the terminal built, other companies in the Galilee Basin will also be able to use it, and there are plans for another terminal at Abbot Point, which would add another 60 million tonnes of capacity.
There are also concerns that building such a huge mine will also impact the reef because of the emissions produced once the coal is burnt overseas for electricity.
Climate change has been identified as the most serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef, and in an article published in Nature this month, scientists warned that immediate global action to curb future global warming, was essential to securing a future for reefs.
The report came as scientists confirmed a second consecutive year of mass coral bleaching on the reef.
But Adani has rejected suggestions the mine will contribute to climate change.
“This project is a net positive impact on climate change in the world,” Adani Australia chief executive officer Jeyakumar Janakaraj said last year.
During his speech in Brisbane on Friday, Mr Janakaraj said the mine was vital in reducing India’s carbon footprint, with the higher quality Australian coal producing less pollution than that mined in India.
“The 20,000 megawatts of thermal energy (in India) needs a reliable source of good quality coal to keep the net impact to climate change neutral or lower,” Mr Janakaraj said.
“The thing about Carmichael is, it will reduce the carbon footprint of existing plants which are using Indonesian or Indian coal today, by say 30 to 40 per cent.”
A scientist measuring coral bleaching in October 2016. Picture: Tane Sinclair-Taylor/ARC Center of Excellence via AP. Source: AP
But environmentalists are concerned that climate change impacts are not necessarily considered as part of the environmental assessment process for mines.
The Australian Conservation Foundation took Adani to the Federal Court to try and force the federal minister to consider climate change impacts from emissions that would be produced when the coal was burnt overseas for electricity.
But the court accepted the minister’s argument they would be managed through national and international agreements.
The ACF has appealed the decision, with a judgment expected in May or June.

ADANI’S WORRYING RECORD
Another thing that is causing concern among environmentalists is Adani’s controversial track record overseas.
The Indian company has been embroiled in illegal dealings, bribery, environmental and social devastation and allegations of corruption, fraud and money laundering, according to a legal research brief released by Environmental Justice Australia in February.
In one concerning incident, a ship carrying Adani coal sank and caused an oil and coal spill along Mumbai’s coast, which damaged tourism and polluted the marine environment. A court fined Adani $975,000 for the accident.
Adani was also ordered to pay $4.8 million after constructing Hajira Port without approval, which destroyed habitat, claimed land and blocked access to fishing communities.
The company has also been subject to long-running investigations into tax evasion and money laundering while trading in diamonds and gold jewellery.
“I deal daily with the devastating impacts of coal while working with some of India’s poorest people,” Indian environmental justice advocate Dr Vaishali Patil said.
“Adani tops the list of the worst companies I have come in contact with in my work.
“The damage that Adani has done to our people can’t be overstated: local fishing communities unable to access their fishing grounds; vast quantities of coal spilled into the oceans and not cleaned up for years, devastating local tourism, beaches and marine life. Adani’s mine must never be allowed to go ahead.”
EJA lawyer and report author Ariane Wilkinson pointed out that Adani also continued to mislead the Australian public about how many jobs would be created from its Carmichael mine.
Adani says 10,000 jobs created but the company’s economist admitted to the Land Court as part of a recent legal action, that the correct figure was in fact 1464 net jobs.
Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani meets with Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in Townsville last year. The Queensland government has been given an ‘iron clad’ guarantee that Adani will not use 457 visas at its Carmichael mine and will prioritise local workers. Picture: Cameron Laird/AAP Source: AAP
This lower figure used modelling that took into account the amount of jobs created once the jobs lost in other industries was also taken into account.

SHOULD TAXPAYERS FOOT THE BILL?
The project may also rely on the Federal Government giving the company a $1 billion concessional loan to help it build the 189 kilometre rail link required to transport the coal to Abbot Point.
The government is currently assessing whether to give Adani the loan through its $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
But the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said the Australian government should be wary of putting taxpayers’ money into a project that global financial institutions including the Deutsche Bank are now refusing to fund.
IEEFA Director of Energy Finance Studies Tim Buckley said the mine could become a stranded asset as the economics of renewable energy start to stack up. Even Adani is planning to put $US10 million into renewable projects.
“Adani is central to a profound energy transition in India, which is on track to achieve a national 40 per cent renewable energy target by 2030, equivalent to 350GW, or around seven times Australia’s total electricity sector,” Mr Buckley said.
“The smart money on renewable energy.”
A GetUp poll released in January found 74.4 per cent of Australians disagreed with giving the mine access to concessional loans.
Adani has insisted the loan is not crucial to its project, despite this being one of the criteria to get a loan.
There are also concerns about the way the company has been set up and who gets the royalties.
Adani says the mine will generate $22 billion in taxes and royalties for Queensland.
But up to $120 million in royalties every year could also flow to a company in the Cayman Islands tax haven controlled by the Adani family, rather than to the Indian company building the mine.
Resource consultants Energy and Resource Insights highlighted the unusual way the company had been set up so that $2 from every tonne of coal (after the first 400,000 tonnes mined) will flow to the Adani family. This will be at the expense of the company shareholders.
“What this means is that one of the companies currently seeking up to $1 billion in public subsidy is going to profit to the tune of up to $3 billion if the mine goes ahead,” Energy Resource Insights principal researcher Adam Walters told ABC.
Adani claims many poverty-stricken Indian families can be lifted out of poverty if they can access cheap coal-generated electricity. Picture: Kieran Rooney Source: Supplied
IS IT INEVITABLE?
Adani says work on the Carmichael mine will begin in August despite mounting opposition to the long-delayed project.
Company chairman Gautam Adani told a press conference in India recently that he was confident preliminary construction works would start in August 2017, with first exports to begin in 2020.
However, the project still faces some legal challenges and also requires the Federal Government to pass a controversial native title bill through parliament.
The bill was required after the Federal Court ruled in Western Australia that Indigenous Land Use Agreements had to be signed by all the applicants. Adani’s agreement with the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Council did not get approval from all the 12 families represented.
The government was unable to pass the bill this week so won’t be able to consider it again until May or June.
The rise of renewables has also impacted the financial viability of the project, and a final investment decision by Adani is reportedly still pending.

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04/04/2017

South Australia To Get $1bn Solar Farm And World's Biggest Battery

The Guardian - Australian Associated Press

System will include 3.4m solar panels and 1.1m batteries, with operations set to begin by end of 2017
Billion dollar solar farm and battery project will be 'significant stimulus' for South Australia. Photograph: Arena
A huge $1bn solar farm and battery project will be built and ready to operate in South Australia's Riverland region by the end of the year.
The battery storage developer Lyon Group says the system will be the biggest of its kind in the world, boasting 3.4m solar panels and 1.1m batteries.
The company says construction will start in months and the project will be built whatever the outcome of the SA government's tender for a large battery to store renewable energy.
A Lyon Group partner, David Green, says the system, financed by investors and built on privately owned scrubland in Morgan, will be a "significant stimulus" for South Australia.
"The combination of the solar and the battery will significantly enhance the capacity available in the South Australian market," he said.
Green said the project, along with a similar one it plans to build near Roxby Downs, would have gone ahead whether or not Port Augusta's Northern power station had closed in 2016.
"We see the inevitability of the need to have large-scale solar and integrated batteries as part of any move to decarbonise," Green said. "Any short-term decisions are only what I would call noise in the process."
The premier, Jay Weatherill, commended the Lyon Group for the Riverland initiative, which will enable 330MW of power generation and at least 100MW of storage. "Projects of this sort, renewable energy projects, represent the future," he said.
The premier said the company was among several to express interest in building a 100MW battery as part of the South Australia government's power plan announced this month, to be financed by a new $150m renewable technology fund.
Weatherill said the government would consider the bidders over the coming weeks.

Renewables roadshow – Darebin: 'I save money, and there's a feelgood factor'
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No Country On Earth Is Taking The 2 Degree Climate Target Seriously

Vox - David Roberts

If we mean what we say, no more new fossil fuels, anywhere.
Is it warm in here? (Shutterstock)
One of the morbidly fascinating aspects of climate change is how much cognitive dissonance it generates, in individuals and nations alike.
The more you understand the brutal logic of climate change — what it could mean, the effort necessary to forestall it — the more the intensity of the situation seems out of whack with the workaday routines of day-to-day life. It’s a species-level emergency, but almost no one is acting like it is. And it’s very, very difficult to be the only one acting like there’s an emergency, especially when the emergency is abstract and science-derived, grasped primarily by the intellect.
This psychological schism is true for individuals, and it’s true for nations. Take the Paris climate agreement.
In Paris, in 2015, the countries of the world agreed (again) on the moral imperative to hold the rise in global average temperature to under 2 degrees Celsius, and to pursue "efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees." To date, 62 countries, including the United States, China, and India, have ratified the agreement.
Are any of the countries that signed the Paris agreement taking the actions necessary to achieve that target?
No. The US is not. Nor is the world as a whole.
The actions necessary to hold to 2 degrees, much less 1.5 degrees, are simply outside the bounds of conventional politics in most countries. Anyone who proposed them would sound crazy, like they were proposing, I don’t know, a war or something.
So we say 2 degrees is unacceptable. But we don’t act like it is.
This cognitive dissonance is brought home yet again in a new report from Oil Change International (in collaboration with a bunch of green groups). It’s about fossil fuels and how much of them we can afford to dig up and burn, if we’re serious about what we said in Paris. It’s mostly simple math, but the implications are vast and unsettling.
Let’s start from the beginning.

Staying beneath 2 degrees means immediately and rapidly declining emissions
Scientists have long agreed that warming higher than 2 degrees will result in widespread food, water, weather, and sea level stresses, with concomitant immigration, conflict, and suffering, inequitably distributed.
But 2 degrees is not some magic threshold where tolerable becomes dangerous. A two-year review of the latest science by the UNFCCC found that the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees means heat extremes, water shortages, and falling crop yields. "The ‘guardrail’ concept, in which up to 2°C of warming is considered safe," the review concluded, "is inadequate."
The report recommends that 2 degrees be seen instead as "an upper limit, a defense line that needs to be stringently defended, while less warming would be preferable."
This changing understanding of 2 degrees matters, because the temperature target we choose, and the probability with which we aim to hit it, establishes our "carbon budget," i.e., the amount of CO2 we can still emit before blowing it.
Many commonly used scenarios (including the International Energy Agency’s) are built around a 50 percent chance of hitting 2 degrees. But if 2 degrees is an "upper limit" and "less warming would be preferable," it seems we would want a higher than 50-50 chance of stopping short of it.
So the authors of the Oil Change report choose two scenarios to model. One gives us a 66 percent chance of stopping short of 2 degrees. The other gives us a 50 percent chance of stopping short of 1.5 degrees. Here’s what they look like:
(Oil Change International)
This image should terrify you. It should be on billboards.
As you can see, in either scenario, global emissions must peak and begin declining immediately. For a medium chance to avoid 1.5 degrees, the world has to zero out net carbon emissions by 2050 or so — for a good chance of avoiding 2 degrees, by around 2065.
After that, emissions have to go negative. Humanity has to start burying a lot more carbon than it throws up into the atmosphere. There are several ways to sequester greenhouse gases, from reforestation to soil enrichment to cow backpacks, but the backbone of the envisioned negative emissions is BECCS, or bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration.
BECCS — raising, harvesting, and burning biomass for energy, while capturing and burying the carbon emissions — is unproven at scale. Thus far, most demonstration plants of any size attaching CCS to fossil fuel facilities have been over-budget disasters. What if we can’t rely on it? What if it never pans out?
"If we want to avoid depending on unproven technology becoming available," the authors say, "emissions would need to be reduced even more rapidly."
You could say that. This is from climate researcher Glen Peters, based on a scenario with a 66 percent chance of avoiding 1.5 degrees.
(Glen Peters)
Check out that middle graphic. If we really want to avoid 1.5 degrees, and we can’t rely on large-scale carbon sequestration, then the global community has to zero out its carbon emissions by 2026.
Ten years from now.
There’s no happy win-win story about that scenario, no way to pull it off while continuing to live US lifestyles and growing the global economy every year. It would require immediate, radical shifts in behavior worldwide, especially among the wealthy — a period of voluntary austerity and contraction.
That seems unlikely. So instead, let’s assume copious negative emissions technology will be available in the latter half of the century, just to give ourselves the most room possible.
In those scenarios, how much of the world’s fossil fuels can we burn? How much more can we find and dig up?
That math is daunting.

Staying beneath 2 degrees means ceasing all new fossil fuel development
First, a quick tour of terminology. There are fossil fuel resources (what is ultimately recoverable), reserves (what is known and economically recoverable), and developed reserves (what is known and recoverable in currently operating mines and fields). Here’s a handy guide:
(Oil Change International)
Now let’s compare some numbers. It’s pretty straightforward. Roughly 95 percent of the carbon contained in fossil fuels gets released into the atmosphere, so a ton dug up means a ton emitted, more or less. [Correction 10/6/2016: This was misleadingly phrased. To clarify: 95 percent of the carbon in fossil fuels end up being burned; each ton of carbon burned yields roughly 3.6 tons of CO2.]
How do our carbon budgets compare with our fossil fuel reserves?
(Oil Change International)
Another terrifying image.
On the left is global developed fossil fuel reserves. Remember the terminology: That’s what we can likely get out of currently operating fields and mines. On the right are our carbon budgets, for the 2 degree and 1.5 degree scenarios respectively. Existing developed reserves exceed the 2 degree budget, and oil and gas alone break the 1.5 degree budget.
If we are serious about what we said in Paris, then no more exploring for new fossil fuels. No new mines, wells, or fossil fuel infrastructure. And rapid, managed decline in existing fossil fuels.

We are betting our species’ future on our ability to bury carbon
An important note: The analysts at Oil Change assume that there will be BECCS from midcentury onward, but assume that CCS will not come online fast enough to substantially delay the decline of fossil fuels before then.
Obviously, that assumption could be wrong on either end. CCS could develop faster than expected or turn out to be utterly impractical and too costly on any time scale. It’s too soon to know.
What is clear is that we are betting our collective future on being able to bury millions of tons of carbon. It’s a huge and existentially risky bet — and maybe one out of a million people even know it’s being made.

Humanity is in a desperate situation
There are modeling scenarios that show us hitting our climate targets. But we should take no comfort from them. The fact is, we have waited until perilously late to act on climate change, and our range of options has narrowed. We face three choices:
1) In the event that massive carbon sequestration proves infeasible, avoiding dangerous climate change will require an immediate and precipitous decline in global carbon emissions over a decade or two. Given that most present-day economic activity is driven by fossil fuels, it would mean, at least temporarily, a net decline in economic activity. No one wants to discuss this, except climate scientist Kevin Anderson:

2) The second option is to immediately begin driving net global emissions down, hitting zero some time midcentury or shortly thereafter, and in the meantime develop the technology and infrastructure to bury millions of tons of carbon from biomass. Anderson explains just what that means:
The sheer scale of the BECCS assumption underpinning the [Paris] Agreement is breathtaking – decades of ongoing planting and harvesting of energy crops over an area the size of one to three times that of India. At the same time the aviation industry anticipates fuelling its planes with bio-fuel, the shipping industry is seriously considering biomass to power its ships and the chemical sector sees biomass as a potential feedstock. And then there are 9 billion or so human mouths to feed.
3) The third option is to allow temperatures to rise 3 or even 4 degrees, which Anderson has called "incompatible with an organized global community." Such temperatures would bring suffering to hundreds of millions of people and substantially raise the probability of runaway global warming that can’t be stopped no matter what humans do. Runaway warming would, over the course of a century or so, serve to render the planet uninhabitable. Quite a legacy.
All of these are desperate options.
When climate activists say, "We have the technology; all we need is the political will," they act like that’s good news. But think about the political will we need: to immediately cease fossil fuel exploration, start shutting down coal mines, and put in place a plan for managed decline of the fossil fuel industry; to double or triple the global budget for clean energy research, development, and deployment; to transfer billions of dollars from wealthy countries to poorer ones, to protect them from climate impacts they are most vulnerable to but least responsible for; and quite possibly, if it comes to it, to limit the consumptive choices of the globe’s wealthiest and most carbon-intensive citizens.
That level of political will is nowhere in evidence, in any country.
So for now, it’s cognitive dissonance.

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World Facing A Water Crisis

OneWorld - Springer International

The world faces an acute water crisis within 10 years, affecting food supplies, megacities and industry globally, says a leading science writer.
La fissure du Temps. / The crack of Time. Image by Alain RAGACHE / KOENIC
“World water use is already more than ten trillion tonnes a year. While the human population has tripled since 1950, our water use has grown sixfold,” says Julian Cribb, author of ‘Surviving the 21st Century’ (Springer International 2017). The book focusses on the ten greatest threats to the human future – one of which is resource scarcity – and what we can do about them.
“Rising demand from megacities, mining, agriculture and the fossil fuels sector in particular is combining with climate change to threaten major water scarcities across the world’s subtropical, arid and semi-arid regions. When this affects the food supply there will be vast migrations of people – like the world has never seen before.”
Mr Cribb says that scientific studies show:
  • groundwater is running out in practically every country in the world where it is used to grow food, posing risks to food security in northern India, northern China, Central Asia, the central and western US, and the Middle East. Most of this groundwater will take thousands of years to replenish.
  • the icepack on high mountain chains is shrinking, emptying the rivers it once fed in practically every continent.
  • around the world, large lakes are drying up, especially in Central Asia, China, sub-Saharan Africa and the South American Andes.
  • 50,000 dams break up the world’s major rivers, sparking increased disputes over water between neighbouring countries
  • most of the world’s large rivers are badly polluted with chemicals, nutrients and sediment.
“The water crisis is sneaking up on humanity unawares. People turn on the tap and assume clean, safe water will always flow. But the reality is that supplies are already critical for 4.2 billion people - over half the world’s population. During times of drought, megacities like Sao Paulo, La Paz, Los Angeles, Santiago, 32 Indian cities and 400 Chinese cities are now at risk.”
Among world leaders, Pope Francis recently warned that we could be moving toward “a major world war for water”. He deliberately altered his prepared speech to issue this caveat when addressing an international seminar on the human right to water, hosted by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Feb. 23 and 24, 2017.
Each of the last three UN secretaries-general – Ban Ki-Moon, Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros-Ghali – has warned of the dangers of world water scarcity and of ‘water wars’ in the future. The world’s leading scientific journal, Nature, issued a sobering warning of water scarcity under climate change in December 2013.
“Other than in water circles, these warnings seem to have passed largely unheeded by governments and the population at large,” Cribb says. “The sense of urgency necessary to prevent a world water crisis is not there.”
“Especially overlooked is the impact of water scarcity on the world food supply. As cities and energy corporations combine to rob farmers of the water needed to grow crops, the global irrigation sector is stagnating at a time when it needs to double food output to meet rising global demand for food. This will directly impact the availability and price of food to city people everywhere.
“We commonly assume that the natural hydrological cycle of evaporation and rainfall means there will always be ample water. In reality, we pollute and misuse water so badly, it is often not safe for drinking, domestic use or food production. Meanwhile rainfall, effluent and wastewater in cities everywhere is wasted or discharged to the ocean.
“The average citizen of Planet Earth uses 1,386 tonnes of water per year, and the demand continues to rise every year, stressing supplies in many cases to their limits,” Cribb says.
A study by NASA (2015) shows that a third of the world’s major groundwater basins are stressed, and people are using the water without knowing when it will run out.
A timeline maintained by Professor Peter Gleick of the World Water Institute reveals the increasing frequency and tempo of disputes and conflicts over water globally.
“The evidence points to serious trouble for the world over water within the next ten years. The world focus of attention has been on climate – rightly so, as it is an integral factor in water scarcity – but the massive water crises that will disrupt food supplies and dislodge huge populations are much more imminent than other major climate impacts. Present policy does not reflect this.”
Mr Cribb says it is time to put world water science, technology and management on a war footing, if the crises are to be averted. “Currently humans spend US$1.8 trillion a year on new weapons. If we spent a tenth of that on clean water technologies, fixing leaky supplies, recycling city water, measuring availability, agricultural water efficiency, effective water markets and controlling demand we could avoid the conflicts which the Pope and UN heads foresee.
“Current evidence suggests most countries prefer war to water.”
"Surviving the 21st Century" (Springer International Publishing 2017) is a powerful new book exploring the main risks facing humanity: ecological collapse, resource depletion, weapons of mass destruction, climate change, global poisoning, food crises, population and urban overexpansion, pandemic disease, dangerous new technologies and self-delusion – and what can and should be done to limit them.

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03/04/2017

Extreme Weather Events Linked To Climate Change Impact On The Jet Stream

Pennsylvania State University - A'ndrea Elyse Messer

Unprecedented summer warmth and flooding, forest fires, drought and torrential rain -- extreme weather events are occurring more and more often, but now an international team of climate scientists has found a connection between many extreme weather events and the impact climate change is having on the jet stream.
On the left is an image of the global circulation pattern on a normal day. On the right is the image of the global circulation pattern when extreme weather occurs. The pattern on the right shows extreme patterns of wind speeds going north and south, while the normal pattern on the left shows moderate speed winds in both the north and south directions. Credit: Michael Mann / Penn State
Unprecedented summer warmth and flooding, forest fires, drought and torrential rain — extreme weather events are occurring more and more often, but now an international team of climate scientists has found a connection between many extreme weather events and the impact climate change is having on the jet stream.
"We came as close as one can to demonstrating a direct link between climate change and a large family of extreme recent weather events," said Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director, Earth System Science Center, Penn State. "Short of actually identifying the events in the climate models."
The unusual weather events that piqued the researchers' interest are things such as the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Pakistan flood and Russian heatwave, the 2011 Texas and Oklahoma heat wave and drought and the 2015 California wildfires.
The researchers looked at a combination of roughly 50 climate models from around the world that are part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), which is part of the World Climate Research Programme. These models are run using specific scenarios and producing simulated data that can be evaluated across the different models. However, while the models are useful for examining large-scale climate patterns and how they are likely to evolve over time, they cannot be relied on for an accurate depiction of extreme weather events. That is where actual observations prove critical.
The researchers looked at the historical atmospheric observations to document the conditions under which extreme weather patterns form and persist. These conditions occur when the jet stream, a global atmospheric wave of air that encompasses the Earth, becomes stationary and the peaks and troughs remain locked in place.
"Most stationary jet stream disturbances, however, will dissipate over time," said Mann. "Under certain circumstances the wave disturbance is effectively constrained by an atmospheric wave guide, something similar to the way a coaxial cable guides a television signal. Disturbances then cannot easily dissipate, and very large amplitude swings in the jet stream north and south can remain in place as it rounds the globe."
This constrained configuration of the jet stream is like a rollercoaster with high peaks and valleys, but only forms when there are six, seven or eight pairs of peaks and valleys surrounding the globe. The jet stream can then behave as if there is a waveguide — uncrossable barriers in the north and south — and a wave with large peaks and valleys can occur.
"If the same weather persists for weeks on end in one region, then sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave and drought, and lasting rains can lead to flooding," said Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany.
The structure of the jet stream relates to its latitude and the temperature gradient from north to south. Temperatures typically have the steepest gradients in mid-latitudes and a strong circumpolar jet stream arises. However, when these temperature gradients decrease in just the right way, a weakened "double peak" jet stream arises with the strongest jet stream winds located to the north and south of the mid-latitudes.
"The warming of the Arctic, the polar amplification of warming, plays a key role here," said Mann. "The surface and lower atmosphere are warming more in the Arctic than anywhere else on the globe. That pattern projects onto the very temperature gradient profile that we identify as supporting atmospheric waveguide conditions."
Theoretically, standing jet stream waves with large amplitude north/south undulations should cause unusual weather events.
"We don't trust climate models yet to predict specific episodes of extreme weather because the models are too coarse," said study co-author Dim Coumou of PIK. "However, the models do faithfully reproduce large scale patterns of temperature change," added co-author Kai Kornhuber of PIK.
The researchers looked at real-world observations and confirmed that this temperature pattern does correspond with the double-peaked jet stream and waveguide patter associated with persistent extreme weather events in the late spring and summer such as droughts, floods and heat waves. They found the pattern has become more prominent in both observations and climate model simulations.
"Using the simulations, we demonstrate that rising greenhouse gases are responsible for the increase," said Mann.
The researchers noted in today's (Mar. 27) issue of Scientific Report that "Both the models and observations suggest this signal has only recently emerged from the background noise of natural variability."
"We are now able to connect the dots when it comes to human-caused global warming and an array of extreme recent weather events," said Mann.
While the models do not reliably track individual extreme weather events, they do reproduce the jet stream patterns and temperature scenarios that in the real world lead to torrential rain for days, weeks of broiling sun and absence of precipitation.
"Currently we have only looked at historical simulations," said Mann. "What's up next is to examine the model projections of the future and see what they imply about what might be in store as far as further increases in extreme weather are concerned."

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