'Overwhelmed' Greta Thunberg Leaves Climate March Early After Rockstar Welcome

Sydney Morning Herald - Aritz Parra | Frank Jordans

Madrid: Activists of all ages and from all corners of the planet demanded concrete action Friday against climate change from leaders and negotiators at a global summit in Madrid.
The march was led by dozens of representatives of Latin America's indigenous peoples - a mark of deference after anti-government protests in Chile, the original host of the summit, resulted in the the talks suddenly being moved to Europe for the third year in a row.
Celebrity climate activist Greta Thunberg declared from a stage that "change is not going to come from the people in power, it's going to come from the masses."
A crowd of thousands responded chanting "Greta! Greta!"

Thunberg was surrounded by supporters and police after arriving in Spain by train from Lisbon. Credit: Getty Images

Organisers claimed 500,000 people turned out for the march, but authorities in Madrid put the number at 15,000 without an immediate explanation for the disparity in the count.

Thunberg addresses a demonstration in Madrid. Her placard translates as "Strike for Climate".  Credit: AP

The Swedish teen was followed on her first day in Madrid by a swarm of cameras and reporters, as well as curious members of the public wanting to film her on their smartphones, from the very first step she took out of an overnight train from Lisbon.
Two young activists earned cheers as they abseiled from a bridge and strung out a banner saying: "Just 8 years till 1.5 degrees C. HOW DARE YOU?" - a reference to scientists' forecasts of rising temperatures and what activists complain is a lack of a convincing political response to the threat.
The crush as people tried to get a glimpse of Thunberg led her to pull out shortly after the start of the march, saying police had advised her to leave for safety's sake, and she climbed into an electric car.
A Madrid police spokeswoman who spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorised to be named in media reports said that it had only been "suggested" to that Thunberg leave after she appeared "overwhelmed" by the attention and that police never ordered the activist to abandon on safety grounds.
Earlier in the day, the 16-year-old had said at a press conference that calls for real action against climate change are still being "ignored" by political leaders despite their continuous praise of the global environmental youth movement she helped create.
Thunberg hoped the COP25 summit would lead to "something concrete" and "increasing awareness among people in general," but she said that after more than one year of student strikes"still basically nothing has happened."
"The climate crisis is still being ignored by those in power," she added.

Consensus proving 'difficult'
During the talks, which run from December 2-13, nearly 200 countries are meant to streamline the rules on global carbon markets and agree on how poor countries should be compensated for destruction largely caused by emissions from rich nations.
An official directly involved in the negotiations said that despite a few setbacks, the technical negotiations were progressing, although many issues were being left for ministerial-level meetings in the summit's second and final week.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the discussions, added that a political declaration on greater "ambition" - a buzzword at the summit - was shaping to be "difficult to achieve."
"A summit that doesn't end with enhanced ambition would be something that nobody would understand if we take into account what the streets and science are telling us," the official said.


Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg is just 16 years old, but she has gained global attention for her frank pleas for action from the world's most powerful leaders.

The talks came as evidence mounts about disasters that could ensue from further global warming, including a study published Friday predicting that unchecked climate change could devastate fishery industries and coral reef tourism.
The study commissioned by 14 nations whose economies rely heavily on the sea says climate change could cause hundreds of billions of dollars in losses by 2050, adding that limiting global warming would lessen the economic impact for coastal countries, but that they also need to adapt to ocean changes.

Tipping point for an 'uprising'
Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said social scientists believed that when roughly 3.5 per cent of a nation's population joins "civil and non-violent uprisings" it can be enough to force change, even in a dictatorship.
In Germany, numbers at the climate demonstrations on September 20 were estimated at nearly 2 per cent of the population, and in New Zealand at 3.5 per cent, he said.
"If you start seeing an uprising ... there will be an enormous pressure for the political leadership to step up and start acting," Rockstrom said - though he noted it "can also be quite challenging along the way".

Climate activists march in silence during a 'Fridays For Future' protest in Madrid during the COP25 climate talks. Credit: Getty Images

He questioned whether, at some point, it would start to become morally unacceptable to cause people's deaths with car exhaust, as happened with cigarette smoking.
In New Delhi, at some times of the year, young people are inhaling toxic pollution equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes a day, killing over 7000 people a year in the city, he noted.
On Friday morning, eight-year-old Indian climate striker Licypriya Kangujam, of New Delhi, headed to her country's pavilion at the Madrid talks, clutching a hand-written poster calling on India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pass a flagship climate change law in the current parliament session.
She said she had been protesting in front of the parliament building regularly on Fridays to press for the legislation.
She said she had come to the climate talks with her father to tell politicians and others, "you must change your way of thinking".

Links

• Greta Thunberg Rejects Environmental Prize, Saying: ‘The Climate Doesn’t Need Awards’
• The Emperor’s New Clothes: Greta Thunberg Versus The Climate Contrarians
• It's No Accident That Girls Are Leading The Climate Movement
• Timeline: Greta Thunberg's Rise From Lone Protester To Nobel Favorite
• Why Is Everyone Afraid Of Greta Thunberg?
• Greta Thunberg’s Radical Climate Change Fairy Tale Is Exactly The Story We Need
• Our Young Girls Are Bearing The Burden Of Climate Action. But Should They Be?
• Rising Voices: Young People Fight For Climate Action – Video
• How The Climate Kids Are Short-Circuiting Right-Wing Media
• Cyclone Greta Shakes Up The Climate Change Debate

Innocent Animals Cannot Do Anything About Climate Change. Only People Can.

USA TODAY - Editorial Board

As Paris climate agreement negotiators meet in Madrid this week, don't forget the animals that share earth and global warming with mankind: Our view

A koala recovers from burns on Nov. 29, 2019, in Port Macquarie, Australia. Hundreds have died in the nation's recent drought-fueled fires.

Caught by a motion-detection trail camera in the Florida wilds, a young panther manages a few steps before its wobbling hindquarters fail and its rear legs collapse to the ground. The cat, among several species stricken by some mysterious neurological ailment possibly connected to environmental changes, struggles to regain footing and continue, only for its legs to fail again steps later.
In New England states, ticks unleashed by milder winters have swarmed and withered moose populations, with tens of thousands of the blood-sucking parasites affixing to just one of the imposing animals or a calf.
Camera crews along the Siberian coast have filmed walruses cartwheeling to their death down cliffs. Forced onto dry land because of sparse Arctic sea ice, according to Netflix's "Our Planet," the animals crowd their way up rocky escarpments only to plunge off.

Human and animal suffering
As the world grows warmer, heart-breaking accounts of animal suffering have multiplied from what scientists suspect, or have established, are the direct result of man-made climate change.
For humans, the consequences of global warming are difficult to internalize because any changes seem, for the moment, to be slow or aberrational. But the impact on the world's delicate ecosystems can be catastrophic:

►Vanishing songbirds. Scientists released a study this year calculating that the wild bird populations of the United States and Canada have diminished by almost 30% since 1970. Nearly 3 billion birds are gone, including a quarter of blue jays, nearly half of Baltimore orioles, and hundreds of millions of sparrows and warblers.

►Massive antelope die-off. In three weeks, 200,000 saiga antelopes fell dead across the steppes of Central Asia in 2015, two-thirds of the world's population. Scientists recently solved the mystery when they discovered that warming temperatures might have unleashed a dormant bacterium in the animals, causing massive internal bleeding.

►Disappearing state and national symbols. Encroaching heat is driving away state birds, including Alabama's yellowhammer, the California quail, Georgia's brown thrasher, Iowa's and New Jersey's goldfinch, Minnesota's common loon, New Hampshire's purple finch, Pennsylvania's ruffed grouse and Vermont's hermit thrush. A national symbol of Australia — koalas — already threatened by human development, have died by the hundreds in the nation's recent drought-fueled fires.

Negotiating Paris climate agreement
In the past few months, ocean surges generated by ever larger storms have swept away dozens of wild horses in North Carolina. Drought has killed hundreds of elephants in Zimbabwe. And rising temperatures are causing sea turtles in some nesting areas to produce only female hatchlings.
A United Nations study this year found that a million plant and animal species risk extinction because of several human-induced factors greatly aggravated by climate change. More U.N. research recently warned that time is growing short for the world's nations to act drastically if catastrophic consequences are to be avoided.
Signatories to the Paris climate accord are gathering this week in Madrid to discuss plans for meeting emission-reduction goals. President Donald Trump has begun the process of pulling America out of the agreement, so no high-level administration officials will be attending.
While most of the focus is on how the climate emergency affects mankind, the cruelty visited upon animals that share in this planet's fate should not be overlooked. The animals can't do anything about the warming globe. People can.

Links

• Six animal species and how they are affected by climate change
• Climate change is having a devastating impact on Australian wildlife
• 10 ways climate change is affecting Australia’s wildlife, according to science
• Impacts of climate change on biodiversity 
• Spiders Are Threatened By Climate Change – And Even The Biggest Arachnophobes Should Be Worried
• Esperance Logs First Verified Sea Snake Sighting, But Expert Says Warming Oceans May Bring More
• The Animals That Will Survive Climate Change
• Why The Polar Bear Is An Indisputable Image Of Climate Change
• Golden Bowerbirds' Building Prowess Helps Scientists Monitor Climate Change, And Alarm Bells Are Ringing
• Fixing Australia’s Extinction Crisis Means Thinking Bigger Than Individual Species

Leading Scientists Condemn Political Inaction On Climate Change As Australia 'Literally Burns'

The Guardian - Lisa Cox

Climate experts ‘bewildered’ by government ‘burying their heads in the sand’, and say bushfires on Australia’s east coast should be a ‘wake-up call’ 

Firefighters battle a bushfire near Braidwood, New South Wales, on Friday. Scientists are perplexed that as bushfires have intensified on Australia’s east coast, political commentary on climate change has ‘very much died down’. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian 

Leading scientists have expressed concern about the lack of focus on the climate crisis as bushfires rage across New South Wales and Queensland, saying it should be a “wake-up call” for the government.
Climate experts who spoke to Guardian Australia said they were “bewildered” the emergency had grabbed little attention during the final parliamentary sitting week for the year, which was instead taken up by the repeal of medevac laws, a restructure of the public service, and energy minister Angus Taylor’s run-in with the American author Naomi Wolf.
Escalating conditions on Thursday and Friday led to dozens of out-of-control bushfires, including in the NSW’s Hawkesbury region, where a fire at Gospers Mountain merged with two other blazes burning in the lower Hunter on Friday.
Sydney has been blanketed with a thick smoke haze that health officials said had led to a 25% increase in people presenting in emergency departments for asthma and breathing problems.

Smoke haze from bushfires blanket Sydney Harbour. Health officials have reported a 25% spike in hospital emergency admissions for breathing problems. Photograph: Steven Saphore/EPA 

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist with the University of NSW’s Climate Change Research Centre, said she was “surprised, bewildered, concerned” that the emergency had prompted little discussion from political leaders this week.
“Here we are in the worst bushfire season we’ve ever seen, the biggest drought we’ve ever had, Sydney surrounded by smoke, and we’ve not heard boo out of a politician addressing climate change,” she said.

The government chooses the points they want to discuss in the parliament and the fact they haven’t chosen to discuss [bushfires] sends a message to me. Mark Howden

“They dismissed it from the outset and haven’t come back to it since.
“They’re burying their heads in the sand while the world is literally burning around them and that’s the scary thing. It’s only going to get worse.”
Mark Howden, the director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute and a vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said while the fires were raging on, “the commentary in terms of climate change has very much died down”.
“Yesterday they did a public service reshuffle, or there was medevac, or the ‘union-busting’ bill,” he said.
“The government chooses the points they want to discuss in the parliament and the fact they haven’t chosen to discuss it sends a message to me.
“Essentially, it’s a question of priorities, that’s how I interpret it.”
Howden said the general public had already joined the dots about the rising number of extreme weather days that brought heat, wind and dry conditions and high fire danger.
He said all of the indicators of fire danger were starting to change and the effects of this were evident through increased frequency of fires, larger fire areas, more severe fires, fires burning in ecosystems not prone to fire and a longer fire season.
Euan Ritchie, a wildlife ecologist at Deakin University, said he was “deeply concerned” that the extent and severity of the current fires meant that ecosystems that shouldn’t be burning – such as rainforests in NSW – were on fire.
“It’s another example of failure to act on climate change, which is hurting people’s lives as well as nature,” he said.
“There needs to be increased attention on the impact of climate change and it’s relationship with fire and how that threatens humans as well as nature and the environment.”

 Firefighters work to protect a property in Kulnura as the Three Mile fire approaches Mangrove Mountain in NSW on Friday. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/EPA 

Martin Rice, the head of research at the Climate Council, said the devastating fire conditions predicted by emergency leaders this year when they requested a meeting with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, were unfolding.
He said Morrison had still failed to meet with emergency leaders, however both Taylor and the emergency services minister David Littleproud have now done so.
Rice said the government was “failing to respond” to the climate crisis and to the “health emergency” created by toxic air around greater Sydney.
“This has to be a wake-up call to the federal government,” he said.
Rice said the Reserve Bank, medical practitioners, councils and mayors, emergency leaders and students were just some of the people who had made recent public pleas for a response.
“All walks of life in Australia are demanding action,” he said.

Links

• The big smoke: how bushfires cast a pall over the Australian summer
• Smoke alarm: political inaction on climate change is adding to our suffocating atmosphere
• Bushfires: Sydney schools cancel sports and outdoor workers lay down tools over hazardous air
• Revealed: 'monumental' NSW bushfires have burnt 20% of Blue Mountains world heritage area
• Australia bushfires factcheck: are this year's fires unprecedented?
• We need to protect nature to stand any chance of tackling climate chaos
• Australian businesses, unions and farmers say Paris agreement requires zero emissions

Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Hit Yet Another Record High This Year, Experts Project

Washington Post - Chris Mooney | Brady Dennis 

“We’re blowing through our carbon budget the way an addict blows through cash,” said one author

The trend marks three straight years of rising emissions, and suggests the world is continually failing to live up to its climate ambitions. (Luis Velarde/The Washington Post)

The world has lost another year in the quest to finally start reducing its carbon emissions, which scientists say is crucial to avoid the steadily worsening impacts of climate change.
Instead of beginning a long-awaited decline, global greenhouse gas emissions are projected to grow slightly during 2019, reaching another record high, according to a new analysis published Tuesday. Total carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry totaled 36.8 billion tons, according to an estimate from the Global Carbon Project, an academic consortium that produces the figures annually. That represents a 0.6 percent increase from 2018, which until now stood as the record.
“We’re blowing through our carbon budget the way an addict blows through cash,” Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth science at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project, said in an interview. “It’s troubling, because carbon dioxide pollution is higher than it’s ever been.”
Global emissions have risen for three consecutive years, at a time when they should be starting to drop sharply if the world is to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
The news of still-growing greenhouse gas emissions is the latest in a drumbeat of negative findings that come as world leaders gather in Madrid for an annual climate change conference, where they face mounting pressure to alter the current trajectory.
Last week, a bleak report from the U.N. Environment Program detailed how off-target the world remains in its collective goal of limiting the Earth’s warming. It said global emissions must fall by nearly 8 percent per year over the next decade to stay in line with the goal of limiting warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
A slower pace of cuts of about 3 percent per year would keep the world on track for around 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by 2100 — a level of warming that would have severe consequences, including the death of nearly all coral reefs and the possible destabilization of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
The globe already has warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 19th century, according to separate findings published Tuesday by the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO also found that 2019 “concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities,” and added that this year is on pace to be the second- or third-warmest on record.
Tuesday’s report from the Global Carbon Project, published in several journals, including Environmental Research Letters, makes clear that the transformation necessary to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions is nowhere in sight.
But the findings were not entirely negative.
U.S. emissions are projected to fall 1.7 percent in 2019 after rising the previous year, as coal is steadily displaced by natural gas and renewable energy. U.S. coal burning is projected to have fallen 11 percent in 2019 alone. Emissions in the European Union are expected to decline at a similar rate, as nations there also move away from coal.
“We’re not in the same position we were five or 10 years ago,” Corinne Le Quéré, a professor of climate change science at the University of East Anglia and a member of the team that published Tuesday’s figures, said in an interview. “We have demonstrated that making these investments [in renewable energy] do pay off, that emissions can go down.”
Le Quéré noted that not long ago, global emissions routinely grew by 2 to 3 percent each year, a rate that appears to have slowed. But, she added, “Emissions, at the end of the day, need to decrease to zero.”
While emissions fell in the United States and Europe during 2019, they are projected to have grown in China (by 2.6 percent), India (1.8 percent) and the rest of the world (by 0.5 percent).
The Global Carbon Project found, meanwhile, that the burning of natural gas is booming, growing by an additional 2.6 percent this year after strong growth last year. Petroleum use in automobiles, airplanes and other vehicles continues to increase around the globe.
In China, the world’s largest consumer of coal, natural gas burning grew by nearly 10 percent in 2019 and petroleum use jumped nearly 7 percent, according to the projection.
These trends are being driven by multiple factors, researchers said, including growing supplies of liquefied natural gas; increasing vehicle ownership, especially in India and China; and ongoing global economic growth, which traditionally creates greater energy demand.
Deforestation and other forms of land use during 2019 also contributed to the human-caused emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases. The Global Carbon Project said wildfires in the Amazon and elsewhere helped drive land-use emissions to 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide — an increase over 2018 levels. The net result is that the world is projected to have produced 43 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions from all sources in 2019.
While some of that gas will be absorbed into the oceans and some will be consumed by plants, much will linger in the atmosphere, strengthening the greenhouse effect.
Researchers are able to estimate annual fossil fuel emissions before the year is even over by monitoring official government reports on fossil fuel production, imports and consumption in China, the world’s largest emitter. A similar method is used for India. For the rest of the world, the 2019 estimate is based on the linkage between emissions and economic growth rates. For the United States, the group adopts the official projection of the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The estimate of 0.6 percent emissions growth also comes with some uncertainty. The actual number, researchers said, could be a slight emissions decline of 0.2 percent, or an emissions rise as high as 1.5 percent.
Jackson said a faster shift toward cleaner energy could create new jobs, improve national security and have measurable public health benefits. But he also said it would leave a better legacy than the one of inaction on climate change that has defined recent years.
“It’s another lost year, another lost decade,” he said of the trend of rising global emissions. “I don’t want to belittle the important things that have happened and are happening, but they are not enough. People will look back at us and wonder, ‘What were you doing?’”

Links

• Global Carbon Project
• Emissions Gap Report 2019
• 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat and high-impact weather
• In bleak report, U.N. says drastic action is only way to avoid worst effects of climate change
• Trump makes it official: U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate accord
• New U.N. climate report: Monumental change already here for world’s oceans and frozen regions
• Climate Emergency: World 'May Have Crossed Tipping Points’
• Greenhouse Gas Levels Have Hit A Record High And There's No Sign Of A Slowdown
• SUVs Are Back, And They’re Spewing A Boggling Amount Of Carbon
• Australia Is Third Largest Exporter Of Fossil Fuels Behind Russia And Saudi Arabia
• Australia’s Energy Exports Increase Global Greenhouse Emissions, Not Decrease Them
• Why Old-School Climate Denial Has Had Its Day

(NZ) Climate Explained: How Climate Change Will Affect Food Production And Security

The Conversation - Julian Heyes

According to the United Nations, food shortages are a threat due to climate change. Are food shortages a major threat to New Zealand due to climate change?

Many temperate crops require winter chilling to initiate flowering or fruit ripening, and orchards may need to shift to colder areas. from www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

Climate change is altering conditions that sustain food production, with cascading consequences for food security and global economies. Recent research evaluated the simultaneous impacts of climate change on agriculture and marine fisheries globally.
Modelling of those impacts under a business-as-usual carbon emission scenario suggested about 90% of the world’s population – most of whom live in the least developed countries – will experience reductions in food production this century.
New Zealanders are fortunate to live in a part of the world blessed with relatively fertile soils, adequate water supplies and mild temperatures. This gives us a comparative advantage for agriculture and horticulture over many other countries, including our main trading partner, Australia.
New Zealand produces more than enough food for its population. Exports exceed local consumption, and climate-change induced food shortages should not be an imminent risk for New Zealand. But behind every general statement like this lies some rather more troubling detail.

Overcoming domestic challenges
As residents of a developed country, we are accustomed to accessing the world’s resources through supermarkets. New Zealanders take for granted that most foods (even those we do not produce, like rice or bananas) will be available all year round.
Asparagus, new potatoes and strawberries are examples of foods New Zealanders may expect to see only at particular times of the year, but if apples or kiwifruit are out of stock, people usually complain. Our expectations are based on imports of products when they are out of season in New Zealand. The availability of those imports may be seriously compromised by climate change.
A recent Ministry for the Environment report describes climate impacts, including detailed projections of the average temperature increase and changes in rainfall patterns across New Zealand. The consistent trends are towards wetter conditions in the west, drier in the east and the largest average temperature rises in the north.
Implications for agriculture are manifold. For example, many temperate crops require cool autumn or winter temperatures to initiate flowering or fruit ripening. Orchards may need to be relocated further south, or novel low-chill varieties may need to be bred, as is already happening around the world.
Insect pests and diseases are normally controlled by our low winter temperatures, but they may become more of a problem in the future. Introduced pests and diseases include fruit flies that have a major impact in Australia and other more tropical countries, but struggle to establish breeding colonies in New Zealand. Strong biosecurity controls are our best bet for reducing this risk.
What matters more than the gradual increase in temperature predicted by climate change models, is the greater frequency of extreme weather events. These include droughts, floods and hail, which can lead to total crop losses in particular regions. One obvious mitigation strategy is to expand the provision of irrigation in our drier eastern regions, but concerns over water quality in our rivers mean this is not a popular option with the public – for example on the Heretaunga Plains or in Canterbury.

Risks to imported products
New Zealand is a net exporter of dairy, beef, lamb and many fruit and vegetables, but for some products, we depend heavily on imports. Figures from the US Department of Agriculture are not perfect, but they highlight trade imbalances for major commodities.
New Zealand imports all rice and most of its wheat. It is a net importer of pork products. Horticultural data released annually in Fresh Facts show New Zealand’s major horticultural imports are (in order of value) wine, nuts, processed vegetables, coffee, bananas and table grapes. These imported products come primarily from Australia, China, the US and Ecuador – all countries that may be less resilient to climate change than New Zealand.
As a recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) explains, rising temperatures, rising seas and the increasing frequency of adverse weather events will interact to reduce agricultural and horticultural productivity in many regions around the world. While New Zealand is unlikely to experience food shortages in the near future as a direct result of climate change, the price and availability of imported products may increase significantly.

Food poverty
Unfortunately, there is another important consideration. Some New Zealanders already experience food insecurity. The 2008/9 Adult Nutrition Survey found 14% of New Zealand households reported running out of food often or sometimes due to lack of money.
Perhaps rather than worrying about the future impact of climate change on the price or availability of imported rice or bananas, we should be paying more attention to this social inequity.
As a wealthy agricultural nation and a net exporter of food, it does not seem right that one sector of our society is already regularly experiencing food shortages.

Links

• Feeding the world: archaeology can help us learn from history to build a sustainable future for food
• Climate explained: regenerative farming can help grow food with less impact
• Feeding cities in the 21st century: why urban-fringe farming is vital for food resilience
• Escaping the perfect storm of simultaneous climate change impacts on agriculture and marine fisheries
• Climate Change: Likely Impacts on New Zealand Agriculture (pdf)
• Climate change: Emerging pests, diseases - a new microscopic world
• Climate change is already hurting fruit breeders, and consumers could soon feel the pain
• Countries From Siberia To Australia Are Burning: The Age Of Fire Is The Bleakest Warning Yet / Julian Cribb 
• Food or war / Julian Cribb

Could Climate Change Become A Security Issue — And Threaten Democracy?

ABC Radio National - Farz Edraki | Ann Arnold

Professor Ole Wæver argues that delayed action on climate change could lead to drastic measures. (Unsplash: Markus Spiske)

Action to address climate change has been left so late that any political response will likely become an international security issue — and could threaten democracy.

That's the view of Ole Wæver, a prominent international relations professor at the University of Copenhagen, who also says climate inaction could lead to armed conflict.
"At some point this whole climate debate is going to tip over," he tells RN's Late Night Live.
"The current way we talk about climate is one side and the other side. One side is those who want to do something, and the other is the deniers who say we shouldn't do anything."

'We are running out of time' - Late Night Live

He believes that quite soon, another battle will replace it. Then, politicians that do 'something' will be challenged by critics demanding that policies actually add up to realistic solutions.
When decision-makers — after delaying for so long — suddenly try to find a shortcut to realistic action, climate change is likely to "be securitised".
Professor Wæver, who first coined the term "securitisation", says more abrupt change could potentially threaten democracy.
"The United Nations Security Council could, in principle, tomorrow decide that climate change is a threat to international peace and security," he says.
"And then it's within their competencies to decide 'and you are doing this, you are doing this, you are doing this, this is how we deal with it'."

A risk of armed conflict?
Professor Wæver says despite "overwhelmingly good arguments" as to why action should be taken on climate change, not enough has been done.
And he says that could eventually lead to a greater risk of armed conflict, particularly in unstable political climates.

Professor Ole Wæver is currently a James Fellow in Social Sciences at the University of Sydney until January 2020. (Supplied: Lars Svankjær)

"Imagine these kinds of fires that we are seeing happening [in Australia] in a part of Africa or South-East Asia where you have groups that are already in a tense relationship, with different ethnic groups, different religious orientations," he says.
"And then you get events like this and suddenly they are not out of each other's way, they'll be crossing paths, and then you get military conflicts by the push."
He isn't the first expert to warn of the security risks of climate change.

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Climate change and the ADF

Australia's Defence Department has spelled out clearly to a Senate inquiry that climate change will create "concurrency pressures" for the Defence Force as a rise in disaster relief operations continues.

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Chris Barrie, former Defence Force chief and honorary professor at the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, wrote in October that "climate change is a threat multiplier".
"It exacerbates the drivers of conflict by deepening existing fragilities within societies, straining weak institutions, reshaping power balances and undermining post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding," he wrote.
And current Defence chief Angus Campbell has warned that increased incidences of climate change-related natural disasters could stretch the capability of the ADF.

Letting 'the dark forces' loose
Professor Wæver argues that delayed action will lead to more drastic measures.
"The longer we wait, the more abrupt the change has to be," he says.
"So a transformation of our economy and our energy systems that might have been less painful if we had started 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
"If we have to do that in a very short time, it becomes extremely painful.

"And then comes the question: can you carry through such painful transformations through the normal democratic system?"

He says classifying climate change as a security issue could justify more extreme policy responses.
"That's what happens when something becomes a security issue, it gets the urgency, the intensity, the priority, which is helpful sometimes, but it also lets the dark forces loose in the sense that it can justify problematic means," he says.

Audio: Hear more from Ole Wæver on climate security Late Night Live 17m 20secs

This urgency, he says, could lead to more abrupt action at an international level.
"If there was something that was decided internationally by some more centralised procedure and every country was told 'this is your emission target, it's not negotiable, we can actually take military measures if you don't fulfil it', then you would basically have to get that down the throat of your population, whether they like it or not," he says.
"Aa bit like what we saw in southern Europe with countries like Greece and the debt crisis and so on.
"There were decisions that were made for them and then they just had to have a more or less technocratic government and get it through."

Partnerships as pathways

Major events like bushfires elevate concerns about climate change in Australia, Professor Mark Howden says. (Supplied: Qld Dept of Community Safety)

But Mark Howden, director of the ANU's Climate Change Institute, does not see this happening any time soon — and says it would be counter-productive in the long-term.
"I wouldn't support that sort of hypothesised action by the UN, because I think solutions to climate change need to be a partnership," he says.
"The way to generate persistent, long-term and positive action is by partnerships, so actually bringing people along, developing a collective vision of what could be, and making climate change not something to fear but something to take sensible decisions over.
"So for me, taking a security approach — taking a unilateral, very militaristic, interventionist approach — would break apart all those positives.
"It wouldn't necessarily generate partnerships, it wouldn't generate bottom-up action and wouldn't generate innovation."

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Paris 2030: Will we make it?

Are Australia's efforts to curb global warming enough to meet our Paris targets? Four Corners investigates.

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But, Professor Howden says, there's an "elevated conversation happening across many different domains" about climate change in Australia, particularly because of bushfires and droughts.
He says climate-related disasters create a "step up in terms of public concern in relation to climate change" — whether or not they are linked.
"Climate-related disasters tend to get people reflecting on their lived experience and the things they value and it raises that level of concern and tends to stay high for an extended period."
He recognises "we haven't solved this problem", but says the Paris Agreement — and the national and international greenhouse gas inventories that support it — still shows promise. He says "it is the only global game in town to limit climate change".
The 2015 agreement set targets to block global warming at well below 2C, and 1.5C if possible.
But a recent UN report revealed global fossil fuel output is currently projected to overwhelm these efforts.
"Everyone knows that those initial commitments aren't adequate to meet the temperature targets, but they're a start," Professor Howden says.
"The key to the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement is the mechanism that ratchets up those commitments over time."
Professor Howden says we should give the Paris Agreement "a chance to work" — and if it does, it will "take a chunk out" of greenhouse gas emissions.
"The big question is: is it going to happen fast enough?"

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• Climate Change Poses A ‘Direct Threat’ To Australia’s National Security. It Must Be A Political Priority
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(AU) More Than 206 Heat Records Broken In Just 90 Days This Year, Climate Council Report Says

NEWS.com.au - Charis Chang

NSW Rural Fire Service crews watch on as fire burns close to a property on Wheelbarrow Ridge at Colo Heights, northwest of Sydney, on November 19. Picture: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Sydney and Melbourne could experience 50C summer days before the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, a new report highlights.
The Climate Council’s report said more than 206 heat records had been broken in just 90 days this year including record-highest temperatures in 87 locations.

In NSW, temperatures are 3.41C above average.
“Queensland and New South Wales have both lost more homes (to bushfire) since August 2019 than in any previous year, with the hottest months of the fire season still to come,” the report said.
Recent bushfires have also created a health hazard in cities like Sydney, which were covered in smoke haze for several days.
Dr Kate Charlesworth said air quality had been impacted so badly in some areas, “it’s the equivalent of smoking 40 cigarettes a day”.
In Australia, the main risk to human life from climate change arises from heatwaves, which can lead to illnesses like heat exhaustion and the worsening of heart and kidney disease.
“Climate change is a serious health issue. Health professionals like myself have a duty to speak up just as we did with asbestos and tobacco,” Dr Charlesworth said.
Heatwaves, defined as at least three days in a row of unusually high temperatures, are occurring more frequently in Australia.
They now start 19 days earlier in Sydney and 17 days earlier in Melbourne if you compare the data for 1981-2011 and 1950-1980.
The number of heatwave days each year has also increased in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Hobart since 1950.
The hottest day of the heatwave is also becoming hotter.
Most dramatically, the peak day in Adelaide is on average now 4.3C higher in 1981-2011 compared with 1950-1980.
The report noted Sydney and Melbourne could experience 50C summer days by the end of the century.

Smoke shrouds the Sydney Harbour Bridge on November 21 in Sydney. Picture: Cassie Trotter/Getty Images

Drought is also an issue, with the central west of NSW facing a dangerous summer.
The period from January 2017 to October 2019 has been the driest on record for the Murray-Darling Basin as a whole.
The current prolonged drought across eastern Australia is threatening crops for the third year in a row, and national summer crop production is forecast to fall by 20 per cent to 2.1 million tonnes in 2019/20.
“Major regional centres such as Orange and Dubbo are currently facing severe water shortages, and this summer is shaping up as a terrible trifecta of heatwaves, droughts and bushfires with no reprieve for the Central West,” Climate councillor and report author Professor Will Steffen said.
“We have seen bushfires starting in winter, a heatwave traversing the country in spring, and a prolonged drought. Climate change is influencing all of these things,” Prof Steffen said.
Rob Lee, a beef and sheep farmer in Larras Lee, northwest of Orange, said he had been anxious about the changing climate for more than 15 years, which is why he joined Farmers for Climate Action.
“We can see the conditions changing out here. We have less rainfall, winters are getting drier, the surface water is no longer reliable and dams are drying up,” Mr Lee said.
“We have never seen a drought as bad as this. In 2018, we sold one-third of our cows, and again this year we sold another third. Once we are through the next calving, we will get out altogether and run just sheep.
“We have also built drought lots to contain our sheep. This protects the topsoil which can turn to dust in the dry conditions.
“We have made a number of changes to our farming practices, but if climate change continues to accelerate, driving more drought conditions, it is going to be very hard to make a living as a farmer.
“Australia needs to take serious, credible action on climate change. Renewable energy is an investment in the future, an opportunity that could create a lot of industries in regional areas like the Central West,” Mr Lee said.
The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting above-average maximum temperatures for most of Australia this summer with eastern Australia likely to be drier than average.
“This long-term warming trend driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas is putting Australian lives, our economy and the environment at risk,” Climate Council chief executive officer Amanda McKenzie said.

Links

• Climate Council Report: ‘Dangerous Summer: Escalating Bushfire, Heat and Drought Risk
• The facts about bushfires and climate change
• (AU) How Bad Is This Drought And Is It Caused By Climate Change?
• The Science Of Drought Is Complex But The Message On Climate Change Is Clear
• Drought Plan Must Factor In Climate Change
• ‘Dead Things Everywhere’: Is Australia Facing The Summer From Hell?
• (AU) Woman Brings Remains Of Home Lost In NSW Bushfires To Parliament In Climate Protest
• Countries From Siberia To Australia Are Burning: The Age Of Fire Is The Bleakest Warning Yet
• (AU) Media Watch: Fire Haze
• (AU) The World Burns All Year. Are There Enough Planes to Douse the Flames?
• (AU) Scott Morrison And The Big Lie About Climate Change: Does He Think We're That Stupid?
• (AU) Australia Bushfires Factcheck: Are This Year's Fires Unprecedented?
• Climate change has grave costs for our community
• This is not normal: what’s different about the NSW mega fires
• Fact checking Scott Morrison’s UN General Assembly speech
• Deforestation and Climate Change