Call To Arms: How Can Australia Avoid A Slow And Painful Decline?

The Guardian - Gay Alcorn

Australia has been warned it risks ‘drifting into the future’ if it fails to respond to challenges in a fast-changing world

Australia is facing challenges from the rise of Asia, rapid technological change, climate change and the environment, changing demographics, declining trust in institutions and business, and strains on social cohesion. Photograph: johan63/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Australia is at a crossroads. Drift towards a future of slow decline economically and socially or, if action is taken now to address our most important challenges, create a future of greater prosperity for all, globally competitive industries and a sustainable environment.
That is the conclusion of a major report bringing together the thinking of more than 50 leaders in business, academia, NGOs and the community sector, working with the CSIRO to model alternative futures for Australia. The report is described as a “clarion call” for the nation.
The Australian National Outlook 2019, two years in the making, aims to “help kickstart a national conversation about where Australia is heading”, says its co-chair, Dr Ken Henry, the chairman of the National Australia Bank and former secretary of the Treasury department.
Participants met as a group with the nation’s leading science agency, the CSIRO, to identify the most critical long-term challenges facing Australia and what needed to change. They included senior leaders from Shell Australia, the Red Cross, McKinsey & Company, Australia Post, PwC, the Cochlear company, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, the Grattan Institute, major universities, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and UnitingCare Australia.
Individuals included the former New South Wales premier Nick Greiner, former chairman of the Australian competition and consumer commission Allan Fels and co-chair of the report, the CSIRO’s chairman, David Thodey.
The report concludes that while Australia has enjoyed almost three decades of economic growth, with enviable social cohesion and strong institutions, it risks “drifting into the future” if it fails to respond to challenges in a fast-changing world. Those identified are the rise of Asia, rapid technological change, climate change and the environment, changing demographics, declining trust in institutions and business and strains on social cohesion.

To deal with them and reach its potential by 2060, Australia must make “key shifts” in five areas: an industrial shift, an urban shift, an energy shift, a land shift and a culture shift.
The director of CSIRO Futures, James Deverell, led the project and said the sense of urgency came from the participants, who gathered for eight workshops, beginning with around 100 priorities for Australia before identifying the most crucial.
“There was this strong sense that we need to take action now,” Deverell said. “The group sees this as a clarion call, a call to arms for action.

Dr Ken Henry says the Australian National Outlook report aims to ‘help kickstart a national conversation about where Australia is heading’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

“When you look at the shifts, there’s a couple of things in common. One is the need to focus on the long term, that these shifts are going to play out over a generation or more, but that doesn’t mean we can kick the can down the road and ignore them. The other one is the need for strong leadership, for bold action.”
The report references the 1980s, when strong productivity growth was driven by a consensus on economic reform supported by both major parties, big business and unions.
The report does not give specific policy recommendations but suggests the “levers” the country needs to pull to get the best outcomes. One of its strongest conclusions is that there is no tradeoff between strong economic growth and transitioning to zero-emission renewable energy, an argument that has crippled political debate in Australia for more than a decade.

In both scenarios modelled by the CSIRO – slow decline or what the report calls outlook vision – almost all electricity is generated by renewables by 2060 due to drops in the cost of renewables and the decline in the demand for fossil fuels. The global disruption in the energy market is underway, so whether the Australian government encourages new coal-fired power stations or not, renewables will be cheaper and replace them.
In Australia, most of the transition will happen between 2020 and 2040 as ageing coal-fired power plants are retired and replaced with renewables.
“We’ve seen costs come down so much in solar and wind they are now the low-cost solution,” Deverell said. “Once you hit a certain level of renewables on the grid you need to add storage to the cost, but that’s factored into our modelling and we see the cost of storage coming down over time.”
Deverell said even if Australia continued its policy uncertainty around energy and environment policy, we would still get to almost 100% renewable energy by 2060 purely because of the market. But the warning to politicians and policy makers is that “the transition happens more slowly and ultimately it makes electricity prices higher”.

Thodey argues in the report that if Australia pulls the right levers, “it is possible to achieve higher GDP per capita (as much as 36%) while ensuring growth is inclusive and environmentally sustainable”.
“In a global context, strong cooperation on climate change and trade can deliver a better outcome for Australia without significantly impacting our economic growth, where before it may have been thought impossible.”
Domestically, the report says that whatever happens in the rest of the world, Australia can make big strides to reduce our emissions through improving energy productivity, which means using less energy for the same outcome.

 The report suggests the biggest benefits will come to Australia if the world takes concerted action on climate change to limit global warming to a maximum 2C by 2100. Photograph: Michael Masters/Getty Images

Australia was weak compared with best practice internationally because it was not using the best technology available. It had the potential to become one of the most productive users of energy in the world through energy efficiency and electrification. Electric vehicles, for instance, are expected to be the cheapest form of transport after 2025 and would dominate sales by 2040.
Australia needs to prepare to adapt to global conditions whatever they are, but the biggest benefits will come if the world takes concerted action on climate change to limit global warming to a maximum 2C by 2100 rather than the catastrophic 4C rise if little action is taken.
If there is cooperative global action on climate change, Australia stands to be a big winner, the report finds. The CSIRO modelling indicates that “lower emissions from energy and greater sequestration on the land could enable Australia to achieve ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050 under the outlook vision”. Australia could capitalise on low-carbon exports such as hydrogen produced by renewable energy, countering the decline in global demand for our fossil fuels exports.
“Although other countries are also pursuing energy productivity and renewables, modelling suggests that Australia’s vast natural resources for renewable generation should lead to lower cost electricity in 2060,” the report says.

With reliable, low-carbon electricity and investor confidence in long-term policy, along with rising wages and improved energy efficiency, “by 2060 Australians are spending between 58% and 64% less on electricity as a proportion of income than they are today”.
Even if the world balks at strong action on climate change, Australia does better economically if it if embraces energy efficiency to reduce emissions.
The report’s proposed land shift would see a “stretch goal” of increasing agricultural productivity to 3% per year, meaning intensifying agriculture on the best land, using emerging technologies and boosting research and development. For instance, increasing productivity could result in revenue for crops such as winter cereals doubling by 2060.

The report suggests increasing agricultural productivity could result in revenue for crops such as winter cereals doubling by 2060. Photograph: Michele Mossop/Getty Images

Agriculture in Australia had not yet fully embraced the “digital revolution” and doing so would be a boon.
Strong global action on global warming would present opportunities for land owners to sequester carbon through carbon and environmental planting, a “significant land use shift” that would protect prime agricultural land for food. As much as half of the least productive agricultural land could be profitably switched to carbon plantings, which would offset Australia’s own greenhouse gas emissions. Additional emissions abatement could be sold as carbon credits to other countries.
“Australia has one of world’s best and largest solar resources and we can capture that and export low emissions energy to countries that don’t have that resource, to places like Japan, Korea and potentially even China,” Deverell said.
Overall, the report says that “Australia is not well prepared and that action is required to avoid the slow decline scenario”. That scenario is not a disaster, but is far less positive than it could be. CSIRO modelling found GDP growth would be 2.1% annually, real wage growth would be 40% higher in 2060 than it is now and there would be only a modest increase in energy productivity. Major cities would continue to sprawl, adding to stressful commutes and long distances to education and services.

It is possible to achieve higher GDP per capita (as much as 36%) while ensuring growth is inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
David Thodey, CSIRO chairman

With bold action, the modelling found a far more prosperous and dynamic Australia, with GDP growth of 2.76% to 2.8% annually, real wages 90% higher, average density of major cities increasing 60% to 88%, only a 6% to 28% increase in total energy use, a more than doubling of energy productivity, and net zero emissions by 2050 with global cooperation.
“This decoupling of emissions from GDP demonstrate that stronger action on environmental measures need not come at the expense of economic outcomes.”
Deverell said the report wasn’t intended as a list of policy recommendations or predictions for the future, but a chance to “get together a group of senior leaders, public sector, private sector, NGOs, (to) have an informed consensus on where we need to go”.
While trust and social cohesion were difficult to model, they were crucial for Australia’s future, he said. Trust in governments and CEOs was low, which meant Australians had little faith that decisions were made in the long-term interest of all. Without that trust, bold decisions were more difficult.
There was no “silver bullet” to restore trust, but efforts were needed to address policy over-promising, the perceived unrepresentative nature of politicians who came from narrow backgrounds and the perception that politicians favour vested interests over the public interest.
The report also emphasised equity. “We didn’t just want this to come through as a ‘here’s what we need to do to grow our economy’, but ‘here’s what we need to do to grow our economy and increase living standards for all Australians’.”
In the industry shift, the report says productivity can be boosted with increased adoption of technology, greater investment in education and skills to ensure a globally competitive workforce, and reversing the decline in education in key areas such as maths and science.
In both the slow decline and outlook vision scenarios, the report accepts official estimates that Australia’s population will reach 41 million by 2060, with Sydney and Melbourne home to between 8 million and 9 million people, and Brisbane and Perth between 4 million and 5 million. The slow decline model shows millions more living in the outer suburbs, making it harder to travel to jobs, education and services. Housing affordability remains a major problem, and social cohesion is strained.
The urban shift requires a big change in the way planning and policy supports our cities, with a growth in medium and high density living, and a focus on multiple “centres” of growth apart from the CBD, a policy that Sydney and Melbourne are already embracing.
Well-designed apartments, semi-detached homes and townhouses make up just over half of the housing stock, with a mix of reasonably priced accommodation so that essential workers can afford homes. People live closer to jobs, to education and to services and recreation.

Electric vehicles are expected to be the cheapest form of transport after 2025 and would dominate sales by 2040. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

Car use is down, mass transit is up and electric vehicles make up over 80% of new vehicle sales in 2060. An alternative model outlined is one in which satellites cities such as Geelong and Newcastle grow quickly, and 5 million more people choose to live outside the capital cities, easing the density in the capitals.
It is the second Outlook report, following a 2015 release that focused more narrowly on water, energy and food. The 2019 report is more ambitious and brings in outside leaders to identify Australia’s key challenges and opportunities.
Deverell said it was aimed first at senior decision makers in the public and private sector, as well as NGOs and community groups. But it was “a message to all Australians that we can take control of the kind of future we want for the country”.
“By using those two scenarios we were trying to illustrate just how different the future is depending on the path that we take. We’re saying that Australians need to get together and these are the things we need to be focusing on. This is what’s really important.”

Links

• Australia missing out on huge cuts in emissions through energy efficiency failure
• Australia's emissions still rising, says report withheld in defiance of Senate order
• Australia isn't doing its part for the global climate. Sooner or later we’ll have to pay our share
• Coalition could indemnify new coal projects against potential carbon price
• 'Investors are mostly concerned about political risks': energy minister Angus Taylor – full interview
• Coal in decline: Adani in question and Australia out of step
• Coal in decline: an energy industry on life support
• Australia's peak business lobby calls for emissions intensity scheme
• Turnbull kicks the energy hornets' nest and goes Full Metal Export
• Big Australian banks invest $7bn more in fossil fuels than renewables, says report

Why The Polar Bear Is An Indisputable Image Of Climate Change

New Yorker - Michele Moses

Polar bears reflect the otherworldly beauty that rising temperatures threaten to destroy. Photograph by Irina Yarinskaya / AFP / Getty

Last Sunday, a polar bear turned up in Norilsk, an industrial city in Siberia known for the production of nickel, for the first time since 1977.
Visibly sick—thin and weak, with diarrhea and watering eyes—she roamed the city, feeding from a garbage dump and resting in the lot of a sand and gravel factory.
In one haunting image, the polar bear walks toward a line of cars, her paws dirtied, her head bowed in a way that seems serene, almost deferential.
A few drivers have opened their doors and are standing beside their cars, peering out at the animal.
To reach Norilsk from the Arctic, she would have had to travel hundreds of miles.
Polar bears rely on sea ice to hunt seals, and, as it melts, they must either seek other sources of food or go hungry.
The bear’s pilgrimage, some local environmentalists speculated, was likely undertaken out of starvation.
This one image, then, seemed to encapsulate both the tragedy of climate change and the resilience of nature.
Only, it turned out, this was not what happened. A team of specialists examined the polar bear and found that her coat (still white) was too clean to have weathered such a journey. It was possible that she had been captured as a cub and raised by nearby poachers, who, fearing a recent crackdown, released her to stay out of trouble.
In any case, the wildlife experts have transferred her to a zoo, where she can be cared for and treated for the illnesses she contracted by eating garbage.
This was not the first disputed image of a starving polar bear. In 2017, Paul Nicklen and Cristina Mittermeier captured a video of a polar bear ambling across an iceless archipelago in the Canadian Arctic and feeding from trash cans. The bear was skeletal, with a patchy coat, and weak to the point of collapsing.
After National Geographic published the video, overlaid with the text “This is what climate change looks like,” it was viewed by an estimated two and a half billion people. But some scientists accused National Geographic of being loose with the facts.
There was no way of knowing that climate change was the sole cause of the animal’s starvation, they contended; it may have been merely ill or old.
In response, National Geographic published an explanation, written by Mittermeier, titled “Starving-Polar-Bear Photographer Recalls What Went Wrong” that included the line “Perhaps we made a mistake in not telling the full story—that we were looking for a picture that foretold the future and that we didn’t know what had happened to this particular polar bear.”
The photographers’ incomplete, if not incorrect, knowledge undermined the larger truth that they were trying to communicate.
The story of climate change has been told, in part, through pictures of polar bears. And no wonder: in their glittering icy habitat, they reflect the otherworldly beauty that rising temperatures threaten to destroy.
The photographs from Norilsk this past week were not precisely of a species forced out of its habitat by climate change—though, as a story of human cruelty, they are no less disturbing—but the visceral reactions they inspired were arguably an appropriate response, nonetheless, given the current crisis. Because of its nickel-mining and smelting industry, Norilsk is one of the most polluted places on Earth—the average life expectancy is about ten years shorter than in the rest of Russia.
In 2016, industrial waste from the nickel factory caused the city’s Daldykan River to run red. The presence of an animal that we are accustomed to seeing in pristine natural beauty makes the whole setting seem even bleaker and more corrosive.
Yet to see a line of cars stop to observe a creature whose habitat their emissions are destroying is like an instance of restorative justice—the culprit and victim encounter each other face to face.
It provides a rare opportunity for us to confront the far-reaching moral consequences of our seemingly benign actions, like driving.
No revelation about the situational truth of the image should feel like permission for us to simply look away and get back in our cars.

Links

• Why a city visit by an exhausted polar bear is worrying
• A starving polar bear wandered into a Russian city, scavenging for food
• Polar Bears and Climate Change
• Polar bear population decline a wake up call for climate change action
• Polar Bears Really Are Starving Because of Global Warming, Study Shows
• A starving polar bear that was seen scavenging for food in an industrial city has been captured

The City Of Sydney Has Officially Declared A Climate Emergency

SBS - Charlotte Lam

City of Sydney councillors have voted to declare that climate change should be treated as a national emergency.

Activists from the Extinction Rebellion, Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Councillor Jess Miller, Councillor Jess Scully and Councillor Robert Kok at Sydney Town Hall. City of Sydney

Sydney has officially declared a climate emergency, with the city's councillors voting that climate change poses a serious risk to the people of Sydney and the rest of Australia.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore asked the council Monday night to call on the Federal Government to respond urgently to the emergency, by reintroducing a price on carbon to meet the Paris Agreement emissions reduction targets.

The City of Sydney has officially declared a climate emergency. pic.twitter.com/RobatF87IK

— Clover Moore (@CloverMoore) June 24, 2019

In 2007, the City of Sydney revealed its long-term strategic plan, Sustainable Sydney 2030, in which 97 per cent of residents said they wanted strong climate action.
“We set a goal to reduce our emissions by 70 per cent by 2030, and following the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, we set a more ambitious goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050”, the Lord Mayor said.
The council is also calling on the Federal Government to establish a Just Transition Authority to ensure Australians employed in fossil fuel industries find appropriate alternate employment.

We also call on the Government to establish a Just Transition Authority to ensure Australians employed in fossil fuel industries find appropriate alternate employment.

— Clover Moore (@CloverMoore) June 24, 2019

“We became Australia’s first carbon neutral council in 2007, and as of June 2017, we’d reduced emissions in our own operations by 25 per cent, Ms Moore said.
"In 2020, we will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy, allowing us to meet our 2030 target by 2024 – six years early.”



The Climate Council's chief executive Amanda McKenzie said Sydney’s declaration - which the City Council is expected to easily approve - underlined “just how serious the climate change issue is.”
“It is a genuine crisis,” she said. “Sydney has responded in an appropriate way.”
Earlier this year, a group of Australian councils declared a ‘climate emergency’ after a UN report warned urgent, widespread action was needed to prevent the two degrees Celsius temperature increase that could tip the planet into catastrophic global warming.

Links

• The Climate Crisis Is Our Third World War. It Needs A Bold Response
• Climate Change Doomsday Report Predicts End Of Human Civilisation
• Time To Flick Climate Emergency Switch: A Plea To Our New Parliament
• The Heat Is On Over The Climate Crisis. Only Radical Measures Will Work
• Come Senators, MPs, There's A Climate Emergency Raging
• The Guardian View On Extinction: Time To Rebel
• Biodiversity Crisis Is About To Put Humanity At Risk, UN Scientists To Warn
• Our Carbon Budget Is All But Spent, But Who In Canberra Is Counting?

Australia’s Still Building 4 In Every 5 New Houses To No More Than The Minimum Energy Standard

The Conversation - Trivess Moore | Michael Ambrose | Stephen Berry

Most new houses being built in Australia do no better than comply with the minimum energy performance required by regulations. Brendon Esposito/AAP

New housing in Australia must meet minimum energy performance requirements. We wondered how many buildings exceeded the minimum standard. What our analysis found is that four in five new houses are being built to the minimum standard and a negligible proportion to an optimal performance standard.
Before these standards were introduced the average performance of housing was found to be around 1.5 stars. The current minimum across most of Australia is six stars under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS).
This six-star minimum falls short of what is optimal in terms of environmental, economic and social outcomes. It’s also below the minimum set by many other countries.
There have been calls for these minimum standards to be raised. However, many policymakers and building industry stakeholders believe the market will lift performance beyond minimum standards and so there is no need to raise these.

What did the data show?
We wanted to understand what was happening in the market to see if consumers or regulation were driving the energy performance of new housing. To do this we explored the NatHERS data set of building approvals for new Class 1 housing (detached and row houses) in Australia from May 2016 (when all data sets were integrated by CSIRO and Sustainability Victoria) to December 2018.
Our analysis focuses on new housing in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, all of which apply the minimum six-star NatHERS requirement. The other states have local variations to the standard, while New South Wales uses the BASIX index to determine the environmental impact of housing.
The chart below shows the performance for 187,320 house ratings. Almost 82% just met the minimum standard (6.0-6.4 star). Another 16% performed just above the minimum standard (6.5-6.9 star).
Only 1.5% were designed to perform at the economically optimal 7.5 stars and beyond. By this we mean a balance between the extra upfront building costs and the savings and benefits from lifetime building performance.

NatHERS star ratings across total data set for new housing approvals, May 2016–December 2018. Author provided

 
  The average rating is 6.2 stars across the states. This has not changed since 2016.

Average NatHERS star rating for each state, 2016-18. Author provided

 
The data analysis shows that, while most housing is built to the minimum standard, the cooler temperate regions (Tasmania, ACT) have more houses above 7.0 stars compared with the warm temperate states.

NatHERS data spread by state. Author provided

 
The ACT increased average performance each year from 6.5 stars in 2016 to 6.9 stars in 2018. This was not seen in any other state or territory.
The ACT is the only region with mandatory disclosure of the energy rating on sale or lease of property. The market can thus value the relative energy efficiency of buildings. Providing this otherwise invisible information may have empowered consumers to demand slightly better performance.

We are paying for accepting a lower standard
The evidence suggests consumers are not acting rationally or making decisions to maximise their financial well-being. Rather, they just accept the minimum performance the building sector delivers.
Higher energy efficiency or even environmental sustainability in housing provides not only significant benefits to the individual but also to society. And these improvements can be delivered for little additional cost.
The fact that these improvements aren’t being made suggests there are significant barriers to the market operating efficiently. This is despite increasing awareness among consumers and in the housing industry about the rising cost of energy.
Eight years after the introduction of the six-star NatHERS minimum requirement for new housing in Australia, the results show the market is delivering four out of five houses that just meet this requirement. With only 1.5% designed to 7.5 stars or beyond, regulation rather than the economically optimal energy rating is clearly driving the energy performance of Australian homes.
Increasing the minimum performance standard is the most effective way to improve the energy outcomes.
The next opportunity for increasing the minimum energy requirement will be 2022. Australian housing standards were already about 2.0 NatHERS stars behind comparable developed countries in 2008. If mandatory energy ratings aren’t increased, Australia will fall further behind international best practice.
If we continue to create a legacy of homes with relatively poor energy performance, making the transition to a low-energy and low-carbon economy is likely to get progressively more challenging and expensive. Recent research has calculated that a delay in increasing minimum performance requirements from 2019 to 2022 will result in an estimated A$1.1 billion (to 2050) in avoidable household energy bills. That’s an extra 3 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Our research confirms the policy proposition that minimum house energy regulations based on the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme are a powerful instrument for delivering better environmental and energy outcomes. While introducing minimum standards has significantly lifted the bottom end of the market, those standards should be reviewed regularly to ensure optimal economic and environmental outcomes.

Links

• Low-energy homes don't just save money, they improve lives
• Energy star ratings for homes? Good idea, but it needs some real estate flair
• Sustainable housing's expensive, right? Not when you look at the whole equation
• Buildings produce 25% of Australia's emissions. What will it take to make them 'green' – and who'll pay?

The Climate Change Lawsuit That Could Stop The U.S. Government From Supporting Fossil Fuels

CBS Sixty Minutes - Steve Kroft

A lawsuit filed on behalf of 21 kids alleges the U.S. government knowingly failed to protect them from climate change. If the plaintiffs win, it could mean massive changes for the use of fossil fuels

The plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States

Of all the cases working their way through the federal court system, none is more interesting or potentially more life changing than Juliana versus the United States.
To quote one federal judge, "This is no ordinary lawsuit." It was filed back in 2015 on behalf of a group of kids who are trying to get the courts to block the U.S. government from continuing the use of fossil fuels.
They say it's causing climate change, endangering their future and violating their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.
As we first reported earlier this year, when the lawsuit first began hardly anyone took it seriously, including the government's lawyers, who have since watched the supreme court reject two of their motions to delay or dismiss the case.
Four years in, it is still very much alive, in part because the plaintiffs have amassed a body of evidence that will surprise even the skeptics and have forced the government to admit that the crisis is real.
The case was born here in Eugene, Oregon, a tree-hugger's paradise, and one of the cradles of environmental activism in the United States.
The lead plaintiff, University of Oregon student Kelsey Juliana, was only five weeks old when her parents took her to her first rally to protect spotted owls.
Today, her main concern is climate change, drought and the growing threat of wildfires in the surrounding Cascade Mountains.

Kelsey Juliana

Kelsey Juliana: There was a wildfire season that was so intense, we were advised not to go outside. The particulate matter in the smoke was literally off the charts. It was past severe, in terms of danger to health.
Steve Kroft: And you think that's because of climate change.
Kelsey Juliana: That's what scientists tell me.

It's not just scientists. Even the federal government now acknowledges in its response to the lawsuit that the effects of climate change are already happening and likely to get worse, especially for young people who will have to deal with them for the long term.

"The government has known for over 50 years that burning fossil fuels would cause climate change. And they don't dispute that we are in a danger zone on climate change."

Steve Kroft: How important is this case to you?
Kelsey Juliana: This case is everything. This is the climate case. We have everything to lose, if we don't act on climate change right now, my generation and all the generations to come.

She was 19 when the lawsuit was filed and the oldest of 21 plaintiffs. They come from ten different states and all claim to be affected or threatened by the consequences of climate change. The youngest, Levi Draheim, is in sixth grade.

Steve Kroft: You're 11 years old, and you're suing the United States government, that's not what most 11-year-olds do, right?
Levi Draheim: Yeah…

He's lived most of his life on the beaches of a barrier island in Florida that's a mile wide and barely above sea level.

Steve Kroft: What's your biggest fear about this island?
Levi Draheim: I fear that I won't have a home here in the future.
Steve Kroft: That the island will be gone.
Levi Draheim: Yeah. That the island will be underwater because of climate change.
Steve Kroft: So you feel like you've got a stake in this.
Levi Draheim: Yes.

The plaintiffs were recruited from environmental groups across the country by Julia Olson, an oregon lawyer, and the executive director of a non-profit legal organization called "Our Children's Trust." She began constructing the case eight years ago out of this spartan space now dominated by this paper diorama that winds its way through the office.

Steve Kroft: So what is this?
Julia Olson: So this is a timeline that we put together…

It documents what and when past U.S. administrations knew about the connection between fossil fuels and climate change. The timeline goes back 50 years, beginning with the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

Julia Olson: During President Johnson's administration, they issued a report in 1965 that talked about climate change being a catastrophic threat.

Whether it was a Democrat or a Republican in office, Olson says, there was an awareness of the potential dangers of carbon dioxide emissions.

Julia Olson: Every president knew that burning fossil fuels was causing climate change.

Fifty years of evidence has been amassed by Olson and her team, 36,000 pages in all, to be used in court.

Julia Olson: Our government, at the highest levels, knew and was briefed on it regularly by the national security community, by the scientific community. They have known for a very long time that it was a big threat.
Steve Kroft: Has the government disputed that government officials have known about this for more than 50 years and been told and warned about it for 50 years?
Julia Olson: No. They admit that the government has known for over 50 years that burning fossil fuels would cause climate change. And they don't dispute that we are in a danger zone on climate change. And they don't dispute that climate change is a national security threat and a threat to our economy and a threat to people's lives and safety. They do not dispute any of those facts of the case.

The legal proceedings have required the government to make some startling admissions in court filings. It now acknowledges that human activity - in particular, elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases - is likely to have been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-1900s… That global carbon dioxide concentrations reached levels unprecedented for at least 2.6 million years… That climate change is increasing the risk of loss of life and the extinction of many species and is associated with increases in hurricane intensity, the frequency of intense storms, heavy precipitation, the loss of sea ice and rising sea levels.

Julia Olson with correspondent Steve Kroft

Julia Olson: It's really the most compelling evidence I've ever had in any case I've litigated in over 20 years.

The lawsuit claims the executive and legislative branches of government have proven incapable of dealing with climate change. It argues that the government has failed in its obligation to protect the nation's air, water, forests and coast lines. And it petitions the federal courts to intervene and force the government to come up with a plan that would wean the country off fossil fuels by the middle of this century.

Steve Kroft: You're just saying, "Do it. We don't care how."
Julia Olson: Do it well and do it in the timeframe that it needs to be done.
Steve Kroft: You're talking about a case that could change economics in this country.
Julia Olson: For the better.
Steve Kroft: Well, you say it changes the economy for the better, but other people would say it would cause huge disruption.
Julia Olson: If we don't address climate change in this country, economists across the board say that we are in for economic crises that we have never seen before.

The lawsuit was first filed during the final years of the Obama administration in this federal courthouse in Eugene.

Steve Kroft: Did they take this case seriously when you filed it?
Julia Olson: I think in the beginning they thought they could very quickly get the case dismissed.

In November 2016, a federal judge stunned the government by denying its motion to dismiss the case and ruling it could proceed to trial. In what may become a landmark decision, Judge Ann Aiken wrote, "Exercising my reasoned judgment, I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society."

Steve Kroft: A federal judge ever said that before?
Julia Olson: No judge had ever written that before.

The opinion was groundbreaking because the courts have never recognized a constitutional right to a stable climate.

Ann Carlson

Ann Carlson: That's a big stretch for a court.

Ann Carlson is a professor of environmental law at UCLA. Like almost everyone else in the legal community, she was certain the case was doomed.

Ann Carlson: There's no constitutional provision that says the that environment should be protected.
Steve Kroft: Why is the idea that the people of the United States have a right to a stable environment such a radical idea?
Ann Carlson: Well, I think that Judge Aiken actually does a very good job of saying it's not radical to ask the government to protect the health, and the lives and the property of this current generation of kids. Look, If you can't have your life protected by government policies that save the planet, then what's the point of having a Constitution?
Steve Kroft: How significant is this case?
Ann Carlson: Well, if the plaintiffs won, it'd be massive, particularly if they won what they're asking for, which is get the federal government out of the business of in any way subsidizing fossil fuels and get them into the business of dramatically curtailing greenhouse gases in order to protect the children who are the plaintiffs in order to create a safe climate. That would be enormous.

So enormous that the Trump administration, which is now defending the case, has done everything it can to keep the trial from going forward. It's appealed Judge Aiken's decision three times to the ninth circuit court in California and twice to the Supreme Court. Each time it's failed.

Julia Olson: They don't want it to go to trial.
Steve Kroft: Why?
Julia Olson: Because they will lose on the evidence that will be presented at trial.
Steve Kroft: And that's why they don't want one.
Julia Olson: That's why they don't want one. They know that once you enter that courtroom and your witnesses take the oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth the facts are the facts and alternative facts are perjury. And so, all of these claims and tweets about climate change not being real, that doesn't hold up in a court of law.

The Justice Department declined our request for an interview, but in court hearings, in briefs, it's called the lawsuit misguided, unprecedented and unconstitutional. It argues that energy policy is the legal responsibility of Congress and the White House, not a single judge in Oregon. And while climate change is real it's also a complicated global problem that was not caused and cannot be solved by just the United States government.
In other words, it's not responsible.

“As the district court in a similar suit recently ruled, the plaintiffs in these climate cases would have the courts ‘regulating all statutory, regulatory, budgetary, personnel, and administrative Executive actions that relate to the environment.’ Under our laws, making such important decisions about the Nation’s energy and climate policy is entrusted to elected officials, not the courts. It’s also important to note that this lawsuit was originally filed against and opposed by the Obama Administration because the role of elected officials was being circumvented.”
— Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division

Steve Kroft: Why is the federal government responsible for global warming? I mean it doesn't produce any carbon dioxide. How are they causing it?
Julia Olson: They're causing it through their actions of subsidizing the fossil fuel energy system, permitting every aspect of our fossil fuel energy system, and by allowing for extraction of fossil fuels from our federal public lands. We are the largest oil and gas producer in the world now because of decisions our federal government has made.
Steve Kroft: What about the Chinese government? What about the Indian government?
Julia Olson: Clearly, it's not just the United States that has caused climate change but the United States is responsible for 25 percent of the atmospheric carbon dioxide that has accumulated over the many decades.

Julia Olson is confident they're going to prevail in court. Ann Carlson and most of the legal community still think it's a longshot, but she says she's been wrong about this case every step of the way.

Ann Carlson: Courts have asked governments to do bold things. The best example would be Brown versus the Board of Education, when the court ordered schools to desegregate with all deliberate speed. So there have been court decisions that have asked governments to do very dramatic things. This might be the biggest.
Steve Kroft: You've been stunned by how far this case has gotten. Why has it gotten this far?
Ann Carlson: I think there are several reasons this case has actually withstood motions to dismiss. I think the first is that the lawyers have crafted the case in a way that's very compelling. You have a number of kids who are very compelling plaintiffs who are experiencing the harms of climate change now and will experience the harms of climate change much more dramatically as they get older. I think the hard question here is the law.

Jayden Foytlin

The latest oral arguments in Juliana versus the United States were heard earlier this month in portland. But whatever happens next will certainly be appealed. Two-thousand miles away, in the aptly named town of Rayne, Louisiana, the family of one of the plaintiffs, 15-year-old Jayden Foytlin, is still rebuilding from the last disaster in 2016 that dumped 18 inches of rain on Rayne and Southern Louisiana in just 48 hours.

Jayden Foytlin: That's just something that shouldn't happen. You can't really deny that it, climate change has something to do with it. And you can't deny that it's something that we have to pay attention to. I'm not sure if most of Louisiana, of South Louisiana is going to be here, that's just a really big worry of mine.

For the foreseeable future, it's impossible to predict when and how the storms and the lawsuit are likely to end.

Links

• Kids Suing The US Over Climate Change Are Getting Global Support
• White House Effort To Stop Youth Climate Lawsuit Is 'Drastic And Extraordinary'
• My Student Missed Class... To Sue The Government Over Climate Change
• Landmark Children’s Climate Lawsuit Hits New Roadblock
• 2018 In Climate Liability: When A Trend Became A Wave
• In Courtrooms, Climate Change Is No Longer Up For Debate
• Climate Change Activists Worldwide Look To Courts As A Powerful New Ally
• Support Is Surging For Teens’ Climate Change Lawsuit

Rising Sea, Erosion To Wreak Havoc In Low-Lying Suburbs: Report

The Age - Benjamin Preiss and Adam Carey

Rising seas are threatening to encroach on low-lying parts of Melbourne within 20 years, causing flooding and erosion in suburbs including St Kilda, Point Cook, Mordialloc, Seaford and Frankston.
Other places at risk include areas around Queenscliff and Barwon Heads on the Bellarine Peninsula; the south-west Victorian towns of Port Fairy and Portland; and Tooradin, Lang Lang and Seaspray in the state's south-east.

Melbourne bayside areas are among those ranked as at risk. Credit: Luis Ascui

A report tabled in Victoria's Parliament last week examines the myriad threats to the state’s fragile coastline, painting an alarming picture of damage to the environment and suburban Melbourne if no action is taken.
The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council report cites a 20-centimetre sea-level rise by 2040 and between 40 centimetres and one metre by century’s end.
“Sea-level rise will lead to more frequent inundation of low-lying areas, loss of coastal habitat, cliff, beach and foreshore erosion,” the report says.
“Climate change will also put pressure on ageing coastal infrastructure and ultimately impact on feasibility of living in or developing some coastal locations.”

Locals Dave Sutton (left) and Phillip Heath on the remaining strip separating the surf beach from the road at Inverloch, where erosion has caused major problems. Credit: Justin McManus

Increasing storm intensity, coupled with rising seas, will cause extensive erosion of the Victorian coastline by 2040, the report says.
“The most extensive area vulnerable to erosion by 2040 is the Gippsland coast,” it says. “Other coasts at risk include west of Portland, beaches in Port Phillip Bay between Mordialloc and Frankston, and the coast between Cape Paterson and Cape Liptrap in South Gippsland.”
Coastal erosion has already had a dramatic impact on the foreshore at Inverloch, which has receded 33 metres since 2012.
Erosion has also caused major problems in Port Fairy, where the local council has stepped up research and planning to tackle the problem.
The report also considers the impact of other coastal threats, including tourism and development. It outlines how a growing population may increase water pollution, with higher levels of treated sewage effluent and industrial wastewater expected to be discharged into the sea.

School students protesting for greater action on climate change. Credit: Justin McManus

The report is intended as a planning tool for the state government, which is developing a policy for coastal protection.
A government spokeswoman said action was being taken to protect the coastline in the face of climate change.
"We’re preparing the Victorian coast for the climate change challenges ahead through research, policy change and on-ground action – investing more than $60 million into marine and coastal projects since 2014," she said.
The spokeswoman said the government was working with communities and councils on a range of projects, including a beach "renourishment program" to mitigate erosion.
It has also spent $10 million on its Port Phillip Bay Fund, which provides grants for community projects that protect and preserve the health of the bay.
Victorian Environmental Assessment Council member Geoff Wescott said the modelling and predictions contained in the report laid out the consequences of failing to take action.
“When you see those maps of St Kilda or the Elwood Canal flooding, that is what happens if nothing is done,” he said.
The government has also commissioned the CSIRO to begin a fresh assessment of the likely coastal hazards that rising seas and bigger storm surges will create along the shores of Port Phillip Bay.

The swollen Elster Creek flooded the Elwood Canal in 2016. Credit: Penny Stephens

That work by Australia’s national science agency is due to be finished by the middle of next year.
Melbourne University senior property lecturer Georgia Warren-Myers said even small sea-level rises coupled with storm surges could have a major impact on some densely populated parts of Melbourne.
A report Dr Warren-Myers co-wrote found that 33 per cent of properties in the City of Port Phillip would be affected by a sea-level rise of half a metre when combined with storm surges.
But she warned property taxes, a key revenue source for state and federal governments, would also be impacted if buyers began rejecting particular areas due to their vulnerability to flooding.
“There are future economic implications that haven’t been really thought out,” she said.
Dr Warren-Myers called for local governments to include more information about sea-level rise and potential flood risk in planning overlays, so they had to be included in Section 32 legal documents that sellers are required to provide to potential buyers.
Port Phillip Baykeeper Neil Blake said erosion and sea-level rises posed huge challenges and may eventually force some Victorians to move from currently populated areas. “There will have to be a major adaptation required to address that,” he said.
Mr Blake said it was beyond time to be discussing climate change in theoretical terms as its consequences were now having a tangible impact on the community and environment.
But he said plastic litter was one of the biggest threats to the health of Victoria’s coastline.

Predicted coastal erosion impact along Victoria’s coastline. VEAC Report

Links

• Report: Assessment of the Values of Victoria’s Marine Environment (pdf)
• Victorian Environmental Assessment Council
• Rising Seas Threaten Australia's Major Airports
• This Is What Happens To Australia If We Don't Act
• Sea Levels Could Rise An Extra 60cm If Emission Reductions Are Delayed Until 2035, Study Finds
• 'Truly Desperate Times': Pacific Nations Despair At Australia's Climate Action Stasis
• Climate Change: Sea Level Rise Could Displace Millions Of People Within Two Generations
• Sea level rise - additional links

Rising Methane May Thwart Efforts To Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change

Phys.org - Nala Rogers

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

If the world were on track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of less than 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, methane levels in the atmosphere would theoretically be dropping.
Instead, they have been rising since 2007, and shooting up even faster since 2014.
A perspective published in the journal Science discusses the potential causes and consequences of our planet's out-of-control methane.
Methane decays in the atmosphere faster than carbon dioxide does, but it is a far more powerful greenhouse gas.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a molecule of methane will cause 28-36 times more warming than a molecule of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.
Recent data shows that methane concentrations in the atmosphere have risen from about 1,775 parts per billion in 2006 to 1,850 parts per billion in 2017.
The emissions targets in the Paris Agreement were based largely on data from the 1990s and early 2000s, when methane levels were flatter, said Sara Mikaloff Fletcher, a climate scientist with New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington and first author of the new article.
The only emissions scenario that achieves Paris Agreement goals in climate models assumes that methane levels have been declining since 2010, when in fact they have been rising since 2007, she said.
There may be other ways of keeping climate change under 2 degrees Celsius, but they would involve compensating for rising methane with more drastic cuts to other greenhouse gases.
Scientists aren't sure why methane levels are rising.
A 2017 study attributes about half of the increase to cows and other ruminant livestock, which burp methane as they digest food.
Another contributing factor could be that people are releasing more fossil fuel emissions while burning less wood and other biomass.
In Mikaloff Fletcher's view, the most alarming possibilities are the ones we have little control over.
Rising temperatures could be triggering wetlands to release more methane, and changes in atmospheric chemistry could be slowing the rate at which methane breaks down. 

Links

• Rising methane: A new climate challenge
• Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Could turning it into CO2 fight climate change?
• Bacteria that oxidizes methane found in common soil
• Defusing the methane bomb—we can still make a difference
• Methane in the atmosphere is surging, and that's got scientists worried
• Study reveals what natural greenhouse emissions from wetlands and permafrosts mean for Paris Agreement targets