'Ocean Elders' Urge Malcolm Turnbull To Reject Adani Coalmine

The Guardian - Calla Wahlquist

Prominent oceanographers and global leaders write to Australian prime minister and Queensland premier

Marine biologist Sylvia Earle addressing the general assembly to mark World Oceans Day on 8 June. Earle has spearheaded a group of prominent oceanographers and marine biologists in opposing the Adani mine in north Queensland. Photograph: Kim Haughton/UN Photo

A group of prominent oceanographers and global leaders has written to Malcolm Turnbull urging him to reject the proposed Adani Carmichael coalmine, which it says will have a devastating impact on the Great Barrier Reef.
The letter from the group Ocean Elders, which includes the renowned marine biologist Dr Sylvia Earle, argues that if it goes ahead the coalmine will damage international efforts to mitigate climate change by increasing global carbon emissions.
The Unesco world heritage committee has released a draft report saying that 75% of the world’s 29 listed coral reefs have been exposed to conditions that cause coral bleaching in the past three years, largely due to climate change.
‘We are in a runaway situation with respect to a warming planet, changing [the] chemistry of the ocean,” Earle said in an interview recorded for RN Breakfast. “We know what to do, it’s a matter of being smart enough, courageous enough, bold enough, sensible enough, to go in this better pathway.”
Earle said the link between the proposed $16bn Adani coalmine and damage to the Great Barrier Reef was “not just speculation,” and said scientific monitoring of the reef showed an “unprecedented decline.”

“I think historically and perhaps even now that people don’t know that their actions in Australia but also globally are altering the resilience, the health of the ocean,” she said. “All of us can do something to turn it around.
“I am not alone being upset about what is happening to the Great Barrier Reef. I know people in Australia who are upset, but this is a world heritage area, a place that is unique and the people who live in Australia have a particular opportunity to take action that can influence something globally, not just now, but far into the future.”
The letter from Ocean Elders was co-signed by Earle; Prince Albert II of Monaco; Sir Richard Branson; Swiss balloonist Dr Bertrand Piccard; prominent oceanographers Dr Walter Munk, Capt Don Walsh, and Jean-Michel Cousteau; former Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres; Queen Noor of Jordan; Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson; microbiologist Dr Rita Colwell; CNN founder Ted Turner; and adventurer Sven Lindblad.
It argued that Australia’s responsibility for mining the coal was not abrogated if it was burned in India, as the Indian-owned company Adani intends.
“The 4.7bn tons of carbon dioxide created over the proposed life of the mine from the burning of the coal, whether in Australia, India or any other country, will further contribute to the damaging effects of climate change, including increases in global air and ocean temperatures, increased acidity of oceans, and destruction of coral reefs,” it said.
The letter also suggested that the economic case for federal government support of the mine does not stack up, citing the “decreasing global market for coal.”

Great Barrier Reef: diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals

Adani is awaiting approval for a $900m taxpayer loan to build a railway from the Abbot Point coal terminal to the Carmichael mine.
The letter urged Australia to “demonstrate climate leadership” by abandoning the project.
It was sent to Turnbull and the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, on 14 June, the day the Senate passed changes to the Native Title Act that would allow the mine to go ahead without unanimous support from traditional owners.
Adani lost majority support from the Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owner group last week, but the native title amendments mean it does not need majority support to broker an Indigenous land use agreement, which is critical to the project securing finance.
On Wednesday Queensland’s environment minister, Steven Miles, issued a statement in response to the the World Heritage Committee draft report on climate change and coral bleaching, calling for “immediate action on a global scale” to protect the future of all coral reefs, particularly the Great Barrier Reef.
“This means that both Australia and Queensland will need to do their fair share,” he said.
It is the second time the Ocean Elders have written to Turnbull, following a letter in April 2016 that urged Australia to phase out coal and “become a renewable energy based nation.”
The organisation was founded in 2010 to further a push by Earle to draw public attention to need for greater conservation and protection of the ocean.

Coral violently spews out algae in response to heat stress

Links

• Most Queensland voters oppose taxpayer support for Adani coalmine – poll
• Loss of coral reefs caused by rising sea temperatures could cost $1tn globally
• Malcolm Turnbull to meet Adani founder during India visit
• It’s either Adani or the Great Barrier Reef. Are we willing to fight for a wonder of the world?
• 'Irreversible consequences': Adani coalmine granted unlimited water access for 60 years
• Stopping global warming is only way to save Great Barrier Reef, scientists warn
• Adani coalmine activists gear up to fight: ‘This will dwarf the Franklin blockade’
• Linking Adani coalmine to social uplift in India ridiculous, says conservationist

Chad Is The Country Most Vulnerable To Climate Change – Here’s Why

The Conversation - Hakim Abdi

European Commission DG ECHO / flickr, CC BY-SA

Of the 186 countries assessed in a recent survey of climate vulnerability, Chad was rated most in peril. A combination of high poverty, frequent conflicts, and the risk of both droughts and floods means the central African nation is bottom of the list, just below Bangladesh and some way behind Norway, the country least vulnerable to climate change.
So why Chad? For a start, it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Around 87% of Chadians are classified as poor, according to the Multidimentional Poverty Index, which factors in health, education and living standards. That's the fourth highest rate in the world. The percentage who are "destitute" (63%), the most extreme category of poverty, is also the fourth highest in the world.

The landlocked country stretches from the Sahara to Cameroon. TUBS / wiki, CC BY-SA

This is exacerbated by the fact that the country has been in civil war or conflict for 35 out of the 57 years since it gained independence from France.
Any poor or conflict-prone country will always be vulnerable, but Chad's geography means climate change is a particular risk. Chad is bigger than many Westerners may realise. At 1.28m km² it's larger than Nigeria and twice the size of Texas. Around 90% of its 10m people live in the southern half of the country, as most of the northern half extends well into the Sahara desert.
Most Chadians base their livelihoods on subsistence farming and livestock rearing. The semi-arid rangelands of the Sahel, in the north of the country, provide pasture for livestock during the rainy season, while the fertile agricultural fields in the south produce most of the cash and food crops. When the dry season begins, pastoralists move their herds south to feed on the leftovers of the agricultural harvest.

Chad's changing climate
Since the mid-20th century, temperatures in Chad have been increasing while rainfall is decreasing. Ninety percent of the country's largest lake, Lake Chad, has disappeared over the past 50 years due to a combination of droughts and increasing withdrawals for irrigation. Climate studies project things will get increasingly hot and arid throughout the 21st century, which means lower crop yields, worse pasture, and a harder life for anyone dependent on Lake Chad.

Lake Chad has been disappearing because of repeated droughts and excessive use of its waters for irrigation.Philippe Rekacewicz, Le Monde diplomatique, February 2008

Rural areas are most at risk from climate change because that's where most of the population, and most of the poverty, is found. However, urban areas are not safe either, as the country's growing cities struggle to accommodate the arrival of new residents. Sanitation services like sewage, storm water drainage and waste collection are poor, according to the World Bank. In the event of floods, as happened in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the infrastructure cannot cope and untreated sewage could infect the water supply, creating a high risk of infectious diseases such as cholera.

Demographic challenges
Chad's population is mostly young, and high youth unemployment has already caused unrest in the capital N'djamena. Vulnerability to climate is made worse by civil unrest or conflict because people cannot receive the help they need during climate-related disasters such as droughts or floods.
Chad also hosts some 300,000 refugees from Darfur on its eastern border with Sudan, according to UN figures, while an additional 67,000 refugees from the Central African Republic are in camps on its southern border. These refugees consume Chad's limited resources and sometimes compete with the local population. This creates resentment and sometimes violence between the refugees and their hosts.

Farchana refugee camp in eastern Chad. European Commission DG ECHO, CC BY-SA

To make matters worse, the Boko Haram crisis in northeastern Nigeria has spilled over to the Lac region of Chad, which now has more than 60,000 displaced people registered there and several thousand more that are unregistered. This is worrying as the country's unemployed youth, restless and with plenty of time on their hands, could be at risk of recruitment and radicalisation by Boko Haram.

The way forward
Despite these challenges, there are ways to mitigate the effect of climate change. For instance, farmers in Chad's semi-arid Sahelian zone have been using an indigenous rainwater harvesting technique called Zaï to successfully grow crops. Zaï involves the digging of small pits and sowing crops in them. The pits retain water for a long period of time and are particularly efficient when there isn't much rain.

Zaï in action (photo taken in neighbouring Niger). CGIAR Climate / flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

The Zaï technique was enhanced by introducing manure and compost into the pits to provide nutrients to the crops. This helped rehabilitate soils that are heavily degraded and significantly increased the yields of food crops.
Agroforestry, the combining of crops and trees in the same patch of land, can also help mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Tree roots stabilise soils and protect them from eroding during heavy rainfall, while also restoring fertility simply by producing litter which eventually makes its way back into the earth.
Of course, any country would be better placed to deal with climate change if it simply became much wealthier. Chad began producing petroleum in 2003, and it now accounts for 93% of all exports. However, this left the country vulnerable to declines in oil prices. So, when the price did indeed crash in late 2014, Chad suffered a significant loss of revenue. Needless to say, the impact of climate-related disasters such as droughts or floods becomes magnified if the country does not have the resources to combat them.
Chad cannot rely on oil forever. Farming is still the mainstay of its economy and, in the longer term, developing sustainable agriculture and livestock farming will be key in providing employment and maintaining food security.

Links

• Climate refugees: in the too-hard basket?
• Climate change and drought: a spark in igniting Syria's civil war
• Australia is not ready for the next big dry
• How world cities moving forward on climate change leave the US President behind
• The three-minute story of 800,000 years of climate change with a sting in the tail
• To slow climate change, India joins the renewable energy revolution

Top Global Banks Still Lend Billions To Extract Fossil Fuels

The Guardian - Fiona Harvey

Analysis of world’s lenders reveals many claim green credentials while still financing fuels like tar sands, oil and coal

Dozens of Fs were awarded (on a scale of A to F) for tar and oil sands exploitation. Photograph: Aaron Huey/National Geographic/Getty Images

Some of the world’s top banks are continuing to lend tens of billions for extracting the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels, according to a report of top lenders.
Finance provided for these fossil fuels – tar sands and other unconventional oil and gas, as well as coal and liquefied natural gas – amounted to $87bn for the top 37 banks in 2016. That represented a slump of more than a fifth compared with the $111bn raised the previous year, and was also down on 2014’s total of $92bn.
However, the analysis, carried out by a group of NGOs including the Rainforest Action Network and Sierra Club, showed that multinational banks around the globe, including many household names, were trumpeting their green credentials while continuing to pour money into the dirtiest fuels.
The report, entitled Banking on Climate Change 2017, scored the institutions from A to F on their practices, including the banks’ policies, the nature of the investments, the size and type of transactions, and the impact on climate change.
The highest rating went to a handful of banks who scored a B for having scaled back their support for coal mining and coal-fired power generation, including France’s Credit Agricole and Germany’s Deutsche Bank, but none of those studied fared well across the board, and dozens of Fs were awarded for tar sands exploitation and ultra-deep water drilling for oil.
Banks in Asia tended to fare badly, including China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and Mizuho. The UK’s HSBC and Barclays scored above average for good practice on coal mining but slipped down to a D and below on unconventional oil and LNG exports.
Big banks were among the most vocal supporters of the Paris climate agreement – which aims to keep warming to below 2C – and many set out supportive policies. For instance, in 2015, ahead of Paris, Citigroup and Bank of America pledged to reduce their financing of coal as a way of limiting their exposure to carbon-intensive fossil fuels.
But the report’s publishers said the finance groups needed to show more commitment in their lending practices, and warned that last year’s sharp fall in financing for carbon-intensive fuels could turn out to be a blip if banks followed the lead of Donald Trump, the US president, who this month rejected the Paris agreement.
Yann Louvel, climate and energy campaign coordinator at BankTrack, said: “There is simply not enough time left for excuse-making, fiddling at the policy edges and more egregious investments in extreme infrastructure projects, [such as] pipelines that transport tar sands oil. We hear of [banks’] revulsion to Trump’s stance on climate change and their support for clean investments, yet their actions of continued investments in extreme fossil fuels demonstrate that they actually side with the Trump approach.”
Lena Moffitt, senior campaign director at the Sierra Club, predicted that individual bank customers would make decisions on where to put their money based on how they performed on climate change. “The people are watching where and what banks sink their funds into, and they will not back down until every last one commits to investing in a future that benefits their communities, their economies, and their health.”
Separately, research from the OECD found that few countries were doing as well as they should on fostering greener economic growth. In a survey of industrialised nations’ performance from 1990 to 2015, only about half had managed to “decouple” their economic growth from carbon emissions, which economists believe is key to maintaining prosperity while tackling climate change.
The OECD named Denmark, Estonia, the UK, Italy and the Slovak Republic as those making the most progress on green growth since 2000.
Simon Upton, environment director at OECD, warned that countries must step up their policies to achieve economic growth sustainably. “While there are signs of greening growth, most countries show progress on just one or two fronts and little on others,” he said. “We need much greater efforts across the board, if we are to safeguard natural assets, reduce our collective environmental footprint, and sever the link between growth and environmental pressure.”
For instance, environment-related taxation has fallen in the last 20 years, and the rate of development of new green technologies has slowed since 2011. Meanwhile, air pollution remains “dangerously high”, with fewer than one in three developed countries meeting World Health Organisation guidelines on fine particulates, and an area the size of the UK has been covered by buildings since 1990, adding to stress on food supplies and water.
Several banks told the Guardian they were actively engaged in a transition away from high-carbon fossil fuels. Bank of America said its coal policy had been on a “trajectory we have had in place for several years, to continue to reduce our credit exposure to the companies focused on coal mining”, and that it would “continue to help energy clients find ways to diversify their portfolio to include cleaner fuel sources”.
Standard Chartered Bank, which is active in the developing world, came 31st in the list of 37 banks in terms of exposure to high-carbon fuel. A spokesman said: “The emerging markets we operate in need reliable and accessible energy to support economic growth. This needs to be balanced by mitigating the environmental impacts of power generation and consistent with the Paris agreement. We have tightened lending criteria to the energy sector.”
Banks also said the rankings and report failed to take account of their activities in boosting the green economy, such as investments in renewable energy and underwriting green bonds for socially and environmentally beneficial projects.
Deutsche Bank said it had revised its approach in December 2016, which would not have been captured in the report’s data. As a result of the revision, Deutsche Bank no longer grants new finance for greenfield thermal coal mining or new coal-fired power plant construction, and is reducing its exposure to the sector.
A spokesman for HSBC said: “Dangerous levels of climate change will only be avoided by society working together, and governments, businesses, communities and civil society share a common goal. The finance sector has an important role and HSBC will play its full part in the critical transition to a low-carbon economy.”

Links

• Big Australian banks invest $7bn more in fossil fuels than renewables, says report
• The best way to resist Trump ditching Paris? Divest from fossil fuels
• Green Investment Bank sell-off described as a disaster by critics
• Indian solar power prices hit record low, undercutting fossil fuels
• Global trade deal threatens Paris climate goals, leaked documents show
• Cambridge University rejects calls to divest from fossil fuels
• RBS pulls back fossil fuel investments as green deals grow
• Thomas Piketty calls for investors to divest from fossil fuels ahead of climate talks
• Australia's banks have 10% loans in risky fossil fuels, says investment adviser
• Church of England ends investments in heavily polluting fossil fuels
• BP dropped green energy projects worth billions to focus on fossil fuels

The End Of Being: Abrupt Climate Change One Of Many Ecological Crises Threatening To Collapse The Biosphere

EcoInternet - Dr. Glen Barry

At least 10 planetary boundaries exist that threaten to make the biosphere uninhabitable

As industrial human growth continues its relentless assault upon nature, at least nine unfolding global ecological catastrophes in addition to deadly climate change have the potential to destroy the biosphere.
Any number of other environmental planetary boundaries besides climate change such as biodiversity, water, soil, and ecosystem loss and diminishment has the potential to end being.
The already substantial climate change movement must embrace a richer ecology ethic, morphing into a concerted effort to more broadly achieve global ecological sustainability.

“We could solve climate change tomorrow, and soil and water loss – or any number of combinations of surpassed planetary ecological boundaries – would still destroy civilization, potentially killing the living biosphere, and ending being.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Human industrial growth is systematically dismantling the natural ecosystems which constitute our life support system.
Rightly so, there has been an enormous amount of attention given to climate change (though action to rapidly reduce emissions still lags far beyond what is required).
Climate change  is becoming abrupt and runaway; and threatens just by itself to collapse societies, economies, and ultimately the biosphere.
Yet climate change is only one of at least ten global ecological catastrophes which threaten to destroy the global ecological system and portend an end to human beings, and perhaps all life.
Ranging from nitrogen deposition to ocean acidification, and including such basics as soil, water, and air; virtually every ecological system upon which life depends is failing. Gaia is dying.
The threat to global ecological sustainability goes well beyond climate change, and represents a more systematic failing of current political and economic models.
Namely, the commodification of natural ecosystems – that are our and all life’s habitat – and their unsustainable industrial clearance for short-term profit, is sheer ecocidal madness.

The author has hypothesized that more old-growth forests have been lost than the biosphere can bear

A branch of ecological science known as Planetary Boundary science knows much regarding ecological thresholds whereby Earth and her life may collapse and die.
Planetary boundaries have been identified for ten global-scale processes including climate change, rate of biodiversity loss (terrestrial and marine), nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, ozone depletion, ocean acidification, freshwater, land use change, chemical pollution, and atmospheric aerosol loading (and others clearly exist).
For each scientists have set thresholds beyond which the global ecological system’s integrity as a whole is threatened.
At least three thresholds – climate change, biodiversity loss, and nitrogen deposition in ecosystems – are generally considered to already have been surpassed, meaning the planet is already in a state of ecological overshoot.
Recently I proposed in a peer reviewed scientific paper a tenth Planetary Boundary, adding a threshold for terrestrial ecosystem loss: hypothesizing that 2/3 of Earth’s land base must remain ensconced within natural and semi-natural ecosystems to avoid biosphere collapse (see Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse at http://ecointernet.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/MEQ-Terrestrial-Ecosystem-Loss-and-Biosphere-Collapse.pdf).
Already some 50% of natural ecosystems have been cleared, meaning yet another planetary ecological limit has been exceeded.
My identification of a terrestrial ecosystem boundary was the first published science proposing a planetary boundary based upon terrestrial ecosystem loss and connectivity, and has since been validated in other studies by scientific luminaries.
The point is that while abrupt climate change may well become runaway, collapsing society, the economy, and the biosphere; it is but one of nearly a dozen means whereby humanity has overshot the carrying capacity of the Earth System.
Consider this: nearly half of all topsoil has eroded, 90% of large fish are gone, 4,500 kids die from bad water a day, nearly a billion human-beings live in abject poverty, and daily an unknown numbers of species disappear forever.
Highly inequitable, unjust, and unsustainable industrial human growth is systematically dismantling the ecological systems that make Earth livable.
We could solve climate change tomorrow, and soil and water loss – or any number of combinations of surpassed planetary ecological boundaries – would still destroy civilization, potentially killing the living biosphere, and ending being.

Gaia is dying as planetary ecological boundaries are crossed

Achieving just and equitable global ecological sustainability depends upon the human family becoming more aware of the numerous ecological threats facing our shared survival and well-being. Together we must commit to the radical, science-based social change necessary to sustain Earth and all her life.
This will certainly require a shared “ecology ethic” which universally values nature – the plants, wildlife, and ecological processes that make life possible. Ecology is the meaning of life.

Clearly much more research remains to be done on Planetary Boundaries and threats to the biosphere in sum, as well as communication of dangerous thresholds, and policy development to pull back from the precipice.
I hope to look further at lag times in regard to when exceeding planetary boundary’s thresholds become dangerous, and to use what is known regarding Pacific Islands’ sustainability as a test case for terrestrial ecosystem loss, and to publish further ecological science.
Most importantly, much more effort must be made to act with urgency and resolve upon the science that indicates we face mortal danger.
The way forward on a potentially terminally-ill planet include:

1. transitioning to a steady state economy,
2. slowing population growth and then justly reducing human numbers,
3. committing to equitably meeting all of humanity’s basic human needs,
4. ending all natural ecosystem destruction and assisting remnants to naturally regenerate and spread,
5. ending the use of fossil fuels,
6. embracing organic, non-industrial, perma-culture based agriculture less dependent upon animal husbandry,
7. ending industrial clearance of natural ecosystems such as old-growth forest logging and factory fishing, and
8. demobilizing standing armies and diverting these resources to meeting humanity’s and nature’s needs.

Only such comprehensive, ecological-science based policies can prove sufficient to end climate change and all threats to global ecological sustainability, averting mass human suffering and death as the Earth collapses and dies.
As long as seeds and organisms exist, the propagules to regenerate Earth remain.
It is vital that the diminution of Earth’s biotic diversity across scales – from the gene, to plants and animals, through the communities and ecosystems they come together to form, right up to our one shared biosphere – be halted immediately.
We must not further squander humanity’s biological inheritance upon the altar of frivolous over-consumption by some. And together we must usher in an era of natural ecosystem protection and restoration.
There are many righteous livelihoods – that go far beyond the benefits provided by a slave-like debt economy – to be found in rewilding and pulling humanity back from the ruin of usurping planetary boundaries.
But profiteering upon the systematic ecocide of our one living Earth will have to be banished, and strictly enforced for the common good, by a much reduced government.
There is much joy to be found in nature. Rediscovering wild places and clear waters in communities embraced by nature provides for a far richer life than shopping malls and highways.
As we rediscover a sense of place there are multitudes of pleasures to be found as well in human literature, music, drama, sexuality, and community. Urban centers can be reclaimed from automobiles and once again become re-natured centers of commerce, culture, and civilization.
It is time to come together and choose life over death, truth over ignorance, beauty over industry, flowers rather than electronics.
It is time to return to the land and embrace nature and ecology as the meaning of life. And to address with sufficient policies climate change and all threats to global ecological sustainability at once. Or being ends.

Links

• California Wildfires Are Abrupt Climate Change, Ecological Collapse
• Declaring Climate Peace in an Age of Ecological Restoration
• Collapse of Antarctic glaciers seems to be unstoppable
• With Sudden Greenland Ice Melt, Reiterating Declaration of Planetary Ecological Emergency

Australian Health Groups Urge Coal Phase-Out And Strong Emissions Reduction

The Guardian - Michael Slezak

World-first climate and health framework from 30 health and medical groups calls for recognition of citizens’ ‘right to health’

‘We are conducting a planetary-scale experiment with uncontrolled dumping of CO2 at a rate that is truly frightening. We have to stop,’ Nobel laureate Peter Doherty says. Photograph: Steve Marcus/Reuters

To save hundreds of lives and billions of dollars, Australia should rapidly phase out coal power stations and establish strong emissions reduction targets, according to a coalition of 30 major health and medical groups.
A world-first National Climate and Health Strategy framework launched after 12 months of consultation and development by the Public Health Association of Australia, the Royal Australian College of General Practice and the Australian College of Nursing, today launched their framework, which they say is needed to avert a health emergency which threatens to undermine 50 years of gains in development and health.
Many of the policy recommendations made by the coalition are “win-win”, which both reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as reducing the social and economic costs of sickness.
Fiona Armstrong, the executive director of the Climate and Health Alliance, said the framework provides a comprehensive roadmap for achieving Australia’s obligation under the Paris Agreement to recognise its citizens’ “right to health”.
Peter Doherty, Nobel laureate for medicine and campaign ambassador for Our Climate Health said: “We are currently conducting a planetary-scale experiment with uncontrolled dumping of CO2 at a rate that is truly frightening. No university ethics committee would ever sanction such a study for mice, let alone humans. We have to stop.”
He told Guardian Australia he thought awareness of the health impacts of climate change needed to be embedded into all other policy areas – from building design to transport infrastructure and health funding.
There were already many health-related costs of climate change being seen in Australia, the framework document points out. For example, heatwaves in 2009 and 2014 contributed to hundreds of deaths in Victoria and projections suggest the figure will rise to several thousand additional deaths from heatwaves by 2050.
It also points out the use of coal is contributing to 4,000 deaths each year, mostly by exacerbating existing chronic cardiac and respiratory illnesses.
There is also already an economic burden, with extreme heat costing the Australian economy $8bn each year through reduced productivity, and the health effects of bushfires often costing billions.
The policy framework has seven key areas, and more than 50 recommendations, which require a coordinated national approach, involving the commonwealth government.
Among those recommendations are 26 relating to emissions-reduction policies that would also improve the health of the community. Among those, the coalition calls for a “rapid” transition away from coal power and fossil fuels “with appropriate support for affected workers and communities to ensure a just transition.” It also calls for the removal of subsidies for fossil fuels and for investment in zero-emissions transport infrastructure such as trains and bicycle paths.
Other policy areas the framework deals with include emergency and disaster-preparedness, building a climate-resilient healthcare sector and research and data.
Efforts in other countries to address climate and health surpassed that made in Australia, the framework document notes.
In the US, the Centre for Disease Control outlines 11 different policy actions for climate change and promotes research into climate change and health, as well s preparedness.
The EU has guidance for member states on protecting their communities from the impacts of climate change and the UK has mitigation and adaptation policies for the health sector.
Nick Watts, executive director at Lancet Countdown, a major international project that aims to measure and track countries’ progress on climate and health, said if adopted, the framework would make Australia a leader in the area. “The implementation of a national strategy on climate change and health could put Australia in a leadership position globally and go a long way to ensuring the protection of community health and well-being while reducing carbon emissions.”

Links

• Australia warned it has radically underestimated climate change security threat
• Ten years ago Turnbull called out Peter Garrett on climate. What went wrong?
• Pittsburgh and Paris join over 200 cities and states rejecting Trump on climate
• Renewable energy spike led to sharp drop in emissions in Australia, study shows
• 'Clean coal', CCS and CSG will not save fossil fuels – their game is up
• German coalition agrees to cut carbon emissions up to 95% by 2050
• World Bank says Paris climate goals at risk from new coal schemes
• Business and academic leaders urge new conversation about coal-free future
• US clean power plan setback 'will not affect Paris climate change deal'
• India says Paris climate deal won't affect plans to double coal output

Australia, Deep In Climate Change's 'Disaster Alley', Shirks Its Moral Responsibility

Fairfax - Ian Dunlop*

A government's first responsibility is to safeguard the people and their future well-being. The ability to do this is threatened by human-induced climate change, the accelerating effects of which are driving political instability and conflict globally. Climate change poses an existential risk to humanity that, unless addressed as an emergency, will have catastrophic consequences.
In military terms, Australia and the adjacent Asia-Pacific region is considered to be "disaster alley", where the most extreme effects are being experienced. Australia's leaders either misunderstand or wilfully ignore these risks, which is a profound failure of imagination, far worse than that which triggered the global financial crisis in 2008. Existential risk cannot be managed with conventional, reactive, learn-from-failure techniques. We only play this game once, so we must get it right first time.
Illustration: Trump flips the bird to the world
Though Australia's climate policies are woeful, we're still in the Paris Climate Accord, unlike the USA. Artist: Matt Davidson.

This should mean an honest, objective look at the real risks to which we are exposed, guarding especially against more extreme possibilities that would have consequences damaging beyond quantification, and which human civilisation as we know it would be lucky to survive.
Instead, the climate and energy policies that successive Australian governments adopted over the last 20 years, driven largely by ideology and corporate fossil-fuel interests, deliberately refused to acknowledge this existential threat, as the shouting match over the wholly inadequate reforms the Finkel review proposes demonstrates too well. There is overwhelming evidence that we have badly underestimated both the speed and extent of climate change's effects. In such circumstances, to ignore this threat is a fundamental breach of the responsibility that the community entrusts to political, bureaucratic and corporate leaders.
A hotter planet has already taken us perilously close to, and in some cases over, tipping points that will profoundly change major climate systems: at the polar ice caps, in the oceans, and the large permafrost carbon stores. Global warming's physical effects include a hotter and more extreme climate, more frequent and severe droughts, desertification, increasing insecurity of food and water supplies, stronger storms and cyclones, and coastal inundation.
Climate change was a significant factor in triggering the war in Syria, the Mediterranean migrant crisis and the "Arab spring", albeit this aspect is rarely discussed. Our global carbon emission trajectory, if left unchecked, will drive increasingly severe humanitarian crises, forced migrations, political instability and conflicts.
Australia is not immune. We already have extended heatwaves with temperates above 40 degrees, catastrophic bushfires, and intense storms and floods. The regional effects do not receive much attention but are striking hard at vulnerable communities in Asia and the Pacific, forcing them into a spiral of dislocation and migration. The effects on China and South Asia will have profound consequences for employment and financial stability in Australia.
In the absence of emergency action to reduce Australian and global emissions far faster than currently proposed, the level of disruption and conflict will escalate to the point that outright regional chaos is likely. Militarised solutions will be ineffective. Australia is failing in its duty to its people, and as a world citizen, by playing down these implications and shirking its responsibility to act.

Bushfires that destroy property and lives are increasingly regular across Australia. Photo: Jason South

Nonetheless, people understand climate risks, even as their political leaders underplay or ignore them. About 84 per cent of 8000 people in eight countries surveyed recently for the Global Challenges Foundation consider climate change a "global catastrophic risk". The result for Australia was 75 per cent. Many people see climate change as a bigger threat than epidemics, weapons of mass destruction and the rise of artificial intelligence.
What is to be done if our leaders are incapable of rising to the task?

The new normal? Residents paddle down a street in Murwillumbah in March after heavy rains led to flash flooding. Photo: Jason O'Brien

First, establish a high-level climate and conflict taskforce in Australia to urgently assess the existential risks, and develop risk-management techniques and policies appropriate to that challenge.
Second, recognise that climate change is an global emergency that threatens civilisation, and push for a global, coordinated, practical, emergency response.

"We only play this game once, so we must get it right first time."

Third, launch an emergency initiative to decarbonise Australia's economy no later than 2030 and build the capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Fourth, help to build more resilient communities domestically and in the most vulnerable nations regionally; build a flexible capacity to support communities in likely hot spots of instability and conflict; and rethink refugee policies accordingly.

Young children walk through debris in Vanuata after Cyclone Pam hit in 2015. Photo: Unicef

Fifth, ensure that Australia's military and government agencies are fully aware of and prepared for this changed environment; and improve their ability to provide aid and disaster relief.
Sixth, establish a national leadership group, outside conventional politics and drawn from across society, to implement the climate emergency program.
A pious hope in today's circumstances? Our leaders clearly do not want the responsibility to secure our future. So "everything becomes possible, particularly when it is unavoidable".

*Ian Dunlop was an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chairman of the Australian Coal Association and chief executive of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. This is an extract from his report with David Spratt, Disaster alley: climate change, conflict and risk, released on Thursday.

Links

• Hotter Planet, Humanitarian Crisis
• Global Energy Use Indicates We're Heading Toward Climate Emergency Faster Than We Thought
• Global Warming Could Yield Catastrophic Effects Sooner Than We Think
• The Global Impacts of Rapidly Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice
• Climate Change Effects on Weather Are "Possibly Catastrophic," Scientist Says
• This is not rhetoric: the Adani mine will kill millions

Australia Warned It Has Radically Underestimated Climate Change Security Threat

The Guardian - Ben Doherty

Senate inquiry starts as report into political, military and humanitarian risks of climate change across Asia Pacific released

Fijian girl walks over flooded land in her village. Photograph: chameleonseye/Getty Images

As the Senate launches an inquiry into the national security ramifications of climate change, a new report has warned global warming will cause increasingly regular and severe humanitarian crises across the Asia-Pacific.
Disaster Alley, written by the Breakthrough Centre for Climate Restoration, forecasts climate change could potentially displace tens of millions from swamped cities, drive fragile states to failure, cause intractable political instability, and spark military conflict.
Report co-author Ian Dunlop argues Australia’s political and corporate leaders, by refusing to accept the need for urgent climate action now, are “putting the Australian community in extreme danger”.
“Global warming will drive increasingly severe humanitarian crises, forced migration, political instability and conflict. The Asia Pacific region, including Australia, is considered to be ‘disaster alley’ where some of the worst impacts will be experienced,” the report, released this morning, says.
“Australia’s political, bureaucratic and corporate leaders are abrogating their fiduciary responsibilities to safeguard the people and their future wellbeing. They are ill-prepared for the real risks of climate change at home and abroad.”

On Friday, the Senate passed a motion for an inquiry into the threats and long-term risks posed by climate change to national and international security, and Australia’s readiness to mitigate and respond to climate-related crises in our region.
Dunlop, a former chairman of the Australian Coal Association and chief executive of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, told the Guardian the security impacts of climate change were not far-distant future concerns, but happening now.
The ongoing Syrian civil war – which has killed 450,000 and forced an estimated 5.5 million people to flee the country over six years of conflict – is attributed, in significant part, to an extended drought, exacerbated by climate change, that left millions without food or livelihoods.
“Once these effects start, then they unfold right the way through the system as an accelerant,” Dunlop said. “Natural disasters lead to social pressures, to increasing conflicts, competing claims for scarce resources. These fuel extremist positions, which could be religious, tribal, or political, which can lead to mass migrations. We are going to see a lot of people start moving, in our region especially, and to think we stop that by finessing things like ‘stop the boats’, is frankly naive.”
Dunlop said the global nature of the climate change challenge should force countries to cooperate.
“Climate change has to become seen as a reason for far greater levels of global cooperation than we’ve seen before. If we don’t see it that way, then we’re going to be in big trouble. This problem is bigger than any of us, it’s bigger than any nation state, any political party.
“We’re going to be steamrolled by this stuff unless we take serious action now.”
The security implications of climate change have been identified by thinktanks, governments, and militaries across the world.
A decade ago, Alan Dupont and Graeme Pearman wrote for the Lowy Institute that the security threat posed by climate change had been largely ignored and seriously underestimated.
In 2013 the commander of US Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, said the greatest long-term threat in the Asia-Pacific was not military ambitions of another state, or the threat of nuclear weapons, but climate change.
In 2015, the US Department of Defense commissioned a report, examining the security implications of disrupted climate, and current secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, has said climate change is a clear and current threat to US troops.
Australia’s 2016 defence white paper said climate change would contribute to state fragility, which it identified as one of the six key drivers that will “shape the development of Australia’s security environment to 2035”.
“Climate change will be a major challenge for countries in Australia’s immediate region. Climate change will see higher temperatures, increased sea-level rise and will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. These effects will exacerbate the challenges of population growth and environmental degradation, and will contribute to food shortages and undermine economic development.”
“Instability in our immediate region could have strategic consequences for Australia should it lead to increasing influence by actors from outside the region with interests inimical to ours. It is crucial that Australia help support the development of national resilience in the region to reduce the likelihood of instability.”
The Senate inquiry into the national security threats of climate change will report in December. But the issue remains politically charged.
Greens senator Scott Ludlam, in putting the motion before the Senate said the government had failed to apprehend the global security risk posed by climate change.
“As one of the highest per-capita emitters on the planet, Australia must play a constructive role as our region responds to climate change. The government won’t listen to the scientists, and it won’t listen to the renewable energy sector. Maybe it will listen to defence and security experts and the personnel on the frontline.”
But assistant minister to the prime minister, Senator James McGrath, said the inquiry was unnecessary.
He told the Senate a defence climate security adviser had been established within the office of the vice chief of the defence force group. As well, an environmental planning and advisory cell has been established within headquarters joint operations command, and defence is represented at the government’s disaster and climate resilience reference group.

Links

• How Australia's climate policies came to be poisoned by pragmatism
• Australia's carbon emissions rise in off-season for first time in a decade
• Climate change: 90% of rural Australians say their lives are already affected
• Australia needs two emissions trading schemes, Climate Change Authority says