Yet again, researchers have confirmed that climate change threatens the natural world with a soaring extinction toll. The danger may be much higher than anyone imagined.
Extinction is for ever – and it may be galloping far faster than we realise. Image by OLHA ZAIKA on Unsplash
LONDON − Two scientists want the world to
think again about the extinction toll, the rate at which species could
vanish as the planet warms. They warn that the worst fears so far may have been based on underestimates. Tomorrow’s rates of extinction could be 10 times worse.
That is because the loss of one or two key species could turn into a
cascade that could spell the end for whole ecosystems. “Primary
extinctions driven by environmental change could be just the tip of an
enormous extinction iceberg,” they warn.
In their study, long before the complete loss of one species, other
species locked into the same ecosystem started to perish. There is no
need to worry about the rare but real hazard of an asteroid impact, or a
burst of gamma rays from a nearby exploding star. The message from the
simulators is that global average warming of between 5° and 6°C above
the level for most of history since the end of the last Ice Age would be
enough to wipe out most life on the hypothetical Earths.
“This makes it difficult to be optimistic about the future of species
diversity in the ongoing trajectory of global change, let alone in the
case of additional external, extraplanetary catastrophes.” Giovanni Strona of the European Commission’s joint research centre in Ispra, Italy and Corey Bradshaw of Finders University in Adelaide, Australia write in the journal Scientific Reports
that they turned to computer simulation to resolve an enduring
ecological question: quite what is it that drives biodiversity loss?
“Whenever a species leaves our planet, we lose much more than a name on a list”
The growth in human numbers, and the exploitation of the planet’s surface for economic growth, has destroyed habitats and disrupted ecosystems on a scale without parallel: global warming and climate change will make things worse.
Researchers have confirmed, repeatedly, that ecosystems are under threat; that climate change could be even more damaging than anyone suspected; that half of 976 species in one study were already being extinguished in local ecosystems, even if they survived elsewhere as the thermometer rose.
But most such studies were based on sample examinations of specific
patches of woodland, grassland, marsh or lake, or surveys of published
literature, and they measured change in a planet that has – since the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution – warmed by about 1°C as a
consequence of profligate combustion of fossil fuels and the clearance
of the great forests. The latest study involved testing life on a planet
to destruction.
The two scientists constructed 2,000 “virtual Earths” and populated
them with interacting species: that is with a food web composed of
competing predators and prey, multiple consumers and consumed. Then they
subjected these notional biospheres to extreme environmental change,
ranging from runaway global warming driven by ever-greater greenhouse
gas emissions to the sudden, intense cooling of a “nuclear winter” in
which sunlight is blocked by the dust of global thermonuclear war.
And the experiments, they say, demonstrated, once again, the
co-dependency of living things in a stable environment. They set up two
scenarios. In one of them a species was subjected to temperature change
to the point of extinction. In the other, the researchers triggered a
series of co-extinction cascades. They then matched the two outcomes.
More than species
And they found that failure to take into account the complex,
entangled interdependencies of living things led to an underestimate, by
10 times, of the magnitude of mass extinction by climate change alone.
The message is: don’t just save the giant panda, save the forest.
“Conservationists and decision makers need to move fast beyond a
species-specific approach, and look with increasing attention at
interaction networks as a fundamental conservation target,” Dr Strona
said. “Whenever a species leaves our planet, we lose much more than a
name on a list.”
Other such simulations have delivered catastrophic conclusions: one examination of runaway global warming left the Earth uninhabitable, while another found that in the most dreadful outcomes, at least one life form, the tardigrade, might survive.
Any computer model of life on Earth must have its weaknesses, if only
because the unknown and unnamed list of creatures is at least 10 times
greater than those already catalogued in the world’s botanical gardens,
zoos and natural history museums. That is, biologists still don’t know
nearly enough about the diversity of life on Earth. There are, the
researchers concede, “obvious limitations in our ambitions model.”
But, said Dr Strona: “Our results are consistent with real-world
patterns for which we have empirical evidence. This makes us confident
that the many assumptions we had to take in order to build a functional
model are sound. On the other hand, it would be misleading to just focus
on raw numbers.”
*Tim Radford, a founding editor of Climate News Network, worked for The
Guardian for 32 years, for most of that time as science editor. He has
been covering climate change since 1988.
Country’s stance described as ‘a slap in the face of our Pacific island neighbours’
Patrick Suckling (sitting on panel right), Australia’s ambassador for
the environment, waits as protesters disrupt an event at the COP24
climate change summit in Katowice, Poland.
Photograph: Łukasz Kalinowski / Rex / Shutterstock
Australia has reaffirmed its commitment to coal – and its unwavering
support for the United States – by appearing at a US government-run
event promoting the use of fossil fuels at the United Nations climate talks in Poland.
Australia was the only country apart from the host represented at the
event, entitled “US innovative technologies spur economic dynamism”,
designed to “showcase ways to use fossil fuels as cleanly and
efficiently as possible, as well as the use of emission-free nuclear
energy”.
Its panel discussion was disrupted for several minutes by dozens of
protesters who stood up suddenly during speeches, unfurling a banner
reading “Keep it in the ground” while singing and chanting “Shame on
you”.
Patrick Suckling, Australia’s ambassador for the environment, and the
head of the country’s negotiating delegation at the climate talks,
spoke on the panel. His nameplate bore a US flag.
“Actions speak loudly,” he said, “and as we’ve been hearing, the
United States has been a powerhouse … in different approaches to energy
security while seeking emissions reductions.
“Australia has a technology-neutral approach to emissions reduction.
It’s important that we do so, we need to pull every lever to reduce
emissions. We need to be open to innovation and new technologies
providing multiple pathways for energy security and emissions
reductions.”
Suckling
said Australia would continue to invest in low-emissions innovations,
including doubling its innovation investment by 2020. But he said carbon
capture and storage – “a proven technology” – was important in any
model for emissions reduction, and that the technology had broad
applications across industries.
But Simon Bradshaw, Oxfam Australia’s climate change policy adviser,
said it was “extremely disappointing” to see Australia line up behind
the US in pushing a pro-coal ideas.
“It is a slap in the face of our Pacific island neighbours, for whom
bringing an end to the fossil fuel era is matter of survival, and who
are working with determination to catalyse stronger international
efforts to confront the climate crisis. And it is firmly against the
wishes of an overwhelming majority of Australians.”
Bradshaw said continuing to use coal was not only uneconomic, but
would “be measured in more lives lost, entrenched poverty, rising global
hunger, and more people displaced from their land and homes”.
He said the advice of the IPCC showed emphatically there was no space
for new coal and that Australia’s position on coal was isolating it
from the rest of the world.
The Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 48 countries most acutely
affected by climate change, has committed to achieving 100% renewable
energy production by the middle of the century at the latest. Other
developed countries, including the UK, France, Canada and New Zealand,
have committed to phasing out coal power by 2030.
Wells Griffith, a Trump administration adviser speaking alongside
Suckling on the panel, said the US would continue extracting fossil
fuels, and warned against “alarmism” about climate change.
“We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice their
economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental
sustainability,” he said.
But the panel’s premise – that fossil fuels can be made “clean”
through innovation – stands at odds with the recommendations of climate
scientists who argue that countries should transition to renewable
energy sources as soon as possible or risk catastrophic levels of global
warming by the end of the century.
Also at the UN climate talks in Poland, two new reports have cast Australia as a global laggard on addressing climate change.
The Climate Change Performance Index,
compiled by the Climate Action Network, ranked Australia 55 out of 60
countries for its actions on climate change. The index ranks countries
according to their climate policies, energy use and greenhouse gas
emissions.
Sweden and Morocco are the leading countries on the list, though no
nation is clearly on a below-2 degrees pathway. India, ranked 11, and
China, ranked 33, both improved their rankings significantly, having
significantly increased their use of renewable energy. The US and Saudi
Arabia are 59th and 60th respectively on the list.
“Australia is at the bottom of the class when it comes to climate
policy performance,” said Richie Merzian, climate and energy program
director at the Australia Institute. “After four years of rising
emissions, and a relative absence of climate policy, it is no surprise.”
Merzian said the government was “openly and unapologetically
defending the coal industry” despite overwhelming scientific consensus
that rapid decarbonisation needed to occur worldwide.
Separately, the Climate Action Tracker has updated its assessment of
Australia’s efforts, saying the country’s “climate policy has further
deteriorated in the past year, as it focuses on propping up the coal
industry and ditches efforts to reduce emissions”.
“The Australian government has turned its back on global climate action by dismissing the findings of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C and announcing it would no longer provide funds to the Green Climate Fund,” the assessment said.
Emissions from fossil fuels and industry have been increasing by
about 2% a year since 2014 in Australia. The assessment argues that
Australia’s Paris agreement target was “insufficient” but Australia
still won’t meet it.
“While the federal government continues to repeatedly state that Australia is on track to meet its 2030 target “in a canter”
the Climate Action Tracker is not aware of any scientific basis,
published by any analyst or government agency, to support this. ”
Australia could use a little-known loophole to help meet up to half
its Paris climate commitments in a move that analysts warn could
undermine the global accord.
Neither Environment Minister Melissa
Price nor Labor will rule out counting Australia's expected credits from
beating its 2020 goal under the soon-to-be-superseded Kyoto Protocol
against its 2030 Paris pledge.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Environment Minister Melissa Price
have a 300-million tonne carbon surplus in their back pockets. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The analysts say such a move by Australia would encourage other nations to follow suit.
One
ex-member of Australia's negotiating team said the government had
considered using the credits for some time even though it went against
the spirit of the Paris accord signed in 2015. While not formally on the
agenda at the current climate talks in Poland, the issue of Kyoto
credits is expected to be discussed in coming days.
Ms
Price, who is attending the summit in the city of Katowice, has put the
expected surplus by 2020 - when the Paris agreement kicks in - at 294
million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent.
However, consultancy
Climate Analytics calculated the final figure will be at least 333
million tonnes. If accounting around land use changes - including tree
planting and land clearing - is settled in Australia's favour, the
surplus could swell to 400 million tonnes.
Australia's current pledge under the Paris agreement is to cut emissions 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by the year 2030.
Unless
other nations object to the use of carryover credits, it could then
meet the target with just a 15 per cent cut - a much easier task.
"This
appears to be the 'canter' the government keeps talking about," said
Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics. "It is fake action and would
be rorting the planet, and will undermine real action in Australia."
Carryover estimates are based on data provided by Australia to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the end of 2017.
Ms Price declined to directly answer questions about how it will use any Kyoto carryover.
"The
government is interested in working with international partners in the
development of our strategy, through consultations with G20 countries
that have completed their strategies or those currently in [a] planning
or development phase," said Ms Price.
A
spokespeson for the Environment Department reiterated that the
projected 2013-2020 "over-achievement" was at 294 million tonnes, but
added that emissions projections for 2018 were "currently under
preparation".
"The Australian government is committed to the Paris
Agreement," the spokesperson said. "Our priority at [Katowice] is to
secure agreement on a comprehensive Rulebook to guide the implementation
[of the Paris pact].
'Fatal undermining'
Richie
Merzian, who was part of Australia's climate negotiations team for nine
years before joining think tank The Australia Institute in April, said
the government had long considered deploying a Kyoto surplus towards its
Paris target.
"It was certainly part of their train of thinking," Mr Merzian said. "It could be they were banking on this."
"You're basically getting away without reducing your emissions," he said.
Use
of any credits would be consistent with Australia's past approach of
booking any "over-achievement" towards its next emissions goal. Germany,
the UK and three other European nations cancelled 635 million tonnes of
credits from the first Kyoto period at the Paris talks in 2015 but Australia kept its 128 million-tonne surplus.
Mr
Hare said while the Polish talks may not rule directly on the carryover
issue, backroom debate would no doubt include the issue given its
importance. New Zealand is among others facing similar decisions to
Australia's.
"It is no exaggeration to suggest that if this
approach is allowed it would lead ultimately lead to a fatal undermining
of any integrity in accounting for the implementation of the Paris
Agreement," he said. "There would be little recourse against others
opening up loopholes."
Most of Australia's emissions reductions in
the past couple of decades have stemmed from tighter restrictions in
Queensland that curbed deforestation after 2006.
Activists dressed in polar bear costumes protest on the sidelines of the
COP24 climate talks now taking place in the Polish city of Katowice. Credit: AP
Labor caution
Mark Butler, Labor's climate spokesman, declined to rule out using Kyoto credits if the ALP wins office next year.
"Labor will take advice from relevant agencies and experts," he told the Herald.
Labor
has pledged to lift Australia's current Paris pledge to a 45 per cent
economy-wide reduction from 2005-level emissions by 2030.
"Regardless
of how Kyoto units are treated in future, Australia has to take strong
action to cut pollution and transition our economy to clean energy," Mr
Butler said.
Adam Bandt, the Greens' climate spokesman, said the
public expected “a government of climate deniers to use dodgy accounting
to shirk their climate responsibilities, but not Labor".
“Labor
needs to follow the lead of many other developed countries and
immediately rule out using carryover credits to meet our measly Paris
obligations if it wins office," he said.
Emma Herd, chief
executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, said any weakening of
emissions targets would sap investments needed to tranform the economy
to net-zero emissions by mid-century.
"To secure the long-term
prosperity of Australia, targets need to be in line with the objectives
of the Paris Agreement - limiting warming to 1.5 degrees and well below 2
degrees," Ms Herd said.
"The
longer we delay credible taking action, the harder the economic
adjustment will be and Australia will continue to lose the opportunity
to unlock the benefits of investment in clean energy and other low
carbon opportunities.”
Country accused of tacitly supporting oil allies’ rejection of the latest science
Greenpeace activists project words “No hope without climate action” on
the roof of the venue of the COP24 conference in Katowice, Poland.
Australia stood on the sidelines of a heated debate.
Photograph: Janis Laizans/Reuters
As four of the world’s largest oil and gas producers blocked UN
climate talks from “welcoming” a key scientific report on global
warming, Australia’s silence during a key debate is being viewed as
tacit support for the four oil allies: the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait.
The end of the first week of the UN climate talks – known as COP24 – in Katowice, Poland,
has been mired by protracted debate over whether the conference should
“welcome” or “note” a key report from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
The IPCC’s 1.5 degrees report, released in October, warned the world
would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 45% by 2030 to limit
global warming to 1.5C and potentially avoid some of the worst effects
of climate change, including a dramatically increased risk of drought,
flood, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
The UN climate conference commissioned the IPCC report, but when that
body went to “welcome” the report’s findings and commit to continuing
its work, four nations – the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia,
all major oil and gas producers – refused to accept the wording,
insisting instead that the convention simply “note” the findings.
Negotiators spent two and a half hours trying to hammer out a compromise without success.
The apparently minor semantic debate has significant consequences,
and the deadlock ensures the debate will spill into the second critical
week of negotiations, with key government ministers set to arrive in
Katowice.
Most of the world’s countries spoke out in fierce opposition to the oil allies’ position.
The push to adopt the wording “welcome” was led by the Maldives,
leader of the alliance of small island states, of which Australia’s
Pacific island neighbours are members.
They were backed by a broad swathe of support, including from the EU,
the bloc of 47 least developed countries, the Independent Association
of Latin America and the Caribbean, African, American and European
nations, and Pacific countries such as the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu.
Australia did not speak during the at-times heated debate, a silence
noted by many countries on the floor of the conference, Dr Bill Hare,
the managing director of Climate Analytics and a lead author on previous
IPCC reports, told Guardian Australia.
“Australia’s silence in the face of this attack yesterday
shocked many countries and is widely seen as de facto support for the
US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait’s refusal to welcome the IPCC
report,” Hare said.
Richie Merzian, climate and energy program director at the Australia
Institute, said widespread goodwill across the Katowice talks was being
undermined by “a handful of countries” trying to disconnect the science
and urgency from the implementation of the Paris agreement.
“It is disappointing but not surprising that Australia kept its head
down during the debate … by remaining silent and not putting a position
forward, Australia has tacitly supported the US, Russia and Saudi
Arabia’s rejection of the latest science on climate change.”
Merzian said Australia’s regional neighbours, including New Zealand
and Pacific islands, had voiced strong support for the IPCC’s report,
which was a key outcome of the Paris agreement.
“A number of delegates privately shared their frustration that
countries like Australia stood on the sidelines while Trump’s, Putin’s
and King Salman’s representatives laid waste to the fundamental climate
science.”
Hare said the interests of the fossil fuel industry were seeking to thwart the conference’s drive towards larger emissions cuts.
“The fossil fuel interest – coal, oil and gas – campaign against the
IPCC 1.5 report and science continues to play out in the climate talks,
but even those countries [opposing welcoming the report] are being hit
by the impacts of only one degree of warming.
“The big challenge now is for the Polish presidency to set aside its
obsession with coal, get out of the way and allow full acknowledgement
of the IPCC 1.5C report, and its implications for increasing the
ambition of all countries, in the conclusion of COP24 later this week.”
Australia’s environment minister, Melissa Price, arrived in Katowice on Sunday, with negotiations set to resume Monday morning.
“The
government is committed to the Paris agreement and our emissions
reduction targets,” she said before leaving Australia. “Australia’s
participation in the Paris agreement and in COP24 is in our national
interest, in the interests of the Indo-Pacific region, and the
international community as a whole.”
Price said a priority for Australia at COP24 was to ensure a robust
framework of rules to govern the reporting of Paris agreement targets.
“Australia’s emissions reporting is of an exceptionally high standard
and we are advocating for rules that bring other countries up to the
standard to which we adhere.”
The latest Australian government figures, released last month, show the country’s carbon emissions continue to rise, at a rate significantly higher than recent years.
Australia’s emissions, seasonally adjusted, increased 1.3% over the
past quarter. Excluding emissions from land use, land use change and
forestry (for which the calculations are controversial), they are at a
record high.
In the third part of The Future Fix, we examine the "far away" threat of
climate change. The science is unequivocal. So why are our politicians
so resistant to taking real action? And what about us?
Matthew Absalom-Wong
Even veteran scientists hardened by decades of climate scepticism
could hardly believe their ears. Environment Minister Melissa Price,
responding to a bombshell report that distilled 6000 scientific papers,
said the experts had it wrong.
Phasing out coal within three
decades to avert calamitous global warming? That was “drawing a long
bow”, Price said of the recommendation by the United Nations'
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Sure,
the experts predict food shortages, lost livelihoods and stunted
economies. Cyclones and droughts will hit with frightening regularity.
Bleaching will annihilate the Great Barrier Reef.
But Price made
“no apology” for her government’s decision to dump efforts to cut
pollution from electricity generation. Lower power bills were more
important. And after all, she said, Australia is just a tiny contributor
to global emissions.
Around the country, scientists wrung their
hands in despair. World-renowned reef biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was,
to put it mildly, “disappointed”.
“The numbers don’t lie. It’s very clear we have to phase out fossil fuels by mid-century,” he said.
“We need a leadership that embraces the future and sets us on a new course.
The naturalist Sir David Attenborough reinforced the message this
week when he told the UN climate summit in Poland that “if we don’t take
action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of
the natural world is on the horizon”.
For at least two decades,
scientific evidence on climate change has been unequivocal. By burning
fossil fuels on a massive scale, humans have changed the climate system.
And after years of torpor, we have left ourselves only a short window
of time to avoid damage on a cataclysmic scale.
Australia,
already the world’s driest inhabited continent, is uniquely vulnerable.
And yet real action here, as in much of the world, is elusive.
In
fact, on current trajectories Australia, and the world, is heading in
the wrong direction. The International Energy Agency says last year’s
emissions from energy alone – coal, gas, oil, renewables and nuclear –
rose 1.4 per cent to a historic high of 32.5 gigatonnes. This is the
equivalent of adding 170 million cars to the road. The agency expects
that emissions in 2018 will be higher still. Official data shows that
Australia’s annual carbon emissions climbed for the fourth year running
in the year to June 2017 – up by 0.7 per cent to 550 million tonnes.
The
recent release of Labor’s climate change action policy for electricity,
and the looming federal election, have thrust the issue to the
political forefront once more.
So where does Australia sit on
climate action? Where are we winning, what is holding us back, and what
can we all do to help get truly serious about cutting our greenhouse gas
emissions?
Saskia Cook-Knowles of Port Kembla High School was one of thousands of students demanding action on climate change in November. Credit: AP
Opinion polls show most Australians
accept that climate change is happening, that humans have caused it and
that they want action. It certainly emerged as a hotly contested issue
in the Wentworth by-election in October, with winning candidate Kerryn
Phelps advocating stronger action. But that doesn’t mean everyone is
frantically cutting their carbon footprint and lobbying leaders for
policy change. People do not always respond to existential threats in
rational ways.
The Australian Psychological Society’s Susie Burke
says humans tend to distance themselves from daunting problems, and see
climate change as something happening to someone else, in a faraway
place.
“Many
people ... might not be feeling the impact here and now. We tend to
discount problems we think are far away in time or place, we are more
likely to respond to threats that are close to us,” Dr Burke said.
“Our
brain is relatively unchanged from a time when survival was based on
[attending to] an imminent threat. It’s not a particularly well-suited
mechanism for huge threats like climate change.”
The residents of
the world’s lowest-lying nations, such as Kiribati, may be less
sanguine. So too are many younger Australians, who will be more exposed
to the consequences – thousands of them went on strike from school in
November to protest at government inaction.
Other people may just
feel guilty about contributing to the problem, or for failing to act.
They may distract themselves, or concentrate on other demands for their
energy – family, health, money, job security and “what we are going to
eat for dinner”, she says.
Only a tiny proportion of people truly deny the scientific reality of climate change. But this vocal and sometimes rich and powerful group – including corporations with fossil-fuel interests – can muddy the public debate with misinformation.
“Whenever people perceive there might be some uncertainty about something, it tends to have a slowing effect on people’s preparedness to do something urgent,” Dr Burke says.
Psychologists say a lack of knowledge, social pressure to consume, financial constraints and a resistance to changing our world view can also play a role in preventing climate action.
Some citizens may mistrust scientists or politicians. And in other cases, people might make a relatively minor effort to help the environment, such as recycling, and decide they are off the hook for more dramatic changes in their lifestyle.
Then-treasurer Scott Morrison brought coal to Parliament in 2017 to show Coalition support for mining the fossil fuel. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Market forces and technology
are already pushing Australia’s electricity mix from coal to
renewables, which made up about 17 per cent of the electricity mix last
year and which are growing exponentially. Individuals and communities
are working at the grassroots to cut emissions. But for Australia, and
the world, to make the drastic transition outlined by the IPCC,
governments must be willing to pull policy levers.
Unfortunately
for Australia, more than a decade of so-called “climate wars” has left a
policy paralysis. Driven by short-term interests, power struggles,
politicking and blind ideology, the nation’s leaders have fought over
and dumped a raft of promising emissions-curbing measures.
The
Coalition’s National Energy Guarantee aimed to reduce emissions while
providing a reliable mix of renewables, coal and gas. While heavily
criticised for its lack of emissions ambition, it offered a solid policy
framework upon which more progressive future governments could build.
"The real political obstacle is 'culture war stuff’."
The
plan was consigned to landfill in August after climate-sceptic MPs on
the government’s backbench rallied against it, saying it would harm the
economy, kill the coal industry and fail to rein in prices.
The
MPs apparently overlooked the colossal costs of not acting on climate
change and the benefits to be gained by decarbonising the economy.
Academic
and former Climate Change Authority board member John Quiggin says the
falling cost of renewables also renders the Coalition’s economic-harm
argument irrelevant.
The real political obstacle, Quiggin says, is “culture war stuff”.
“It’s
become part of people’s political identity ... So in that context there
is very little point in presenting [denialists] with charts and graphs
and scientific reports,” he says.
“[They]
don’t want to do anything, they don’t like environmentalists and are
therefore choosing to either deny the climate science or put forward
some other spurious reason for doing nothing.”
The powerful
influence of fossil fuel companies has also been blamed for climate
inaction in politics. The industry makes generous donations to political
parties, and a revolving door between major political parties and coal
and gas companies – Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s chief of staff John
Kunkel is a former Minerals Council of Australia executive – means coal
lobbyists know how the system works and have the ear of many a
politician.
The Greens say political parties are too reliant on fossil fuel
money, and the donations must be banned if Australia is to shift to a
clean economy. At the very least, the Greens argue, donations should be
made public before elections, not afterwards.
Quiggin says
Australia’s best hope for climate progress is a Labor government elected
for at least two terms, giving it a chance to implement its policy of a
45 per cent emissions cut across the economy. (Labor, which is
currently leading in the polls, said in November that it would seek to
revive the National Energy Guarantee but with a much higher emissions
reduction goal of 45 per cent by 2030, based on 2005 levels.)
In the meantime, the Coalition might realise that climate inaction is “a losing issue” with voters, Quiggin says.
Australians will choose how to tackle climate change targets at the next
federal election, but are our politicians going far enough to reach
net-zero carbon emissions by 2050?
If politics is holding back real progress on climate
change, then the media must take some responsibility. In Australia,
it’s the political debate around climate policy that tends to dominate
mainstream news coverage, notes the University of Sydney’s Benedetta
Brevini. She says that compared with Europe, some Australian news
outlets also give far more oxygen to the climate-sceptic agenda.
Mainstream
coverage of climate change is also usually episodic and event-driven,
focusing on natural disasters or the release of major climate reports
rather than delivering “a long-term discussion [in which] you can keep
informing the public slowly but constantly”.
“That is not great
for explaining to the public what [climate change] actually means, the
impact on the environment and giving voice to scientists,” she says.
She thinks the media should tell positive stories of people, communities and governments making a difference.
“The
idea is to give people hope that [the problem] can be controlled ...
that there is still room for adaptation and mitigation.”
A car-charging station at Tesla's wind and solar battery plant outside of Jamestown, South Australia. Credit: AAP
As the transition from coal and gas to renewable
energy gathers pace, storing electricity and connecting it to the grid
so it can be delivered on demand is the next challenge.
Australia is on the cusp of an energy storage boom,
says the Climate Council, as states invest in grid-scale battery
storage, including Tesla’s huge lithium-ion battery in South Australia.
The federal government’s Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro expansion – effectively,
a giant battery – also promises to firm up the intermittent power
generated by wind and solar.
Other
technologies show promise but need work. The Australian Renewable
Energy Agency is exploring tidal energy. The national science agency
CSIRO says wave (as in, ocean) energy could contribute up to 11 per cent
of Australia’s energy – enough to power Melbourne. Geoscience Australia
says geothermal energy, leveraging the heat that occurs naturally in
the Earth, has “significant potential”.
The federal government’s
top scientist, Alan Finkel, says Australia could slash global carbon
emissions and create a multibillion-dollar export industry by developing
hydrogen to replace fossil fuels.
The transition has its
challenges. Nuclear power, for example, has struggled to win over the
community on environmental and ethical grounds. And even when
clean-energy technology works, producing it at scale is not always
economical.
The number of
electric cars on Australian roads has increased by 160 per cent in the
past five years, but that is well behind much of the developed world.
Australia’s
reliance on road transport is another big issue: it’s one of the
reasons our per capita emissions are higher than those of most other
countries. Road, rail and domestic aviation and shipping are our
second-largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution after electricity
production, says the Climate Council. It is also the fastest-growing
source of emissions, climbing 62.9 per cent since 1990.
The number
of electric cars on Australian roads has increased by 160 per cent in
the past five years, but that is well behind much of the developed
world.
France and Britain will end the sale of new diesel and
petrol cars by 2040, and Norway and the Netherlands aim to do so by
2025. Policies such as these obviously fast-track the electric vehicle
revolution but the government has shown no signs of replicating them.
The first LNG cargo leaving Chevron's Gorgon project in WA. Credit: Bloomberg
There’s a twist too: the IPCC says that, to meet the
1.5-degree warming limit, nations not only have to slash emissions but
actively remove greenhouse pollution from the air using so-called
negative emissions technologies. For now, these methods are mostly
unproven at scale.
Carbon capture and storage involves trapping
greenhouse gases at the point of emission, such as at a coal plant, then
storing it, often underground in geological formations. Globally, fewer
than 20 large-scale projects use it.
The most advanced domestic
venture is at Chevron's Gorgon natural gas project in Western Australia –
a huge carbon polluter – which aims to capture carbon dioxide from a
gas field and inject it into undersea storage. But the injection has
been delayed due to technical issues for almost two years.
Sundrop tomato farm in Port Augusta uses solar power and desalinated water.
Meanwhile, on a patch of dry red earth at Port
Augusta, a revolution is quietly growing. From the South Australian
desert sprout juicy red tomatoes, watered and nurtured by the power of
the sun.
There is no fresh water here and the heat can be
merciless. But Sundrop Farms has shown that, with the right technology
and a dose of belief, humans can find ways to live and eat without
hurting the planet.
“What we are doing is really innovative not
only in Australian terms but international terms,” says chief executive
Steve Marafiote.
You can use solar or other solutions that can help reduce your operating expenses … but also deliver an environmental impact.
Conceived
a decade ago, the hydroponic operation runs mostly on solar thermal
power. A field of 24,000 mirrors beam energy to a 127-metre-high tower.
The resulting energy heats a huge reservoir of water that warms and
cools vast greenhouses. The energy also turns seawater pumped from the
nearby Spencer Gulf into freshwater via an onsite desalination plant.
Sundrop Farms delivers up to 17,000 tonnes of truss tomatoes each year to supermarkets – about 15 per cent of Australian supply.
Marafiote says the project, which has a tiny carbon footprint, proves the benefits of “thinking about things differently”.
“You
can use solar or other solutions that can help reduce your operating
expenses … but also deliver an environmental impact,” he says.
The
Sundrop tomato farm is just one example of enterprising people
successfully tackling climate change in Australia – and without a major
disruption to our way of life. “It resonates incredibly well with
consumers,” says Marafiote. “They are eating produce at its best.”
The 20-hectare Sundrop farm uses solar power and desalinated water from the Spencer Gulf.
Efforts to find compromise language failed and the text was dropped. IISD/ENB - Kiara Worth
Attempts to incorporate a key scientific study into global climate talks in Poland have failed.
The IPCC report on the impacts of a temperature rise of 1.5C, had a significant impact when it was launched last October.
Scientists
and many delegates in Poland were shocked as the US, Saudi Arabia,
Russia and Kuwait objected to this meeting "welcoming" the report.
It was the 2015 climate conference that had commissioned the landmark study.
The report said that the world is now completely off track, heading more towards 3C this century rather than 1.5C.
Keeping
to the preferred target would need "rapid, far-reaching and
unprecedented changes in all aspects of society". If warming was to be
kept to 1.5C this century, then emissions of carbon dioxide would have
to be reduced by 45% by 2030.
The report, launched in Incheon in South Korea, had an immediate impact winning praise from politicians all over the world.
Climate protestors marching in Katowice outside COP24. Getty Images
But negotiators here ran into serious trouble when Saudi
Arabia, the US, Russia and Kuwait objected to the conference "welcoming"
the document.
Instead they wanted to support a much more lukewarm phrase, that the conference would "take note" of the report.
Saudi
Arabia had fought until the last minute in Korea to limit the
conclusions of the document. Eventually they gave in. But it now seems
that they have brought their objections to Poland.
The dispute
dragged on as huddles of negotiators met in corners of the plenary
session here, trying to agree a compromise wording.
None was forthcoming.
With no consensus, under UN rules the passage of text had to be dropped.
Many countries expressed frustration and disappointment at the outcome.
"It's
not about one word or another, it is us being in a position to welcome a
report we commissioned in the first place," said Ruenna Haynes from St
Kitts and Nevis.
"If there is anything ludicrous about the discussion it's that we can't welcome the report," she said to spontaneous applause.
Scientists and campaigners were also extremely disappointed by the outcome.
"We
are really angry and find it atrocious that some countries dismiss the
messages and the consequences that we are facing, by not accepting what
is unequivocal and not acting upon it," said Yamide Dagnet from the
World Resources Institute, and a former climate negotiator for the UK.
Others
noted that Saudi Arabia and the US had supported the report when it was
launched in October. It appears that the Saudis and the US baulked at
the political implications of the UN body putting the IPCC report at its
heart.
"Climate science is not a political football," said Camilla Born, from climate think tank E3G.
"All
the worlds governments - Saudi included - agreed the 1.5C report and we
deserve the truth. Saudi can't argue with physics, the climate will
keep on changing."
Many delegates are now hoping that ministers,
who arrive on Monday, will try and revive efforts to put this key report
at the heart of the conference.
"We hope that the rest of the world will rally and we get a decisive response to the report," said Yamide Dagnet.
"I sincerely hope that all countries will fight that we don't leave COP24 having missed a moment of history."
The US and Russia have thrown climate talks into disarray by allying with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to water down approval of a landmark report on the need to keep global warming below 1.5C.
After a heated two-and-a-half-hour debate on Saturday night, the
backwards step by the four major oil producers shocked delegates at the
UN climate conference in Katowice as ministers flew in for the final
week of high-level discussions.
It has also raised fears among scientists that the US president, Donald Trump, is going from passively withdrawing from climate talks to actively undermining them alongside a coalition of climate deniers.
Two months ago, representatives from the world’s governments hugged
after agreeing on the 1.5C report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), commissioned to spell out the dire consequences
should that level of warming be exceeded and how it can be avoided.
Reaching a global consensus was a painstaking process involving
thousands of scientists sifting through years of research and diplomats
working through the night to ensure the wording was acceptable to all
nations.
But when it was submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on Saturday, the four oil allies
– with Saudi Arabia as the most obdurate – rejected a motion to
“welcome” the study. Instead, they said it should merely be “noted”,
which would make it much easier for governments to ignore. The motion
has not yet been able to pass as a result of the lack of consensus.
It
opened up a rift at the talks that will be hard to close in the coming
five days. During the plenary, the EU, a bloc of the 47 least developed
countries, as well as African and Latin and South American nations, all
spoke in favour of the report. Several denounced the four countries
trying to dilute its importance.
Rueanna Haynes, a delegate for St Kitts and Nevis, told the plenary
it was “ludicrous” not to welcome a report that UN member nations had
commissioned two years earlier and to hold up crucial talks over two
words.
“It’s very frustrating that we are not able to take into account the
report’s findings: we are talking about the future of the world – it
sounds like hyperbole when I say it, but that’s how serious it is,” she
told the Guardian. “I would say that this issue has to be resolved. This
is going to drag out and the success of the COP is going to hang on
this as well as other issues.”
Scientists were also outraged. “It is troubling. Saudi Arabia
has always had bad behaviour in climate talks, but it could be
overruled when it was alone or just with Kuwait. That it has now been
joined by the US and Russia is much more dangerous,” said Alden Meyer,
the director of strategy and policy in the Union of Concerned
Scientists.
He said the shift in the US position would be embarrassing for the country if it persisted. “Donald Trump is the denier-in-chief. He takes a personal interest in dissing scientists,” said Meyer. “But the science won’t go away. The law of thermodynamics can’t be ignored.”
Climate campaigners said the four blocking governments had been
overrun by fossil-fuel interests and were trying to sideline the study.
May Boeve, the executive director of the activist group 350.org,
said: “Deliberately ignoring the IPCC report would be wholly
irresponsible and 350.org stands with the rest of world in condemning
these climate deniers … and the vested fossil fuel interests behind
them.”
Ministers have only five days to establish a rulebook for the Paris agreement.
A wild card is the role of the host nation, Poland – the most
coal-dependant nation in Europe – which will chair the final week of the
meeting.
“The big challenge now is for the Polish presidency to set aside its
obsession with coal, get out of the way and allow full acknowledgement
of the IPCC 1.5C report, and its implications for increasing the
ambition of all countries, in the conclusion of COP24 later this week,”
said Bill Hare, the managing director of Climate Analytics.
As well as acceptance of the report, there are several other potential
fights brewing regarding transparency rules for reporting emissions and
proposals for wealthy high emitters to provide financial support to
poorer nations struggling to adapt.
