To Stop Climate Disaster, Make Ecocide An International Crime. It's The Only Way

The Guardian -  Jojo Mehta | Julia Jackson

Outlawing ecocide would hold governments and corporations accountable for environmental negligence. We can’t wait

Smoke rises from an illegally lit fire in an Amazon rainforest reserve in Pará State, Brazil. Photograph: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images

The Paris agreement is failing.

Yet there is new hope for preserving a livable planet: the growing global campaign to criminalize ecocide can address the root causes of the climate crisis and safeguard our planet – the common home of all humanity and, indeed, all life on Earth.

Nearly five years after the negotiation of the landmark Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming to “well below 2.0C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C”, we are experiencing drastically accelerating warming. 2020 was the second warmest year on record, following the record-setting 2019.

Carbon in the atmosphere reached 417 parts per million (ppm) – the highest in the last 3m years.Even if we magically flipped a switch to a fully green economy tomorrow, there is still enough carbon in the atmosphere to continue warming the planet for decades.

The science is clear: without drastic action to limit temperature rise below 1.5C, the Earth, and all life on it, including all human beings, will suffer devastating consequences.

Yet only two countries – Morocco and the Gambia – are on track to meet the 1.5C target. The largest emitters, including the United States, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, are putting the world on course for 4C.

At that rate, the polar ice caps will melt, causing dramatic sea level rise that will – in combination with other devastating effects like strengthening storms and droughts – cause mass famine, displacement and extinction.

Currently, much of humanity feels hopeless, but the establishment of ecocide as a crime offers something for people to get behind. Enacting laws against ecocide, as is under consideration in a growing number of jurisdictions, offers a way to correct the shortcomings of the Paris agreement.

Whereas Paris lacks sufficient ambition, transparency and accountability, the criminalization of ecocide would be an enforceable deterrent.

Outlawing ecocide would also address a key root cause of global climate change: the widespread destruction of nature, which, in addition to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, has devastating impacts on global health, food and water security, and sustainable development – to name a few.

Ecocide shares its roots with other landmark concepts in international law, including genocide. Indeed, ecocide and genocide often go hand in hand. Around the globe, ecological destruction is also decimating indigenous communities.

To give just a few cases: Brazil’s Yanomami are facing mercury poisoning generated by the 20,000 illegal miners in their territories. 87% of Native Alaskan villages are experiencing climate-related erosion, even as they face growing calls to drill on their lands.

Conviction for ecocide would require demonstrating willful disregard for the consequences of actions such as deforestation, reckless drilling and mining.

This threshold implicates a number of global and corporate leaders through their complicity in deforesting the Amazon and Congo basins, drilling recklessly in the Arctic and the Niger delta, or permitting unsustainable palm oil plantations in south-east Asia, among other destructive practices.

As a term, “ecocide” dates to 1970, when Arthur Galston, an American botanist, used it to describe the appalling effects of Agent Orange on the vast forests of Vietnam and Cambodia. On the 50th anniversary of the concept, we can take heart in the growing civic will to officially make ecocide an international crime.

Already, citizens, scientists and youth activists including Greta Thunberg are calling on global leaders to introduce ecocide at the international criminal court (ICC).

Following the lead of climate-vulnerable ocean states Vanuatu and the Maldives in December 2019, President Emmanuel Macron of France vowed to champion it on the international stage last June and has proposed a version of it in French law.

Finland and Belgium both expressed interest during the ICC’s annual assembly, and Spain’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee has issued recommendations to consider it.

The EU has also voted to encourage its recognition by member states. And Pope Francis was ahead of the game in November 2019 when he called for ecocide to become an international crime against peace.

The Stop Ecocide Foundation has recently convened a panel of heavyweight international lawyers to draft a robust legal definition of ecocide which this growing list of states can seriously consider proposing as an amendment to the ICC’s Rome Statute.

Criminalizing ecocide gives us the unprecedented chance to create a protective measure with legal teeth that could deter reckless leaders from damaging, short-sighted policies creating accountability in a way that Paris does not.

Just as important, we could motivate corporations to make dramatic shifts away from an unacceptable status quo that too often favors the destruction of nature for short-term profits.

As ecocide becomes an impending legal reality, corporate leaders would be forced to adapt, and quickly, re-examining the way they do business and make decisions with our planet in mind.

But ecocide would not just be a punitive measure for corporate leaders. It would also offer considerable opportunities for new sustainable ventures.

The pristine areas that ecocide targets – virgin forests, wetlands and our oceans – are precisely the places that have value far beyond mere extractive industries, including in sustainably developing new pharmaceuticals that may help in the current Covid-19 pandemic and in future pandemics.

True leaders in the public and private sector would much prefer ethical, sustainable and long-term value creation that does not exploit nature or humanity. By outlawing bad actors, we will empower many more good ones.

As a global community, we cannot wait for more warning signs or the “right moment”. Last year alone has seen devastating examples of ecocide: fires ravaging the Amazon, the Congo basin, Australia, Alaska and Siberia all at unprecedented rates; a large oil spill in Ecuador; and unending, accelerating plastic pollution, which could weigh up to 1.3bn tons by 2040.

Unfortunately, under cover of Covid-19, ecocide has accelerated. Deforestation in the Amazon basin increased by 50% in the first quarter of 2020, with rampant fires reaching a 13-year high in June.

In the midst of a global pandemic that demonstrates humanity’s shared vulnerability – and our need to work together collectively in the face of crisis – we must begin to understand that what we do to our ecosystems, we do to ourselves.

Indeed, the meaning of ecocide is fully encapsulated by its etymology. It comes from the Greek oikos (home) and the Latin cadere (to kill). Ecocide is literally “killing our home”.

Links

• Ecocide: Should killing nature be a crime?
• 'Ecocide' proposal aiming to make environmental destruction an international crime
• Why Ecocide Should be an International Crime
• ‘There is no vaccine against the climate crisis’: EU adopts new strategy on climate change
• International lawyers propose 'ecocide' to criminalise environmental destruction
• French government found guilty of climate inaction in 'historic victory'
• ‘How good were koalas?’: A national treasure in peril
• Newspapers and climate breakdown
• Texas freeze shows a chilling truth – how the rich use climate change to divide us Robert Reich

(AU) Game, Set, Match: Calling Time On Climate Inaction

Climate Council - Martin Rice | Ella Weisbrot | Simon Bradshaw | Will Steffen | Lesley Hughes | Hilary Bambrick | Kate Charlesworth | Nicki Hutley

 

Sport is a major part of Australian culture.

Every weekend, millions of Australians participate in, watch or discuss sport.

Sporting legends are idolised and our national teams and clubs are revered.

But Australia’s summer of sport is under threat from climate change. 

Driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), climate change is worsening extreme weather events and disrupting Australian sport.

Game, Set, Match: Calling Time on Climate Inaction describes how climate change is affecting sport in Australia, and how sport can also be a powerful force for change. 

LARGE IMAGE

Key Findings

1. Australia’s summer of sport is under threat from climate change.

• Climate change, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas), is worsening extreme weather events and disrupting Australian sport.
• Australia’s summer sports calendar, which includes Big Bash League (BBL) cricket, AFLW games, the Tour Down Under cycling race, the Australian Open tennis, A and W-League football and community sports is threatened by climate change.

2. By 2040, heatwaves in Sydney and Melbourne could reach highs of 50°C, threatening the viability of summer sport as it is currently played.

• Heatwaves are becoming hotter, lasting longer and occurring more often.
• While 2010-2019 was the warmest decade over the past century, it is also likely to be the coolest decade of the century ahead.
• 2019 was Australia’s warmest year on record, with 33 days that exceeded 39°C – more than the total number between 1960 and 2018.
• If global emissions continue to increase, Australian sports will have to make significant changes, such as playing summer games in the evening or switching schedules to spring and autumn.

LARGE IMAGE

3. No athlete, whether an elite professional or a community player, is immune to our increasingly hot summers, which are a health hazard for those playing and watching sport.

• Climate change is driving longer and more intense bushfire seasons, exposing athletes and spectators to dangerous air pollution, for which professional players are a particularly sensitive group.
• Many athletes and spectators have fallen seriously ill following exposure to extreme heat in recent years. For example:
  • Tennis: Temperatures at the Australian Open Tennis in Melbourne have repeatedly hit +40°C with games suspended and players taken to hospital. In 2014, almost 1,000 spectators were treated for heat exhaustion.
  • Triathlon: On 2 March 2016, temperatures reached 34°C in Penrith during the NSW All Schools Triathlon Championships at the nearby Sydney International Regatta Centre. Paramedics were called following reports of nine people suffering from heat exposure during the event.
  • Cricket: In January 2018, at the Sydney Ashes Test, England’s captain Joe Root was hospitalised as air temperature hit 41.9°C. In December 2019, New Zealand cancelled part of a warmup match in Melbourne because the temperature was forecast to reach 45°C.
• Prolonged drought in Australia has resulted in an increase in shoulder injuries due to sport being played on harder, rain-parched grounds. For example, shoulder injuries increased by 23 percent in 2001 (during the Millennium Drought), compared to 1994 levels.

Download Report

4. Australian sport is worth $50 billion to the economy and employs over 220,000 people, but governments are not adequately prepared for escalating climate risks.

• None of Australia’s major sports plans, including the Federal Government’s first national sports plan, discuss or tackle the implications of climate change on sport.
• Climate disruption is a growing cost for sport in Australia, including infrastructure maintenance and rising insurance premiums.
• Elite venues may be able to afford expensive upgrades, but local venues will not.
• Australia can help protect sport by becoming part of the global solution to climate change by rapidly and deeply reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewable energy and storage.

5. Sport is a contributor to climate change, but it can also be an integral part of the solution.

• Sporting clubs and codes contribute to climate change but can rapidly cut their own greenhouse gas emissions by changing the way they build venues, power events, travel and by cutting waste.
• Athletes and other sporting leaders can become powerful advocates for change, both within sport and outside of it, by using their star appeal to educate and influence others.
• Professional and community sports can switch sponsorship from fossil fuel-backed companies to ones that invest in climate solutions.
• All sporting codes and leagues should have science-based, regularly updated policies that cover heat, bushfire smoke and other extreme weather events to protect athletes and spectators.
  
  

Let's go for gold on climate action

Links

• REPORT: Game, Set, Match: Calling Time on Climate Inaction (pdf)
• Let’s go for gold on climate action
• Aussie Sports Stars Call For Climate Action
• Australian sport stars call for more action to combat climate ‘havoc’
• Leading Australian athletes call for greater action on climate change
• Sport at risk by climate change impacts, report finds
• “We don’t have a credible climate policy:” Sport stars want stronger targets
• Brutal heat in Australia by 2040 will change the shape of summer sport

(AU) Joe Biden's Climate Envoy Admits US And Australia Not On 'Same Page'

The Guardian - Daniel Hurst | Adam Morton

John Kerry’s comments, including a call for a faster exit from coal power, add to pressure on the Coalition to do more

John Kerry made mention of Australia and the part it played at a deadlocked 2019 climate conference during an extended conversation with Al Gore posted online. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Joe Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, has publicly acknowledged “differences” between the United States and Australia in tackling the climate crisis while calling for a faster exit from coal-fired power.

Kerry’s comments highlighted the increased pressure on Australia to commit to do more before this year’s Glasgow climate conference even though the Morrison government maintains it is “playing its part”.

With the Coalition currently wrestling with internal divisions on whether to formally commit to net zero by 2050, a spokesperson for the minister for emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, said the US agreed with Australia on the need for “practical solutions”.

Taylor’s spokesperson declined to specifically address Kerry’s view that “coal has got to phase down faster”.

Kerry, the former US secretary of state who is now leading Biden’s effort to drive urgent action on the climate crisis, has echoed other global leaders in describing the 2020s as a “make or break” decade in which all countries needed to cut emissions more quickly.

In an event last weekend marking his country’s return to the Paris agreement, Kerry said the US needed to regain credibility by adopting a strong new target for 2030, due to be announced in April. He said he would work “in a collegiate manner with other countries around the world”, before specifically mentioning Australia and the part it played at a deadlocked 2019 climate conference.

“For instance, I’ve talked to Australia – we had a very good conversation,” Kerry said in an extended conversation with former US vice-president Al Gore posted online over the weekend.

“Australia has had some differences with us, we’ve not been able to get on the same page completely. That was one of the problems in Madrid as you recall, together with Brazil.”

That was a reference to COP25 in Madrid in December 2019, when parties to the Paris agreement were aiming to agree on the rulebook for implementing it. Australia was accused by some countries of blocking progress when it refused to drop a plan to use controversial carbon credits from the unrelated Kyoto Protocol to meet its 2030 Paris target.

Brazil was also accused of preventing agreement through its insistence that it be allowed a different type of Kyoto-era credits that led to accusations it was “double-counting” emissions cuts.

Laurence Tubiana, a former French environment minister and architect of the Paris accord, at the time described using carryover credits as “cheating” and said Australia seemed to be “willing in a way to destroy the whole system”.

Over recent months, Australia has attempted to pivot on climate policy, saying it no longer expects to need to use the credits to reach its 2030 emissions pledge.

Scott Morrison has also argued he hopes to achieve net zero as soon as possible, preferably by 2050, but has not explicitly committed to it. The suggestion he might triggered outrage from some from Nationals MPs but an increasing number of Australia’s trading partners have embraced the goal.

When approached for a response to Kerry’s comments, Taylor’s spokesperson said the pair had “a friendly and positive conversation” in late January.

The spokesperson said Australia welcomed the Biden administration’s return to the Paris agreement “and the increasing global focus on the practical solutions that will make global net zero achievable”.

Taylor’s spokesperson said it aligned with Australia’s technology investment roadmap, which had been discussed between Biden and Morrison.

“Australia is playing its part in the global response to climate change by meeting and beating our international targets,” Taylor’s spokesperson said. “When we make commitments, we meet them. Action and outcomes are what matter, and our track record is one that all Australians can be proud of.”

Australia has been criticised for setting targets that ignored what scientists say is necessary. Its first target under the Kyoto Protocol allowed an 8% increase in emissions, and its second target was a 5% cut.

Before joining the Paris agreement, the then Abbott government was advised by the Climate Change Authority that it should set a 2030 target equivalent to at least a 45% and up to a 65% cut compared with 2005 emissions levels. It instead opted for between 26% and 28%.

Official projections released in December suggested the Morrison government was not on track to meet this goal under existing measurable policies. The former finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has been forced to defend the government’s climate record during his current campaign to lead the OECD.

In the weekend event, Kerry outlined the importance of increasing ambition on climate action “on a global basis” for “our children’s sake and our grandkids’ sake”.

He noted the US, China, the European Union and India together accounted for more than 60% of emissions, and none of those nations was doing enough, but that also applied to “many others at lower levels of emission”.

The Glasgow climate conference in November will be preceded by Biden hosting a leaders’ climate meeting on 22 April. Both aim to significantly increase international resolve to address the problem.

Kerry said the US summit would focus on getting the 17 nations that produce the vast majority of emissions, including Australia, to commit to reaching net zero by 2050 and setting a roadmap this decade that would explain how they would accelerate action to keep alive the possibility of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, discussed climate policy with his Australian, Japanese and Indian counterparts in last week’s Quad talks.

Biden said late last week countries could “no longer delay or do the bare minimum to address climate change” because it was “a global, existential crisis, and we’ll all suffer the consequences if we fail”.

Links

• ‘Breathtaking’: what Joe Biden’s sweeping climate plan means for Scott Morrison
• (AU) Almost Alone: Australia Isolated On Climate Despite PM’s Ambitions
• (AU) Morrison Missing The Memo On Climate Change
• Surge In Global Action Highlights Australia’s Stance On Climate Change
• (AU) As Biden Hits The Accelerator On Climate Action, Australia Remains Stuck In Policy Paralysis
• (AU) ‘Breathtaking’: What Joe Biden’s Sweeping Climate Plan Means For Scott Morrison
• (AU) The Verdict On Australia’s Emissions Targets: Catastrophic
• Recent Australian emissions cuts likely to be reversed in recovery from Covid and drought
• Mathias Cormann: the Australian OECD candidate trying to airbrush his climate record

Climate Change 'The Biggest Security Threat Ever Faced By Modern Humans', David Attenborough Warns

SBS - Reuters

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and veteran naturalist David Attenborough made direct pleas on Tuesday to the UN Security Council to take urgent action on the climate crisis or face worsening global instability.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson watches a video address by Sir David Attenborough at a session of the UN Security Council. Source: PA Wire

British naturalist David Attenborough warned on Tuesday that climate change is the biggest security threat that modern humans have ever faced, telling the UN Security Council: “I don’t envy you the responsibility that this places on all of you.”

Mr Attenborough, the world’s most influential wildlife broadcaster, addressed a virtual meeting of the 15-member council on climate-related risks to international peace and security, chaired by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature and ocean food chains,” Mr Attenborough said.

"And if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then most of the rest of civilization will quickly break down. Please make no mistake, climate change is the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced," he said.

With the world struggling to cut planet-warming emissions fast enough to avoid catastrophic warming, the United Nations will stage a climate summit in November in Glasgow, Scotland.

“It is literally our last, best hope to get on track and to get this right,” US climate envoy John Kerry told the council.

The November summit serves as a deadline for countries to commit to deeper emissions cuts.



It will be the most important gathering since the 2015 event that yielded the Paris Agreement, when nearly 200 countries committed to halt rising temperatures quickly enough to avoid catastrophic change.

“I know that there are people around the world who will say that this is all kind of green stuff from a bunch of tree-hugging, tofu munchers and not suited to international diplomacy and international politics,” Mr Johnson told the council.

“I couldn’t disagree more profoundly.”

‘Long way to go’

Russia and China question whether the Security Council is the right forum to be discussing climate change.

“We agree that climate change and environmental issues can exacerbate conflict. But are they really the root cause of these conflicts? There are serious doubts about this,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaks as he hosts the UN Security Council's virtual meeting on climate change risks in London. Bloomberg POOL 

China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua described climate change as a development issue.

“Sustainable development holds the master key to solving all problems and eliminating the root causes of conflicts,” he said.

Mr Kerry said: “We bury our heads in the sand at our own peril. It is time to start treating the climate crisis like the urgent security threat that it is. This is literally the challenge of all of our generations.”

The Paris accord aims to cap the rise in temperatures to “well below” two degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5C to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pushed countries, companies, cities and financial institutions to make ambitious commitments to cut global emissions. China and the United States are the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

“We still have a long way to go, and we look to the major emitters to lead by example in the coming months,” Mr Guterres told the council.

“This is a credibility test of their commitment to people and planet. It is the only way we will keep the 1.5-degree goal within reach.”

Links

• David Attenborough's Heartbreaking Plea After Admitting ‘I Don’t Have Long Left’
• (VIDEO) Climate Change: The Facts - Sir David Attenborough
• (VIDEOS) Sir David Attenborough And United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres On Climate Change
• David Attenborough: Climate Change Must Not Be Ignored Even During A Pandemic
• These Are The Ways You Can Stop Climate Change, According To David Attenborough
• Campaign Seeks 1bn People To Save Climate – One Small Step At A Time
• Amid Planet’s Crisis, Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough’s ‘Vision For The Future’
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: '2021 is a make it or break it year' for the environment
• United States officially rejoins the Paris climate agreement
• Preparing For When Climate Change Drives People From Their Homes
• (AU) BOM Pivots To Security Over Climate Risks
• (US) Retired General: Climate Change Is A Threat To National Security, Military Readiness
• Climate Change: A Threat to International Peace & Security?

(AU) Renewable Energy Boom Could Force Coal Power To Close Early, Says New Report

ABC News - Ben Millington

AGL's Bayswater power station in the NSW Hunter Valley. (Supplied: Hunter Community Environment Centre)

Key Points Solar and wind plants will add 70,000GWh to the grid by 2025 Coal-fired generation will drop by 28 per cent Industry acknowledges increasing pressure

An analysis of Australia's energy market has found a number of the nation's coal-fired power stations could be financially unviable by 2025 and at least one may be forced to close early.

The joint report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) think thank and advisory firm Green Energy Markets attempts to quantify the mounting pressure on coal-fired plants, as a flood of cheaper and more flexible renewable power hits the grid.

The most vulnerable power stations were in NSW with concerns that sudden closures would lead to a shortfall in dispatchable electricity, unless the transition was better managed.

"The market is facing a tidal wave of new supply, much greater than anything government authorities or market analysts forecast or even contemplated just two years ago," Green Energy Markets director Tristan Edis said.

"The supply added from 2018 to 2025 equates to over a third of the entire demand in the National Electricity Market (NEM), and more than eight times the annual generation of the Liddell coal-fired power station in NSW.

"So something has got to give."

Between 2018 to 2025, new wind and solar plants will add 70,000 gigawatt hours of extra supply, which is greater than the entire annual electricity consumption of New South Wales, the report said.

Prices close to zero Co-author Johanna Bowyer from IEEFA said the extra energy will lead to a collapse in output from many of the existing fossil fuel generators.

"They will be displaced because wind and solar have no fuel cost and typically bid into the market with prices close to zero," she said.

"We predict that gas power station output will fall by 78 per cent and coal output by 28 per cent by 2025 compared to 2018 levels."

Wind turbines. (Fabrizio Bensch, file photo: Reuters)
         

The report said the extra supply of renewable energy could make electricity prices more volatile but also cheaper on average, which would further impact the profitability of coal plants.

The Liddel power station in the NSW Hunter is already set to close in 2023, but the report said at least one more closure in the state is likely before 2025.

It listed Eraring, Vales Point and Mt Piper in NSW and Yallourn in Victoria as most vulnerable.

"What we really need to be doing is planning to replace those coal-fired power plants with something that can help balance out the wind and the solar and is really flexible, because that's the problem for coal," Mr Edis said.

He said gas could play a role in the short term, while pumped hydro and large-scale battery storage would likely be more competitive and green solutions in the long term.

"One thing is clear, that propping up coal is probably not practical, and it's certainly a very dumb idea to build new coal power plants," he said.

An electricity tower rises into the sky. (Pexels.com)

Early closures predicted The report echoes recent comments by the independent chair of the Energy Security Board, Dr Kerry Schott, who is working on major reforms to the National Electricity Market to help it cope with the energy transformation.

Snowy 2.0 will speed coal's demise

The Federal Government's hydroelectricity investments will enable renewable energy to completely replace coal-fired power. Read more...

Last week she said renewables are making coal increasingly unprofitable and warned that coal-fired power plants could close four to five years earlier than anticipated.

Under that scenario all four of the coal plants in the NSW Hunter region would be gone by 2030.

"What Kerry Schott I think is doing, is saying we need to get on top of this and manage it," the Grattan Institute's energy director, Tony Wood, said.

Mr Wood said the analysis in the IEEFA/Green Energy Markets report was on the "aggressive end", but "not at all implausible."

He said the uncertainty in the energy sector was a significant problem, in-part caused by conflicting government policies to support both renewables and traditional generators.

"The sooner we get a lot more credibility and predictability into our energy and climate policy, the sooner we'll see a reduction in what might be some potential for nasty problems," he said.

Solar farm, Hughenden QLD. (ABC Rural: Tom Major) 

Last week Origin Energy CEO Frank Calabria revealed the country's largest coal-fired power station at Eraring in NSW was already suffering from low wholesale prices and flagged the early closure of plants.

"I would go as far to say that wholesale prices are unsustainable, there will be a supply response — it's just whether it's planned or unplanned. And that's really where the market is at today," he said, while delivering Origin's mid-year results.

"I think it's actually going to be a pretty messy period of time, and I think you will see us running our generation less at Eraring. That's what you're seeing now."

Origin, AGL, Neoen and CEP Energy are all planning massive battery projects in a bid to prepare for the future.

The Australian Energy Council, which represents coal, gas, hydro and renewable generators, said the wholesale energy market was seeing "major changes" as more renewables come into the system.

"That is putting added pressure on coal-fired generators in particular," AEC Chief Executive Sarah McNamara said.

"The key issues will be ensuring an orderly exit of older thermal plant, as well as investment in dispatchable generation and encouraging the right overall mix of resources and system services to maintain system security and reliability."

She said these challenges have been flagged by the Energy Security Board, which will be essential to coordinating the grid and supporting timely and efficient investments.

"Their work is made more challenging where governments impose policies outside the national market arrangements, and which can exacerbate the issues identified in this report," she said.

Links

• IEEFA Australia: Coal plant closures imminent as renewable energy surges
• Green Energy Markets: Fast Erosion of Coal Plant Profits in the National Electricity Market (pdf)
• Liddell Power Station - Wikipedia
• Eraring Power Station - Wikipedia
• Vales Point Power Station - Wikipedia
• Mount Piper Power Station - Wikipedia
• Yallourn Power Station - Wikipedia
• Companies are powering ahead with big battery projects, but a 'lack of certainty' by governments could deter good investment
• 'Well done, Angus': A truly excellent Government rescue for a crisis that isn't happening

(AU) Our 'Tree-Change' And 'Sea-Change' Dreams Are Under Threat As Scientists Warn About Building Homes In 'Risky Areas'

ABC Science - Nick Kilvert

Lifestyle zonings on city fringes will need to be removed due to bushfire risk, researchers say. (Supplied: Tony C Mathew)

Key Points "Scattered" housing in "at risk" coastal and bush areas stretch emergency services and involve energy-intensive lifestyles Researchers say we need to build climate-resilient communities as we recover from natural disasters Industry experts say people may be left with worthless properties in a few decades' time if we don't act now

In the aftermath of out-of-control bushfires once again devastating parts of Australia, this time in the west, researchers say we cannot continue rebuilding in "at risk" areas.

"Sea-change" or "tree-change" settlements "scattered" along coastlines or into bushland are often more vulnerable to extreme weather events, involve more energy intensive lifestyles, and can stretch emergency services during crises.

The researchers have argued their case in a paper published today in Nature Urban Sustainability.

They say zoning must change to prevent future development in at-risk areas, and planning and rebuilding should focus on community models that can serve as blueprints for our transition to climate-resilient towns and cities.

Barbara Norman, director of Urban and Regional Futures at the University of Canberra, was one of the paper's authors.

"With the increasing potential for extreme events in the future, it's adding a very strong argument to again be revisiting our planning," said Professor Norman, who lost a family home in Mallacoota in the 2019-20 bushfires.

Explore Mt Resilience

Discover a town built to survive and adapt to extreme weather on your mobile in AR. Read more...

Bushfire recovery coupled with a migration to regional areas during the pandemic means there is a significant opportunity to put in place design principles now to future-proof our communities, Professor Norman said.

"Business as usual will not work … ignoring this issue is not helping anyone," she said.

"[We can take] this opportunity to build world-class, environmentally sensitive developments."

Allowing housing to spread into areas at risk of extreme weather events will do people more harm than good in the long run, Professor Norman said.

Building houses in risky areas not only exposes people to danger, but insurance companies will continue to either increase premiums or refuse to insure properties at all.

"The really tough question of resettlement will be the next big issue, both globally and locally," Professor Norman said.

"Ignoring it and not having a discussion about this tough question would not be helping those communities.

"Leading people with fear is an awful thing to do, but sitting down and leading people in a constructive way is a very positive thing to do."

Homeowners must 'wake up very quickly'

More than 700,000 properties will be uninsurable by the end of the century, according to research. (ABC Central Coast: Jake Lapham)

After being hit by floods in 2019, residents of a Townsville housing complex were faced with a 30 per cent hike in insurance premiums.

This was after their annual insurance premium had already soared from under $30,000 to more than $150,000 in a decade.

More Australians are not only facing exorbitant insurance bills, but forecasts from Climate Risk in 2019 found that up to 720,000 Australian addresses would be in an insurance "red zone" — uninsurable — by the end of the century.

Climate Valuation is an international company operating in Australia that assesses the future risk posed to properties by climate change for potential homebuyers, as well as banks and insurers.

Insurance companies and money lenders are looking closely at climate change risk and how it will affect property values, Climate Valuation chief executive officer Karl Mallon said.

"In 2020, we did 4.5 million mortgage assessments for banks. We work in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, [so] just to be very clear, this stuff is being asked for and paid for by mortgage lenders," Dr Mallon said.

"This information is being asked for and used, and homeowners need to wake up very quickly and get on top of this."

Of the assessments they do for potential homebuyers, according to Dr Mallon, they find about 10 per cent of properties face some sort of future climate risk.

Sea level rise

Study: Up to 40 per cent of Australian beaches will go. Read more ...

That 10 per cent can be split into three categories: where measures can be put in place by the homeowner to avert the risk, where measures must be put in place by council to avert the risk, and where the risk is unavoidable, such as sea-level rise on a beachfront property.

For people who inadvertently purchase a home where there is an unavoidable future risk, they will be left with a worthless property in a few decades, Dr Mallon said.

"What we don't want is people to lose their property value through the death of a thousand cuts; that's what will happen and it's the stupidest outcome."

But there's a solution to that problem if we act now, he said.

By identifying properties that will be uninsurable or uninhabitable down the track and putting a small levy on rates now, those homeowners can be financially assisted to relocate when the time comes.

The relocation funds allocated to that property from the levy would be transferrable, meaning the house could be sold in the meantime and the relocation fund transferred to the new owner.

"[It's] basically saying, 'we're not letting you sell lemons into the market anymore,'" Dr Mallon said.

"You can provide residential zoning for say 30 or 50 years. From that point it will not be rezoned and it will be turned into mangroves or something [and] you collect rates for a transition fund … so you can move to a place up the hill.

"Everything is solvable as long as you look the problem in the eye."

As well as lenders and insurers, millennials who have grown up with climate change are increasingly factoring climate risk into their investment decisions, Dr Mallon said.

"It used to be only the council knew this stuff, and if you could get the council to shut up, no-one knew it. Now you can get a report on this stuff for a few hundred bucks.

"For those that do [get this information], they're going to make shrewd decisions and they're not going to buy stuff in at-risk areas."

'National policy needed' to stop developers passing on risk

Lenders and insurers are analysing climate risk when assessing property values. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)

In their paper published in Nature Urban Sustainability today, the researchers outlined a series of guiding principles that rebuilding and development must be based upon. They are:

• "retreating" from at-risk areas, and rebuilding in communities, rather than in isolated, scattered housing
• creating more localised energy systems, such as renewables with local battery storage, which can reduce the risk of communities being cut off from power during extreme weather events
• incorporating Indigenous knowledge of seasonal burning and engaging communities in ecologically oriented fire management
• reducing energy consumption of communities through electrified public transport infrastructure, and localised services and amenities that can eliminate the need for regular long-distance travel
• adopting passive cooling techniques in architecture, and outdoor spaces to reduce reliance on energy-intensive cooling.

But the biggest impediment to sustainable community building is the myriad conflicting interests at play in development, according to Griffith University climate change adaptation researcher Sarah Boulter.

Councils can face legal pushback from developers, as well as lost revenue, if they restrict where development can take place.

"Any time [councils] try to restrict development, they're likely to end up in the planning court," Dr Boulter said.

"For a developer, they pass that risk on. So who's responsible if you buy a place on the coast that then gets washed away? Is it the council or the developer?"

At the same time, telling people who have never experienced a natural disaster that they can't live right by the beach or in the bush is an unpopular agenda for councils to push, Dr Boulter said.

"You have to convince people that it's like insurance: you hope to never use it, but you're insuring against it happening."

On the flipside, it can be very difficult to convince people who have been recently traumatised by a bushfire or other natural disaster that they need to relocate.

Rather than putting the onus on councils to implement these measures, leadership must come in the form of a national policy framework, Dr Boulter said.

"While a lot of work happens at the grassroots community level, you've got to have some commitment at the higher level to say this is how we want our [future] communities to look," she said.

"It comes down to our leadership to say, 'we have to look at all these risks.'"

But as the risk of climate-change-related disasters have increased, there has been no unified policy to guide adaptation and mitigation, the researchers argued.

"The Australian government response to climate change since 2013 has been arguably one of systemic dismantling of action on both mitigation and adaptation," they wrote.

"As a consequence, there has been a general devolving of responsibility to the subnational level, resulting in a patchwork of initiatives rather than an integrated climate response."

Links

• REPORT Apocalypse now: Australian bushfires and the future of urban settlements
• Sea level rise will see 40pc of Australia's beaches lost, predicts new study
• How one in 10 homes could fall into uninsurable 'red zones of risk'
• 'I can't mitigate my risk': Projections identify the coastal homes likely to be inundated by rising sea levels 
• (AU) Climate Change Puts Regional Communities At Risk, Better Regional Planning Needed: Experts
• (AU) Australia's Bushfires Among The World's Worst Weather Disasters 'Boosted' By Climate Change, Report Finds
• How resilient is your community to cope with natural disasters? 
• Meet Ayla: A child growing up in a changing climate

(AU) Under Pressure: Coal-Fired Power Plants Feel The Heat From Renewables

Sydney Morning Herald - Noel Towell

Commercial pressure is growing on the giant coal-fired power stations supplying most of Victoria’s electricity, as experts warn of the increased likelihood of early closure at some Latrobe Valley mines and stations.

A surge of renewables into the power market has driven prices to a seven-year low and is increasingly undercutting the profitability of the Loy Yang and Yallourn plants, which the state government has described as “unreliable and ageing”.

Steam billows from the cooling towers at the Loy Yang A coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley. Credit: Bloomberg

The state government plans to push ahead with the modernisation of Victoria’s 20th-century grid to allow more wind and solar projects to connect, and the announcement of state interim emissions reductions targets, delayed by the COVID-19 crisis, is expected to further reduce coal’s capacity to compete.

But the companies that run Loy Yang A, Loy Yang B and Yallourn, which together employ up to 1200 workers and contractors, said their long-term plans for the plant have not changed despite one senior executive referring to a changing “operating environment”.

AGL, which owns Loy Yang A and its adjacent coal mine, shocked the markets this month with a $2.7 billion write-down, blamed in part on falling wholesale electricity prices.

Schneider Electric energy markets director Lisa Zembrodt said coal generation operations were being squeezed on both the supply and demand sides.

“Coal is going to continue to face pressure,” Ms Zembrodt said.

“On the supply side, they’re being squeezed out by the growth in renewable capacity and output.

“Demand is declining as people put solar ... on their roofs and larger end users get smarter in the way they consume or perform energy efficiency projects.”

Ms Zembrodt also said the carbon intensity of the brown coal used by the Latrobe Valley stations, which are responsible for 40 per cent of Victoria’s emissions, would become increasingly problematic.

Plume modelling of pollution from coal-fired power stations in Victoria, based on atmospheric observations and industry data using CALPUFF. Supplied: Greenpeace

Victoria University energy expert Bruce Mountain told The Age that recent events showed brown coal generation was in trouble and the challenge for the state government was to ensure enough alternative power sources were available to replace the enormous capacity of the three Latrobe Valley stations.

“On brown coal closure, the odds are shortening on it happening sooner rather than later,” Professor Mountain said.

“State governments need to get their skates on.

“It’s not panic stations, but the thrust of government policy must be to bring in alternative sources quickly.”

Victoria’s Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio last week launched the latest phase in the state’s $540 million effort to reboot its electricity grid. The system was originally designed around large-scale coal stations and has struggled to accommodate all the renewables projects waiting to connect.

“When we’re done, Victoria’s renewable energy zones will be home to 16 gigawatts of capacity – the equivalent of putting solar on every roof in Victoria,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.

“As our ageing coal-fired generators reach the end of their service lives, our long-term climate and energy targets provide the market with much-needed certainty to enable a well-planned transition to clean energy.”

Alinta chief executive Jeff Dimery said the company’s Loy Yang B plant was the youngest and most efficient brown coal power station in the Latrobe Valley and there were no plans to change its official 2037 closure date.

“While our plans haven’t changed, the operating environment has, and will continue to change, as we move towards a lower-carbon future,” Mr Dimery said.

“If the situation changes and we have any concerns about our ability to keep the station running, we’ll be up front about it.”

An AGL spokesperson said the write-down had not altered its plans to close Loy Yang A in 2048. An EnergyAustralia spokesman said the company had promised at least five years’ notice of any closure of its Yallourn plant and that it would keep its word.

Links

• ‘Dirty and dangerous’: AGL tops list of coal-fired plant breaches
• Conditions ‘remain challenging’ as AGL swings to $2.3b loss
• Push for deeper cuts as Victorian emissions sink to lowest level in decades 
• Move to build grid-scale solar on industrial rooftops across Australia
• 'From sunny north to windy east': What are Victoria's renewable energy zones?
• 'Overheating our planet': Andrews government urged to set emissions target for critical decade
• Victorian coal-fired power review conclusion prompts calls for emissions limits in Latrobe Valley