COVID-19 Shutdowns Will Give Wildlife Only Short-Term Relief From Climate Change And Other Threats

The Conversation - Peter Soroye | Jeremy Kerr | Tim Newbold

Wildflowers proliferating in overgrown roadsides during the coronavirus pandemic are providing habitat for pollinators. (Shutterstock)

Authors Peter Soroye, PhD Student in Conservation Biology, University of Ottawa Jeremy Kerr, Research Chair in Macroecology and Conservation, Professor of Biology, Chair of Department of Biology, University of Ottawa Tim Newbold, Senior research fellow, Centre for Biodiversity and Environment, University College London

There had to be a silver lining to the nearly universal lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the small benefits has been a temporarily lighter human footprint in many ecosystems.

Wildlife sightings are increasing, air quality is improving and carbon emissions are dropping. While these glimmers of positivity cannot come close to eclipsing the tragic human cost of the coronavirus, many are now asking what the pandemic will mean for wildlife around the globe.

Global carbon dioxide emissions for 2020 are expected to fall by up to eight per cent due to shutdowns, although the resumption of global activity could increase emissions and offset some of these gains. While this is a significant reduction in our expected emissions, it’s far from enough to turn the tide on climate change’s impacts on biodiversity.

Climate change can’t be stopped by COVID-19. This past April and May were both tied for the warmest on record, and if this trend continues then June will be the 426th month in a row where global average temperatures are above the 20th-century average. This serves as a strong reminder that even if we stop all carbon emissions today, we will still be fighting to reduce emissions and sequester carbon for a long time. The stakes are dangerously high.

Lessons from the bees

We’ve known for a while that bumblebees and many other species have been declining over recent decades. Finding the driver of these declines is especially important for a group of pollinators that performs irreplaceable ecosystem and agriculture services.

Recently, we showed that there is strong evidence that climate change has played a role in the declines of bumblebees across North America and Europe. In this new work, we found a mechanism that links climate change to these pollinator declines: climate chaos.

Bombus ternarius, the tricoloured bumblebee, seen on Manitoulin Island, Ont. (Peter Soroye)

The most common way to describe climate change is as the progressive rise in temperature, observed over decades, following the growth in atmospheric carbon concentrations, mostly due to human activities. Although gradual temperature changes can pose deadly threats, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events seems to be rising sharply as the greenhouse effect grows. Heatwaves, for example, are both longer and hotter.

As Hamlet noted, “ay, there’s the rub.”

Wildlife can tolerate some degree of warming, either by finding ways to move away from risky weather or evolutionary adaptation. But it’s much more difficult for species to tolerate increasingly chaotic extremes in weather such as prolonged drought and heat waves, or tropical storms.

100 years of bumblebee data

For bumblebee species, we could predict local extinction and colonization of new areas by estimating whether recent climate change had subjected species to temperatures beyond any they are known to have tolerated in the past.

Through a series of tests with a dataset including over 100 years of bumblebee observations, we found that species have disappeared in places where temperature spiked above what they could tolerate. Species across North America and Europe are consistently being pushed to the edges of these limits during the year, much more often than they ever were for most of the 20th century. Increasing intensity of land use — including increased pesticide use — also harms bees, but these effects are distinct from the dangerous signal of climate chaos.

Average annual temperatures (map) and monthly extremes (shown in the right-hand inset with year in red compared to a baseline period in grey) have been increasing across North America and Europe from 1975-2015, resulting in declines for the bumblebees (estimated average annual decline for a species shown in left-hand inset)

While our recent study focused on bees, increasing extremes from climate change should, in principle, affect other species in the same way. If this is the case, then the increasing temperature or precipitation extremes above (or below) the limits of what species can tolerate could rapidly and abruptly begin reshaping ecosystems around the globe by as early as 2030.

Necessary responses

Although we’ll feel the effect of climate change for decades, it’s necessary to address its causes now while we still have reasonable prospects of mitigating its worst impacts. Strategies like maintaining sheltered micro-habitats to provide shade or cover, and keeping a diversity of habitats in a landscape can help reduce exposure of species to extreme weather.

Perhaps, humanity’s lighter touch during the pandemic of 2020 will mean more species can traverse landscapes or make it through another hot year in landscapes that are a little less disturbed. For instance, the profusion of wildflowers in unmaintained roadside verges could create a large amount of nesting and foraging habitat for pollinators if left for the whole year.

The growing number of gardens that are appearing as people spend more time at home could provide a similar benefit. As with reductions in emissions, continuing these practices long after lockdowns end will be the deciding factor in whether they make a difference for pollinators and other wildlife.

In some places, species and ecosystems are bouncing back, although this is not true everywhere: as economies suffer, poachers are killing protected wildlife.

The glimmers of hope will never make the incalculable human toll of a global pandemic worthwhile, nor its economic costs. Yet, hope remains a vital tool to motivate action to address climate change.

Climate change isn’t locked down and it isn’t practising social distancing. It is accelerating the erosion of the planet’s life support systems and the decline of species that humanity would be hard pressed to do without. Concerted global action can make dangerous situations better, whether it’s a pandemic or the climate crisis.

Links

• IEA: Coronavirus impact on CO2 emissions six times larger than 2008 financial crisis
• COVID-19 lockdowns significantly impacting global air quality
• Daily global CO2 emissions ‘cut to 2006 levels’ during height of coronavirus crisis
• Carbon Emissions Are Decreasing During the Pandemic but Could Bounce Back Fast
• Coronavirus closures could lead to a radical revolution in conservation
• May 2020 tied for hottest on record for the globe
• Global warming pushes April temperatures into record territory, as 2020 heads for disquieting milestone
• The world’s biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate
• Microhabitats reduce animal's exposure to climate extremes
• Growing your own food during the coronavirus pandemic? Plan for pests!

NASA Images Show Extreme Heat And Fires Raging Across Siberia

Newsweek - Aristos Georgiou


Video Shows Fires Raging Across The Earth In 2019

NASA's Earth Observatory has released maps and images providing insights into the extraordinary heat that has affected Siberia this year, and the wildfires that are currently raging across the region.

Siberian towns at high latitudes have been experiencing abnormally high temperatures in recent weeks. In fact, a scorching heat wave in the east of the vast Russian region has already produced what may be the hottest temperature ever recorded in the entire Arctic circle.

On Saturday, June 20, the mercury in the small town of Verkhoyansk, 3,000 miles east of Moscow, reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Russian weather data, which has yet to be verified.

"This event seems very anomalous in the last hundred years or so," NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt said in a statement.Verkhoyansk experiences some of the coldest temperatures on Earth during the winter. In fact, the mercury plunged to nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit below zero in November, 2019.

But while large portions of Siberia are no stranger to hot summers, Verkhoyansk itself, which is located around six miles north of the Arctic circle, rarely sees temperatures above around 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

Nevertheless, the forecast for the rest of the week in Verkhoyansk is showing temperatures in the high 80s and low-to-mid 90s—roughly 20 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the average high in late June, The Moscow Times reported.

According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, May was unusually mild in Siberia, with temperatures up to 18 degrees above average recorded in some western parts of the region. In addition, the whole of winter and spring in this area experienced repeated periods of higher-than-average surface air temperatures, particularly from January onwards.

To further illustrate the unusual heat across Siberia this year, the NASA map below—based on data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on the agency's Aqua satellite—shows land surface temperature anomalies from March 19 to June 20, 2020. The red areas are locations that were hotter than average for the same period from 2003-2018, while blue areas were colder than average.

A map showing land surface temperature anomalies from March 19 to June 20, 2020. The red areas are locations that were hotter than average for the same period from 2003-2018, while blue areas were colder than average. NASA

Furthermore, Russia as a whole experienced its warmest winter in 130 years, The Times reported. And the average heat in Russia from January to May was so high that it roughly matches what climate models predict for the year 2100 if current warming trends continue, according to CBS News meteorologist Jeff Berardelli.

Experts say the extreme heat seen in Verkhoyansk can be explained by a vast high pressure system that is sending the mercury soaring across eastern Siberia, where the town is located.

However, human-driven climate change is causing the Arctic to warm more than two times faster than the average for the rest of the planet. And while heat waves are not new in Siberia, this warming is causing them to become more severe and frequent, Sergey Semenov, from the Yu. A. Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, Russia, told The Times.

Freja Vamborg, Senior Scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said that although the planet as a whole is warming, this process is not taking place at the same rate everywhere.

"Western Siberia stands out as a region that shows more of a warming trend with higher variations in temperature. This means that, to some extent, large temperature anomalies are not unexpected. However, what is unusual in this case is how long the warmer-than-average anomalies have persisted for," she said.

The extreme heat in Siberia has provided the perfect conditions for wildfires in the region's forests and shrub ecosystems, with the number of blazes detected in the Russian Far East among the highest observed in any year since 2003—even though it is still early in the fire season—according to data collected by NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) satellites.

Extreme heat waves can melt layers of permafrost, exposing long-frozen, carbon-rich deposits in some areas that are the perfect fuel for fires. The natural-color satellite image below shows the smoke being emitted by several fires in Russia's Sakha region.

A satellite image captured on June 23, 2020 showing the smoke produced wildfires in the Sakha region of Russian Siberia.

Links

• Arctic Circle Sees 'Highest-Ever' Recorded Temperatures
• Devastating Simulations Say Sea Ice Will Be Completely Gone In Arctic Summers By 2050
• Arctic Climate Change – It’s Recent Carbon Emissions We Should Fear, Not Ancient Methane ‘Time Bombs’
• The Arctic May Have Crossed Key Threshold, Emitting Billions Of Tons Of Carbon Into The Air, In A Long-Dreaded Climate Feedback
• 2019 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Tied For Second Lowest On Record
• Climate Change: Arctic Permafrost N
• The Arctic is on fire - how bad is it?
• Temperatures in an Arctic Siberian town hit 100 degrees, a new high
• How the Arctic Circle just eclipsed 100 degrees'
• Off-the-charts warm': Siberian town hits 100 degrees
• Temperature in One of the World’s Coldest Towns Registers at 100 Degrees
• The other new normal: A record 38C and forest fires in the Arctic
• Sahara Dust Storm Tracker: Where Is the Plume Now and What Is Its Path?
• Sahara Dust Storm Hits Jamaica and Puerto Rico on Way to U.S.
• Coronavirus Could Make a Particularly Active Hurricane Season Even Worse
• Iceberg Almost the Size of Chicago Set to Break Off Antarctic Ice Shelf
• Over 4,500 Earthquakes Hit Iceland as Volcano Shows Sign of Eruption
• Sahara Dust Storm Hits Jamaica and Puerto Rico on Way to U.S.

NSW's Bullish Coal Export Plan Defies The Global Market Realities

Sydney Morning Herald - Simon Nicholas

Simon Nicholas is an energy analyst at the Institute of Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis, which advocates for a sustainable economy.

The NSW government’s new strategic statement on coal exploration and mining has been unveiled, just as COVID-19 accelerates the energy transition away from fossil fuels.

The statement optimistically maintains that global demand for thermal coal will only drop by one-tenth by 2050.

Furthermore, the government is expecting that Australian thermal coal exports will be protected from falling shipments to Japan, China and South Korea by rising demand from India.

The Berejiklian government sees a bright future for the coal export market.

This view contrasts strongly with that of India’s Central Electricity Authority and the Indian government. The CEA projects that renewable energy will make up 51 per cent of total generation capacity by 2030, by which time coal-fired power will have reduced to 33 per cent. And the Indian government clearly wants that fuelled by domestic coal, not imported.

Significantly reduced demand for coal amid the COVID-19 economic downturn has mobilised the Indian government to step up its efforts to reduce dependence on thermal coal imports.

This move to protect Indian coal mining workers has apparently come straight from the top – Prime Minister Narendra Modi – and does not appear to bode well for the future of Adani’s Carmichael mine here in Australia. State-owned Coal India, the world’s largest coal miner, has been mandated by the government to replace at least 100 million tonnes of coal imports in fiscal year 2020-21.

India has tried this before, but this time may well be different. As is happening globally, power demand in India has declined dramatically since the start of its COVID-19 lockdown and this drop has been worn by its coal-fired power stations. India is not a major destination for NSW thermal coal and it’s starting to look increasingly likely that it never will be.

And it’s not only nations that are beginning to turn away from seaborne thermal coal. In an unfortunate piece of timing for the NSW government, the unveiling of its statement on coal came the day after it was reported that major miner BHP has hired investment bank JP Morgan to sell its last Australian thermal coal mine in the Hunter Valley.

BHP doesn’t seem to see much of a future for thermal coal amid growing pressure on fossil fuel exposure from shareholders and regulators. Other major global mining companies are making their move. Anglo American has said it wants to divest its thermal coal mines in South Africa while South32 is in the process of selling its mines. Rio Tinto has already exited all coal mining already.

COVID-19 now appears to be accelerating the rate at which some companies transition from fossil fuels including coal. This has been evidenced most starkly by oil and gas producer BP’s decision to write off  $US17.5bn ($25.5 billion) of assets on the assumption that COVID-19 will accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels.

Similarly, Italy’s Enel – one of the largest operators of coal-fired power plants in Europe – is planning to accelerate the closure of its coal-generation assets in the expectation that the worsening economics of coal power will persist beyond the pandemic.

Companies that mine and consume coal are also having increasing difficulty caused by a reluctance by banks and insurers to finance the industry. Recent additions to the list of financiers leaving thermal coal behind include major Japanese banks such as Mizuho and Sumitomo-Mitsui. Japan is Australia’s largest thermal coal export destination and the moves by its major banks should come as a warning sign to Australian governments and coal exporters.

Meanwhile, in May the South Korean government unveiled a US$62 billion “New Deal” designed to refocus its post-coronavirus economy. The plan is based on two pillars – a “Digital New Deal” and a “Green New Deal” with the latter intended to move the nation away from coal-fired power and towards renewable energy.

South Korea was Australia’s third-largest thermal coal export destination in 2019 and its approach to post-coronavirus economic recovery is in stark contrast to the NSW government’s attitude that the coal industry will have a key role in any economic bounce-back after the pandemic.

The strategic statement on coal comes only one day after it was revealed that NSW’s first renewable energy zone has received a “phenomenal” response, attracting registrations of interest for 27 gigawatts of proposals valued at $A38 billion.

If that wasn’t enough to make the direction of global power markets clear, the NSW government doesn’t have to look much further afield. Last week the South Australian government announced a new energy plan to ensure the state reaches net 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

COVID-19 isn’t slowing the energy technology transition away from fossil fuels – if anything it is accelerating it. Acceptance of this inevitability in Australia will lead to appropriate post-coronavirus energy investment, which will both lower power prices and support jobs. A refusal to do so, and continued focus on industries of the past, cannot provide the recovery that Australian workers are going to need.

Links

• State government banking on coal exports as world chases Paris targets
• Government renewable energy investment program swamped by support
• Nation's top coal plant cuts output amid COVID-19, renewables pressure
• The surprising way renewables can help farmers cope
• Town in the Arctic Circle records temperature as hot as Florida

Climate Explained: What Earth Would Be Like If We Hadn’t Pumped Greenhouse Gases Into The Atmosphere

The Conversation - Laura Revell

OSORIOartist/Shutterstock

Laura Revell is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Physics, University of Canterbury

Earth’s atmosphere is a remarkably thin layer of gases that sustain life.

The diameter of Earth is 12,742km and the atmosphere is about 100km thick. If you took a model globe and wrapped it up, a single sheet of tissue paper would represent the thickness of the atmosphere.

The gases that make up Earth’s atmosphere are mostly nitrogen and oxygen, and small quantities of trace gases such as argon, neon, helium, the protective ozone layer and various greenhouse gases – so named because they trap heat emitted by Earth.

The most abundant greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere is water vapour - and it is this gas that provides the natural greenhouse effect. Without this and the naturally occurring quantities of other greenhouse gases, Earth would be about 33℃ colder and uninhabitable to life as we know it.

Changing Earth’s atmosphere

Since pre-industrial times, human activities have led to the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen from about 280 parts per million (ppm) before the first industrial revolution some 250 years ago, to a new high since records began of just over 417ppm. As a result of continued increases, the global average temperature has climbed by just over 1℃ since pre-industrial times.

While these long-lived greenhouse gases have raised Earth’s average surface temperature, human activities have altered atmospheric composition in other ways as well. Particulate matter in the atmosphere, such as soot and dust, can cause health problems and degrades air quality in many industrialised and urban regions.

Particulate matter can partially offset greenhouse gas warming, but its climate effects depend on its composition and geographical distribution. Climate in the southern hemisphere has also been affected by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which led to the development of the Antarctic ozone hole.

If people had not altered the composition of the atmosphere at all through emitting greenhouse gases, particulate matter and ozone-destroying CFCs, we would expect the global average temperature today to be similar to the pre-industrial period – although some short-term variation associated with the Sun, volcanic eruptions and internal variability would still have occurred.

In a world that is about 1℃ warmer than during pre-industrial times, New Zealand is already facing the environmental and economic costs associated with climate change. The former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, argues that with trillions of dollars being spent around the world in economic stimulus packages following the COVID-19 pandemic, we need strong commitments to a low-carbon future if the world is to limit warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels.

What needs to happen

Greenhouse gases have long lifetimes – about a decade for methane and hundreds to thousands of years for carbon dioxide. We will need to reduce emissions aggressively over a sustained period, until their abundance in the atmosphere starts to decline.

When New Zealand entered the Level 4 coronavirus lockdown in March 2020, almost two weeks passed (the incubation period of the virus) before the number of new cases started to decline. Waiting for atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to decrease, even while we reduce emissions, will be similar, except we’ll be waiting for decades.

It is very unlikely that we could ever reduce greenhouse gas concentrations to the point that it becomes dangerous for life as we know it. Doing so would involve overcoming the natural greenhouse effect.

Recent research into greenhouse gas emission scenarios provides guidance on what will need to happen to stabilise Earth’s temperature at 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. A rapid transition away from fossil fuels toward low-carbon energy is imperative; some form of carbon dioxide capture to remove it from the atmosphere may also be necessary.

Short-term and scattered climate policy will not be sufficient to support the transitions we need, and achieving 1.5℃ will not be possible as long as global inequalities remain high.

Links

• Climate explained: why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth's climate
• What is a pre-industrial climate and why does it matter?
• Climate explained: how the climate impact of beef compares with plant-based alternatives
• Climate explained: why higher carbon dioxide levels aren’t good news, even if some plants grow faster
• Climate explained: why switching to electric transport makes sense even if electricity is not fully renewable
• Climate explained: how white roofs help to reflect the sun’s heat
• Climate explained: which countries are likely to meet their Paris Agreement targets
• Climate explained: seven reasons to be wary of waste-to-energy proposals
• Climate explained: how climate change will affect food production and security
• Climate explained: how much does flying contribute to climate change?
• Climate explained: why coastal floods are becoming more frequent as seas rise
• Climate explained: how growth in population and consumption drives planetary change
• Climate explained: why Mars is cold despite an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide
• Climate explained: how volcanoes influence climate and how their emissions compare to what we produce
• Climate explained: the environmental footprint of electric versus fossil cars
• Climate explained: why some people still think climate change isn’t real
• Climate explained: what each of us can do to reduce our carbon footprint
• Climate explained: why don’t we have electric aircraft?
• Climate explained: Why are climate change skeptics often right-wing conservatives?
• Climate explained: how much of climate change is natural? How much is man-made?
• Climate explained: why we won’t be heading into an ice age any time soon
• Climate explained: how different crops or trees help strip carbon dioxide from the air
• Climate explained: why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth’s climate
• Climate explained: regenerative farming can help grow food with less impact
• Climate explained: why your backyard lawn doesn’t help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
• Climate explained: how emissions trading schemes work and they can help us shift to a zero carbon future
• Climate explained: why we need to cut emissions as well as prepare for impacts
• Climate explained: why plants don’t simply grow faster with more carbon dioxide in air
• Climate explained: will we be less healthy because of climate change?

(AU) Australia’s Shifting Mood On Climate Change

The Lowy Institute - Bec Strating

This year’s intense bushfires seemed like the event that would finally move climate policy. Then came Covid-19.

A dust storm on a drought-stricken Australian sheep paddock (Klae Mcguinness/Getty Images)

At the beginning of 2020, Australia’s national conversation was dominated by the catastrophic bushfires raging throughout the country.

The fires killed at least 34 people, burned through more than 11 million hectares and destroyed nearly 6000 buildings.

In March, the first scientific assessment of the role of climate change found that global warming increased the risk of hot dry weather, raising the risk of bushfires by at least 30%.

Some analysts – myself included – wondered whether the particularly intense bushfire season might present the kind of national crisis that Australia needs to shake it from its climate malaise. The Liberal-National Coalition government found its credibility and authority under challenge as it struggled to craft a coherent and effective response to the fires.

Australians are more likely to view environmental threats as more critical than “traditional” security issues such as military conflict between great powers and foreign interference in Australian politics.

Then came the novel coronavirus. The federal government’s handling of the pandemic saw Prime Minister Scott Morrison regain his lead as preferred prime minister ahead of Labor leader Anthony Albanese, and the new national and global emergency turned Australia’s attention away from the bushfires.

The 2020 Lowy Poll, which was conducted just as states began going into lockdown, highlights the ways in which environmental issues have been hijacked by Covid-19 and its global economic implications, at least in the short term.

The poll results highlight that environmental threats continue to concern Australians. Three of the top five critical threats to Australia’s vital interests related to the environment, and – consistent with the past five years of Lowy polling – 9 out of 10 participants accepted the need for Australians to act on climate change. At the top of the list of perceived critical threats was drought and water shortages, with 3 of 4 people (77%).



Yet, the coronavirus and other potential epidemics (76%) and a severe downturn in the global economy (71%) were ranked more highly as critical threats than environmental disasters such as bushfires and floods (67%). In the 2019 Lowy Poll, only 51% of respondents saw global economic downturn as a cause for concern, and pandemics did not even feature.

The results again shed light on one of the biggest conundrums for modern Australian governments: how to “act” on climate change without incurring significant costs. Importantly, Covid-19 appears to have played a role here, as the percentage of people who viewed global warming as a serious and pressing problem, and that steps should be taken even if it involves significant costs, fell five points from 2019 to 56% in 2020.

While this is still 20 points higher than it was in 2012, what was a favourable trend towards substantial climate action is now in retreat. The numbers of people who want global change addressed gradually increased from 28% to 34%, while people who argue that no economic costs should be born remained stagnant at 10%.



There is a gap between those worried about environmental security threats and those concerned about climate change specifically. Climate change only ranked the fifth highest (59%) critical threat to Australia’s vital interests, compared with 77% for drought and water shortages – a difference of nearly 20%. This suggests that a segment of the Australian community concerned about environmental security issues do not view climate change as a major contributor to drought, water shortages and environmental disasters such as bushfires and floods.

When next summer approaches, bushfires will be back on the minds of people, particularly those who live in susceptible landscapes – although the poll finds only 50% of Australia’s regional and remote population saw global warming as a serious and pressing problem, reflecting a rural/urban divide in political attitudes.

There were also some surprising results regarding climate change action and international reputation. While only 19% of respondents approved of the Trump administration withdrawing the US from international climate change agreements, less than half of respondents saw Australia’s lacklustre climate policies as having an adverse effect on its global reputation. Curiously, a decent proportion considered Australia’s reputation to be positively enhanced by its responses to climate change, despite considerable evidence to the contrary.



The prioritisation of Covid-19 as a pressing security issue may be temporary. In mid-April, an Essential Report poll found 45% of surveyed respondents were “very concerned” about Covid-19, which two months later had dropped to only 28%.

The silver lining is that Australians are more likely to view environmental threats as more critical than “traditional” security issues such as military conflict between great powers and foreign interference in Australian politics.

These public attitudes are not adequately reflected in dominant debates and discussions about Australian security among elite government and defence circles. For example, despite public narratives over the past year highlighting deepening suspicions of the influence of People’s Republic of China in Australia, this has not necessarily resonated with the electorate.

The numbers of surveyed participants who viewed “foreign interference in Australian politics” as a critical threat dropped seven points from last year to 42%, considerably lower than “non-traditional” environmental security threats.

Links

• Why should anyone trust Australia when it comes to climate change?
• Climate change boosted Australia bushfire risk by at least 30%
• PM accused of 'trashing' Australia's reputation by spruiking coal ahead of UN summit
• Australian bushfires: how the Morrison government failed to heed warnings of catastrophe
• (AU) Australia’s Devotion To Coal Has Come At A Huge Cost. We Need The Government To Change Course, Urgently
• Study: Climate Change Crisis Requires Less Growth-Oriented Global Economy
• (AU) We've Been Talking Climate Change Action For 30 Years. Will Covid-19 Finally Jolt Us Into Gear?
• Climate Worst-Case Scenarios May Not Go Far Enough, Cloud Data Shows

(NSW) State Government Banking On Coal Exports As World Chases Paris Targets

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley | Peter Hannam

The (NSW) state government is banking on global coal demand defying the Paris climate goals of slashing carbon emissions, predicting instead only a marginal cut in consumption of the fossil fuel by mid-century.

According to the government's new Strategic Statement on Coal Exploration and Mining, to be released on Wednesday, the appetite for thermal coal burnt in power stations will only ease about one-tenth from just over 1 billion tonnes a year to about 900 million by 2050.

John Barilaro, at a solar farm near Dubbo on Tuesday, will be in the Hunter Valley on Wednesday to unveil the state's coal strategy. Credit: Janie Barrett

The modest decline is well short of the Paris goal of developed nations reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and also out of line with NSW's own net-zero target by then.

Even so, the government forecasts "significant disruptions" for NSW communities reliant on thermal coal exports, the report states.

It plans to release maps clearly outlining where coal exploration and expansion will be allowed to continue and where it will be banned in order to give more certainty to communities and mining interests.

Deputy Premier and resources minister John Barilaro said the resilience of the coal industry has "never been more important" given the state's need to bounce back from drought, bushfires and now the COVID-19 crisis.

"We are determined to set a clear and consistent policy framework that supports investment certainty in NSW as the coal sector responds to global demand," he said.

To reduce emissions from coal mining and "support responsible coal production", the government would spend $50 million on new infrastructure projects and community programs to mining-affected towns under the Resources for Regions program, he said.

The Mount Piper power plant, near Lithgow, could be among the last coal plants in eastern Australia. It is scheduled to close in 2043. Credit: Janie Barrett

Coal was the single-largest export for NSW last year, amounting to $23.1 billion, or about 3 per cent of global coal consumption. Of NSW's exports, more than 80 per cent was thermal and the rest coking coal used to make steel.

Projections set out in the report indicate that demand for seaborne coal exports in 2050 will be slightly less than today, though demand will remain significant.

A rise in demand for coal from India in particular would counter expected falls in shipments to major markets such as China, Japan and South Korea. South-east Asian imports are predicted to rise and then plateau.

According to the strategy document, use of thermal coal in NSW itself will decline over coming decades as ageing coal-fired power plants are closed and replaced with cleaner power technologies.

The NSW government forecasts no early sunset for coal exports. Credit: Nic Walker

The release of the coal report comes a day after Mr Barilaro joined Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean to trumpet the success of the state's first renewable energy zone. The region around Dubbo attracted investment funds the equivalent of nine times the target of 3000 megawatts, prompting Mr Kean to consider expanding the pilot scheme's size.

Over the medium term the government plans to support the mining industry to shift its focus from thermal coal to mining for metals used in high-tech industries such as copper, cobalt and rare earths, the report says.

But it acknowledges that as these metals and minerals tend to be found in the state's central and far west regions rather than in existing coal-mining heartlands, there will be "significant disruption for coal-reliant communities."

In a foreword to the plan Mr Barilaro writes that the government expects a shift away from coal in the medium term, but "during the transition, the NSW Government will continue to support the responsible development of our abundant, high-quality coal resources for the benefit of the state".

Global coal demand won't fall fast enough to meet mid-century zero-emissions goals for NSW, if the government's forecasts are correct. Credit: Louie Douvis

The NSW government prediction of coal demand is broadly in line with that of the International Energy Agency, but it is at odds with the cuts in coal use that scientists say the world will need to adopt if we are to achieve the goal of keeping global warming beneath 1.5 degrees.

In its most recent global energy analysis the IEA warned that though coal demand had decreased due to COVID-19 and climate action by some governments, new plants under construction around the world "risks increasing the locked-in emissions from coal-fired power plants that already threaten to put a sustainable energy pathway out of reach".

In recent months major institutional investors have begun abandoning their stakes in thermal coal companies due to the impact coal has on the climate, compounding pressure on businesses already facing a slump in global thermal coal prices.

Links

• Strategic statement on coal exploration and mining in NSW
• NSW Government backs coal to lead the state into post COVID-19 recovery, but excludes some areas
• Map of areas in NSW coal regions available and excluded from future coal exploration and mining
• Wambo mine temporarily closed as demand for thermal coal wanes
• Producers hit as thermal coal spot price tumbles 25 per cent
• World's biggest investment firm ditches coal in 'fundamental reshaping of finance'
• Europe's biggest economy is quitting coal, so far without sacking a single worker
• The future of coal has already been decided in boardrooms around the globe
• 'Exponential growth' in business climate action as more investors abandon coal

Arctic Circle Sees 'Highest-Ever' Recorded Temperatures

BBC

Wildfires have been made more severe by high temperatures and strong winds in the Arctic. Yevgeny Sofroneyev

Temperatures in the Arctic Circle are likely to have hit an all-time record on Saturday, reaching a scorching 38C (100F) in Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town.

The record still needs to be verified, but it appears to have been 18C higher than the average maximum daily temperature in June.

Hot summer weather is not uncommon in the Arctic Circle, but recent months have seen abnormally high temperatures.

The Arctic is believed to be warming twice as fast as the global average.

Verkhoyansk, home to about 1,300 people, sits just inside the Arctic Circle, in remote Siberia. It has an extreme climate with temperatures plunging in January to an average maximum of -42C and then surging in June to 20C.

But a persistent heatwave this year in the Arctic Circle has worried meteorologists. In March, April and May, the Copernicus Climate Change service reported that the average temperature was around 10C above normal.

Temperatures in the Arctic Circle hit record levels

Source: BBC Weather

Earlier in June, parts of Siberia recorded 30C, while in May, Khatanga in Russia - situated in the Arctic Circle at 72 degrees north - set a new May temperature record of 25.4C.

"Year-on-year temperature records are being broken around the world, but the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth," said Dr Dann Mitchell, associate professor in atmospheric science at the University of Bristol. "So it is unsurprising to see records being broken in this region. We will see more of this in the near future."

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Is this evidence of climate change?
Analysis by Simon King, BBC Weather meteorologist

Heatwaves in the Arctic aren't unusual. Weather patterns around the world can align in such a way that hot air is transported quite far northward and colder air from the poles southward.

Over the last few months a large area of high pressure in eastern Russia has been dominant. This has led to southerly winds bringing warmer air from near the tropics, leading to higher than average temperatures.

However, the persistence of this weather pattern has led to a longevity and scale of heat that is worrying. This is consistent with what climatologists believe will happen in the Arctic with climate change.

Most scientists agree that over the past 30 years, the Arctic has warmed at a rate of twice the global average.

The graphic below shows that across the globe, through the period 1960-2019, average air temperature has generally increased by around 1C.

However, as you head closer to the North Pole - latitude 90° - the reds become darker. This shows how the temperature has increased here more than anywhere else - by around 4C.

Why should we be worried about warming in the Arctic?

Warming in the Arctic is leading to the thawing of once permanently frozen permafrost below ground.

This is alarming scientists because as permafrost thaws, carbon dioxide and methane previously locked up below ground is released.

These greenhouse gases can cause further warming, and further thawing of the permafrost, in a vicious cycle known as positive feedback.

The higher temperatures also cause land ice in the Arctic to melt at a faster rate, leading to greater run-off into the ocean where it contributes to sea-level rise.

The BBC's Steve Rosenberg travels to the forest to see how Russians are tackling the wildfires

There is also an element of positive feedback here, says BBC Weather, because the loss of highly reflective white ice means that the ground and sea absorb more heat. This leads to more warming.

The impact of wildfires are also a consideration. Last summer, they ravaged parts of the Arctic. Although they are common in summer, high temperatures and strong winds made them unusually severe.

They typically start in early May before peaking in July and August but by late April this year they were already ten times bigger in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia compared to the same time last year, Russia's emergencies minister said.

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Hottest year ever?

Analysis by Justin Rowlatt, Chief Environment Correspondent

Well, 2020 is certainly shaping up to be a contender.

The Met Office, the UK's national weather service, reckons there's a 50:50 chance it'll be the hottest year ever recorded.

Much of northern Europe and Asia has had an exceptionally mild spring and early summer with temperatures 10C higher than normal in some areas.

The hottest year to date is 2016. It is still a nose ahead, but the margins are "very close".

Of course, this should come as no surprise.

"We've upset the energy balance of the entire planet," cautions Prof Chris Rapley of University College London. Year after year we see temperature records being broken, the eminent climate scientist says.

"This is a warning message from the Earth itself," he tells me. "We ignore it at our peril."

Links

• The Arctic is on fire - how bad is it?
• Temperatures in an Arctic Siberian town hit 100 degrees, a new high
• How the Arctic Circle just eclipsed 100 degrees'
• Off-the-charts warm': Siberian town hits 100 degrees
• Temperature in One of the World’s Coldest Towns Registers at 100 Degrees
• The other new normal: A record 38C and forest fires in the Arctic