12/08/2018

Penguin Island's Penguins In Battle For Survival Against Climate Change, Human Threats

ABC News - Pamela Medlen

Dr Cannell says the little penguins face multiple threats to their survival. (ABC News)
They're small, cute and lure about 130,000 visitors to their island every year.
But the little penguin population that gives WA's Penguin Island its name is in danger on several fronts.
The 12-hectare island is just 600 metres off the coast of Rockingham, in Perth's south, and home to about 1000 little penguins, the largest colony that far west in the world.
Penguin Island is just 600 metres off the Rockingham coast. (ABC News: West Matteeussen)
But changing weather conditions and rising ocean temperatures are playing havoc with their breeding cycles.
Belinda Cannell has been monitoring the penguins on the island for almost 25 years and has watched the population halve in the past decade.
"We see a lot of variation in the timing and the success of breeding, but … the breeding success has been much lower than in previous years," Dr Cannell said.

A destructive marine heatwave
In 2011, a marine heatwave caused a current of water 5 degrees Celsius warmer than average to travel down the west coast of Australia.
It culled several species of small fish that make up the little penguin's diet.
The penguin population on the island is closely monitored. (ABC News: Pamela Medlen)
"Since then those sea surface temperatures have been above average in most years and particularly in the winter months, so this is what we're thinking is really impacting the penguins' availability to get food close by and therefore to breed," Dr Cannell said.
"Their main resource was whitebait — they also eat pilchard and anchovy and blue spratt — but with the marine heatwave, we saw an increase in the tropical sardine in their diet which we had never been seen before."
She said the penguins needed to travel further and further from the island to find food, sometimes hundreds of kilometres down the coast as far as Busselton or Margaret River.
"That's a long way for a little penguin to go and they're away for 15 days sometimes. That means the partner's sitting on the eggs and getting to a point where they have to abandon the eggs because they're just too hungry," she said.
"Then once the chicks have hatched they have to stay closer to the island, … and if they haven't got enough food they either stay out for longer or they come back and there's less food to feed the chicks."
Dr Cannell says warmer sea temperatures decrease food availability for penguins. (ABC News: Pamela Medlen)
Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions marine park coordinator Melissa Evans said climate change had brought more frequent and severe storms, which caused erosion.
"That means that these little cliffs form, but the penguins can't get up the cliffs to their nest boxes or their nesting sites because they can't walk up these vertical cliffs, so that means they can't get back to swap with their partner or feed their chicks," Dr Cannell said.
Hotter West Australian summers were also killing penguins, she said, and one of her PhD students had been experimenting with different ways of protecting the penguin nesting boxes from heat.
Some of the nesting boxes had been painted with heat reflective paint, others had been covered in a shade cloth tent or had holes drilled into them and been orientated to aid airflow.

Human impact on penguins
Dr Cannell said about 25 per cent of penguin deaths were due to boat injuries.
"We can't do much about climate change and we can't change the fish that are available in the sea, but what we can do is reduce any other impact we have control over — managing people on the island, trying to have nest boxes that are cooler for them," she said.
"Reducing impacts in the water, try and make people aware the penguins are out there and their boating, they need to be slowing down and be aware the penguins are often just a metre under the surface of the water and they're difficult to see.
"Taking away your fishing line, don't leave your plastic pollution around because the penguins get entangled in that, and making sure that any coastal development we have is sensitive to where the penguins are."
Penguins have little resilience when it comes to environmental changes, Dr Cannell says. (ABC News: Pamela Medlen)
Ms Evans said the DCBA was working with the City of Rockingham to make any events on the mainland foreshore plastic-free.
"Because it's a popular tourist location as well, it's important for us to try to balance people being able to use the island for recreation, but also conserving the environment so the wildlife is still able to use it successfully," Ms Evans said.
"There's extensive boardwalks around the island now so that gives people access to all of the great lookout spots and all the fantastic beaches, but it also keeps them up off the areas that are used by penguins."
Funding to continue her research is running out, but Dr Cannell is still collecting samples of faeces and downy feathers in the hope they can one day be analysed to find out whether the penguins are adapting to changing food sources and what can be done to protect both the fish and the penguin colony.
"At the moment it's not looking good, the viability of this population is decreasing and the population estimates have halved since I did an estimate in 2007, so that's not a good sign," she said.
"We need to try to do everything that we can to improve the breeding success of these birds and have this colony here for another 100, 200, 300 years to come."
Dr Cannell says penguin numbers have halved since 2007. (ABC News: Pamela Medlan)
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PM's Reef Plunge Rips Up Grant Rules

The Age - Editorial

The circumstances of the Coalition government’s unheralded transfer of almost half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to a charity that was not even applying for public funding are profoundly puzzling and alarming.
The monumental payment was folded into the May budget, and has rightly been referred by the Senate to a committee. That investigation has been extended for six weeks and is due to report in mid-August.
The ALP and the Greens are agitating for the money to be reversed. That seems premature. We should all await the committee's finding and any recommendations before making any decisions of such magnitude. However, there is a compelling case the money should be frozen until the community can be re-assured.
The government appears to have broken almost every tenet of good public policy in its transfer of $444 million to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Photo: Gary Cranitch

The Auditor-General is also considering a probe. That should be launched as soon as possible, for it appears the government has brazenly broken almost every tenet of public policy and probity in its transfer of $444 million to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a not-for-profit outfit with a full-time staff of six. The organisation was shocked to learn it had, as its chief put it, ‘‘won the lotto’’, and would seem to be of insufficient scale to administer such a huge sum.
One of the foundation's earliest supporters and a former board member, Michael Myer , who left the organisation more than a decade ago amid concern about the increasing influence of big business, including fossil-fuel energy firms, on the foundation’s activities – greeted news of the grant with disbelief to the point of derision. Independent public policy experts are baffled by the government’s evident failure to follow due process, let alone perform anything like due diligence.
Were the issues not so serious, this extraordinary situation would be the stuff of stupendous political satire. Protecting the Great Barrier Reef, which is facing existential pressure from man-made climate change, is of huge importance ecologically and economically. It is welcome that the government, albeit arguably too late, is seeking to ameliorate the damage and risks of which scientists have long been warning.
But that massive sum should be frozen until the public can be confident that even a basic business case and cost/benefit analysis exists and can be tested. There should have been an open tender. There should be specific targets against which any efforts financed by that money can be independently measured and verified. The situation is even more bizarre because such an astounding series of lapses occurred under the direct watch of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, suggesting recklessness and arrogance at the very top of our government.
They both maintain a thorough and transparent process was followed. This simply does not seem to stand scrutiny. Indeed it is difficult to imagine how the process could have been any more flimsy and unaccountable without being negligent. The government looks duplicitous or incompetent - or both. It’s now up to the Senate committee and the Auditor-General to clean up this tragi-comic abuse of public trust and public funds.

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Heatwave-Related Deaths Influenced By Prior Acclimatisation To Warmth

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Quick quiz: which city is more likely to suffer heatwave-related mortality, Melbourne or Sydney?
The answer, according to a new study published this week in Climatic Change, is the southern city. Melbourne also tops the typically warmer capitals of Brisbane and Perth and, in absolute deaths, Adelaide.
Melbourne is more prone to deadly heatwaves than cities further north such as Sydney and Brisbane. Photo: Wayne Taylor
A key finding of the research is populations are more vulnerable when they get caught out by abrupt bouts of extreme heat, events that were less common in Sydney and Brisbane than those other capitals during the 2001-15 period studied.
"Melbourne is a unique case [among the five] as it's in a temperate zone but they get these massive increases in temperature," said Thomas Longden, senior researcher at UTS's Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, and author of the report.
Melbourne had 1283 deaths recorded that could be related to extreme heatwaves, or not far shy of double Sydney's tally of 768 deaths on a per-capita basis, the study found.
On relative population sizes, Adelaide's 549 deaths was the highest of the five cities, with Perth and Brisbane recording mortality numbers of 532 and 220 cases of mortality, respectively.
Early season warmth on Saturday - at least in Sydney, where daytime temperatures were forecast to be climb about 7 degrees above the August average - was the latest reminder of the unseasonably mild conditions.
NSW as a whole had its warmest January-July period for daytime temperatures on record, and authorities are preparing for a busy start to the bushfire season as the intensifying drought extends to woodlands.
Dr Longden's study used a so-called Excess Heat Index developed by the Bureau of Meteorology as part of its heatwave warning service. Death rates rose markedly when heatwaves were not only hot in absolute temperatures but also compared with the previous 30 days.
"A lack of acclimatisation is an issue due to the physiological impact on people's thermoregulation," he said.
A key threshold appears to be reached when three-day average temperatures rise to more than 7 degrees above the 30-day average. Adelaide, for instance, had a spike in deaths when the index rose about 10 degrees over the January 27-30, 2009 period.
For Melbourne, the stand-out extreme case was the four consecutive days above 41 degrees on January 14-17, 2014, with temperatures 12 degrees above the preceding 30 days.
"It's about two to three days after the heatwave event when the mortality actually occurs," Dr Longden said, adding those most vulnerable often have existing health concerns, such as the elderly.
Pilot view of how the Bureau of Meteorology's heatwave index would have looked for January 5-7 2013. Photo: BoM
The findings point to ways authorities might improve their public health warnings in advance of a predicted heatwave. Victoria already modified their heat alert systems  after a 2009 event but more needs to be done, he said.
"There have been some public awareness campaigns...but some of the vulnerable people are the elderly who don't get those types of communications, or still get caught out by these rare and strange events that are very, very strong," Dr Longden said.
"Australians, even though we're used to hot summers, are still vulnerable," he said.
With climate change, heatwaves in Australia are predicted to become more frequent, last longer and be more intense, adding to the challenges facing all populations, including human.
"People will change their behaviour [and] have airconditioning, or try to decrease their exposure," Dr Longden said. "People who work in construction will have to stop work more often."
"How much you can offset that by behavioral changes is an open question," he said.

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11/08/2018

As National Energy Guarantee Negotiations Continue, Labor Holds The Trump Card

ABC News - Laura Tingle

Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull have been optimistic about the fate of the NEG. (ABC News: Nicholas Haggarty)
It would be easy to simply see the current stand off over energy and climate change policy as what the late and legendary rugby league commentator Rex Mossop would have called "deja vu all over again".
At one end of the spectrum, the Greens reject the government proposal for a set of policy levers, which potentially put the climate wars of the last decade to bed.
You will recall that in 2009 the Greens insisted that the Rudd government's emissions reduction plans were not ambitious enough, giving Labor no option but to negotiate with the Coalition, then led by Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Turnbull did negotiate, compromises were made.
At the other end of spectrum is Tony Abbott, the bloke who killed the 2009 deal and, with it, the leadership of Mr Turnbull.
In the middle is the "everybody else" camp, not in any way in agreement with each other, but trying to muddle through a compromise.
And there is the dawning reality that the Government of the day may ultimately have to rely on the Opposition to get the federal legislation involved in this latest policy manifestation passed.
Unlikely bedfellows: Greens MP Adam Bandt and Liberal MP Tony Abbott. (ABC News: Marco Catalano/Selina Ross)
How will it all play out?
The differences between now and 2009 say much about how the politics of these issues have morphed since 2009 and also says much about how the way our politics has changed.
If you feel confused about just where everyone stands on the National Energy Guarantee as the week ends, you are not the only one.
Even some of those involved aren't really sure at the moment exactly what is driving some of the other people in the process.
So despite the various hearty expressions of optimism from the Government that all will be well, no-one is entirely sure how this will all play out.
Until Friday, most of the focus had been on the states — and whether they would agree to setting up mechanisms to regulate the energy market in a way which would require energy retailers to meet new supply reliability and emissions targets.
But the states' demand that they should not be forced to sign up to an arrangement which might get torpedoed by the partyroom has inevitably started to shift attention to not just what happens in the Coalition partyroom next Tuesday, but what happens in the Parliament too.

Will Liberals cross the floor?
The partyroom — and the Federal Parliament — will be asked to sign up to the emissions reduction part of the National Energy Guarantee: setting an emissions reduction target remains the purview of the Federal Government, rather than the states.
It seems reasonable at this point to think that the legislation will actually get the majority of the Coalition partyroom's support.
What is the NEG?
Malcolm Turnbull unveils his shiny new energy policy, complete with its own three-letter acronym. Here's what it all means.
The question is: how many Coalition MPs might cross the floor against the legislation?
Mr Abbott has apparently been telling colleagues that he will cross the floor if and when legislation comes to Parliament. The Government is nervous about Barnaby Joyce. There might be a prospect of a couple of others moving — Craig Kelly and Keith Pitt have been mentioned.
It is never a good look when members cross the floor on your legislation. But it is not lethal, no matter how much drama is sucked out of such an event on the day, and in the lead up.
Mr Abbott does not have the authority he once had in his party. It is likely his colleagues would simply shrug their shoulders and get on with things if he, and a couple of others, crossed the floor in the House of Representatives.
With the possibility of some floor-crossers around, the Government would need several of the Lower House crossbenchers to support its position, and it probably doesn't have enough of them. But they only come into play if Labor decide to block the legislation in the House.
The signs are, however, that Labor will let it go through the House, helping deprive the Coalition floor-crossers of oxygen, but would seek to amend it in the Senate.
Labor has a much higher emissions reduction target of 45 per cent — compared to the Coalition's 26 per cent — and it would, no doubt, seek to have that higher target included in legislation.

Labor has the trump card
In this era of minor party brinksmanship, no-one talks too much about Labor holding the trump card on policy. But this is a case where it almost certainly will end up doing so.
However, unlike Abbott in 2009, Labor has not been playing a game of "destroy at all costs" in this area of policy.
It has a great self-interest in the National Energy Guarantee being implemented and has acknowledged that there is a lot to be said for the policy — other than its lack of emissions reduction ambition.
The whole "early election" scenario has also faded post-July 28, so the sense of urgency around politics has also faded a little.
That just leaves the complexities of politics at the state level.
There is something of a disconnect between federal Labor and some of its state counterparts in this policy space, particularly with Victoria.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is facing an election on November 24, a fact not forgotten in the NEG negotiations. (ABC News)
The Victorians go to the polls on November 24 and, with a number of seats under threat from the Greens, the Andrews Government has been taking a much harder line than other states on the NEG.
And of course it is not only trying to force a higher emissions reduction target, and more regular target reviews on Canberra, but an acceptance of state renewable energy schemes too.
But the Victorian Government is also under intense pressure from business groups south of the Murray to sign up to the NEG.
The Victorians surprised almost everyone when Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio emerged a day before state energy ministers were due to meet with federal counterpart Josh Frydenberg and laid out a number of hardline positions.
It wasn't that Victoria was killing off the NEG, she said, just reserving the (hardline) position until the Coalition partyroom had dealt with the federal legislation.

Two questions
With signs that the negotiations between federal and state governments are now likely to be postponed for another four weeks, it raises some obvious questions.
Will the Victorian Government be in a better position to negotiate and be flexible when the state election is only two months away instead of three? One thinks not.
Second, what happens to the passage of the federal legislation in the meantime? Does the Federal Parliament — via one or other of the parties in it — effectively insist on waiting for a deal with the states to be sorted, or simply plough ahead?
You have to wonder whether those hoping for an end to the climate wars may have to wait until after November 24 to see an armistice.

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The NEG's Failure To Factor In Climate Change Will Cost Our Pacific Neighbours Dearly

ABC News - Helen Szoke*

Pacific nations are among those that have the most to lose from climate change. (Supplied: Darren James)
As political leaders from across the country meet to determine the fate of the nation's embattled energy policy, they must be under no illusion as to how Australia's backwardness on climate change is perceived by our Pacific island neighbours.
No region is at greater risk to the dangers of climate change than the Pacific — nor more determined to lead by example.
And if Australia is to maintain its position as a trusted partner of Pacific island nations amid growing competition in the region, we must demonstrate that we are serious about the number one threat to the wellbeing, human rights and prospects of Pacific peoples — climate change.
But as it stands, the proposed National Energy Guarantee (NEG) will fall well short of demonstrating this commitment — and well short of the ambitious strides being taken by our Pacific neighbours.
In November, the Marshall Islands will host a special summit of the Climate Vulnerable Forum — a group of nearly 50 countries that are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including many of our Pacific neighbours.
Despite contributing almost nothing to the causes of climate change, members of the forum are leading the world to a brighter future. They are committed to achieving 100 per cent renewable energy as soon as possible and are urging the rest of the world to step up.
A month prior, in October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release its special report on limiting warming to 1.5°C. The report will show more clearly than ever the truly transformative global action required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and protect communities everywhere from the ravages of climate change.

The future has arrived
Each and every day, we are faced with harrowing examples of the real and present dangers of a warming world.
What is the NEG?
Malcolm Turnbull unveils his shiny new energy policy, complete with its own three-letter acronym. Here's what it all means.
From the severe drought crisis gripping rural Australia, to the heartbreaking damage to our Great Barrier Reef, the loss of land and homes to sea level rise and the devastating toll of more destructive storms and floods. The future has arrived.
At the same time, we learn all the time how stronger action on climate change, including the transformation of our energy systems, can deliver enormous benefits in terms of energy affordability, shared prosperity and reducing inequality.
There is a convenient truth — what works for the planet also works for people.
There is also a confronting truth that cannot be ignored. The real cost of failing on our responsibilities will be measured in further entrenched poverty — through the escalating impacts of climate change and humanitarian disasters, increasing hunger, and deaths and disease caused by pollution.

Energy policy divorced from climate impact
Nonetheless, debate on climate and energy policy in Australia has become largely divorced from the escalating impacts of climate change on communities worldwide, Australia's responsibility to end its climate pollution, and the myriad benefits of a renewable energy future.
When the nation's state energy ministers gather this Friday to decide the fate of the proposed NEG, they must keep in mind the bigger picture. Any Federal climate and energy policy must be capable of driving a swift and just transition to 100 per cent renewable energy, including moving rapidly beyond coal-fired power. It must ensure that the benefits and costs of action are distributed fairly, and above all ensure Australia steps up to its international responsibility to tackle climate change. Regrettably, in its current form, the NEG is severely lacking.
Much attention has rightly focussed on the inadequate emissions reduction target for the electricity sector.
Firstly, the target to reduce emissions from electricity by a mere 26 per cent by 2030 makes no sense in the context of Australia's current economy-wide target of 26-28 per cent by 2030, given that remissions reductions can be more easily achieved within the electricity sector than other sectors.
More importantly, Australia's current economy-wide target is itself a woefully inadequate contribution to the Paris Agreement. It is among the weakest of any advanced economy and utterly out of step with the long-term goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C — and will need to be stepped up as soon as possible.


Malcolm Turnbull announces plans for the Coalition to drop the Clean Energy Target (ABC News)

 'Ambition mechanism' spurs some into action
Recognising that countries' initial contributions to the Paris Agreement would, in aggregate, fall well short of the scale and pace of action required, the Agreement includes an "ambition mechanism", designed to ensure that countries ratchet up their commitments over time.
What is the Paris Agreement?
Here's a simple explanation of the agreement, and what it means for Australia.
Encouragingly, following the lead of the Marshall Islands and Fiji, many countries including New Zealand, France, Germany, UK and Canada have already signalled that they will strengthen their contributions to the Paris Agreement before 2020.
In stark contrast, under the NEG, the Federal Government hopes to lock in Australia's current weak target for the electricity sector — its largest source of emissions — until at least 2024.
Such a move shows either a lack of understanding of Australia's responsibilities under the Paris Agreement, or a willingness to ignore them.
At a minimum, the NEG must set a far more ambitious target for electricity emissions from the outset, and have provisions for the target to be ramped up further in the near future.
Any less and it must be rejected.

*Dr Helen Szoke is Oxfam Australia's chief executive.

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10/08/2018

Politics Wins As Turnbull's Flagship Energy Policy Teeters

Fairfax - David Crowe

Malcolm Turnbull’s flagship energy policy has become a prisoner of politics, thrown into a holding cell for a month or more to learn its fate.
The Prime Minister has been denied a deal with the states on his National Energy Guarantee, which is meant to increase reliability and reduce emissions, and must try for a second chance in late September.
This was an easy victory for Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews and ACT Labor Chief Minister Andrew Barr, given that any single jurisdiction could use its power over the NEG to ensure a delay.
Minister for Energy Josh Frydenberg with State and Territory energy ministers on Friday. Photo: AAP
The effect is brutal and immediate. It maximises political pressure on Turnbull and his Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, to prove they have the support they need from Liberals and Nationals MPs before they go back to the States.
That means getting their policy through a divided Coalition party room in Canberra on Tuesday, staring down complaints from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and running the risk that some Liberals and Nationals will cross the floor in Parliament.
Any move to cross the floor would probably see Abbott voting alongside Greens MP Adam Bandt to destroy the NEG – one because he thinks it does too much, the other because he thinks it does too little. They cannot both be right.
This is the dismal world of energy and climate politics in Australia, where legislators splinter on every decision. The repeated message to voters is that those they elect to parliament are incapable of a consensus. The federal and state politicians continue the uncertainty, which means investment stalls and prices rise.
Frydenberg’s meeting with state and territory ministers on Friday did not reject the NEG. This is a fundamental point. No vote was taken to halt the policy. Instead, a decision was made to proceed with the draft state legislation to set up the scheme. This delays the final decision on whether the scheme goes ahead.
The state bill will be released in draft form early next week, in parallel with the discussion in the Coalition party room on the separate federal bill that is needed to cut carbon emissions by 26 per cent in the electricity sector.
The next deadline is set by the four-week consultation period of the state bill, giving Frydenberg a trigger for another discussion with the states and territories in the second half of September.
A decision is impossible once the end of October arrives because Victoria will enter caretaker mode for the November 24 state election.
A compromise is difficult. Victoria is probably asking too much. The key demand from Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio is that the emissions target should be increased by regulation without the need for legislation in federal parliament.
This raises an enormous question. Should a future energy minister be able to increase the target at the stroke of a pen? This would turn the tables on parliament, because the Senate would have to gain a majority for a “no” vote to overturn any change to the target.
Many routine government decisions are done by regulation, but the emissions target is not routine.
Why would the Coalition party room vote next week to offer this concession, allowing a future federal Labor government to make a huge policy decision without seeking the prior approval of parliament? Frydenberg rejects this condition.
This is a nightmare political scenario where the stars must align perfectly for the NEG to proceed. History suggests this rarely happens in climate politics. To kill off the energy policy is to raise the stakes on all sides at the next federal election.
Turnbull would have to go to voters with the NEG as a policy pledge rather than a legislated scheme. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten would have to reveal his own mechanism to deliver his promise of a 45 per cent cut to emissions – unless he chose to repudiate his Victorian Labor colleagues and endorse the NEG in principle and adjust some of its settings.
In the meantime, Andrews would have to fight a state election against accusations he is denying households a policy that might help with reliability and prices.
There is, however, a slim chance the NEG is released from its holding cell.
The dispute over process tells Australians this is all about politics. Who goes first? The Labor states have engineered an outcome where Turnbull faces the party room before he goes back to the states and territories to ask for their final decision. The process took priority over any question about the actual design of the scheme.
It is also revealing that those who raised objections to the NEG did not put forward an alternative. When asked what would be better than the NEG, even the most vocal Labor or Green minister did not advocate an emissions trading scheme, an emissions intensity scheme or a carbon tax.
The NEG has been over-sold with the promise of a $550 price cut that is inherently unreliable, but the failure of the scheme would lead to a policy vacuum that offers nothing except greater uncertainty and higher prices.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews needs to support the National Energy Guarantee to lower power prices in his State.
The weight of informed opinion is in favour of the NEG. Some of those who fought for action on climate change over the past decade acknowledge the scheme is capable of scaling up to deliver an emissions target of 45 per cent.
Those charged with overseeing the scheme, like Kerry Schott of the Energy Security Board and Audrey Zibelman of the Australian Energy Market Operator, say the NEG is needed as soon as possible. One of the depressing aspects of climate politics is the way they come under personal attack for expressing their considered opinion.
GetUp! urges politicians to dump the scheme. One industry association, the Smart Energy Council, argues Australia will be fine with nothing for a while. Its chief executive, John Grimes, would prefer a new version of the renewable energy target, the subsidy that has been operating for years.
The message from the loudest critics is that there is no reliability problem. They want the NEG dead. Even so, not a single minister in the talks on Friday uttered the same call.
That means the NEG is alive, just, for now.

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09/08/2018

Terrifying Insights Into Climate Change Could Build Legislative Momentum For Emissions Cuts, Researchers Argue

Phys.org - Christine Clark

New research in climate science indicates that extreme events, such as heat waves, the collapse of major ice sheets, and mass extinctions are becoming dramatically more probable. Though cuts in rising emissions appear unlikely with the stalled 2015 Paris agreement, University of California San Diego scientists argue that new developments present an opportunity to shift the politics around climate change.
Credit: University of California - San Diego
For the first time, scientists can make a strong case that no one is exempt from the extreme and immediate risks posed by a warming world.
The findings were recently published in a Foreign Affairs piece led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan, professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and co-authored with David Victor, a professor of political science at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) and director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. They collaborated with Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences members Msgr. Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, Partha Dasgupta, and Joachim von Braun.
In the article, the authors outline a variety of grim impacts scientists predict will have on and food supply in the near future. But this does represent an opportunity: These same consequences from climate change on developing economies may give rise to the political capital needed to make deep cuts in carbon emissions.

Wealthier economies feeling the heat
Scientists long believed that because wealthier societies had the resources to adapt to a warmer world, that poor countries would suffer more, even though the wealthiest one billion people around the world are responsible for more than 50 percent of emissions. However, Ramanathan and Victor point out that new studies show that the rich are far more exposed than anyone realized—especially to deadly heat.
"Massive fires in Sonoma and Napa, the richest wine-growing areas in the United States, may have a larger political impact than distant crises—just as in Japan and super-fires in Europe are having a political impact there," the authors noted.
The opinion piece originated in a meeting organized in November 2017 at the Vatican by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Ramanathan, Sanchez Sorondo from the Vatican, and Dasgupta of Cambridge University. A declaration from the event urging governments and other stakeholders to take the scalable and practical solutions was signed by several Nobel laureates, the late physicist Stephen Hawking, California Gov. Jerry Brown, Rep. Scott Peters, and mayors of several major European cities.

 A hot planet is bad for human health
Today, scientists can also more clearly convey the rising risk of that will have major consequences for human welfare. For example, researchers forecast that beyond 2050, as much as 44 percent of the planet's land areas will be exposed to drying. This will lead to severe drought conditions throughout southern Europe, North America, much of southeast Asia, and most of the Amazon—affecting about 1.4 billion people. There is also a heightened risk of more extreme rainfall which will expose an additional two billion people to floods.
If realized, these disastrous predictions will have major impacts on human health in a variety of ways.
"Beyond 2050, there is a 50-percent probability that about half of the world's population will be subject to mean temperatures in the summer that are hotter than the hottest summer on record unless the world takes immediate and large-scale action," the authors wrote. "In the most highly populated regions of the world, by the end of the century, there are 10- to 30-percent chances of heat waves greater than 130 degrees Fahrenheit."
They added that heat and droughts threaten regions that produce much of the world's food. Food prices are expected to rise 23 percent by 2030, making food markets more volatile, and under heat stress, the nutritious content of food crops is declining.
"Extreme weather disasters also have negative impacts on mental health. When heat is over 130 degrees, whole societies can come unglued," the authors wrote.
And, to make matters worse, diseases transmitted by mosquitoes and other insects, such as malaria and dengue fever, seem likely to proliferate as the habitats of mosquitoes expand, thanks to climate change, indicating the worst is yet to come.

A silver linings playbook
Victor and Ramanathan urge, however, that there's still time to act and the scientific community can lead the effort: "To communicate these new findings, scientists also need to think about how they influence society, in particular, they should build new partnerships with groups that shape how societies frame justice and morality, including religious institutions."
In the years to come, it is expected that more than half of the population may be exposed to extreme heat waves and perhaps one-third to vector-borne diseases. With few immune to these negative effects, the authors recommend that activists along with the scientific community should seek alliance with faith leaders, health-care providers, and other community leaders as part of the strategy on combating climate change.
"In particular, even when they do not share the same notion of God, faith leaders should act both together and separately in their own communities to preserve human dignity and our common home." They added, "the silver lining in all of this, if there is one, is that a recognition of the nasty and brutish new normal may yet mobilize the political support needed to make a dent in global emissions."

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Lethal Heating is a citizens' initiative