06/10/2020

(AU) EU's Carbon Clock Starts Ticking For Australian Companies

AFR - Hans van Leeuwen

London | Australian companies have been urged to start preparing now for the European Union’s carbon border tax in 2023, or else risk getting caught up in a potential fracturing of the world trade system.

Consulting firms are gearing up to offer carbon audits to their clients, while think tank experts warn that the border tax could end up splintering the world into high-carbon and low-carbon blocs.

“I had a call from a client in Asia three weeks ago asking about this," says Mark Lewis, London-based chief sustainability strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management. "That’s the first time I’ve seen an Asian investor starting to think through the implications of what an EU carbon border tax could mean.

The European Union is looking for a road out of coal dependency. Bloomberg 

“The impact is quite profound. It will vary from country to country, but whoever is exporting goods into Europe, which within Europe are covered by its Emissions Trading Scheme, ought to be thinking now about the possibility of having to pay a carbon tax.”

And the experts warn it isn’t just companies exporting directly to Europe: it trickles down to anyone in a supply chain that ends up in Europe – which could mean Australian raw materials going due north into Asia-produced exports to the EU.

The EU, a market of about 450 million people, has mooted a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” (CBAM) for some years. But as former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned last week, it's now getting serious.

With a net-zero emissions target for 2050 that will soon be legally binding, and an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) that will therefore have to ratchet up both the number of sectors it covers and the cost of using carbon, the border tax is almost inevitable.

The tax is levied on imported goods based on the carbon content that goes into producing them, levelling the playing field with European producers who have to buy carbon permits on the ETS. That stops “carbon leakage” – customers switching to cheaper, more carbon-intensive alternatives outside the EU.

Tim Figures, associate director of EU & Global Trade and Investment at Boston Consulting Group in London, says Australian companies should get started now on working out how much carbon is embedded in their products.

“That’s quite a complex calculation, because you’ve got to think not just about how much steel or metal or whatever is in it, but also how much electricity you used to transform it, what emissions came from generating that electricity; and if it’s in Australia, what emissions did the ship that took it halfway around the world to Rotterdam give out?”

The EU is still weighing up four different designs for the CBAM, so an audit alone wouldn’t immediately make a company compliance-ready. But Figures says it's not just about paying the tax, it's about finding ways to remain competitive.

“The more you know about what’s in your product, the more you can start thinking about how you can address it – do I have a more efficient industrial process, do I change the design of my product, do I use different raw materials in it that are less carbon-intensive, do I find another way of transporting it?”

If that all sounds fiendishly complicated, it’s because it is, says Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London.

He’s argued that Brussels should probably “take on board much of the financial and administrative burden, particularly for small and medium-sized companies”. That might mean creating and funding a few carbon certification bodies out of the CBAM revenue.

Political momentum

The counter-argument to Figures’ sense of urgency is that the EU is a notoriously slow-moving legislator, and political and business concerns about the CBAM may keep it on the backburner well beyond 2023.

But that ignores the fact that the EU might not be able to reach its binding net-zero without the CBAM.

“The most important reason to impose a carbon border adjustment mechanism is to secure the buy-in of local industry [in Europe] for deeper decarbonisation policies,” Nikos Tsafos of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies wrote recently.

“It is hard for any country to agree on aggressive targets … Regardless of how much carbon leakage exists in practice, powerful people see it as a problem. Offering a solution to that problem might help garner support or, at least, lessen opposition.”

Even Germany, a longstanding sceptic, has come around to in-principle backing of the scheme. The CBAM has now moved into a public consultation, which will run until November.

A firm proposal, which has to overcome political difficulties and try to be compliant with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, is due in mid-2021. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recommitted to it in her inaugural ‘State of the European Union’ address last month.

Fork in the road

If the EU goes it alone on a CBAM it will become a “low carbon island”, says Tsafos: “Only the most low-carbon producers will be able to export to Europe. High-carbon trade continues, bypassing Europe, and European suppliers have to raise output to meet demand.”

This has been one of Europe's worries, which was why the continent was very quick to latch onto the significance of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s announcement last week that he’s setting a 2060 net-zero target.
The world splinters into two trade blocs: a high-carbon one and a low-carbon one.
— Nikos Tsafos, Centre for Strategic and International Studies
That suggests Beijing might come to the party on carbon pricing, and EU leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel have repeatedly stressed that whatever their geopolitical differences with China, the Europeans want to work hand in glove on climate change.

If China and Japan came on board with cap-and-trade systems like the EU ETS and a CBAM of their own, the future of world trade starts to look quite different, Tsafos says.

“The world splinters into two trade blocs: a high-carbon one and a low-carbon one. High barriers between the two shut out emerging-country exporters from accessing markets in advanced economies.”

The question then would be: on which side of the divide are Australian producers?

Coal is set to gradually fade from the picture in the European Union. Bloomberg

The answer is partly up to the companies themselves, who can prepare for compliance. But it's also partly up to the Morrison government, which could introduce a carbon pricing regime equivalent to the ETS – thus exempting the economy from the CBAM.

The government's other option is to resist, joining a potential group of countries that brand the CBAM as a trade barrier and fight back through the WTO.

A recent European Parliament study acknowledged that many countries “understand the logic and purpose of the EU CBAM mechanism as a climate instrument, [but] they are concerned that its design and implementation will transform it into a protectionist trade instrument” – and one that hurts lower-income countries.

On the face of it, the WTO could find that a carbon tax was discriminatory – breaching the rule that any country with which the EU doesn’t have a free-trade agreement (FTA) needs to be treated the same. The WTO could also class the CBAM as an illegitimate subsidy to European industry.

Lowe suggests that if the CBAM’s cost is the same as a European producer faces under the ETS, it has a decent chance of surviving a WTO challenge. This also suggests the EU might opt for a model that requires foreign companies to buy EU carbon permits, rather than levying a tax.

The trouble is, as Figures points out, this means Brussels has to start phasing out all its free allocations of permits to European industry – and that’s going to hurt, politically and economically.

Another way to soften the blow offshore might be to phase the tax, starting with just a few heavy-emission sectors.

If the EU instead goes all-out, Lowe worries that “third countries [could] retaliate unilaterally against EU exporters”, dragging decarbonisation into the centre of global trade tensions.

Yet another EU gambit will likely be to embed some kind of commitment to carbon pricing into the EU’s FTAs – including the one under discussion with Australia – so that the CBAM bypasses many countries. It’s understood that Brussels raised the CBAM once again in last month’s round of Australia-EU FTA talks.

Some observers doubt the EU has the stomach for any of this. But others say the EU’s Green Deal, its binding net-zero target and its need for the CBAM revenue to fund its big COVID-19 recovery plan, all point to an inexorability.

“I wouldn’t want to underestimate either the political or the technical difficulties of implementing a carbon border tax; but I would say that I’ve been surprised by the forthrightness with which the commission is pushing ahead with the idea of studying it, publishing it and potentially proposing it,” says BNP Paribas’s Lewis.

“It’s clearly going to be a very, very controversial thing if they do propose it, but I think it’s inevitable.”

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(CA) What A Dutch Supreme Court Decision On Climate Change And Human Rights Means For Canada

The Conversation - 

Climate activists gather outside the Supreme Court of the Netherlands on Dec. 20, 2019, ahead of a ruling in a landmark case in which the government was ordered to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by 2020. (AP Photo/Mike Corder) 

Author
 is a PhD Student and Assistant Professor (part-time), Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University
Late last year, the Dutch Supreme Court issued a decision that could have implications for countries around the world.

The case, The Netherlands vs. Urgenda, established that a country’s inadequate action on climate change can violate human rights.

For the first time, a court imposed a legally binding target and deadline for a government to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by at least 25 per cent from 1990 levels by the end of 2020.

Urgenda was a major victory for climate justice activists, who have launched human rights lawsuits attempting to require governments to take more substantial and timely action against climate change. This landmark decision could prove influential in Canada, where similar cases will be decided.

Urgenda and Canadian climate litigation

There are now at least four pending Canadian climate cases invoking human rights, including La Rose et al vs. Canada, in which the federal government’s effort to have the lawsuit stopped before it goes to trial was argued last week.

Past Canadian climate cases based on other grounds have failed. But Urgenda may be particularly relevant to current litigation because it is based on human rights and some of the federal government’s arguments in La Rose reflect the Netherlands’ unsuccessful arguments.

For example, Canada acknowledges the threat of climate change, but maintains that a court cannot order it to take action because climate change policies are for elected politicians — not judges — to decide. The government also argues that climate change is a global problem that Canada alone cannot solve.

Some of the young people who are part of the lawsuit filed against the federal government, seen at a press conference in Vancouver, B.C., in October 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The pending Canadian cases will require our courts to decide similar issues as Urgenda, including:
  1. Does the right to life under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms require the government to take specific action on climate change?
  2. Is it appropriate for courts to review climate change policies?
  3. Does the concept of an individual but shared global responsibility overcome the “de minimis contribution” defence?
Other issues have been raised in these cases that are not addressed here, including equality rights for young people and Indigenous Peoples.

Why could Urgenda be relevant?

In Urgenda, the court concluded climate change poses a “real and immediate” threat to the right to life, which the Netherlands has a legal obligation to address under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

While this convention is not binding in Canada, Section 7 of the charter protects the right to life. Canada is also bound by international treaties recognizing the right to life.

Supporters congratulate Urgenda’s legal team after the court upheld a 2015 landmark ruling ordering the government to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 per cent by 2020, in The Hague, Netherlands, Oct. 9, 2018. On Dec. 20, 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court upheld the previous rulings. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

The interplay between international and domestic law is complicated, but the Supreme Court of Canada has established that charter rights should provide at least as much protection as corresponding rights under binding human rights treaties.

It has also held that other sources of international human rights law — including cases interpreting the ECHR — may be considered in charter litigation. Finally, Canadian courts often canvass relevant foreign decisions.

These principles open the door for our courts to consider Urgenda relevant. And, if our judges think the approach to similar issues in Urgenda is persuasive, they could follow it.

Climate change and the right to life in Canada

That being said, Canadian plaintiffs still face significant obstacles due to how the the right to life under the charter has been interpreted.

For example, the courts would need to adopt a broader understanding of a “real or imminent” threat, and to recognize that the government must take action to protect the right to life. As the law currently stands, the government is not required to take action to address indirect threats.

But, this could change. The SCC left the door open to a broader approach in an anti-poverty case:
One day S. 7 may be interpreted to include positive obligations…. It would be a mistake to regard S. 7 as frozen, or its content as having been exhaustively defined.
In addition, the UN Human Rights Committee has more recently concluded (in a different context) that the right to life under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — a binding international treaty — can impose positive obligations on Canada.

These decisions may leave room for climate plaintiffs to argue that our courts’ approach to the right to life is too restrictive and is falling below international standards.

Can courts review climate change policies?

In La Rose, Canada argues that the plaintiffs are asking the court to “step outside its judicial function” and become involved in “crafting a policy response to global climate change.”

This argument failed in Urgenda. In the Dutch Supreme Court’s view, an order to reduce GHG emissions was within its authority because it is the court’s role to review the reasonableness of laws and policies and the legislature remained free to determine what laws and policies to implement to meet the Netherlands’ obligations.

Canadian courts also often review the reasonableness of laws and policies. So, if climate change is considered a threat to charter rights that Canada must address, Canadian courts could follow the same approach as Urgenda.

While the government’s obligation to meet an emissions target would be new, elected officials would still decide relevant laws and policies.

The ‘too small to matter’ defence

In the Dutch Supreme Court’s view, the shared global responsibility for climate change necessarily entails an individual responsibility on each country to do its fair share. And the court concluded that the Netherlands was not doing its part.

Critically, the Netherlands emits a disproportionately large share of global GHGs, had adopted a less stringent GHG policy than comparable countries and did not show that meeting a higher emissions target would pose an undue burden.

If Canadian courts accept the premise of individual responsibility, they would similarly assess whether Canada is doing its fair share, and the statistics could be on the side of the plaintiffs.

Canada emits more GHG per capita and in total than the Netherlands. Its emissions target under the Paris Agreement is lower than the Netherlands for 2030 (a 30 per cent reduction from 2005 levels compared to 40 per cent — and Canada is not on track to meet it). And it has been argued that Canada ought to be able to “reduce its GHG [emissions] without major economic repercussions.”

Our courts may also find it compelling that, even though Canada’s emissions amount to 1.6 per cent of global emissions, “Canada is still among the top ten global emitters … on an absolute basis, and in the top three on a per capita basis.”

A matter of when and not if?

In 2018, the UN Secretary-General lamented that, “scientists have been telling us for decades [about the risk of climate change]. Over and over again. Far too many leaders have refused to listen.”

As Urgenda shows, human rights cases could force leaders to listen — and act. If Canada continues to not do its fair share and if Urgenda marks the beginning of domestic and international decisions requiring countries to take specific action against climate change, it may only be a matter of time until Canadian climate justice plaintiffs prevail.

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Sir David Attenborough’s Latest Doc Is His Witness Statement To The World

Refinery29 - Alicia Lansom

Photo Courtesy of Netflix.

Admired by Gen Z and their grandparents alike, Sir David Attenborough is one of the few public figures who has true intergenerational appeal.

His lifelong career as a broadcaster and his commitment to the preservation of the natural world has solidified him as a royalty-like figure among the younger generation, and he regularly appears on British Hinge profiles as a "dream dinner guest".

This kindred connection with young people is likely why the 94-year-old naturalist has pivoted away from terrestrial television for his latest documentary film, A Life On Our Planet, which premiered on Netflix on 4th October.

Described as his "witness statement" to the world, the new feature documentary, made in collaboration with WWF, stands as both a testament to the destruction of climate change and a practical guide to stopping it in its tracks.

While it may seem like a big feat to encompass the two topics in only 82 minutes, the documentary manages to tread the line between harrowing and hopeful, detailing our problems as a global society and our collective power to right our wrongs.

Set against the backdrop of Sir David’s six-decade-long career, the documentary puts the speed of the planet’s decline within the context of one person’s life and experiences, making for a truly affecting and thought-provoking watch.

Infographics display the world’s population, remaining wilderness and carbon levels against the years of his professional milestones, and the quickly mounting damage is alarmingly clear to see.

Beginning with his experiences fossil-hunting as a young boy and moving through his memories of shooting renowned series like Life On Earth and Blue Planet, the broadcaster shares personal accounts of visiting some of the world’s remotest areas and communities.

While there are certainly heart-warming moments to be found in the old footage (my personal favourite is a clip of him shouting "Boo!" at a sloth who is asleep in a tree), the film is far from a sugar-coated journey down memory lane.

Scientific data is woven in seamlessly as the scene changes to shots of the current landscapes and we hear about the individual abuses each environment has faced in the years since his visits, from mass deforestation in the Amazon to rising sea temperatures in the Arctic.

Splicing together the footage with a present-day interview, it's clear from Sir David’s candour that this is his most personal film to date.

Sitting quietly in a blacked out studio, his statements are disarmingly profound as he discusses humanity's absolute failure to protect our fragile ecosystem.

You can hear his grief and disappointment at witnessing firsthand the decline of the natural world and it's this vulnerability that makes the film so incredibly moving as you watch Sir David dedicate his final years to fighting to protect the planet.

A Life On Our Planet may sound like an entirely bleak account of humankind’s destructive tendencies but the film’s screen time, split 50/50 between evidencing and action planning, comes together to create an uplifting and pragmatic latter half.

Detailing practical steps towards sustainable living and the positive effects of restoring Earth’s biodiversity, you'll be left feeling genuinely hopeful for the planet’s future rather than distressed and disenfranchised.

While tips about reducing food waste, switching to renewable energy and moving towards a plant-based diet might not feel revolutionary, hearing it broken down into bitesize pieces – and in Sir David's familiar soothing voice – makes the task at hand feel genuinely doable, which is rare for a large-scale documentary.

In the film’s final scenes we see the veteran presenter on location in Ukraine, walking through the bombed out buildings near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Against footage of the shrubbery and vines that have overgrown the derelict houses, Sir David talks about nature’s adaptability and determination to thrive in even the most difficult of environments. 

And in one of his final sentences, he hammers home the fragile existence of humankind: "The living world will endure, we humans cannot presume the same." I think I speak for us all when I say that I hope Sir David Attenborough continues to create documentaries for many years to come but if A Life On Our Planet is his last film, it tells us everything we need to know.

We just have to listen.

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05/10/2020

The Arctic Hasn’t Been This Warm For 3 Million Years – And That Foreshadows Big Changes For The Rest Of The Planet

The Conversation -  | 

Ice floe drifting in Svalbard, Norway. Sven-Erik Arndt/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Authors
  • Julie Brigham-Grette is Professor of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  •  is Associate Professor of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Every year, sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean shrinks to a low point in mid-September.

This year it measures just 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers) – the second-lowest value in the 42 years since satellites began taking measurements.

The ice today covers only 50% of the area it covered 40 years ago in late summer.

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history. The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached today’s level – about 412 parts per million – was 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch.

This year’s minimum ice extent is the lowest in the 42-year-old satellite record except for 2012, reinforcing a long-term downward trend in Arctic ice cover. Each of the past four decades averages successively less summer sea ice. NSIDC

As geoscientists who study the evolution of Earth’s climate and how it creates conditions for life, we see evolving conditions in the Arctic as an indicator of how climate change could transform the planet. If global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, they could return the Earth to Pliocene conditions, with higher sea levels, shifted weather patterns and altered conditions in both the natural world and human societies.

The Pliocene Arctic

We are part of a team of scientists who analyzed sediment cores from Lake El’gygytgyn in northeast Russia in 2013 to understand the Arctic’s climate under higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Fossil pollen preserved in these cores shows that the Pliocene Arctic was very different from its current state.

Today the Arctic is a treeless plain with only sparse tundra vegetation, such as grasses, sedges and a few flowering plants. In contrast, the Russian sediment cores contained pollen from trees such as larch, spruce, fir and hemlock. This shows that boreal forests, which today end hundreds of miles farther south and west in Russia and at the Arctic Circle in Alaska, once reached all the way to the Arctic Ocean across much of Arctic Russia and North America.

Because the Arctic was much warmer in the Pliocene, the Greenland Ice Sheet did not exist. Small glaciers along Greenland’s mountainous eastern coast were among the few places with year-round ice in the Arctic. The Pliocene Earth had ice only at one end – in Antarctica – and that ice was less extensive and more susceptible to melting.

Boreal forest near Lake Baikal in Russia. Three million years ago these forests extended hundreds of miles farther north than they reach today. Christophe Meneboeuf/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA

Because the oceans were warmer and there were no large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere, sea levels were 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 meters) higher around the globe than they are today. Coastlines were far inland from their current locations.

The areas that are now California’s Central Valley, the Florida Peninsula and the Gulf Coast all were underwater. So was the land where major coastal cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and Seattle stand.

Warmer winters across what is now the western U.S. reduced snowpack, which these days supplies much of the region’s water. Today’s Midwest and Great Plains were so much warmer and dryer that it would have been impossible to grow corn or wheat there.

Why was there so much CO2 in the Pliocene?

How did CO2 concentrations during the Pliocene reach levels similar to today’s? Humans would not appear on Earth for at least another million years, and our use of fossil fuels is even more recent.

The answer is that some natural processes that have occurred on Earth throughout its history release CO2 to the atmosphere, while others consume it.

The main system that keeps these dynamics in balance and controls Earth’s climate is a natural global thermostat, regulated by rocks that chemically react with CO2 and pull it out of the atmosphere.

The Greenhouse Effect leads to increases in surface temperatures and, in some places, rainfall. Together these accelerate silicate rock weathering. Faster weathering in turn removes more CO2 from the atmosphere (yellow arrow). The strength of the Greenhouse Effect relies on atmospheric CO2 levels. Gretashum/Wikipedia

In soils, certain rocks continually break down into new materials in reactions that consume CO2. These reactions tend to speed up when temperatures and rainfall are higher – exactly the climate conditions that occur when atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations rise.

But this thermostat has a built-in control. When CO2 and temperatures increase and rock weathering accelerates, it pulls more CO2 from the atmosphere. If CO2 begins to fall, temperatures cool and rock weathering slows globally, pulling out less CO2.

Rock weathering reactions also can work faster where soil contains lots of newly exposed mineral surfaces. Examples include areas with high erosion or periods when Earth’s tectonic processes pushed land upward, creating major mountain chains with steep slopes.

The rock weathering thermostat operates at a geologically slow pace. For example, at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, scientists estimate that atmospheric CO2 levels were between 2,000 and 4,000 parts per million. It took over 50 million years to reduce them naturally to around 400 parts per million in the Pliocene.

Because natural changes in CO2 levels happened very slowly, cyclic shifts in Earth’s climate system were also very slow. Ecosystems had millions of years to adapt, adjust and slowly respond to changing climates.


Summer heat waves are altering northern Siberia, thawing permafrost and creating conditions for large-scale wildfires.

A Pliocene-like future?

Today human activities are overwhelming the natural processes that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. At the dawn of the Industrial Era in 1750, atmospheric CO2 stood at about 280 parts per million. It has taken humans only 200 years to completely reverse the trajectory begun 50 million years ago and return the planet to CO2 levels not experienced for millions of years.

Most of that shift has happened since World War II. Yearly increases of 2-3 parts per million now are common. And in response, the Earth is warming at a fast pace. Since roughly 1880 the planet has warmed by 1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) – many times faster than any warming episode in the past 65 million years of Earth’s history.

In the Arctic, losses of reflective snow and ice cover have amplified this warming to +5 C (9 F). As a result, summertime Arctic sea ice coverage is trending lower and lower. Scientists project that the Arctic will be completely ice-free in summer within the next two decades.

This isn’t the only evidence of drastic Arctic warming. Scientists have recorded extreme summer melt rates across the Greenland Ice Sheet. In early August, Canada’s last remaining ice shelf, in the territory of Nunavut, collapsed into the sea. Parts of Arctic Siberia and Svalbard, a group of Norwegian islands in the Arctic Ocean, reached record-shattering high temperatures this summer.

Coastal cities, agricultural breadbasket regions and water supplies for many communities all will be radically different if this planet returns to a Pliocene CO2 world. This future is not inevitable – but avoiding it will require big steps now to decrease fossil fuel use and turn down Earth’s thermostat.

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As Afghans Count Cost Of Deadly Floods, Officials Warn Of Worse To Come

Reuters - Shadi Khan Saif

As the climate heats up, war-weary communities need more help to prepare for the growing threat of droughts and floods, and to protect their fragile environment

People search for victims after floods in Charikar, capital of Parwan province, Afghanistan August 27, 2020. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail 

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - Grocer Aziz Ullah took in his brother's three children after he was killed by devastating flash floods in late August which also destroyed Ullah's shop in the northern Afghan city of Charikar.

"These poor orphans have lost their parents and have nowhere to go," said the father-of-five, 59. "How am I going to look after their needs? Only God knows."

In the once-bustling provincial capital of Parwan, where nearly 160 people died, residents are trying to repair their shattered properties, while still grieving for relatives.

The north and east of the country are struggling to recover from the effects of the heavy downpours that claimed more than 200 lives, mostly women and children, across 13 provinces, as officials warn climate change could bring more such disasters.

In August, torrential rains swept off the majestic Hindu Kush mountains and through the valleys of Parwan, washing away hundreds of homes.

When Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited the area in early September, he noted that 80% of natural floodwater channels had been turned into residential areas, increasing the loss of life.

He ordered Charikar's administration to clear the flood pathways, resettle people now living there, and produce a new development master plan for the city.

Thousands of hectares of farmland were also damaged and livestock perished in the floods that caught local communities off-guard.

An Afghan man stands at his house after floods in Charikar, capital of Parwan province, Afghanistan August 27, 2020. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail



Tiny Emissions

Rohullah Amin, deputy head of the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), set up in 2010, warned of far worse impacts from rising temperatures and erratic weather in the coming years if climate change "is not taken seriously locally and internationally".

"The developed world needs to take responsibility as we have barely contributed to climate change, but are losing so many lives due to it," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

With very little industry of its own, Afghanistan accounts for far less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

In a report submitted to the United Nations in 2017, the NEPA said that since 1950, Afghanistan's mean annual temperature had increased significantly by 1.8 degrees Celsius, while spring rainfall - important for crops - had decreased by up to a third.

Amin called for greater support from wealthy, high-emitting countries for his war-ravaged nation that, despite its tiny role in heating up the planet, is on the receiving end of the wild weather being intensified by global warming.

Afghanistan ranks among the countries most at risk of - and least prepared for - climate-linked threats ranging from food insecurity to disease outbreaks, according to an index compiled by the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative.

U.N. agencies says droughts are likely to become the norm in Afghanistan by 2030, leading to land degradation and desertification, affecting more than a third of its 38 million people.

Projections by the NEPA suggest rising temperatures will lead to reduced spring rainfall and higher evapotranspiration, together with more frequent extreme events such as droughts, floods, landslides and avalanches.

But preparing people for that, and encouraging them to take precautions, will not be easy, said Mohammad Iqbal, director of public awareness at the NEPA.

"Even after these floods, it is hard to convince the locals, especially the poor farmers - who are suffering the most - that climate change is real and they need to adapt to this new reality," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The government has launched programmes to raise awareness about climate impacts and encourage better protection of the country's fragile environment, with the help of local community and religious leaders.

Under a new national climate action plan developed by the NEPA, now pending cabinet approval, it also aims to move gradually towards clean energy, cut back on low-grade coal for heating in its harsh winter, and launch a reforestation drive.

People search for victims after floods in Charikar, capital of Parwan province, Afghanistan August 27, 2020. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

War-Weary

But the impacts of climate change are already exacerbating the consequences of long years of war.

Spells of drought followed by untimely torrential rains - coupled with political insecurity - displaced more than 500,000 Afghans last year alone, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Amin, who leads the NEPA's climate change directorate, warned the recent floods should be taken as a "grim reminder and alarm calls" for what the future may have in store.

Glaciers are melting rapidly, compounding the threat of flash floods, which can severely damage crop yields, he added.

The NEPA estimates that well over half of households across Afghanistan depend on farming and livestock-keeping for their main source of income.

The August floods hit the northern, eastern and central highlands, where rain-fed farming and pastoralism are common, hampering households' ability to produce enough food and income to meet their basic needs, NEPA officials said.

Environmentalist Sayed Montazer Shah, a former adviser at the agriculture ministry, said the government and the international community had neglected Afghanistan's "environmental emergency", with the spotlight on its recently rejuvenated but fragile peace process.

Government and Taliban negotiators have been meeting in Doha since Sept. 12, hoping to agree on a ceasefire and a power-sharing deal. But they have been bogged down in the principles and procedures for the talks.

Shah said the country's ongoing conflict also had inflicted harm on its ecosystems, which in turn could add more deaths to the toll from violence.

"The forest cover is fast depleting, with trees in the jungles - particularly in the areas held by the (Taliban) insurgents - being cut ruthlessly at an alarming rate," Shah said, noting militants are likely working hand in hand with illegal loggers to make money.

The 2017 NEPA report said Afghanistan's forests were severely damaged as a result of decades of deforestation, over-harvesting, mismanagement and drought - and covered just 1.5-2% of the country.

In mountainous areas especially, deforestation can lead to soil erosion, hiking the risks of deadly landslides and floods.

Amin of the NEPA said he hoped the renewed push for peace would take a holistic view of the multiple risks facing the country – including its environment.

"Our sincere hope and aspiration is that all sides embrace peace and realise the common threat of climate change," he said.

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Global Heating Warming Up 'Nights Faster Than Days'

The Guardian - 

Effect seen across much of world will have profound consequences, warn scientists

The changes will impact many animal species and their ability to adapt to the climate crisis, research shows. Photograph: NiseriN/Getty/iStockPhoto

The climate crisis is heating up nights faster than days in many parts of the world, according to the first worldwide assessment of how global heating is differently affecting days and nights.

The findings have “profound consequences” for wildlife and their ability to adapt to the climate emergency, the researchers said, and for the ability of people to cool off at night during dangerous heatwaves.

The scientists compared the rises in daytime and night-time temperatures over the 35 years up to 2017. Global heating is increasing both, but they found that over more than half of the world’s land there was a difference of at least 0.25C between the day and night rises.

In two-thirds of those places, nights were warming faster than the days, particularly in Europe, west Africa, western South America and central Asia. But in some places – southern US, Mexico and the Middle East – days were warming faster.

The changes are the result of global heating causing changes to clouds. Where cloud cover increases, sunlight is blocked during the day but the clouds retain more heat and humidity at night, like a blanket.

This leads to nights getting increasingly hotter compared with days. Where cloud cover is decreasing, mostly in regions that are already dry, there is more sunlight during the day, which pushes temperatures up more rapidly.

Ecosystems have evolved as fine balances between species and many biological activities, such as feeding, occur at specific times of day. So the asymmetric changes between night and day temperatures in many parts of the world “will have profound consequences for the species inhabiting those regions and their ability to adapt in the face of the changing climate”, the scientists said.

The research is published in the journal Global Change Biology.

Daniel Cox, a research fellow at the University of Exeter and leader of the study, said: “We demonstrated that greater night-time warming is associated with the climate becoming wetter, and this has been shown to have important consequences for plant growth and how species, such as insects and mammals, interact.

“Species that are only active at night or during the day will be particularly affected.”

Wildlife is already in deep trouble, with global populations having plunged by an average of 68% since 1970.

Some changes caused by temperature rises have previously been recorded by other scientists. The predation of aphid insects and the hunting by African wild dogs are increasing at night, potentially upsetting food chains.

In the US, night-time temperatures have increased at twice the rate of daytime temperatures, exacerbating the dangers of heatwaves that already kill more Americans than any other natural disaster.

Cox’s team also looked at vegetation growth and found that it was reduced where nights were getting warmer faster than days, probably because the increased cloud cover blocks the sun.

However, plant growth was also reduced in places where the days warmed more, as there were fewer clouds and less rainfall. Both effects are likely to cut crop yields and, for example, reduce nectar and pollen production that many insects rely on.

Mark Wright, the director of science at WWF-UK, said: “While it’s too early to determine the impact on any individual species, this potentially significant finding provides further evidence of the imbalances being forced on nature by humankind.

“We know we need to take urgent action to halt and reverse humanity’s impact on nature, including rapid and deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.”

Overviews of the climate crisis often focus on average global temperature rises, but the impacts vary widely around the world. Previous climate studies have shown that some areas, such as the Arctic and Himalayan plateau, are heating up much faster than elsewhere and that spring is coming earlier and frosts and snow are becoming less common.

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04/10/2020

(AU) 'Criminally Irresponsible': Climate Experts Slam Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Approval

SBS NITV - Rae Johnston

The science community is lending its voice and expertise to the fight against the recently approved Santos Narrabri gas project, slamming the approval of 850 new coal seam gas wells.

Coal seam gas infrastructure at Narrabri. (AAP)

A former president of the Australian Conservation Foundation has labelled the decision to approve a $3.6 billion coal seam gas project on Gomeroi Country in the west of New South Wales as "criminally irresponsible".

Professor Ian Lowe from Griffith University said "every credible assessment of our energy future shows that we will be using less gas, not more," slamming the decision to invest further in gas when "there are cleaner and less expensive alternatives."

Prof Lowe is not alone, with leading scientists and environmental experts speaking out about the probable devastating impact of energy company Santos's project, set to be located in Narrabri and consisting of 850 new coal seam gas wells with a lifespan of 25 years.

23,000 submissions were made to the NSW Government's Independent Planning Commission (IPC) on the coal seam gas field, which will be spread out over 95,000 hectares. 98 per cent of the submissions were in opposition to the project, which was approved by the IPC on Wednesday.

Experts are calling the approval for the project "hugely concerning", dismissing claims it will make gas cheaper.

Immediate environmental impacts


Associate Professor Gavin Mudd from the School of Engineering at RMIT University said approving the Narribi project "locks in major groundwater risks for decades to come."

"Experience shows that the environmental assessment and approval of coal seam gas projects to date always underestimates groundwater impacts," said Prof Mudd. "There are better alternatives, such as renewable energy, which do not carry the same risks, especially for climate change."

The case against gas: price and jobs


Dr Hugh Saddler, Honorary Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, said the new gas supply from Narrabri would do nothing to lower the cost of gas for consumers, "because it will have higher production costs than existing gas fields."

"For the same reason, if used to generate electricity, it will do nothing to bring down wholesale electricity prices, and, in any case, will not be needed," said Dr Saddler.

Dr Saddler points to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), who created a 2020 Integrated Systems Plan (ISP) for Australia's energy future showing "under all plausible future scenarios" the level of total annual gas generation will be less than what we generate now.

Professor Colin Butler, an Honorary Professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, described the justification of extracting fossil fuels to create jobs as "hollow".

"Climate change will destroy jobs. Job-intensive, energy-harnessing alternatives should instead be promoted," he said.

The case against gas: emissions


Melissa Haswell, a Professor of Practice in Environmental Wellbeing at the University of Sydney, said emissions from gas are "routinely significantly underestimated."

"There is an ongoing dialogue amongst those who favour gas that shifting from coal to gas as an energy source is good for the climate," said Prof Haswell. "This has been repeatedly shown to be an unhelpful diversion from the urgency of reducing all fossil fuel mining and burning."

"The approval of the Narrabri development in the face of substantial risk to climate, the environment, water, health and community wellbeing is a clear demonstration of how influences favouring gas are simultaneously hindering transitions to truly low emission, cheaper renewable energies and reliable storage in the energy market," said Prof Haswell.

Prof Haswell described the Narrabri development, and plans for a gas replacement for the ageing Liddell coal plant, as "major steps away" from the AEMO's Integrated Systems Plan, which details a way to transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and storage - with 96 per cent replacement by 2040.

"This plan is the only vision Australia has to make a decent contribution to Greenhouse Gas emissions abatement, and to our chances for clean, safe, healthy and affordable domestic energy system," said Prof Haswell.

"Greenhouse gas emissions have risen, largely due to gas mining, for some time now - and these developments show that current politicians on both sides respect no upper boundary to Australia's contribution to intensifying global warming and human suffering."

 Professor Colin Butler, an Honorary Professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, said gas is claimed as a lower-emitting 'transitional fuel' when compared to coal.

"But the advantage is much reduced, and in some cases completely eliminated, once fugitive emissions of methane are considered," said Prof Butler.

Australia's carbon debt 


"To open up new gas and new coal when it's clear that the only path to a decent healthy future is rapid, unhindered transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies, shows no regard for current and future wellbeing," said Prof Haswell.

Professor Samantha Hepburn, the research director of the law school at Deakin University in Melbourne and the Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resource Law (CENRL), said the approval of the Narrabri gas project represents "a significant step backwards."

Prof Hepburn said Australia is "already emitting too much carbon", and Narrabri's approval will only make things worse, possibly resulting in Australia becoming a "global carbon debtor".

"A completely unnecessary and irresponsible status, given our enormous capacity to generate and store renewable energy," said Prof Hepburn.

What about the Paris agreement?


In 2016 Australia signed the Paris Agreement, along with more than 170 other countries, promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 per cent - when compared to 2005 levels - by 2030.

Prof Haswell said the Paris Agreement was "just a starting point", and that Australia's minimal target was not meant to remain unchanged.

"The Agreement required parties to ramp up emission reductions at each Annual Conference of Parties gatherings," said Prof Haswell.

"Instead, it was very clearly stated at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference meetings that the US and Australian governments had no intention of "keeping their gas and oil in the ground".

Prof Haswell said the two latest mining approvals, along with "so many" developments in the pipeline, will drive greenhouse gas emission up, showing "little regard for global responsibility."

The role of finance


Professor Peter Newman, the John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University said the project would "never get built if the finance community continue to recognise their role in ensuring the Net Zero by 2050 transition is enabled, not dinosaur projects like these."

"Governments are approving such projects as they don't have proper tools to include Net Zero assessments," said Prof Newman, "but finance is still required and can simply say no."

Climate wars


Peter Sainsbury, a Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame and Past President of both the Public Health Association of Australia and the Climate and Health Alliance, said both the approval of the Narrabri gas project - and Queensland's recent approval of a new coal mine with a lifespan of 80 years - shows there are no "climate wars" in Australia.

"People keep talking about Australia's political climate wars. What climate wars? There are no climate wars in Australia," Prof Sainsbury said.

"The Coalition and Labor are in total agreement - let's keep digging up coal and gas, let's keep burning it and exporting it. Let's turn global warming into global roasting and let's keep ruining people's health and killing people with air pollution and climate change."

Prof Butler said both the Narrabri and Gallile approvals show governments on both sides "continue to chase a mirage of fossil fuel-driven prosperity."

"Within 50 years, if current trends continue, pervasive global poverty, or even the collapse of civilisation could occur," said Prof Butler. "It is thus imperative that all high-income countries urgently reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."

"I long for a time when national leaders will consider the long term future, instead of the next few months."

Prof Haswell said the Narrabri coal seam gas project is "new and fully avoidable", showing "the nation demonstrates no intention to alter its politically-driven fossil fuel ambitions".

Prof Sainsbury said there is "no chance" of Australia adopting an environmentally sustainable climate change policy that protects people's livelihoods and health unless one of the major parties completely changes its climate policies.

"Or, we dump both of them in the dustbin of history."

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