Australia Could Be 100% Renewables By 2032 At Current Rate Of Wind And Solar Installs

Renew Economy - Giles Parkinson

Giles Parkinson Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of Renew Economy, and is also the founder of One Step Off The Grid and founder/editor of The Driven. Giles has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.

A new study from the Australian National University school of electrical engineering says Australia could reach the equivalent of 100 per cent renewables by 2032, if the current rates of installation of wind and solar continued.
The research, led by Professor Andrew Blakers and Dr Matthew Stock, says the technology and infrastructure needed to support that amount of wind and solar can also be put in place within that time frame.
The most important thing the government of the day can do is to get out of the way, although it will need some considerable facilitation and co-ordination to get everything built and in place in time.
The ANU study says Australia is installing solar PV and wind 4-5 times faster per capita than China, Japan, the EU and the US, and is on track to reach 50 per cent renewable electricity by 2024 – far ahead of Labor’s federal target date of 2030, which the Coalition government describes as “reckless.”
Blakers says this has important implications for Australia. It would mean that not only would the electricity sector meet its “share” of the current Paris climate commitment within a few years, something that is already locked in, but could also meet the economy-wide target of 26-28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030.
It’s important to note here that other experts question this assumption on economy wide emissions and whether this would be enough to deliver Australia’s weak Paris treaty emissions target,  and they point out that Australia will be under pressure to increase its target in coming years.

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See this Tweet above from Dylan McConnell from the Climate and Energy College, and a response from ANU climate expert Frank Jotzo below which worries about complacency, particularly given that energy minister Angus Taylor reacted to the research by claiming it was proof the government was doing enough.

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Jotzo writes in more detail here about the challenges facing Australia on emissions and what the government needs to do.
In any case the study’s authors make the point that because of the low cost of renewables, it could do achieve its emissions reductions at little or no additional cost to business as usual.



“There is a large PV and wind pipeline which augers well for continued deployment of PV and wind at rates above 6GW per year,” Blakers and Stock say in their report.
“We anticipate that this will continue for many years, provided that energy policy is not actively hindering development of renewables.”
That assumption that the government is minded to “get out of the way” and facilitate this deployment, is a very big “IF”.
The current Coalition government has done the opposite, and analysts warn that the industry risks “falling off a cliff” with the current government.
It engineered a capital strike and an investment trough from 2013 to 2016 by threatening to scrap the renewable energy target, and then finally reducing it. The current wind and solar boom has come despite the government’s intentions, rather than because of it.
And it appears keen to repeat the dose.
Energy minister Angus Taylor insists there is already too much wind and solar in the grid, and his policies – the “big stick” proposal to control prices and force divestment, and the proposed tender for 24/7 power – are being criticised by virtually everyone for being rushed, ill-thought-out and likely to delay investment rather than encourage it.
Blakers says that because of the falling cost of solar PV and wind energy, it is now clearly below the cost of building a new coal or gas plant, and similar to the cost of some existing coal plants – an assumption that is also shared by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator.
“The net cost of achieving deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is approximately zero,” the researchers say, although they note that large-scale renewable transition entails tens of billions of dollars to be spent in rural Australia.”
Blakers and Stock say that stabilising the electricity grid when it has 50-100 per cent renewable energy is straightforward using off-the-shelf technologies already widely used in Australia, including storage (pumped hydro and batteries), demand management and stronger interstate transmission (to smooth out the effects of local weather).
The ANU researchers have previously produced studies that illustrate how that can be done, and have also prepared detailed reports on the prospect of pumped hydro across the country.
Numerous projects – including Snowy 2.0, Tasmania’s “battery of the nation”, and any number of smaller pumped hydro developments in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia – are on the drawing boards and having feasibility studies done.
“Most developing countries lie in the low-latitude sunbelt and can readily follow the Australian renewable energy path rather than go through a fossil fuel era – a bit like Africa skipping landline phones and transitioning directly to mobiles,” the researchers say.
“Renewable energy offers real hope for massive avoidance of greenhouse emissions and preservation of a livable planet.”
The ANU research notes that the current policy boost, the large-scale renewable energy target, will be met by 2020 (if not earlier), but deployment could still continue at rapid rates because:
Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) will continue to be issued to accredited new generating capacity by the CER after 2020 out till 2030. (Although one has to question what value those LGCs will have).
Renewable investment opportunities are broadening beyond the wholesale market, with companies increasingly realising the economic and environmental credential benefits of renewable energy supply contracts.
For example, Sanjeev Gupta has announced that he will add 1GW behind the meter at the Whyalla steelworks and Sun Metals in Townsville has already installed 125 MW of solar generating capacity.
The price of wind and PV will continue to fall rapidly, opening up further market opportunities, as well as placing downwards pressure on electricity prices.
Increased deployment of electric vehicles in place of internal combustion vehicles and increased deployment of electric heat pumps in place of gas for water and space heating is expected to increase electricity demand.
Since nearly all new generation capacity in Australia is PV and wind, a sharp increase in demand is expected to be met by a large increase in the deployment rate of PV and wind.
Retiring existing coal power stations will be replaced by PV and wind.
“This paper demonstrates that Australia’s renewable energy industry has the capacity to deliver deep and rapid emissions reductions,” the authors say.
“Direct government support for PV and wind would help enhance industry capability but is no longer critical. What is crucial is government policy certainty that will enable the renewable industry to realise its potential to deliver deep emissions cuts.
“The most useful support that the government could provide is provision of high voltage interconnectors between states and to renewable energy zones (containing large numbers of PV and wind farms).
“This is akin to government provision of toll roads to resolve road traffic bottlenecks and the NBN to resolve internet traffic bottlenecks.
“Support for storage would also be very useful, for example through Snowy 2.0 or similar schemes.”
The scenario painted by ANU is based on capacity factors of 40 per cent for wind, just 21 per cent for solar (DC), and 15 per cent for rooftop solar. Blakers notes these are conservative estimates.
Behind-the-meter installations also play a crucial role, continuing at its current quick rates and accounting for around one-third of all generation by the early 2030s – again, this is quite consistent with other studies.
The ANU report says the techniques for balancing and managing a 100 per cent renewables grid are relatively straightforward, and not as expensive as many suggest.
“The cost of hourly balancing of the Australian electricity grid is modest: about $5/MWh for a renewable energy fraction of 50%, rising to $25/MWh for 100% renewables,” it says.
“Thus, the cost of the required storage and transmission is considerably smaller than the cost of the corresponding wind and solar farms. Australia’s coal power stations are old and are becoming less reliable, and transition to a modern renewable energy system can improve grid stability.”

Links

• Australia: the renewable energy superstar (Andrew Blakers, Matt Stocks, Bin Lu) pdf
• Australia is not on track to meet Paris emissions target – not without policy support
• Australia can meet Paris targets if government doesn't hinder progress, report claims
• Australia turns back on allies as it refuses to cut emissions above Paris pledge
• Australia isn't on track to meet its 2030 emissions target, UN report says
• PM claims Australia will meet Paris target 'in a canter' despite emissions climbing
• Paris climate deal doesn't stop us building new coal plants, Canavan says
• Australia will honour Paris climate agreement, Simon Birmingham says 
• Australia's emissions rise again in 2017, putting Paris targets in doubt
• Coalition watering down Finkel review climate ambitions, leaked document reveals
• Renewable energy spike led to sharp drop in emissions in Australia, study shows
• Energy efficiency employs more people than coal, oil or gas: report

The Truth About Big Oil And Climate Change

The Economist - Editorial

Even as concerns about global warming grow, energy firms are planning to increase fossil-fuel production. None more than ExxonMobil

Luca D'Urbino

In America, the world’s largest economy and its second biggest polluter, climate change is becoming hard to ignore. Extreme weather has grown more frequent. In November wildfires scorched California; last week Chicago was colder than parts of Mars.
Scientists are sounding the alarm more urgently and people have noticed—73% of Americans polled by Yale University late last year said that climate change is real. The left of the Democratic Party wants to put a “Green New Deal” at the heart of the election in 2020. As expectations shift, the private sector is showing signs of adapting. Last year around 20 coal mines shut. Fund managers are prodding firms to become greener. Warren Buffett, no sucker for fads, is staking $30bn on clean energy and Elon Musk plans to fill America’s highways with electric cars.
Yet amid the clamour is a single, jarring truth. Demand for oil is rising and the energy industry, in America and globally, is planning multi-trillion-dollar investments to satisfy it. No firm embodies this strategy better than ExxonMobil, the giant that rivals admire and green activists love to hate. As our briefing explains, it plans to pump 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than in 2017. If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequence for the climate could be disastrous.
ExxonMobil shows that the market cannot solve climate change by itself. Muscular government action is needed. Contrary to the fears of many Republicans (and hopes of some Democrats), that need not involve a bloated role for the state.
For much of the 20th century, the five oil majors—Chevron, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total—had more clout than some small countries. Although the majors’ power has waned, they still account for 10% of global oil and gas output and 16% of upstream investment. They set the tone for smaller, privately owned energy firms (which control another quarter of investment). And millions of pensioners and other savers rely on their profits. Of the 20 firms paying the biggest dividends in Europe and America, four are majors.
In 2000 BP promised to go “beyond petroleum” and, on the face of it, the majors have indeed changed. All say that they support the Paris agreement to limit climate change and all are investing in renewables such as solar. Shell recently said that it would curb emissions from its products. Yet ultimately you should judge companies by what they do, not what they say.
According to ExxonMobil, global oil and gas demand will rise by 13% by 2030. All of the majors, not just ExxonMobil, are expected to expand their output. Far from mothballing all their gasfields and gushers, the industry is investing in upstream projects from Texan shale to high-tech deep-water wells.
Oil companies, directly and through trade groups, lobby against measures that would limit emissions. The trouble is that, according to an assessment by the IPCC, an intergovernmental climate-science body, oil and gas production needs to fall by about 20% by 2030 and by about 55% by 2050, in order to stop the Earth’s temperature rising by more than 1.5°C above its pre-industrial level.
It would be wrong to conclude that the energy firms must therefore be evil. They are responding to incentives set by society. The financial returns from oil are higher than those from renewables. For now, worldwide demand for oil is growing by 1-2% a year, similar to the average over the past five decades—and the typical major derives a minority of its stockmarket value from profits it will make after 2030. However much the majors are vilified by climate warriors, many of whom drive cars and take planes, it is not just legal for them to maximise profits, it is also a requirement that shareholders can enforce.
Some hope that the oil companies will gradually head in a new direction, but that looks optimistic. It would be rash to rely on brilliant innovations to save the day. Global investment in renewables, at $300bn a year, is dwarfed by what is being committed to fossil fuels. Even in the car industry, where scores of electric models are being launched, around 85% of vehicles are still expected to use internal-combustion engines in 2030.
So, too, the boom in ethical investing. Funds with $32trn of assets have joined to put pressure on the world’s biggest emitters. Fund managers, facing a collapse in their traditional business, are glad to sell green products which, helpfully, come with higher fees. But few big investment groups have dumped the shares of big energy firms. Despite much publicity, oil companies’ recent commitments to green investors remain modest.
And do not expect much from the courts. Lawyers are bringing waves of actions accusing oil firms of everything from misleading the public to being liable for rising sea levels. Some think oil firms will suffer the same fate as tobacco firms, which faced huge settlements in the 1990s. They forget that big tobacco is still in business. In June a federal judge in California ruled that climate change was a matter for Congress and diplomacy, not judges.
The next 15 years will be critical for climate change. If innovators, investors, the courts and corporate self-interest cannot curb fossil fuels, then the burden must fall on the political system. In 2017 America said it would withdraw from the Paris agreement and the Trump administration has tried to resurrect the coal industry. Even so, climate could yet enter the political mainstream and win cross-party appeal. Polls suggest that moderate and younger Republicans care. A recent pledge by dozens of prominent economists spanned the partisan divide.
The key will be to show centrist voters that cutting emissions is practical and will not leave them much worse off. Although the Democrats’ emerging Green New Deal raises awareness, it almost certainly fails this test as it is based on a massive expansion of government spending and central planning (see Free exchange).
The best policy, in America and beyond, is to tax carbon emissions, which ExxonMobil backs. The gilets jaunes in France show how hard that will be. Work will be needed on designing policies that can command popular support by giving the cash raised back to the public in the form of offsetting tax cuts. The fossil-fuel industry would get smaller, government would not get bigger and businesses would be free to adapt as they see fit—including, even, ExxonMobil.

Links

• Fresh Thinking: The Carbon Tax That Would Leave Households Better Off
• Climate Change: $4 Trillion Carbon Tax Is Needed To Save Humanity From Global Warming, Say Economists
• Sky High Carbon Tax Needed To Avoid Catastrophic Global Warming, Say Experts
• Direct Action Not As Motivating As Carbon Tax Say Some Of Australia’s Biggest Emitters
• Now 'Right Moment' For Carbon Tax, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde Says

Floods, Fire And Drought: Australia, A Country In The Grip Of Extreme Weather Bingo

The Guardian - Adam Morton | Ben Smee

Amid record temperatures, severe flooding and devastation of wilderness, the political message from the government is business as usual

Residents wade through floodwaters in the suburb of Hermit Park in Townsville this week. Photograph: Dan Peled/EPA

The people of Townsville know about heavy rain, but this was new. Over the past fortnight, the northern Queensland city’s 180,000 residents have been hit by a monsoon strengthened by a low-pressure front that dragged moist air south from the equator to Australia’s top end.
It dumped an unprecedented 1.4 metres of rain in less than two weeks – roughly double what falls on London in a year.
The ensuing chaos has wrecked homes and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to property. Two men have drowned and videos posted to social media have shown crocodiles climbing trees and taking to elevated highways in search of shelter.
But amid the deluge, not everyone heeded the evacuation advice.
Mark Parison was one of those who stayed. The tide where he lives in Hermit Park peaked at least two metres high on some homes and the road was decorated with debris – furniture, white goods and children’s toys – pulled from homes as the water receded. But Parison’s traditional Queenslander home, elevated on concrete pillars, remained largely intact.

If anyone mentions [climate change], I’ll punch ‘em.
Mark Parison

As he moved piles of damaged property to the roadside for local authorities to collect, he told Guardian Australia why he ignored the advice to run.
“It was a scary old night [but] this house has been here for a long time. We decided … it’s been here that long, it’s been through some big floods,” he said.
Asked if he was concerned that climate change was making floods more extreme, he was clear: “If anyone mentions that, I’ll punch ‘em.”
“The weather events seem to be getting more extreme. Whether it’s manmade or natural or who knows.
“These people crying about climate change, they’ve got to look at how they live themselves. They’re still driving around in cars, they’re still wearing nice clothes. They’re using mobile phones. So give that up, I’ll start listening to you.
“City people are stalling us. We need the economy here to be boosted.”
In a city with nearly one in ten unemployed his view holds purchase. And so goes some of the public debate in Australia about the impact of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

A historically hostile summer
The north Queensland flooding is far from the only punishing event in what has been, even by the standards of the continent, a historically hostile summer. Internal polling for political parties and environment groups suggests Australians are increasingly concerned that this is linked to climate change and want to see action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a priority at this year’s federal election. It matches public polling that has found a comfortable majority accept it is a significant problem that needs to be addressed.

Mark Parison’s traditional Queenslander home, elevated on concrete pillars, remained largely intact during the floods. Photograph: Ben Smee/The Guardian

But after a decade of political fights and ideological warfare, discussion on the subject is often still a combat zone. The Coalition government would prefer not to talk about it at all.
Australia is, of course, no stranger to extreme weather - bushfire, flooding, rains and skin-peeling heat are central to its history and mythology - but the contrasts this southern summer have been particularly stark. Lesley Hughes, a professor of biology at Macquarie University and councillor with publicly funded communication body the Climate Council, says few parts of the continent have not experienced an extreme weather event in recent months.
More than 3000 kilometres to Townsville’s south, Tasmania is burning. For the second time in four years, dry lightning strikes sparked a series of blazes on the usually cool, temperate island, many of them in the vast world heritage wilderness area that covers nearly half its territory. In one 30-hour period in mid-January, an extended electrical storm danced across the summer sky, sending down more than 2400 lightning strikes without rain.
About 200,000 hectares - 3% of the state’s surface - has been burned, including unique alpine heath landscapes that had not been touched by fire for centuries. The fires are expected to burn for another month at least. Hundreds of people, many of them from in and around the southern town of Geeveston, spent the best part of two weeks camping at evacuation centres. Six homes were destroyed before rain late in the week reduced the threat to communities.

The prime minister is still pandering to the right-wing sceptics in his party
Lesley Hughes

Elsewhere, communities in the sparsely populated Australian outback continue to deal with the fallout from a long-term drought. On social media, a Greens MP in New South Wales, David Shoebridge, highlighted a constituent forced to pay $70 a week on drinking water for her and her son after the raw water supply in the town of Walgett was turned off.

A political battle is also raging over the use of water in the vast Murray-Darling river system that fans across the country’s eastern state agricultural districts, with drought-afflicted downstream communities arguing they are being denied water by a national river plan that did not factor in climate change and has been designed to keep dams full at water-hungry industrial agriculture sites in northern states.
This claim has been backed by a royal commission convened by the state of South Australia, which lies at the end of the river system, and the continuing disaster of up to a million fish having perished in three mass kills in the west of New South Wales due to water deoxygenation, with more deaths predicted.

Inquiry into Townsville flooding
The sense of a country playing extreme weather bingo has heightened as flood and drought collided this week, requiring the defence force to be called in to distribute fodder to cattle that had suddenly found their long-parched home under water. By Friday, it was clear that up to 300,000 cattle had been killed in the floods. With evidence mounting that authorities were unprepared for the extent of the rainfall, the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, announced an independent inquiry.

Australia is no stranger to bushfires but the contrasts this southern summer have been particularly stark. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images 

For most, the most obvious extreme weather shift has been the heat. January was Australia’s hottest month on record by a wide margin, with average national temperatures nearly a degree beyond the previous benchmark and 2.9 degrees warmer than the long-term mean. In New South Wales, the average temperature was nearly 6 degrees hotter than what has been considered normal for the past century.
Blair Trewin, senior climatologist with the Bureau of Meteorology, says: “Even taking into account the sustained long-term warming trend of a degree or so over a century, this is certainly at the far end of expectations.”
It is the heat that seems to be shifting public concern about climate change. Political polling suggests it is registering in the top two or three issues of concern for voters in a way it has not since the 2007 election, when the country was enduring a decade long drought, if not ever. The trend is headed in this direction even in some outer suburban electorates, which have traditionally been more driven by jobs and cost-of-living issues.
But the shift is not universal. The government is hearing similar messages, but there has been no change in messaging from prime minister Scott Morrison. He visited the Tasmanian fires and Queensland floods within a 24-hour period, speaking with people who had been forced to flee their homes, thanking emergency service workers and, in Townsville, was photographed climbing into a tank. He drew no link between the extreme weather and emissions in his public comments and he dismissed as a stunt a suggestion by the Greens that he should apologise for backing coal given there was evidence it was making natural disasters worse.
The Nationals leader and deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, went a step further while visiting the site of the Menindee Lake mass fish kill, choosing language that suggested outright scepticism about climate science.

Dead fish in the Darling River weir pool in Menindee. Photograph: Graeme Mccrabb/EPA

“We are looking at climate, of course, (but) climate has been changing since year dot,” he said, before adding: “We don’t want to go down a path of renewables, which is not going to solve anything apart from de-industrialising Australia and making sure we don’t do manufacturing here and pushing electricity bills into the unaffordable state.”
While concern about climate change is growing, there is evidence this position retains support – Essential Media polling late last year, for instance, suggested a slim majority of voters may back public financial support for a new coal power development than would oppose it, though more than quarter said they did not know what they thought.

Dependent on mining
The suggestion governments may force coal industries to close are particularly challenging issues in Townsville, which is the centre of support for the Carmichael coalmine, the long-stalled greenfield project proposed by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani that has become a proxy for debate over climate change. The mining industry posits itself as a jobs saviour. But, as always, views are split.
Katie McGrath was among the lucky ones in the Queensland floods, having got caught up and seeing her car in a metre of water. A nurse who works in Townsville but lives on nearby Magnetic Island, she had not realised how great the threat was before getting into trouble. “I’ve never seen the island flood like this before,” she said.

Up to 300,000 cattle have been killed in the western Queensland floods. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

McGrath has little doubt that what Townsville has been experiencing is part of a bigger picture, but acknowledges she is out of step with many in her community.
“There’s clearly things happening around the world that are alarming,” she says. “It’s like anything, if you don’t know enough about it then you seek advice from experts, and what they’re telling us is that we’ve got a real problem with climate change and we need to do something about it.”
But despite the experts, Townsville is the epicentre of support for the Adani coalmine. For every flood affected resident who is concerned about climate change, several others share Parison’s views.
Roughly one in 10 people in Townsville are unemployed. About 16% of the population is university educated, compared with 22% Australia wide. People want economic growth and employment opportunities. And, for all the boom and bust cycles places such as Townsville have endured in the past, the mining industry still posits itself as a jobs saviour.
But McGrath believes adequate communication about the opportunities that come with a cleaner economy is missing.
“For those people, work’s been hard to come by for a while and that’s been a real issue for people in Townsville,” she said.
“There’s not really been much put forward, and this region is really dependent on mining. People want to see jobs in mining, they want to see Adani go ahead. That’s the priority for people at the moment. Whether they agree with climate change, care about it or whatever, that’s a secondary priority to making ends meet now.
“I don’t necessarily think people are addicted to coal, or think that coal’s great. We haven’t been offered different information or alternatives about different jobs that are available. At the moment that’s not there.”
Her observations underline the challenge in some parts of the country for the Labor party, which is favoured to win the election with a platform of taking climate change seriously, but beyond the electricity sector is yet to explain what meeting its more ambitious greenhouse targets would mean.
Part of the challenge of communicating climate change is explaining the science, particularly the extent to which any extreme event can be linked to increasing emissions.
Attribution science is a rapidly evolving field. Lesley Hughes, who helped launch a Climate Council report called Weather Gone Wild, says emissions are effectively loading the dice to increase the likelihood of an extreme weather event. “What we are now observing is consistent with the climate science – as the Earth warms up, more extreme weather is inevitable,” she says.
In the case of the floods, a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, which in the event of a storm can mean heavier rain in a shorter space of time.
In the case of the Tasmanian fires, not only has the state become warmer (2.5 degrees above average in January) but low-pressure weather patterns that used to produce rain over the state have also moved further south as the climate has warmed, and evaporation rates have increased. Both increase the risk of dry lightning strike causing a blaze. Hobart, the Tasmanian capital, recorded just 0.4 millimetres of rain in January, the lowest on record.
Hughes says governments can obfuscate for only so long before publicly accepting that climate change is now both a mitigation and adaptation challenge. Failing to acknowledge the role humans are playing is holding back conversations about, for instance, whether Australia needs to invest in fire-fighting aircraft rather than sharing with the US, given the northern and southern fire seasons are increasingly overlapping.
“The prime minister is still pandering to the right-wing sceptics in his party by not talking about climate change. But arguing black is white doesn’t make it so,” she says. “The government has to accept these events are going to get worse over the next few decades and plan accordingly – both to adapt and to be part of the solution instead of the problem.”

Links

• Townsville flood inquiry announced, as up to 300,000 cattle die in western Queensland
• 'I’ve got nothing valuable left': the heart-wrenching return to Townsville's flooded homes
• Tasmania is burning. The climate disaster future has arrived while those in power laugh at us
• Australia extreme heatwave: power outages in Melbourne amid 'load shedding' – as it happened
• Cyclone and storms: two extreme weather systems to lash eastern Australia
• Longer fire seasons threaten to disrupt US-Australia firefighting cooperation
• Australia had third-hottest year ever in 2017, weather bureau says
• Australian weather: extreme heat sends bushfires raging across south-east – live
• Record-breaking extreme weather in Australia in 2016 devastates ecosystems
• Australia braces for extreme weather as summer gets off to sweltering start

It’s Official: 2018 Was The Fourth-Warmest Year On Record

New York Times - John Schwartz | Nadja Popovich

Rising Global Temperature
How much cooler or warmer every year was compared with the average temperature of the late 19th century

Source: NASA | By The New York Times

NASA scientists announced Wednesday that the Earth’s average surface temperature in 2018 was the fourth highest in nearly 140 years of record-keeping and a continuation of an unmistakable warming trend.
The data means that the five warmest years in recorded history have been the last five, and that 18 of the 19 warmest years have occurred since 2001.
The quickly rising temperatures over the past two decades cap a much longer warming trend documented by researchers and correspond with the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity.
“We’re no longer talking about a situation where global warming is something in the future,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the NASA group that conducted the analysis. “It’s here. It’s now.”
While this planet has seen hotter days in prehistoric times, and colder ones in the modern era, what sets recent warming apart in the sweep of geologic time is the relatively sudden rise in temperatures and its clear correlation with increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane produced by human activity.
The results of this rapid warming can be seen from the heat waves in Australia and extended droughts to coastal flooding in the United States, in disappearing Arctic ice and shrinking glaciers.
Scientists have linked climate change to more destructive hurricanes like Michael and Florence last year, and have found links to such phenomena as the polar vortex, which last week delivered bone-chilling blasts to the American Midwest and Northeast.

Source: NASA | By The New York Times

The Earth’s temperature in 2018 was more than one degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above the average temperature of the late 19th century, when humans started pumping large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Scientists say that if the world is to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, global temperatures must not rise by more than two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels.
It appears highly likely, at least from today’s perspective, that that line will be crossed, despite the fact that more than 190 countries have signed the Paris climate agreement, which sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. (The United States is still technically a party to the accord, though President Trump has pledged to withdraw.)
Even an increase of 1.5 degrees will have dire consequences, according to the United Nations science panel on climate change.
Dr. Schmidt spoke of these markers not as cliffs that the world would plunge over, however, but part of a continuing slide toward increasing levels of harm. “Symbolically, it’s important,” he said.
With concerted effort to reduce greenhouse gases worldwide, scientists say, a slide could be slowed or even, eventually, reversed.

Clockwise from top left: A wildfire in Paradise, Calif., in November; a dry part of the Rhine in Düsseldorf, Germany, in July; James City, N.C., during Hurricane Florence in September; and a melting glacier in Yunnan Province, China, in September.
Credits: Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images; Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Sam Mcneil/Associated Press

The warmest year was 2016, its record-setting temperature amplified by the Pacific Ocean phenomenon known as El Niño.
In 2018, the world experienced the opposite phenomenon, a cooling La Niña, with a weak El Niño toward the end of the year.
The effects of the El Niño late last year are likely to be felt in 2019, said Zeke Hausfather, an analyst with Berkeley Earth, an independent climate research group.
He said that 2019 would probably be the second warmest year on record. Last month, Mr. Hausfather issued figures correctly ranking 2018 as the fourth warmest.
The publication of the NASA temperature data came in tandem with a similar announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which uses a slightly different methodology to determine overall changes in the planet’s temperature but also ranked 2018 as the fourth warmest year.
The two federal agencies, while broadly consistent, have disagreed on the relative rankings for some years; NASA called 2017 the second warmest year, while NOAA said it was the third, after 2016 and 2015.
In related research, two new studies published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggested that melting polar ice caps could lead to even more extreme weather.
One study, led by Tamsin L. Edwards, a climate scientist at King’s College London, focused on the impact of Antarctic ice-shelf collapse.
It estimated that sea level rise caused by melting in Antarctica would be close to 10 inches, much lower than a 2016 study based on much of the same data that forecast a rise of five or six feet by 2100.
But even this lower estimate for sea level rise would be enough to trigger an increase in extreme weather events, according to a companion study led by Nicholas Golledge, an associate professor at the Victoria University of Wellington’s Antarctic Research Centre in New Zealand.
For example, Dr. Golledge said, an influx of fresh water from Greenland could slow the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean, which, among other things, would lead to warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico and, subsequently, more hurricanes.
In addition to the fourth warmest year on record, 2018 was also the fourth-costliest for weather disasters in the United States.
Last year’s total was $91 billion, less than 2017, when disasters inflicted a record breaking $306 billion of damage. But it reflects a broader trend of more frequent and intense extreme weather events including hurricanes, floods, droughts and wildfires that scientists say are to be expected with a warming climate.
According to NOAA, 2018 was the first time on record when wildfires have exceeded average hurricane costs in the United States.
Dr. Schmidt of NASA said that the new global temperature figures helped to validate the scientific models that have predicted such warming over time.
“People say, ‘How do we know the science is any good? How do we trust the models? They’re so complex!’ ” But, he said: “That’s the essence of science. You think you understand how something works, you make models and you make predictions and see if they come true. Unfortunately, we’re in a situation where we see it’s come true.”
The annual global temperature ranking is usually announced in mid-January, but it was delayed when the government shutdown prevented federal scientists from completing the analysis.

Links

• The last five years were the hottest ever recorded
• Climate change: World heading for warmest decade, says Met Office
• UN warns world on track to breach 3C rise by 2100; last year was fourth warmest on record
• Last year was the fourth hottest on record, according to the UN
• Collapsing ice cliffs may not contribute to sea level rise 
• Australia can meet Paris targets if government doesn't hinder progress, report claims
• Wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather cost the nation 247 lives, nearly $100 billion in damage during 2018

The Guardian View On Teenage Activists: Protesters Not Puppets

The Guardian - Editorial

A Belgian minister has resigned after falsely claiming that demonstrators were directed by hidden forces. She should have focused on their message

Over 600 young students in a climate change protest in Bamberg, Germany on 1 February 2019. ‘We should respect and welcome efforts by children and teenagers to make their voices heard and influence decision-making.’ Photograph: Alexander Pohl/Rex/Shutterstock

When confronted by child protesters, politicians and other adults often reach for the age-based putdown, rather than engage with the substance of whatever it is they are protesting about. Often, the suggestion is that someone older has put them up to it. Flemish environment minister Joke Schauvliege took the patronising tactic much too far when she said that recent school strikes across Belgium were a “set-up”, and that security services knew who was really “behind this movement”. On Tuesday, after Belgian security services issued a rare denial, Ms Schauvliege resigned. On Thursday, the youth-led demonstrations spread to the Netherlands, as thousands of people marched in The Hague. Similar protests are scheduled to take place across the world in the coming weeks.
They show that, in fact, young people are able to influence their elders. When a journalist asked Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg who was pulling the strings behind her school strike last summer, she replied: “Some people claim that my parents have brainwashed me, but it was the opposite: I brainwashed my parents. I convinced them not to fly and to stop eating meat.”
Ms Thunberg has said that her decision to picket the Swedish parliament in Stockholm last year was inspired by the March for our Lives gun control protests that began after the Parkland school shooting. But there are older precedents for the recent upsurge in youth activism, with children playing key roles in historic civil rights and labour struggles. School desegregation in the southern US states and the 1888 London matchgirls’ strike are two famous examples.
Young people have a distinctive and valuable perspective. They deserve to be heard. Teenagers can already join British political parties, most of which grant full membership rights to mid-teens. In Scotland, 16-year-olds can vote in some elections. That should be extended to all elections across the UK. Few endorse politics professor David Runciman’s recent suggestion that the voting age should be lowered much further – to six. But many would acknowledge the sense in Scottish children’s commissioner Bruce Adamson’s criticism of the “absolutely ridiculous” double standard whereby children are held criminally responsible for their actions years before they are allowed to take part in elections.
There are sensible questions to be asked about the influence exerted by parents and other adults on children professing strong opinions. But we should respect and welcome efforts by children and teenagers to make their voices heard and influence decision-making. After all, they will be living with the consequences for longer than the rest of us. Nothing throws all of this into sharper relief than the accelerating climate crisis, with figures from the UK Met Office suggesting 1.5C of warming could be reached in as little as five years. If children want to take to the streets and demand tougher action to avert disaster, who can blame them?

Links

• The Human Survival Summit: The Next Wave Of Climate Change Protests Is Coming
• Greta Thunberg Dresses Down More Global Elites For Climate Inaction
• Teenage Activist Takes School Strikes 4 Climate Action To Davos
• ‘Grown-Ups Have Failed Us’
• Parenting The Climate Change Generation
• 15-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Speaks Truth To Power In Katowice
• Children Demand Climate Change Action Through Protests And Lawsuits
• Australian Students Stage School Strikes Over Climate Change Inaction
• Schools Climate Strike: The Best Protest Banners And Posters

'I Feel Very Angry': The 13-Year-Old On School Strike For Climate Action

The Guardian - Sandra Laville

Holly Gillibrand is skipping class to join pupils around the world in pushing for urgent measures

Holly Gillibrand has spent the past five Fridays on strike outside her school in Fort William. Photograph: Twitter 

Until recently, Holly Gillibrand was like any other schoolchild, keen on the outdoors, football and rock climbing, inspired by the stunning surroundings of her secondary school at the foot of Ben Nevis.
But for the past five Fridays, while hundreds of her fellow students file into class, she has stood outside Lochaber high school in Fort William in the Highlands to take strike action.
Her protest is not for better classrooms, nicer meals or more free time. Holly, 13, is helping to build a UK movement of children demanding more action on climate change by withdrawing themselves from the lessons they are legally required to attend.
They are working towards a UK school strike next Friday, which will follow other walkouts by tens of thousands of children across Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Australia.
Holly was inspired by the actions of Greta Thunberg, who in September sat outside the Swedish parliament for three weeks on “school strike”. International interest in her story led to Thunberg going to Davos last month to address world leaders. While she travelled for 32 hours on trains to reach the ski resort, political and business leaders hired 1,500 private jets to get to the summit.

Holly said: “I saw on social media that she was sitting outside the parliament, and then lots of other children started doing similar things and I thought, that is something I could do to make a difference. I thought she was brave and inspirational.”
Each week, Holly and a small group of supporters carry placards with slogans such as “School strike for the climate”, “Beep for climate action” and “Striking for the seas – stop global warming now”, and take time out of classes to demand action.
“It’s the first time I have done anything like this,” she said. “But I feel very angry, very scared and I see that they [political leaders] are not taking climate change seriously. It is an urgent crisis that needs to be addressed.”
Holly has tried to make changes to reduce her carbon footprint and insisted the Guardian did not send a photographer to drive two hours from Glasgow to take her portrait. “I take the bus, I am almost completely vegan, as are my parents, and my family has always been very environmentally aware,” she said.
Taking time out of school is a powerful weapon, Holly believes, to draw attention to the need to act more decisively to tackle climate change. “I am not sure how my headteacher feels, but my class teachers have been very supportive,” she said.
“I have had lots of people joining me, although not as many from my school as I hoped, but we are hoping many other children from schools across the country will take action next week.”
Across Europe, a pushback from adults – particularly those in power – seems to have begun. The Belgian environment minister, Joke Schauvliege, recently suggested the school strikes were not genuine actions of young people angry and frustrated about the future of their planet, but a “setup” and “more than spontaneous actions of solidarity”.
Schauvliege claimed Belgium’s intelligence services had information that the children were being directed by unknown groups or individuals. But such was the political backlash, she was forced to resign last week.
Holly has gained support globally via social media, where a network of young people are reaching out across national boundaries. She has little time for adults who doubt and criticise her actions.
“I say to people who object to us missing lessons, what is the point of studying for a future that if nothing is done, we might not have?” she said.
On her first strike day, Holly explained clearly why she was taking the step. “I am striking because we are running out of time. Thousands of children around the world should not be having to miss classes because of our leaders’ inability to treat the climate crisis as a crisis,” she said.
Over the past few weeks, she has featured in Scottish media and been recruited as an environment columnist for the Lochaber Times.
And her sense of urgency and passion has only increased. As the school strike message continues to spread across the globe, Holly says she is determined to follow Thunberg’s lead.
“Greta Thunberg, thank you for leading the way,” she said in a tweet. “You are right – with action does come hope.”

Links

• UK pupils to join global strike over climate change crisis
• The children skipping school aren't ruining the planet – you are
• The Human Survival Summit: The Next Wave Of Climate Change Protests Is Coming
• Greta Thunberg Dresses Down More Global Elites For Climate Inaction
• Teenage Activist Takes School Strikes 4 Climate Action To Davos
• ‘Grown-Ups Have Failed Us’
• Parenting The Climate Change Generation
• 15-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Speaks Truth To Power In Katowice
• Children Demand Climate Change Action Through Protests And Lawsuits
• Australian Students Stage School Strikes Over Climate Change Inaction
• Schools Climate Strike: The Best Protest Banners And Posters

'We Won': Landmark Climate Ruling As NSW Court Rejects Coal Mine

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Environmental groups are cheering a decision in NSW's Land and Environment Court that found the emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change from a proposed coal mine were among the reasons to reject the project.
Brian Preston, chief judge of the court, handed down his judgment in a case between Gloucester Resources Ltd and the NSW Planning Minister in Sydney on Friday. He concluded the mine project was "in the wrong place at the wrong time".


The chief judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court dismissed Gloucester Resources Limited's appeal of the Department of Planning and Environment's 2017 decision to not approve the mine in the NSW Hunter.

He dismissed an appeal by developers of the controversial Rocky Hill open-cut coal mine near the Mid North Coast town of Gloucester against any earlier planning rejection.
Last April, the Environmental Defenders Office of NSW secured approval from the court to join the case, arguing on behalf of its client Groundswell Gloucester that the mine's detrimental impact on climate change and on the social fabric of the town must be considered.
The EDO dubbed it a "once in a generation case" as it was the first time an Australian court had heard expert evidence about the urgent need to stay within a global carbon budget in the context of a proposed new coal mine.
Justice Preston noted the "significant adverse social impacts on the community" from the proposed mine but - in a court-first in Australia - highlighted the climate impacts of coal mining.
"The construction and operation of the mine, and the transportation and combustion of the coal from the mine, will result in the emission of greenhouse gases, which will contribute to climate change," Justice Preston said in his judgement.

'Reverberate across Australia'
Di Montague, a member of Groundswell Gloucester, told fellow anti-mine campaigners, "we've won, we've won".

Gloucester residents are jubilant after their win in the Land and Environment Court. Credit: Janie Barrett

The result should "reverberate across every community fighting coal and coal seam gas in Australia", Ms Montague told the Sydney Morning Herald ahead of the result.
"It's a very strong judgement," David Morris, EDO NSW's chief executive, said after the judgment was released to a packed court room.
Planning Minister Anthony Roberts declined to comment on the judgement's wider importance, saying only: "That’s the legal process and we respect the court’s decision”.
A spokesman later added that Minister Roberts was "gratified that the Land and Environment Court agreed with his original decision to refuse a mining licence on the grounds that the proposal did not meet environmental and social requirements. These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis."
Brian Clifford, chief operating officer for Gloucester Resources said the company was disappointed by the court's decision after the mine had "met all the non-discretionary criteria".
"Gloucester Resources Limited will assess the implications of today’s decision and consider its
next steps," Mr Clifford said.
Stephen Galilee, chief executive of the NSW Minerals Council, said his organisation did not accept that the verdict amounted to a "landmark case"because the Planning Department had already recommended against the project's approval.
"We’ll take a close look at the judgement, including what appears to be a range of different reasons for the outcome," Mr Galilee said.

'Shutting the door'
The result was being watched with interest internationally. Climate litigation, particularly in the US and European nations such as the Netherlands, is growing as climate campaigners frustrated by insufficient political action seek alternative routes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Hunter Valley coal mines: will it be harder to expand or dig new ones after NSW court ruling?

Will Steffen, an adjunct professor at the Australian National University who gave evidence in court about the climate impacts of coal, welcomed the result.
"It is absolutely clear that the Paris climate targets cannot be met if we continue to open up new fossil fuel reserves," Professor Steffen said.
"This landmark decision sends a clear message to the fossil fuel industry that it cannot continue to expand if we are serious about tackling climate change."
"Shutting the door on new fossil fuel developments will be a major turning point in the battle to stabilise the climate system - and will add further momentum to the shift to clean, reliable renewable energy systems," he said.

'All emissions contribute'
Justice Preston elaborated on his judgement, noting that "all of the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions of the Rocky Hill Coal Project will impact on the environment".
"All anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change," he said.
In aggregate, the mine would have contributed 37.8 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent, "a sizeable individual source" of such emissions, Justice Preston concluded.
"It matters not that the aggregate of the Project's greenhouse gas emissions may represent a small fraction of the global total", he said. "The global problem of climate change needs to be addressed by multiple local actions to mitigate emissions by sources and remove greenhouse gases by sinks."

'Wrong place, wrong time'
In summarising, Justice Preston said an open-cut coal mine in "this part of the Gloucester valley would be in the wrong place at the wrong time".
It was the wrong place because of "this scenic and cultural landscape", including indigenous ones, and its proximity to home.
However, it was also the "wrong time because the greenhouse gas emissions of the coal mine and its coal product will increase global total concentrations of [those gases] at a time when what is now urgently needed, in order to meet generally agreed climate targets is a rapid and deep decrease" in those emissions, Justice Preston concluded.
Such a judgment "will be generally applicable to any coal mine in Australia", Mr Morris from the EDO said.
Mr Morris also drew attention to Justice Preston's recognition and apparent acceptance of the need for a carbon budget to keep global average temperatures from rising more than 1.5-2 degrees compared to pre-industrial times, as agreed in the Paris climate accord.
That budget meant "most fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground unburned", Justice Preston wrote.
Justin Field, a NSW Greens MP, said the decision put the government and miners "on notice".
"NSW's contribution to climate change from the burning of fossil fuels mined here has been recognised by the court's decision and should rightly be a consideration in any proposed developments," he said.

Long battles
The town of Gloucester and its campaigners are no strangers to the spotlight.
Groundswell Gloucester successfully saw off energy giant AGL and its plans to develop at least 330 coal seam gas wells in the valley, with the anniversary of that result three years ago last Monday.
"There's been so much angst" over the CSG and coal mines in the region, Julie Lyford, president of Groundswell Gloucester and a former mayor of the town, said.
Licences, including for coal and CSG exploration near Gloucester, "had been handed out like confetti" by the previous state Labor government, Ms Lyford said. "The Gloucester community has been living with the results of that disgraceful period" for more than a decade.
It was now important for the planning, environment and resources departments to "take a serious look" at how they have colluded to promote mining over other interests, she said.
"It's about time something changed," Ms Lyford said.

Links

• 'New weapon': courts offer hope for driving serious climate action
• See You In Court, Citizens Tell Governments On Climate Change
• A Surge Of Climate Lawsuits Targets Human Rights, Damage From Fossil Fuels
• 2018 In Climate Liability: When A Trend Became A Wave
• Big Coal And Friends On Track To Shut Down Your Climate Activism
• Children Demand Climate Change Action Through Protests And Lawsuits
• 'New Weapon': Courts Offer Hope For Driving Serious Climate Action
• Vanuatu Says It May Sue Fossil Fuel Companies And Other Countries Over Climate Change