09/08/2017

Another Attack On The Bureau, But Top Politicians Have Stopped Listening To Climate Change Denial

The Conversation - 

Thredbo, scene of the latest attack on the Bureau of Meteorology’s methods. AAP Image/Alison Godfrey
Has the Australian climate change debate changed? You could be forgiven for thinking the answer is no.
Just this week The Australian has run a series of articles attacking the Bureau of Meteorology’s weather observations. Meanwhile, the federal and Queensland governments continue to promote Adani’s planned coal mine, despite considerable environmental and economic obstacles. And Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions are rising again.
So far, so familiar. But something has changed.
Those at the top of Australian politics are no longer debating the existence of climate change and its causes. Instead, four years after the Coalition was first elected, the big political issues are rising power prices and the electricity market. What’s happening?
A few years ago, rejection of climate science was part of the Australian political mainstream. In 2013, the then prime minister Tony Abbott repeated a common but flawed climate change denial argument:
Australia has had fires and floods since the beginning of time. We’ve had much bigger floods and fires than the ones we’ve recently experienced. You can hardly say they were the result of anthropic [sic] global warming.
Abbott’s statement dodges a key issue. While fires and floods have always occurred, climate change can still alter their frequency and severity. In 2013, government politicians and advisers, such as Dennis Jensen and Maurice Newman, weren’t shy about rejecting climate science either.
The atmosphere is different in 2017, and I’m not just talking about CO₂ levels. Tony Abbott is no longer prime minister, Dennis Jensen lost preselection and his seat, and Maurice Newman is no longer the prime minister’s business advisor.
Which Australian politician most vocally rejects climate science now? It isn’t the prime minister or members of the Coalition, but One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts. In Australia, open rejection of human-induced climate change has moved to the political fringe.
Roberts has declared climate change to be a “fraud” and a “scam”, and talked about climate records being “manipulated by NASA”. He is very much a conspiracy theorist on climate, as he is on other topics including banks, John F. Kennedy, and citizenship. His approach to evidence is frequently at odds with mainstream thought.

ABC Q&A
We've had a pause in warming & NASA corrupted data, says Malcolm Roberts. Professor Brian Cox examines the graphs.

This conspiratorial approach to climate change is turning up elsewhere too. I was startled by the author list of the Institute of Public Affairs’ new climate change book. Tony Heller (better known in climate circles by the pseudonym Steven Goddard) doesn’t just believe climate change is a “fraud” and a “scam”, but has also promoted conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre. This is a country mile from sober science and policy analysis.
So where is the Australian political mainstream? It’s not denying recent climate change and its causes, but instead is now debating the policy responses. This is exemplified by political arguments about the electricity market, power prices, and the Finkel Review.
While this is progress, it’s not without serious problems. The debate may have rightly moved on to policy rather than science, but arguments for “clean coal” power are at odds with coal’s high CO₂ emissions and the failure thus far of carbon capture. Even power companies show little interest in new coal-fired power plants to replace those that have closed.
The closure of the Hazelwood power station was politically controversial. Jeremy Buckingham/flickr
History repeating?
Have those who rejected global warming and its causes changed their tune? In general, no. They still imagine that scientists are up to no good. The Australian’s latest attacks on the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) illustrate this, especially as they are markedly similar to accusations made in the same newspaper three years ago.
This week, the newspaper’s environment editor Graham Lloyd wrote that the BoM was “caught tampering” with temperature logs, on the basis of measurements of cold temperatures on two July nights at Goulburn and Thredbo. For these nights, discrepant temperatures were in public BoM databases due to automated weather stations that stopped reporting data. The data points were flagged for BoM staff to verify, but in the meantime an amateur meteorologist contacted Lloyd and the Institute of Public Affairs’ Jennifer Marohasy.
In 2014, Lloyd cast doubt on the BoM’s climate record by attacking the process of “homogenisation,” with a particular emphasis on data from weather stations in Rutherglen, Amberley and Bourke. Homogenisation is used to produce a continuous temperature record from measurements that may suffer from artificial discontinuities, such as in the case of weather stations that have been upgraded or moved from, say, a post office to an airport.
The Tuggeranong Automatic Weather Station. Bidgee/Wikimedia Commons
Lloyd’s articles from this week and 2014 are beat-ups, for similar reasons. The BoM’s ACORN-SAT long-term temperature record is compiled using daily measurements from 112 weather stations. Even Lloyd acknowledges that those 112 stations don’t include Goulburn and Thredbo. While Rutherglen, Amberley and Bourke do contribute to ACORN-SAT, homogenisation of their data (and that of other weather stations) does little to change the warming trend measured across Australia. Australia has warmed over the past century, and The Australian’s campaigns won’t change that.
In 2014, the government responded to The Australian’s campaign by commissioning the Technical Advisory Forum, which has since reviewed ACORN-SAT and found it to be a “well-maintained dataset”. Prime Minister Abbott also considered a taskforce to investigate BoM, but was dissuaded by the then environment minister Greg Hunt.
How will Malcolm Turnbull’s government respond to The Australian’s retread of basically the same campaign? Perhaps that will be the acid test for whether the climate debate really has changed.

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CBA Hit With 'Lawfare' From Shareholders, Green Group Over Climate Change

AFR - Andrew Tillett

Protestor's closed a number of Commonwealth Bank branches down in Newcastle in July to protest the banks investment in coal. Supplied
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia's woes are continuing, with a green activist group launching legal action on Tuesday on behalf of two mum and dad shareholders accusing the bank of failing to adequately disclose "climate change risk" in its annual report.
Lawyers representing Environmental Justice Australia filed proceedings in the Federal Court, with the group claiming it was the first case in the world to test how companies should acknowledge the impact of global warming on their operations.
Melbourne art curator Guy Abrahams and medical practitioner Kim Abrahams allege that by inadequately disclosing the risk climate change posed to its business in its 2016 annual report, the bank breached the Corporations Act by failing to give a true and fair value of its financial position and performance.
They also allege the 2016 report did not inform investors of climate change risks.
They are seeking an injunction to prevent the CBA making the same omissions in future annual reporters.
"We bought Commonwealth Bank shares more than 20 years ago as an investment in our children's future," said Mr Abrahams, who also runs a not-for-profit arts group that agitates for action on mitigating climate change.
"We are deeply concerned about the serious risks climate change poses to the environment and society. The bank should tell investors about the risks climate change will have on its business."

Growing concern
EJA has seized on comments by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority board member Geoff Summerhayes, who told an Insurance Council of Australia forum earlier this year that climate risk was becoming an "important and explicit part" of regulators' thinking.
"If entities' internal risk management processes are not starting to include climate risk as something that has to be considered – even if risks are ultimately judged to be minimal or manageable – that seems a pretty reasonable indicator there might be something wrong with the process," he said.
"Similarly, if you're an investor and you're not already asking questions about how the companies you invest in approach these issues – perhaps you should be."
And prominent Sydney barrister Noel Hutley SC prepared a legal opinion late last year warning it was only a matter of time before litigation was launched against a company director who had failed to take steps to address climate risk.
"We believe the matter is of significant public interest. It should set an important precedent that will guide other companies on disclosing climate change risks," Environmental Justice Australia lawyer David Barnden said in February.
The plaintiffs want the case to also put the spotlight on CBA's failure to rule out bankrolling Adani's proposed Carmichael coal mine, which has seen it become a target of left-wing anti-coal activists.

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Climate Change Risk Disclosure Case Against The Commonwealth Bank Before The Federal Court

Environmental Justice Australia

Melbourne art curator Guy Abrahams and medical practitioner Kim Abrahams allege that by inadequately disclosing the risk climate change posed to its business in its 2016 annual report the Commonwealth Bank breached the Corporations Act.
Environmental Justice Australia has filed proceedings against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia on behalf of shareholders for failing to adequately disclose climate change risk in the bank’s 2016 annual report.
The claim was lodged in the Federal Court of Australia on behalf of longstanding CBA shareholders Guy and Kim Abrahams.
The proceeding is the first legal action by shareholders against a bank anywhere in the world that will test how public companies should disclose information about climate change risks in their annual reports.
The claim alleges that climate change risks pose material or major risks to the bank and by not disclosing the risks climate change poses to its business, CBA failed to give a true and fair view of its financial position and performance, in contravention of s 297 of the Corporations Act.
The claim also alleges that the directors’ report in the 2016 annual report inadequately disclosed climate change risks that investors reasonably required to make an informed assessment of the bank’s operations, financial position, business strategies and prospects for future financial years, as required by s 299A of the Corporations Act.
Abrahams v Commonwealth Bank of Australia also raises concerns about the risks, including reputational risks, of the Commonwealth Bank providing financial assistance or funding to Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine project.
The Concise Statement lodged in the Federal Court says Adani’s Carmichael project and whether it was being or would be funded by CBA is a matter of substantial controversy and concern. As such, CBA knew or ought to have known that the provision of any form of financial assistance for funding for Carmichael posed, and continues to pose, material or major risks to the bank.
The shareholders say those risks should have been disclosed in the 2016 annual report.
The shareholders seek a declaration that CBA, in failing to adequately disclose climate change risks in its 2016 annual report, contravened sections 297 and 299A of the Corporations Act.
The claim also seeks an injunction to stop the bank making the same omissions in future annual reports.
Guy and Kim Abrahams are represented by barristers Ron Merkel QC, Emrys Nekvapil and Sarah Zeleznikow.

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08/08/2017

Extreme Weather Seen Killing 152,000 Europeans A Year By 2100

Reuters - Kate Kelland

Snow covered fields near Warngau, southern Germany, April 27, 2017. Michael Dalder
LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's death toll from weather disasters could rise 50-fold by the end of this century, with extreme heat alone killing more than 150,000 people a year by 2100 if nothing is done to curb the effects of climate change, scientists said on Friday.
In a study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, the scientists said their findings showed climate change placing a rapidly increasing burden on society, with two in three people in Europe likely to be affected if greenhouse gas emissions and extreme weather events are not controlled.
The predictions, based on an assumption of no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and no improvement in policies to reduce the impact of extreme climatic events, show European weather-related deaths rising from 3,000 a year between 1981 and 2010 to 152,000 a year between 2071 and 2100.
"Climate change is one of the biggest global threats to human health of the 21st century, and its peril to society will be increasingly connected to weather-driven hazards," said Giovanni Forzieri of the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Italy, who co-led the study.
He said that "unless global warming is curbed as a matter of urgency", some 350 million Europeans could be exposed to harmful climate extremes on an annual basis by the end of the century.
The study analysed the effects of the seven most harmful types of weather-related disaster – heat waves, cold waves, wildfires, droughts, river and coastal floods and windstorms – in the 28 countries of the European Union, plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
The team looked at disaster records from 1981 to 2010 to estimate population vulnerability, then combined this with modelling of how climate change might progress and how populations might increase and migrate.
Their findings suggested heat waves would be the most lethal weather-related disaster and could cause 99 percent of all future weather-related deaths in Europe – rising from 2,700 deaths a year between 1981 and 2010 to 151,500 deaths a year in 2071 to 2100.
The results also predicted a substantial rise in deaths from coastal flooding, from six deaths a year at the start of the century to 233 a year by the end of it.
The researchers said climate change would be the main driver, accounting for 90 percent of the risk, while population growth, migration and urbanisation would account for 10 percent.
Paul Wilkinson, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who was not involved in the research, said its findings were worrying.
"Global warming could result in rapidly rising human impacts unless adequate adaptation measures are taken, with an especially steep rise in the mortality risks of extreme heat," he said.
The findings add "further weight to the powerful argument for accelerating mitigation actions" to limit emissions, slow climate change and protect population health, Wilkinson said.

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Extreme Heat Warnings Issued In Europe As Temperatures Pass 40c

The Guardian - 

Authorities in 11 countries warn residents and tourists to take precautions amid region’s most intense heatwave – nicknamed Lucifer – since 2003
Children play in a jet stream fountain in Pamplona, Spain. Photograph: Villar Lopez/EPA
Eleven southern and central European countries have issued extreme heat warnings amid a brutal heatwave nicknamed Lucifer, with residents and tourists urged to take precautions and scientists warning worse could be still to come.
Authorities in countries including Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia are on red alert, the European forecasters’ network Meteoalarm said, and swaths of southern Spain and France are on amber.
As temperatures in many places hit or exceeded 40C (104F) in the region’s most sustained heatwave since 2003, emergency services are being put on standby and people have been asked to “remain vigilant”, stay indoors, avoid long journeys, drink enough fluids and listen for emergency advice from health officials.
At least two people have died from the heat, one in Romania and one in Poland, and many more taken to hospital suffering from sunstroke and other heat-related conditions. Italy said its hospitalisation rate was 15% above normal and asked people in affected regions only to travel if their journey was essential. Polish officials warned of possible infrastructure failures.
A spokeswoman for Abta, the UK travel trade organisation, reinforced the advice for holidaymakers, saying they should take sensible precautions, keep hydrated by drinking plenty of water, stay out of the sun in the middle of the day, and follow any advice issued by health authorities in specific destinations.
A cyclist waits to cross a road next to a thermometer showing 41C in Valencia, eastern Spain. Photograph: Manuel Bruque/EPA
The heatwave, now in its fourth day and expected to last until next Wednesday, follows an earlier spell of extreme temperatures last month that fuelled a spate of major wildfires, exacerbated droughts in Italy and Spain, and damaged crops.
The highest temperature on Thursday was 42C in Cordoba, Spain, and Catania, Italy. Split in Croatia also hit 42.3C on Wednesday. The spell is forecast to peak at the weekend with temperatures of 46C or higher in Italy and parts of the Balkans.
Authorities in Italy, which is suffering its worst drought in 60 years, have placed 26 cities on the maximum extreme heat alert, including Venice and Rome. Many of Rome’s fountains have been turned off, and last week the city only narrowly averted drastic water rationing.
In Florence, the Uffizi art gallery was temporarily closed on Friday when the air-conditioning system broke down. In Hungary, keepers at Budapest zoo cooled down two overheating polar bears with huge ice blocks.
Temperatures along parts of Croatia’s Adriatic coast, including Dubrovnik, were expected to hit 42C during the day. In the Serbian capital of Belgrade there were reports of people fainting from heat exhaustion.

Extreme heat warnings across southern Europe as temperatures hit 40C and above
Guardian graphic | Source: Metroalarm 1pm Friday
Highs in Spain, including in popular holiday resorts on the Costa del Sol and on the island of Majorca, are set to reach 43C this weekend, with extreme conditions also forecast in Seville, Malaga and Granada. Ibiza and Mallorca could hit 42C, Spain’s Aemet meteorological service warned.
While Europe’s record high is 48C, set in Athens in 1977, current temperatures are in many places as much as 10-15C higher than normal for the time of year and likely to result in more fatalities, experts have said.
Europe’s record-breaking 2003 heatwave resulted in more than 20,000 heat-related deaths, mainly of old and vulnerable people, including 15,000 in France, where temporary mortuaries were set up in refrigerated lorries.
Such spells of extreme heat in southern Europe could be a foretaste of things to come. French researchers last month predicted summer conditions in some of the continent’s popular tourist destinations could become significantly tougher.
Szeriy, a polar bear at Budapest zoo, has been given blocks of ice to combat the heat. Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images
Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the scientists said if a similar “mega-heatwave” to that of 2003 were to occur at the end of the century, when average temperatures are widely expected to be noticeably higher after decades of global warming, temperatures could pass 50C.
The researchers noted that climate models suggest “human influence is expected to significantly increase the frequency, duration and intensity of heatwaves in Europe” and said their modelling suggested that by 2100, peak summer temperatures could rise by between 6C and 13C against historical records.
The village of Conqueyrac in the Gard department of France hit 44.1C on two occasions in the summer of 2003, the highest temperature ever recorded in the country, meaning “the record maximum value could easily exceed 50C by the end of the 21st century”, the scientists concluded.
The current extreme temperatures, coupled with strong winds, have fanned wildfires that have already caused more than 60 deaths this summer in Portugal and caused widespread damage in southern France, Greece and Italy.
About 300 firefighters and military personnel were fighting 75 wildfires on Friday in Albania, with firefighters also busy in Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Croatia, Greece and the French island of Corsica.
Children cool off in water on a square in Tirana, Albania. Photograph: Malton Dibra/EPA
In Italy, fires killed a 79-year-old woman in the central Abruzzo region and forced the closure of the main Via Aurelia coastal motorway that runs northwards from Rome to the Italian Riviera.
The country’s winemakers have started harvesting their grapes weeks earlier than usual due to the heat. The founder of the Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, said no harvest in living memory had begun before 15 August.
The heatwave is likely to cost Italy’s agricultural sector billions of euros, with as many as 11 regions facing critical water shortages. Olive yields in some areas are forecast to be down 50% and some milk production has fallen by up to 30%.
Bosnian officials said the heatwave and drought had nearly halved agricultural output, which represents 10% of the country’s economic output, and Serbia said its corn production could be cut a third.

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Donald Trump: Washington Formally Tells UN Of Paris Agreement Withdrawal

ABC News


US to withdraw from Paris climate accord (ABC News)

The Trump administration has officially told the United Nations the US intends to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement.
President Donald Trump announced in June the US would leave the pact, and now Washington has formally communicated this to the UN.
The US State Department described its communication with the UN as a "strong message" to the world, but the move was largely symbolic.
Mr Trump was still "open to re-engaging in the Paris agreement if the United States can identify terms that are more favourable to it, its business, its workers, its people and its taxpayers", the State Department said.
"The State Department is telling the UN what the President already told the world on June 1 and it has no legal effect," said Nigel Purvis, a US climate diplomat.

The Paris climate deal explained (ABC News)

The earliest date the United States can completely withdraw from the agreement is November, 2020, the time of the next US presidential election.
The State Department said the US would continue to participate in international meetings and negotiations on current and future climate change deals.

US business leaders react to Paris exit
Business leaders — including the heads of Tesla, Google, GE, Facebook, Amazon and oil giant Shell — say they do not support the US exiting the Paris climate accord.
The next meeting is in Bonn, Germany, in November.
The Paris agreement came into effect in November 2016 and aims to prevent the Earth from heating up by 2 degrees Celsius since the start of the industrial age.
Under the agreement, countries set their own national plans for cutting climate emissions.
That means Mr Trump can come up with different targets for the United States than those set by former president Barack Obama.
Under Mr Obama, the US agreed to reduce polluting emissions more than a quarter from 2005 levels by the year 2025. There is no climate court. All that is required in the agreement is a plan and reporting on progress toward reaching self-set goals.
The world has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. The overwhelming majority of scientists say the burning of coal, oil and gas is causing the Earth's climate to change because of heat-trapping gases.

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07/08/2017

Snowy Retreat: Climate Change Puts Australia's Ski Industry On A Downhill Slope

Fairfax - 

Australia's ski resorts face the prospect of a long downhill run as a warming climate reduces snow depth, cover and duration. The industry's ability to create artificial snow will also be challenged, scientists say.
Resorts are also going to become more reliant on big snow dumps such as this weekend's blizzard – after a poor start to the season – as the frequency of smaller, top-up snowfalls diminish.
Thredbo's looking good for now but the longer term outlook is less appealing. Photo: Andrew Meares
A snow retreat has been observed for half a century, with rising temperatures rather than reduced precipitation to blame, according to a major CSIRO-Bureau of Meteorology report. Under high greenhouse gas emissions pathway, snow at lower-elevation sites such as Mt Buffalo could all but disappear by 2050.
Warming springs have led to stark impacts at the end of the ski season. Early October snow depths fell 30 per cent during the 2000-13 period compared with 1954-99, a separate study in 2015 found.
The best snow dump of the season is expected over the weekend. Photo: Karl Gray
Snow is a "threshold variable". A slight temperature rise can turn snowflakes into rain that washes away, rather than adds to, snow cover.
That's why all climate projections point in one direction, says Tom Remenyi, a researcher at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre. It's both "encouraging and terrifying" that observations have matched models, giving researchers confidence about their bleak predictions, he said.
Reduced average snow depth at Spencers Creek in the Snowy Mountains.
'Step change'
"What we're fearing is that at some point, it's not going to really snow that much any more. There's going to be a step change," Dr Remenyi said.
Gerard Rampal, a scientific officer with Snowy Hydro, treks to gauge the snow depth level at Spencers Creek. Photo: Andrew Meares
"The models say the paradigm shift will happen in the next 10-20 years."
Those blasted in this weekend's snow storms might wonder if snow will be in short supply, with as much as a metre expected for some resorts.
As few as 2600 mountain pygmy possums remain in the wild. Photo: Ken Irwin
Sonya Fiddes, a researcher at Melbourne University's Australian-German Climate and Energy College who led a study on Australian snow trends, says that big dumps will still happen but warmer air and follow-up rains means the snow "probably won't stick around".
"The projected trends are for declining rainfall for south-eastern Australia, and an increase in extreme events," Ms Fiddes said.
Winter wonderland as snow hits NSW highlands
IMAGE GALLERY
Dr Remenyi concurs, noting models point to a 20 per cent drop in precipitation by the end of the century. Alpine summers may collect more rainfall – in fewer, larger events – but other seasons will see a decline.
The Victorian government is preparing a report in the future of alpine communities and the ski industry later this year.
NSW is working with the University of NSW to assess changing climate and snowmaking conditions, with research due out late this year or early 2018.

Industry view
Colin Hackworth, chief executive of the Australian Ski Areas Association, said the $1.5 billion industry has long recognised "if you have no snow, you have no business". Investments in snowmaking dates from the 1980s.
Popular resorts such as Mt Buller in Victoria have managed to extend operational days from about 100 in the 1970s to 106 in a typical year now, even with less natural snow. Diversification has also brought in "snow tourists", with many visitors just heading to the mountains to seek the white stuff rather than to ski or snowboard, he says.
"The industry is remarkably resilient," Mr Hackworth said. "It's a mature industry but it's growing every year."
Nor are resorts denying global warming is serious. Thredbo in NSW recently hosted a Protect Our Winters event "to raise awareness of the impact of climate change on our mountain environment".
And Vail Resorts, which operates Perisher, calls climate change "one of the most significant challenges facing every country, every business and every person on our planet". It aims for a zero environmental footprint by 2030.
Challenges, though, are only likely to intensify. Snow guns are becoming less efficient as humidity rises, reduce output of artificial snow by as much as 70 per cent as they ice up, Dr Remenyi said.
New "snow factories" have been introduced to Mt Buller and Mt Selwyn in Victoria, and more are likely. They create ice shavings with longer durability than gun-fired snow.
But warming temperatures will raise costs to maintain artificial snow cover, Dr Remenyi said. A study he helped write on the potential impact of climate change on Victoria's resorts found that "by 2020- 2030 conditions suitable for snowmaking are projected to decline substantially".
Expected reduction in snow-making hours at key Victorian resorts.
'Fragile ecology'
And as the NSW Nature Conservation Council notes in a new study on the effects of a warming planet, impacts in alpine regions aren't restricted to humans' winter pastimes.
The endangered pygmy possum, for instance, has had its range shrunk to a little as 10 square kilometres.
"The wildlife that lives in the Australia snowfields are at the front line of global warming because they are so sensitive to rising temperatures and changed snowfall patterns," Kate Smolski, council chief executive, said.
"If deep, long-lasting snow cover disappears, the fragile ecology of snowfields will unravel because the plants and animals that live there have nowhere else to go."

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