How Oman’s Rocks Could Help Save The Planet

New York Times - Henry Fountain | Photos Vincent Fournier

The rocks in Oman are special, according to a Columbia University geologist. They remove planet-warming carbon dioxide from the air and turn it to stone. In theory, these rocks could store hundreds of years of human emissions of CO₂. Storing even a fraction of that would not be easy. But it’s not impossible.

Columbia University geologist, Peter B. Kelemen, near Muscat, Oman. Large Image

IBRA, Oman — In the arid vastness of this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, out where goats and the occasional camel roam, rocks form the backdrop practically every way you look.
But the stark outcrops and craggy ridges are more than just scenery. Some of these rocks are hard at work, naturally reacting with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into stone.
Veins of white carbonate minerals run through slabs of dark rock like fat marbling a steak. Carbonate surrounds pebbles and cobbles, turning ordinary gravel into natural mosaics.

Carbonate veins form when water containing dissolved carbon dioxide flows through these rocks.

Even pooled spring water that has bubbled up through the rocks reacts with CO₂ to produce an ice-like crust of carbonate that, if broken, re-forms within days.

When the water comes back into contact with air, a thin layer of carbonate hardens across its surface.

Scientists say that if this natural process, called carbon mineralization, could be harnessed, accelerated and applied inexpensively on a huge scale — admittedly some very big “ifs” — it could help fight climate change. Rocks could remove some of the billions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that humans have pumped into the air since the beginning of the Industrial Age.
And by turning that CO₂ into stone, the rocks in Oman — or in a number of other places around the world that have similar geological formations — would ensure that the gas stayed out of the atmosphere forever.
“Solid carbonate minerals aren’t going anyplace,” said Peter B. Kelemen, a geologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who has been studying the rocks here for more than two decades.

The New York Times | Source: Peter B. Kelemen, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Capturing and storing carbon dioxide is drawing increased interest. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that deploying such technology is essential to efforts to rein in global warming. But the idea has barely caught on: There are fewer than 20 large-scale projects in operation around the world, and they remove CO₂ from the burning of fossil fuels at power plants or from other industrial processes and store it as gas underground.
What Dr. Kelemen and others have in mind is removing carbon dioxide that is already in the air, to halt or reverse the gradual increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration. Direct-air capture, as it is known, is sometimes described as a form of geoengineering — deliberate manipulation of the climate — although that term is more often reserved for the idea of reducing warming by reflecting more sunlight away from the earth.
Although many researchers dismiss direct-air capture as logistically or economically impractical, especially given the billions of tons of gas that would have to be removed to have an impact, some say it may have to be considered if other efforts to counter global warming are ineffective.
A few researchers and companies have built machines that can pull CO₂ out of the air, in relatively small quantities, but adapting and enhancing natural capture processes using rocks is less developed.
“This one still feels like the most nascent piece of the conversation,” said Noah Deich, executive director of the Center for Carbon Removal, a research organization in Berkeley, Calif. “You see these sparks, but I don’t see anything catching fire yet.”
Dr. Kelemen is one of a relative handful of researchers around the world who are studying the idea. At a geothermal power plant in Iceland, after several years of experimentation, an energy company is currently injecting modest amounts of carbon dioxide into volcanic rock, where it becomes mineralized. Dutch researchers have suggested spreading a kind of crushed rock along coastlines to capture CO₂. And scientists in Canada and South Africa are studying ways to use mine wastes, called tailings, to do the same thing.
“It’s clear that we’re going to have to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” said Roger Aines, who leads the development of carbon management technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and has worked with Dr. Kelemen and others. “And we’re going to have to do it on a gigaton scale.”
If billions of tons of CO₂ are to be turned to stone, there are few places in the world more suitable than Oman, a sultanate with a population of 4 million and an economy based on oil and, increasingly, tourism.

A view of Muscat, the capital. The tower in the distance, in Al Riyam Park, was inspired by an incense burner.

The carbon-capturing formations here, consisting largely of a rock called peridotite, are in a slice of oceanic crust and the mantle layer below it that was thrust up on land by tectonic forces nearly 100 million years ago. Erosion has resulted in a patchy zone about 200 miles long, up to 25 miles wide and several miles thick in the northern part of the country, including here in the outskirts of Ibra, a dusty inland city of 50,000. Even the bustling capital, Muscat, on the Gulf of Oman, has a pocket of peridotite practically overlooking Sultan Qaboos bin Said’s palace.
Peridotite normally is miles below the earth’s surface. When the rocks are exposed to air or water as they are here, Dr. Kelemen said, they are like a giant battery with a lot of chemical potential. “They’re really, really far from equilibrium with the atmosphere and surface water,” he said.
The rocks are so extensive, Dr. Kelemen said, that if it was somehow possible to fully use them they could store hundreds of years of CO₂ emissions. More realistically, he said, Oman could store at least a billion tons of CO₂ annually. (Current yearly worldwide emissions are close to 40 billion tons.)
While the formations here are special, they are not unique. Similar though smaller ones are found in Northern California, Papua New Guinea and Albania, among other places.
Dr. Kelemen first came to Oman in the 1990s, as the thrust-up rocks were one of the best sites in the world to study what was then his area of research, the formation and structure of the earth’s crust. He’d noticed the carbonate veins but thought they must be millions of years old.
“There was a feeling that carbon mineralization was really slow and not worth thinking about,” he said.
But in 2007, he had some of the carbonate dated. Almost all of it was less than 50,000 years old, suggesting that the mineralization process was actually much faster.

Carbonate veins show how CO₂ can be stored as rock.

“So then I said, O.K., this is pretty cool,” Dr. Kelemen said.
Since then, in addition to continuing his crust research, he has spent much time studying the prospects for harnessing the mineralization process — among other things, learning about the water chemistry, which changes as it flows through the rocks, and measuring the actual uptake of CO₂ from the air in certain spots.

Solid white carbonate, settled at the bottom of a pool.

For much of this decade he has also led a multinational effort to drill boreholes in the rock, a $4 million project that is only partly related to carbon capture. In March the drilling was nearing completion, with scientists and technicians sending instruments down the holes, which are up to 1,300 feet deep, to better characterize the rock layers.
The rocks here may be capable of capturing a lot of carbon dioxide, but the challenge is doing it much faster than nature, in huge amounts and at low enough cost to make it more than a pipe dream. Dr. Kelemen and his colleagues, including Juerg Matter, a researcher from the University of Southampton in England who was involved in the Icelandic project, have some ideas.

A crew drilling a borehole outside Ibra, part of a project to better understand the geology of Oman.

One possibility, Dr. Kelemen said, would be to drill pairs of wells and pump water with dissolved CO₂ into one of them. As the water traveled through the rock formation carbonate would form; when it reached the other well the water, now depleted of CO₂, would be pumped out. The process could be repeated over and over.
There is a lot that is unknown about such an approach, however. For one thing, while pumping water deep into the earth, where temperatures and pressures are higher, could make the process of mineralization go tens of thousands of times faster, so much carbonate might form that the water flow would stop. “You might clog everything up, and it would all come to a screeching halt,” Dr. Kelemen said.

Drillers sample the cuttings from the borehole every meter of depth so geologists can analyze the rock.

Experiments and eventually pilot projects are needed to better understand and optimize this process and others, Dr. Kelemen said, but so far Omani officials have been reluctant to grant the necessary permits. The researchers may need to go elsewhere, like California, where the rocks are less accessible but the state government has set ambitious targets for reducing emissions and is open to new ways to meet them.
Dr. Kelemen and Dr. Aines have had preliminary discussions with California officials about the possibility of experimenting there. “We would certainly be a willing and eager partner to help them with it,” said David Bunn, director of the State Department of Conservation.
Perhaps the simplest way to use rocks to capture carbon dioxide would be to quarry large amounts of them, grind them into fine particles and spread them out to expose them to the air. The material could be turned over from time to time to expose fresh surfaces, or perhaps air with a higher CO₂ concentration could be pumped into it to speed up the process.
But a quarrying and grinding operation of the scale required would be hugely expensive, scar the landscape and produce enormous CO₂ emissions of its own. So a few researchers are asking, Why not use rocks that have already been quarried and ground up for other purposes?

A small mountain of carbonate-rich rocks outside Lizugh, a town southwest of Muscat. Iron in the rocks has oxidized, turning them red.

Such rocks are found in large amounts at mines around the world, as waste tailings. Platinum, nickel and diamonds, in particular, are mined from rock that has a lot of carbon-mineralization potential.
Gregory Dipple, a researcher at the University of British Columbia who has been studying mine tailings for more than a decade, said early on he found evidence that waste rock was forming carbonate without any human intervention. “It was clear it was taking CO₂ from the air,” he said.
Dr. Dipple is now working with several mining companies and studying ways to improve upon the natural process. The goal would be to capture at least enough CO₂ to fully offset a mine’s carbon emissions, which typically come from trucks and on-site power generation.
Evelyn Mervine, who has worked with Dr. Dipple and Dr. Kelemen and now works for De Beers, the world’s largest diamond company, is studying a similar approach and hopes by next year to conduct trials at one or more of the company’s mines.
“We don’t think from a scientific perspective it would be that difficult or expensive — we can be carbon-neutral,” she said. “And in the mining industry that is extraordinary.”
“Relative to the global problem, it’s really just a drop in the bucket,” Dr. Mervine said. “But it sets a really good precedent.”

Dr. Kelemen has spent more than 20 years researching these rocks in Oman.

Links

• Peter B. Kelemen
• Direct Air Capture
• Capturing CO₂ from air
• Center for Carbon Removal
• Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Rock, and Burying It
• Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path
• De Beers Pioneers Research Programme To Make Carbon-Neutral Mining A Reality

Indigenous Women Show The Way For Banks To Divest From Fossil Fuels

Deutsche Welle - Katharina Wecker

First Nations women have met with European banks to push for fossil fuel divestment as the United Nations releases a model for banks to account for climate change. Grassroots action is helping the movement gain momentum.

The Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation take action for fossil fuel divestment in front of the Credit Suisse and UBS headquarters in the Zurich financial district.

"We face the Kinder Morgan pipeline not in our backyard, but in our kitchen. We were once able to harvest more than 90 percent of our diet from our land and waters — but we haven't been able to harvest any food since 1972."
Charlene Aleck from the indigenous Tsleil-Waututh Nation in Canada has traveled to Germany and Switzerland to tell bank managers how a big oil project they are financing is destroying her home.
Since 1953, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline has traced over 1,150 km (710 miles) of Canadian land, from Alberta to the west coast of British Columbia, carrying 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day straight through the homeland of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation.
Kinder Morgan is proposing to build a new pipeline alongside this existing one, in order to triple the amount of crude oil being transported. The project was initially approved by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016, but ongoing protests and lawsuits have temporarily put a hold on the construction.
Aleck and four other indigenous women from North America who are all affected by big oil projects were in Frankfurt, Germany, and Zurich, Switzerland, to meet face-to-face with managers from Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and UBS.
"I came here to let [the banks] know that the risk is too great for our nation — we want to let them know that the company they are investing in does not have our consent, and we oppose them in any legal way possible," Aleck told DW.

The planned second Trans Mountain pipeline would further damage the already degraded land of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, Aleck says.

The meetings were organized by the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) with the goal to hold banks accountable for their investments.
"Women are standing up for their own territories but also for the climate, for the water, for the forest, for the land. It’s important to understand that women who protect their land also protect the climate," Osprey Orielle Lake, executive director of WECAN, told DW.
In light of climate change, fossil fuels must be kept in the ground, she says. "And this is why we are asking banks to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy."

Growing movement
The indigenous women are part of a growing fossil fuel divestment movement. Over the last years, more than 700 public institutions worldwide have already committed to divest, including educational institutions, philanthropic foundations and governments.
A year ago, the German city of Göttingen has become the fourth German city that withdrew investment in coal, oil and gas companies. Earlier this year, New York City's pension fund announced it would pull round $5 billion (€4 billion) of its investments in fossil fuel companies.
Norway's trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund — the world's biggest — also proposed to drop oil and gas companies from its holdings, saying it already has enough exposure to the industry and wants to protect against fluctuating oil prices. The Norwegian government is set to decide in fall of 2018 about the divestment.

The divestment movement has spread around the world.

Also a number of Catholic institutions have been the latest addition to the trend. The humanitarian aid organization Caritas Internationalis, owned by the Catholic church, and three German Catholic banks announced in mid-April they would withdraw investments worth $7.5 billion out of big oil.
The Catholic banks are following the example of the Church of England, which divested from fossil fuel companies with the highest concentration of carbon companies after Pope Francis voiced in 2015 his concerns about climate change and the fossil fuel industry.

Big money, big responsibility
Banks and other financial institutions play a major role in limiting global warming by shifting investments from fossil fuels toward renewable energies and other low-carbon endeavors.
However, the fast-paced nature of the financial sector, with its quick and high turnarounds, is not exactly an environment that encourages divestment from fossil fuels.
To this end, the United Nations Environment Program has developed, together with several climate scientists and financial experts, a methodology to help banks understand how climate change and climate action could impact their business.


Will funding for coal soon run out?

UNEP Director Erik Solheim believes that the new methodology will help the finance industry change their perspective. He traces the environmental challenges of today back to "short-termism." "Financial markets can become a catalyst for action on sustainability, but for that they need to become more long-term oriented," he said in a statement presenting the methodology.
The framework "encourages organizations to consider and disclose long-term impacts," he added.
The methodology allows banks and financial institutions to "see" into the future, predicting how the Paris Agreement, if implemented as planned, will change our economies. For example, investment in coal companies today won't make much sense when coal power plants are eventually shut down.


If, on the other hand, governments push the renewable energy market to meet emissions-reduction goals, investments in wind and solar parks promise a higher return.
Elmar Kriegler, senior scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research who was part of the team that developed the methodology, says that after computing for investment risks and opportunities in a 2-degree world, it's up to the banks to make use of this.
"Big money also means big responsibilities," Kriegler said in a statement.
Sixteen banks from four continents — including Barclays, National Australia Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada — are currently testing and fine-tuning the methodology.
The indigenous women are hopeful that guidelines like these along with their continued pressure will get banks to eventually divest from big oil.

2017 Devastating effects of climate change: Oceans at risk
The high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere represent a major threat for our oceans, already in danger due to plastic pollution, overfishing and warming waters. Ocean acidification could make these waters — covering more than two-thirds of our planet's surface — a hostile environment for sea creatures. And without marine animals, entire ocean ecosystems are at risk.

Links

• Why Land Rights For Indigenous Peoples Could Be The Answer To Climate Change
• Climate Change 'Impacts Women More Than Men'
• Women Key To Fight Against Climate Change
• When Environmental Crises Hit Homes, Women Suffer The Most
• To Stop Climate Change, Educate Girls And Give Them Birth Control
• Lack Of Women In Energy ‘Holding Back Fight Against Climate Change’
• Bringing Women Together To Fight Climate Change
• 5 Ways Climate Change Is A Women’s Rights Issue
• Women Are Breaking The Climate Taboo And Questioning Whether To Have Kids In Such A World
• Mark Ruffalo, Noam Chomsky and Sir David Attenborough Join Forces for Climate Change Documentary
• Why Women Matter For Effective Climate Change Solutions – Analysis
• With Women At The Top, UN Climate Body Has Chance For Real Change
• The financial system killing environmental activists
• To combat climate change, increase women's participation

Making Cities Cooler Is A No Brainer – So Why Are We Doing So Little About It?

The Conversation - Tiziana Susca | Francesco Pomponi

Hot hot heat. TWStock

You walk through a park in a city on a warm day, then cross out to a narrow street lined with tall buildings. Suddenly, it feels much hotter. Many people will have experienced this, and climate scientists have a name for it: the urban heat island effect.
Heavily urbanised areas within cities are between 1℃ and 3℃ hotter than other areas. They are contributing to global warming and damaging people’s health, and it’s set to get worse as urbanisation intensifies.
Numerous cities around the world are trying to do something about this problem. But there is a very long way to go. So what is holding us back, and what needs to happen?
Urban heat relates to how most cities have been designed. Many rows of tall buildings are organised into blocks which resist any natural breeze. Streets and roofs are clad in dark materials like asphalt and bitumen, which retain more heat than lighter materials and natural surfaces like soil.

Roll out the bitumen. Dmitry Kalinovsky

Natural ground absorbs rain, which is evaporated by the sun’s rays on a warm day and released into the air, cooling everything down. In a city, the rain just runs into the sewer system instead.
Urban areas tend to lack trees. Trees help reduce the air temperature by blocking the sun’s rays, while cutting the levels of pollution by absorbing harmful particles.
Cities are also warmer because they are full of human activity. Everything from transport to industry to energy output makes them hotter than they otherwise would be.

Cause and effect
Urban heat has various consequences. Combined with heatwaves and global warming, both of which are also on the rise, these hotspots are producing conditions that kill and hospitalise growing numbers of people. The worst affected are the elderly and other vulnerable groups like the homeless.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that increased city temperatures lead to more pollutants in the air. These can aggravate respiratory diseases, particularly among children. As cities get bigger, more and more people will be affected by these threats to their health.

Il fait chaud. VladisChem

Higher city temperatures are one reason why we are using more and more air conditioning. One US study found that the urban heat island effect in Florida was responsible for over $400m (£287m) of extra aircon, for example.
Aircon feeds climate change by producing more carbon emissions through the extra electricity demand, creating a vicious circle where it gets hotter because more aircon is required. The increased energy demand means a greater risk of summer blackouts, causing both human discomfort and economic damage.
Hotter city roads and pavements also raise the temperature of storm-water runoff in sewers. This in turn makes rivers and lakes warmer, which can affect fish and other aquatic species in relation to things like feeding and reproduction.
Finally, there are major economic consequences to hotter cities. One paper from last year predicts that all the extra wear and tear caused by the excess heat would amount to between 1% and 10% of lost GDP in thousands of cities around the world.

How we’re reacting
The solutions to the problem are clear enough: they include using paler more reflective building materials, and wiser urban planning that incentivises more parks, tree planting and other natural open spaces.
When it comes to taking these steps, however, it’s a very mixed picture. Countries and municipal authorities have typically become very good at adopting plans to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They are not so good at taking steps to adapt to climate change. A study from 2014 found that most European cities had failed to introduce urban heat plans, and the situation looks little better today.
This being the case, city administrations that have gone the extra mile look particularly enlightened – even though they tend to be somewhat sporadic. Melbourne, for instance, has substituted its trademark bluestone pavements in several areas with a permeable version that absorbs rainwater, thereby increasing the amount of evaporation.
New York City’s Cool Roof Initiative has seen thousands of volunteers painting some of the city’s flat bituminous roofs with a reflective polymer material. Lately, Los Angeles has launched an initiative to paint roads white, part of a pledge by city hall to lower the temperature by 3℃ in the next 20 years. Beijing, meanwhile, has been introducing zoning measures to reduce smog.
Other administrations have been encouraging green roofs – rooftops covered in vegetation: they are a legal requirement for big new developments in Toronto; there are floor area bonuses for developers who include them in Portland, Oregon; and Chicago had a funding scheme for a while. In Swiss cities and regions, green roofs have been a legal requirement for many buildings for years.

Lofty shoots. Alison Hancock

These are all just pockets of activity, however. Many other mayors and city administrations need to start implementing the kinds of bylaws and incentives to adapt to the reality of hotter cities.
The cities of the future can still be green and cool, but only if they move up the agendas of many city halls. The laggards need to follow the example of those that have been leading the way. The reality is that the social, environmental and economic costs of urban heat islands add up to a bill that is too high for humanity to pay.

Links

• Green and cool roofs provide relief for hot cities, but should be sited carefully
• More Than 100 Cities Now Mostly Powered By Renewable Energy, Data Shows
• This Is How Climate Change Will Shift The World’s Cities
• How To Fix Climate Change: Put Cities, Not Countries, In Charge
• These Six Utopian Cities Of The Future Will Help You Re-Imagine Life On Earth

'We're Doomed': Mayer Hillman On The Climate Reality No One Else Will Dare Mention

The Guardian - Patrick Barkham

The 86-year-old social scientist says accepting the impending end of most life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it

Dr Mayer Hillman with his bike outside his home in London. Photograph: John Alex Maguire / Rex Features

“We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”
Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year.
From Malthus to the Millennium Bug, apocalyptic thinking has a poor track record. But when it issues from Hillman, it may be worth paying attention. Over nearly 60 years, his research has used factual data to challenge policymakers’ conventional wisdom. In 1972, he criticised out-of-town shopping centres more than 20 years before the government changed planning rules to stop their spread.
In 1980, he recommended halting the closure of branch line railways – only now are some closed lines reopening. In 1984, he proposed energy ratings for houses – finally adopted as government policy in 2007. And, more than 40 years ago, he presciently challenged society’s pursuit of economic growth.
When we meet at his converted coach house in London, his classic Dawes racer still parked hopefully in the hallway (a stroke and a triple heart bypass mean he is – currently – forbidden from cycling), Hillman is anxious we are not side-tracked by his best-known research, which challenged the supremacy of the car.
“With doom ahead, making a case for cycling as the primary mode of transport is almost irrelevant,” he says. “We’ve got to stop burning fossil fuels. So many aspects of life depend on fossil fuels, except for music and love and education and happiness. These things, which hardly use fossil fuels, are what we must focus on.”

While the focus of Hillman’s thinking for the last quarter-century has been on climate change, he is best known for his work on road safety. He spotted the damaging impact of the car on the freedoms and safety of those without one – most significantly, children – decades ago. Some of his policy prescriptions have become commonplace – such as 20mph speed limits – but we’ve failed to curb the car’s crushing of children’s liberty.
 In 1971, 80% of British seven- and eight-year-old children went to school on their own; today it’s virtually unthinkable that a seven-year-old would walk to school without an adult. As Hillman has pointed out, we’ve removed children from danger rather than removing danger from children – and filled roads with polluting cars on school runs. He calculated that escorting children took 900m adult hours in 1990, costing the economy £20bn each year. It will be even more expensive today.
Our society’s failure to comprehend the true cost of cars has informed Hillman’s view on the difficulty of combatting climate change. But he insists that I must not present his thinking on climate change as “an opinion”.
The data is clear; the climate is warming exponentially. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that the world on its current course will warm by 3C by 2100. Recent revised climate modelling suggested a best estimate of 2.8C but scientists struggle to predict the full impact of the feedbacks from future events such as methane being released by the melting of the permafrost.

Hillman believes society has failed to challenge the supremacy of the car. Photograph: Lenscap / Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo

Hillman is amazed that our thinking rarely stretches beyond 2100.
 “This is what I find so extraordinary when scientists warn that the temperature could rise to 5C or 8C. What, and stop there? What legacies are we leaving for future generations? In the early 21st century, we did as good as nothing in response to climate change. Our children and grandchildren are going to be extraordinarily critical.”
Global emissions were static in 2016 but the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was confirmed as beyond 400 parts per million, the highest level for at least three million years (when sea levels were up to 20m higher than now). Concentrations can only drop if we emit no carbon dioxide whatsoever, says Hillman. “Even if the world went zero-carbon today that would not save us because we’ve gone past the point of no return.”
Although Hillman has not flown for more than 20 years as part of a personal commitment to reducing carbon emissions, he is now scornful of individual action which he describes as “as good as futile”. By the same logic, says Hillman, national action is also irrelevant “because Britain’s contribution is minute. Even if the government were to go to zero carbon it would make almost no difference.”
Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too. Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think so,” says Hillman. “Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?”
Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried. But if we adapt to a future with less – focusing on Hillman’s love and music – it might be good for us. “And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let them drown.”
A small band of artists and writers, such as Paul Kingsnorth’s Dark Mountain project, have embraced the idea that “civilisation” will soon end in environmental catastrophe but only a few scientists – usually working beyond the patronage of funding bodies, and nearing the end of their own lives – have suggested as much. Is Hillman’s view a consequence of old age, and ill health? “I was saying these sorts of things 30 years ago when I was hale and hearty,” he says.
Hillman accuses all kinds of leaders – from religious leaders to scientists to politicians – of failing to honestly discuss what we must do to move to zero-carbon emissions. “I don’t think they can because society isn’t organised to enable them to do so. Political parties’ focus is on jobs and GDP, depending on the burning of fossil fuels.”
Without hope, goes the truism, we will give up. And yet optimism about the future is wishful thinking, says Hillman. He believes that accepting that our civilisation is doomed could make humanity rather like an individual who recognises he is terminally ill. Such people rarely go on a disastrous binge; instead, they do all they can to prolong their lives.
Can civilisation prolong its life until the end of this century? “It depends on what we are prepared to do.” He fears it will be a long time before we take proportionate action to stop climatic calamity. “Standing in the way is capitalism. Can you imagine the global airline industry being dismantled when hundreds of new runways are being built right now all over the world? It’s almost as if we’re deliberately attempting to defy nature. We’re doing the reverse of what we should be doing, with everybody’s silent acquiescence, and nobody’s batting an eyelid.”

Links

• Dr Mayer Hillman
• A chain reaction
• The three-degree world: the cities that will be drowned by global warming
• Climate sensitivity study suggests narrower range of potential outcomes
• Nine-year-old sues Indian government over climate change inaction
• Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children

Disease Threat Forces SA Health To Prioritise Adapting To Climate Change

NEWS.com.au - Matt Smith

HEALTH threats from extreme weather events and diseases spread by mosquitoes have prompted SA Health to prioritise adapting to climate change in a new blueprint.

Chief medical officer Paddy Phillips has told The Advertiser the frequency and severity of heatwaves and bushfires, and the increased risk of the spread of disease by insects and bugs, meant climate change threatened the wellbeing of South Australians.
His warning comes as SA Health released its draft State Public Health Plan for the period from 2019-2024.

SA Health chief medical officer Paddy Phillips gets a flu shot ahead of flu season. Picture: Dean Martin Source: News Corp Australia

Professor Phillips said multiple government agencies needed to consider the impact of climate change when developing policies and strategies to manage and prevent public health risks.
It should also be front of mind when agencies assessed the suitability of health infrastructure and assets.
“Variations in our climate have increased the frequency and severity of weather events such as floods, droughts, bushfires, storms (and) periods of extreme heat, as well as the spread of vector-borne diseases,” Prof Phillips said.
“These events threaten the wellbeing of our communities, especially in vulnerable populations.”

Increases in diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, sandflies, triatomine bugs, blackflies, ticks, tsetse flies, mites, snails and lice have in recent years been linked to climate change on Australia’s east coast.
The draft report, that has been published for public consultation, lists four priorities:

• Create healthier neighbourhoods and communities.
• Protect against public and environmental health risks and adapt to climate change.
• Prevent chronic disease, communicable disease and injury.
• Further develop and maintain the statewide public health system.

Health and Wellbeing Minister Stephen Wade said he would review the plan, which was drawn up on the watch of the former Labor state government, to determine if any additional issues needed to be addressed.
Mr Wade welcomed the inclusion of climate change as a priority.
“It is prudent for public health plans to consider the impact of climate change,” he said.
SA Greens leader Mark Parnell said a suite of measures, including better town planning and the design of individual homes to be more resilient to changing climatic conditions, was needed.
That would help South Australia adapt to the challenge of climate change.
“We know that with a hotter climate comes more health problems including increased hospitalisations and premature deaths from increasing heatwaves,” he said.

Links

• Health And Climate Change: Call For Urgent Action
• Australia One Of The Countries Most Exposed To Climate Change, Bank Warns
• Climate Change Promotes The Spread Of Mosquito And Tick Borne Viruses
• The Temperature Is Rising ... And So Is The Death Toll
• Health Savings Outweigh Costs Of Limiting Global Warming: Study
• With Political Leaders On The Sidelines, Sport Could Take The Lead On Climate Change
• Why Climate Change Is Worsening Public Health Problems
• How Climate Change Can Spread Respiratory Infection
• Study: Climate Change Is Damaging The Health Of Millions Of People
• Climate Change Already Damaging Health Of Millions Globally, Report Finds
• Climate Change And The Human Mind: A Noted Psychiatrist Weighs In

Melting Arctic Sends A Message: Climate Change Is Here In A Big Way

The Conversation - Mark Serreze

Scientists on Arctic sea ice in the Chukchi Sea, surrounded by melt ponds, July 4, 2010. NASA/Kathryn Hansen

Scientists have known for a long time that as climate change started to heat up the Earth, its effects would be most pronounced in the Arctic. This has many reasons, but climate feedbacks are key. As the Arctic warms, snow and ice melt, and the surface absorbs more of the sun’s energy instead of reflecting it back into space. This makes it even warmer, which causes more melting, and so on.
This expectation has become a reality that I describe in my new book “Brave New Arctic.” It’s a visually compelling story: The effects of warming are evident in shrinking ice caps and glaciers and in Alaskan roads buckling as permafrost beneath them thaws.
But for many people the Arctic seems like a faraway place, and stories of what is happening there seem irrelevant to their lives. It can also be hard to accept that the globe is warming up while you are shoveling out from the latest snowstorm.
Since I have spent more than 35 years studying snow, ice and cold places, people often are surprised when I tell them I once was skeptical that human activities were playing a role in climate change. My book traces my own career as a climate scientist and the evolving views of many scientists I have worked with. When I first started working in the Arctic, scientists understood it as a region defined by its snow and ice, with a varying but generally constant climate. In the 1990s, we realized that it was changing, but it took us years to figure out why. Now scientists are trying to understand what the Arctic’s ongoing transformation means for the rest of the planet, and whether the Arctic of old will ever be seen again.


Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years – it’s becoming younger and thinner as well.

Evidence piles up
Evidence that the Arctic is warming rapidly extends far beyond shrinking ice caps and buckling roads. It also includes a melting Greenland ice sheet; a rapid decline in the extent of the Arctic’s floating sea ice cover in summer; warming and thawing of permafrost; shrubs taking over areas of tundra that formerly were dominated by sedges, grasses, mosses and lichens; and a rise in temperature twice as large as that for the globe as a whole. This outsized warming even has a name: Arctic amplification.
The Arctic began to stir in the early 1990s. The first signs of change were a slight warming of the ocean and an apparent decline in sea ice. By the end of the decade, it was abundantly clear that something was afoot. But to me, it looked like natural climate variability. As I saw it, shifts in wind patterns could explain a lot of the warming, as well as loss of sea ice. There didn’t seem to be much need to invoke the specter of rising greenhouse gas levels.

Collapsed block of ice-rich permafrost along Drew Point, Alaska, at the edge of the Beaufort Sea. Coastal bluffs in this region can erode 20 meters a year (around 65 feet). USGS

In 2000 I teamed up with a number of leading researchers in different fields of Arctic science to undertake a comprehensive analysis of all evidence of change that we had seen and how to interpret it. We concluded that while some changes, such as loss of sea ice, were consistent with what climate models were predicting, others were not.
To be clear, we were not asking whether the impacts of rising greenhouse gas concentrations would appear first in the Arctic, as we expected. The science supporting this projection was solid. The issue was whether those impacts had yet emerged. Eventually they did – and in a big way. Sometime around 2003, I accepted the overwhelming evidence of human-induced warming, and started warning the public about what the Arctic was telling us.

Seeing is believing
Climate change really hit home for me when when I found out that two little ice caps in the Canadian Arctic I had studied back in 1982 and 1983 as a young graduate student had essentially disappeared.
Bruce Raup, a colleague at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, has been using high-resolution satellite data to map all of the world’s glaciers and ice caps. It’s a moving target, because most of them are melting and shrinking – which contributes to sea level rise.
One day in 2016, as I walked past Bruce’s office and saw him hunched over his computer monitor, I asked if we could check out those two ice caps. When I worked on them in the early 1980s, the larger one was perhaps a mile and a half across. Over the course of two summers of field work, I had gotten to know pretty much every square inch of them.
When Bruce found the ice caps and zoomed in, we were aghast to see that they had shrunk to the size of a few football fields. They are even smaller today - just patches of ice that are sure to disappear in just a few years.

Hidden Creek Glacier, Alaska, photographed in 1916 and 2004, with noticeable ice loss. S.R. Capps, USGS (top), NPS (bottom)

Today it seems increasingly likely that what is happening in the Arctic will reverberate around the globe. Arctic warming may already be influencing weather patterns in the middle latitudes. Meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet is having an increasing impact on sea level rise. As permafrost thaws, it may start to release carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere, further warming the climate.
I often find myself wondering whether the remains of those two little ice caps I studied back in the early 1980s will survive another summer. Scientists are trained to be skeptics, but for those of us who study the Arctic, it is clear that a radical transformation is underway. My two ice caps are just a small part of that story. Indeed, the question is no longer whether the Arctic is warming, but how drastically it will change – and what those changes mean for the planet.

Links

• Why is the Arctic So Sensitive to Climate Change and Why Do We Care?
• Brave New Arctic The Untold Story of the Melting North
• Climate Change Is Hell on Alaska's Formerly Frozen Highways
• Greenland ice sheet
• Why the Arctic isn’t a ‘global commons’
• Is warming in the Arctic behind this year’s crazy winter weather?

Climate Change: The Fiduciary Responsibility Of Politicians & Bureaucrats

RenewEconomy - Ian Dunlop*

“Fiduciary: a person to whom power is entrusted for the benefit of another”

  “Power is reposed in members of Parliament by the public for exercise in the interests of the public and not primarily for the interests of members or the parties to which they belong. The cry ‘whatever it takes’ is not consistent with the performance of fiduciary duty”

Sir Gerard Brennan AC, KBE, QC

Part 1.
After three decades of global inaction, none more so than in Australia, human-induced climate change is now an existential risk to humanity.
That is, a risk posing large negative consequences which will be irreversible, resulting inter alia in major reductions in global and national population, species extinction, disruption of economies and social chaos, unless carbon emissions are reduced on an emergency basis.
The risk is immediate in that it is being locked in today by our insistence on expanding the use of fossil fuels when the carbon budget to stay below sensible temperature increase limits is already exhausted.
As one of the countries most exposed to climate impact, and in the top half dozen carbon polluters worldwide when exports are included, as they must be, this should be of major concern to Australia.
Instead, politicians and bureaucrats urge massive fossil fuel expansion to supply domestic and Asian markets, the latter justified on the grounds of poverty alleviation and the drug peddlers argument that: “if we don’t supply it, others will”. Blind to the fact that fossil fuels are now creating far more poverty than they are alleviating.
In so doing Australia would be complicit in destroying the conditions which make human life possible.  There is no greater crime against humanity.
Regulators now recognise that climate risk far outweighs the financial risks which triggered the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and demand action. Company directors have a fiduciary responsibility to understand, assess and act upon climate risk.
Overseas, directors are already facing legal action, and personal liability, for having refused to do so, or for misrepresenting that risk. Compensation is being sought from carbon polluters for damage incurred from climate impact.  Similar action will be taken here.
But what of our politicians and bureacrats and their contribution to this crime?
The last few years have seen an unprecendented stream of lies and disinformation emanating from our official bodies around climate and energy policy, in blatant disregard of the facts, with seemingly no end to distortions designed to achieve short-term political advantage.
What fiduciary responsibility do they have to the community they are supposed to serve?
Ministers repeatedly remind us that the first responsibility of government is the security of the people.  On any balanced assessment of the science and evidence, climate change is now the greatest threat to that security and to our future prosperity.
Australia signed and ratified the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, presumably with the intent of meeting its objectives to limit global average temperature increase to

“well below 2⁰C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5⁰C”,

and

“to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible —– in accordance with best available science”, recognising  that “climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet”.

The voluntary Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) made by Paris participants, if implemented, would not meet the objectives, leading to a global temperature increase in the 3-4⁰C range, a world incompatible with an organised global community.
The Australian commitment, of a 26-28% emission reduction by 2030 on 2005 levels is derisory on any fair international comparison.
Regional temperature variations would be far greater than these global averages, rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable even at 2⁰C, beyond the capacity of human physiology to function effectively. This may well be the case across much of Australia.
Since Paris, our Federal Government has ignored the Agreement, brushing off the increasingly urgent warnings of “the best available science” and ramping up fossil fuel expansion, whilst placing every possible obstacle in the way of low-carbon energy alternatives.

Treasurer Scott Morrison Credit: AAP Image

The fact that many Ministers and parliamentarians are climate deniers for ideological or party political reasons, does not absolve them of the fiduciary responsibility to set aside their personal prejudices and to act in the public interest with integrity, fairness and accountability.
This requires them to understand the latest climate science and to act accordingly.  It is not acceptable for those in positions of public trust to dismiss these warnings in the cavalier manner which has typified the last few years. Particularly when the risk is existential.
The Prime Minister failed this test recently by implying the disastrous Tathra bushfires had nothing to do with climate change.  Every extreme weather event today has some element of climate change involved; it is irresponsible to imply otherwise.
Ministers justify their approach by misrepresenting international studies to support their fossil fuel expansion ambitions. Notably by citing the work of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA sets out its perspective on the energy sector over the next 25 years in its annual World Energy Outlook (WEO), exploring the implications of alternative climate and energy scenarios.
Key scenarios are: current policies (CP) which assumes business-as-usual (4-5⁰C temperature increase), new policies (NP) which extends CP with policy committed to but not yet implemented (3.5-4⁰C temperature increase), and sustainable development (SDS) which is the pathway to meet various sustainable development goals.
SDS claims to keep global average temperature increase below 2⁰C, but only with a 50% chance of success by relying on massive investment in sequestration technologies which have yet to be invented.
In reality, SDS would result in temperature increase substantially above 2⁰C. There is no scenario which realistically achieves the Paris objectives.
The IEA is no paragon of virtue regarding climate change.
It downplays both climate impact, and the potential of alternative energy sources, as a result of strong pressure politically from its developed country membership, and from vested interests who make up its advisory bodies such as the IEA Energy Business Council and the Coal Industry Advisory Board.
Consequently their scenarios are seized upon to justify further fossil fuel investment.  For Australia, Asia Pacific coal demand is a key factor, this being our major export market.
In the November 2017 WEO, under NP assumptions annual coal demand increases by 12% or 480 million tonnes by 2040, but under SDS assumptions it declines by 47% or 1880 million tonnes.
The IEA takes NP as their central scenario as this is where we are headed if governments implement their current commitments.
However, in the fine print the IEA make it clear that NP is not a sustainable future. In the 2017 WEO, Executive Director Fatih Birol says: “Decision-makers also need to know where they would like to get to. — This is the point of the SDS scenario” – even though SDS does not meet the Paris objectives.
Having ratified Paris, presumably this is at least where Australia wants to get to. Not so our Ministers.

Resource Minister Canavan

At his National Press Club address on 28^thMarch 2018, Resource Minister Canavan insisted on using the IEA NP Asia Pacific 480 million tonnes annual demand increase by 2040 to justify expansion of our coal industry, ignoring the SDS 1880 million tonnes decline.
The latter is the minimum transition to approach a sustainable future; many existing operations become stranded assets before the end of their working life, and certainly no new coal investment. Ministers Frydenberg and Ciobo similarily insist on using NP estimates and ignore the SDS.
Canavan then assured the Press Club that in the first 40 years of this century, the world will use more coal than in the entire previous history of the coal industry.
The IEA repeatedly emphasise that their scenarios are not forecasts.  They are designed to give decision-makers an understanding of the implications of their actions, and they only cover part of the story.
If the NP pathway is followed, there will be no market for export coal as Asia Pacific economies will shrink rapidly under the weight of climate impact.  If more coal is used by 2040 than in previous history, humanity will become extinct. These are consequences the IEA does not discuss.
Such ministerial naivety is laughable, but it highlights a serious governance failure. As with company directors, it is incumbent upon ministers to understand these issues, in particular the risks to which the Australian community is exposed by their decisions.
The only possible justification for Minister Canavan’s view is that he does not believe climate change is even a problem, let alone accept the need to rapidly reduce emissions. Further, he has no understanding of the implications of his proposed action.
Whatever the Minister’s personal position, or the views of those who voted for him, given the overwhelming science and evidence confirming the urgency to address climate change, such ignorance is unacceptable and a fundamental breach of his fiduciary responsibility to the nation. 

Part 2.
At the National Press Club, Matt Canavan reacted angrily to a suggestion that the coal industry will phase out, objecting strongly to any thought of planning a transition.  The mining industry will undoubtedly remain an essential part of the Australian economy, but markets for commodities come and go.
Irrespective of political preferences, absent some unlikely technological breakthrough to sequester its emissions, coal will phase out, not instantaneously but relatively rapidly. Coal has been through many transitions in the past.
The lesson from these disruptions is the need for thorough planning, retraining and support to avoid many people being badly hurt. Even more will be hurt, with massive climate impact, social and economic chaos, if the coal industry is expanded. It is irresponsible for the Minister to leave communities unprepared for these realities.
Minister Canavan then turned on “well funded” environmental groups “abusing” our “robust environmental laws” to prevent or slow down major projects, such as the Adani coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.
Australia’s environmental laws were developed when human impact on the environment was far less than  today. As that impact has grown, far from being robust, these laws are no longer “fit for purpose”.
In particular, being domestically focused, they do not take account of the greatest environmental risk of all, which is climate change. Under current UNFCCC rules, emissions from fossil fuel exports such as coal or gas are accounted for in the consuming country and are ignored by Australian courts and institutions in granting approvals for projects such as Adani.
However carbon emissions have global impact; coal exports from the Galilee Basin, would have major climate and environmental implications in Australia, as well as in consuming countries such as India. Our laws must be reframed accordingly if they are to be meaningful.
As for “well funded”? Vested interests pour vastly more money into supporting fossil fuel expansion than has ever been available to environmental groups.
Parliamentarians, particularly ministers seem to have lost sight of the fact that they have a fiduciary responsibility to the public, which imposes upon them a public duty and a public trust.
Sir Gerard Brennan again: “all decisions and exercises of power should be taken in the interests of the public, and that duty cannot be subordinated to, or qualified by, the interests of the (parliamentarian/minister)”.
It is entirely appropriate, when the legal system fails, for affected parties to take action to correct such failure, as with Adani, and with CSG projects in many parts of the country. In fact these are the only groups who are genuinely acting in the public interest.
That the Federal government is now trying to muzzle them indirectly via the proposed Foreign Donations Bill is a further breach of its fiduciary responsibility.
The public has the right to expect that Minister Canavan take an holistic view of the Adani project and the many other fossil fuel developments he is promoting, including an honest appraisal of their climate implications for the community. That is not happening.

Environment and Energy Minister Frydenberg and Prime Minister Turnbull. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas

Similarily with Environment and Energy Minister Frydenberg, who should be proactive in changing environmental laws to include the climate impact of fossil fuel exports on Australia, rather than advocating that  Adani proceed on the grounds it has met current inadequate environmental approvals.
Minister Frydenberg, and the government generally, breach their fiduciary duty by promoting poor climate and energy policy as represented by the National Energy Guarantee, whatever that ultimately means.
This lowest common denominator solution is only being considered because of the fiduciary irresponsibility of a minority group of right wing parliamentarians, inappropriately identified as the Monash Forum, who put their own self-serving ideological agenda ahead of the public interest.
To claim, as the Minister did in his National Press Club speech on 11^thApril 2018, that:

“the future of energy policy must be determined by the proper consideration of the public’s best interest not ideologically-driven predisposition”

just adds insult to injury given that the Coalition is, and has been for two decades, in total ideological denial on climate which largely explains our current policy shambles.
The cost to Australia of this self-indulgence is enormous.
The Minister also misrepresents IEA analysis of Australia’s energy policies.  The IEA conducts a periodic review of individual member countries policies.
The latest IEA Australian review in February 2018 was presented by Minister Frydenberg as “backing the government’s energy policies —  commending Australia’s commitment to affordable, secure and clean energy”.
The report itself did no such thing, being highly critical in many areas, including Australia’s continuing failure to comply with IEA membership oil stockholding obligations of 90 days net imports.
We hold less than half that, thus rendering Australia incapable of contributing to IEA collective action in the event of an international oil crisis; a further major security threat to the Australia community which has not been addressed despite repeated representations over many years.
In the light of these ingrained fiduciary failings, what of the bureaucracy, historically reverred for providing “frank and fearless advice” to the political class?  It seems that analogy no longer applies.  In recent policy reviews, the refusal to accept and articulate the implications of climate change on Australia shines through.
The December 2017 Review of Climate Change Policy was one of the most dishonest reports ever published by government in the climate arena.
What purported to be a comprehensive review of the climate change challenge, and responses to it, is nothing more than a re-iteration of Australia’s wholly inadequate and inconsistent policies.
No discussion of the latest climate science and its implications, no preparedness to face up to the real action required. In short little more than political whitewash for public consumption, pretending to do something whilst doing little.
The 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper acknowledged that climate change will be an important influence on international affairs, particularly in our region.
It then anticipated: “buoyant demand for our exports of high-quality coal and LNG —” based on the IEA NP scenario referred to above, around which policy is presumably centred, despite the fact that demand under this scenario would be decimated by climate impact.
This should be unacceptable to DFAT as our lead Paris negotiator, as it is totally inconsistent with meeting Paris objectives.
The 2016 Defence White Paper for the first time did mention climate change in passing in one of its six key strategic drivers of Australia’s security environment to 2035 and it is understood the Department of Defence have since extended their planning to prepare for its impacts as a “threat multiplier”.
This is encouraging, but far behind action being taken by the military overseas.
The overriding impression is that the Federal bureaucracy, with some notable exceptions, are not treating climate change with anywhere near the urgency it demands; whether because of political pressure to downplay the issue, or because of personal convictions, is not clear.  Either way, fiduciary responsibility arises again.
The Australian Public Service Impartiality Value requires advice given to government to be: “apolitical, frank, honest, timely and based on the best available evidence”.
Further, it must be:

“objective and non-partisan; relevant comprehensive and unaffected by fear of consquences, not withholding important facts or bad news; mindful of the context in which policy is to be implemented, the broader policy direction set by government and its implications for the longer term”.

Henceforth, climate change will determine policy across the spectrum, encompassing national security, defence, energy, health, migration, water, agriculture, transport, urban design and much more.
Given continued urgent warnings from scientists, including the government’s own experts, on the need for far more rapid action, the parlous state of our climate and energy debate and the shortcomings in policy formulation, the Federal bureaucracy is hardly meeting its own standards of fiduciary responsibility to the community.
So what can be done?
Many argue that current failures are the nature of politics and we should expect little else. But when the key issues are existential, that is to consign democracy to the dustbin of history and to accept increasing social chaos.
In contrast to earlier eras, the concepts of fiduciary responsibility, public interest and public trust, are clearly not understood by the incumbency, from the Prime Minister down.  This has to be corrected.
A Federal Parliament with any degree of such responsibility, would recognise that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to Australia’s future prosperity, requiring emergency action.
To those prepared to honour this obligation, there is ample information before parliament to warrant that conclusion.
In the public interest, parliamentarians would set aside party political differences, adopting a bipartisan approach to structuring such action, with the bureaucracy in full support.
That is highly unlikely, so there remains legal action. Around the world the seriousness of the climate threat, and the inaction of governments, is prompting communities to take this step, with increasing success.  The same will happen in Australia, absent an outburst of commonsense within the political class.

*Ian Dunlop was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chair of the Australian Coal Association and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a Member of the Club of Rome 

Links

• How the IEA Guides Energy Decisions Towards Fossil Fuel Dependence and Climate Change (pdf)
• The Scientific Understatement Of Climate Risks
• Disaster Alley: Climate Change, Conflict & Risk
• Climate Reality Check: After Paris, Counting The Cost (pdf)
• Stop spreading misinformation on coal demand 
• Energy Policies of IEA Countries: Australia 2018 Review
• Review of Australia’s climate change policies
• 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper
• APS Values and Code of Conduct in practice