(AU AFR) CBA Sued In Climate Lawfare First

AFR - Hannah Wootton

A Commonwealth Bank shareholder is taking the company to court to gain access to documents detailing its decision to finance oil and gas projects despite their potential to breach the Paris Agreement goals, in an action that could signal a new wave of climate change litigation.

The Federal Court case is a first for climate lawfare in Australia, with the head of the University of Melbourne’s Climate Futures Initiative, Jacqueline Peel, warning it could provide “a new avenue” for shareholders seeking to hold companies to account for their environmental commitments.

An oil field in the Permian Basin in Texas – CBA is facing legal action related to its decision to finance pipelines to carry natural gas from the site. 

It comes just weeks after CBA released an updated climate plan that was criticised for back-pedalling on commitments to limit climate change in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement for all investments to instead only apply to project finance.

The shareholder, Guy Abrahams, is seeking to inspect “all documents created by [CBA] in relation to CBA’s gas projects and CBA’s fossil fuel projects” for the purpose of complying with its environmental and social framework.

He specifically points to the Permian Highway Pipeline project to carry natural gas in the US, Gaslog and FLEX LNG’s new LNG vessels, Energy Infrastructure Investments’ Tipton West coal seam gas project, Siccar Point’s Cambo oil field development, Euronav NV’s crude carriers, and Santos’ acquisition of the Barossa Gas Field.

He wants any documents related to the bank’s assessment of the environmental, social and economic consequences of these projects and whether they are in line with the Paris Agreement goals.

The role of CBA’s directors is also under his scrutiny, as Mr Abrahams is also demanding access to “without limitation, any documents provided to [CBA’s] board” about the adoption of its 2021 climate plan.

Equity Generation Lawyers, the legal firm behind strategic climate actions such as the Rest and Sharma cases, is bringing the case on behalf of Mr Abrahams, who also settled a case against CBA in 2017 alleging it failed to disclose climate risks in its 2016 annual report.

New form of climate litigation

While shareholders’ power to inspect books has been subject to prior cases, it has not yet been used in one related to environmental concerns.

But Professor Peel said that if the application was successful, it could create a new form of climate litigation in Australian courts.

“If you get the information and it shows that there’s a difference between what they [the company] say they’re doing and what they’re actually doing, that potentially would be grounds for a case for breaching directors’ duties or misleading and deceptive conduct, or both,” Professor Peel said.

“You would imagine that lots of banks that currently have these kinds of commitments in place and shareholders are increasingly interested in whether the companies they’re invested in are carrying out their climate commitments.

“This could be a new avenue for shareholders to assert their rights and see whether the companies are meeting those.”

Professor Peel said targeting the institutions financing fossil fuel projects was part of a broader move in climate litigation to target the businesses and individuals sitting behind the companies directly involved.

“Looking at the broader context [in which] this case is happening, there’s an accountability spread to a lot of the [climate] litigation we’re seeing,” she said.

“And if financing is key to these projects going ahead, then it’s bringing that accountability back to the financiers.”

While financing some oil and gas projects was often seen as compatible with meeting the Paris targets five years ago, with only coal blacklisted, new climate modelling suggests that this is no longer the case.

But to be successful, the Abrahams case will need to convince the court that its application stems from a genuine exercise of shareholder rights and not for “an improper purpose”.

The courts have rejected similar applications before after deciding they were actually attempts to get documents to help develop class action claims, for example.

“That means [Mr Abrahams or other shareholders] need to show they are worried about the value of their shares going down because of something the company may or may not be doing,” Professor Peel said.

“It can’t be for an improper purpose such as getting information for further litigation.”

A CBA spokesman declined to comment on the case while it was before the court but said the bank was committed to helping meet the Paris targets.

“On 11 August 2021 we released our Annual Report and our updated Environmental and Social Framework, which include a considered plan for managing both the risks and opportunities of climate change,” he said.

“We are committed to playing our part in limiting climate change in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement and supporting the transition to net zero emissions by 2050.”

Links

• (AU SMH) Santos Hit With Climate Lawsuit Over ‘Net Zero’ Claims
• (AU SMH) ‘Really Big Win’: NSW Environmental Watchdog Ordered To Address Climate Change
• (Grist) New UN Report Could Be A Game-Changer For Climate Lawsuits
• (AU EDO) Landmark Bushfire Survivors’ Climate Case Is Heard
• (AU EDO) $21 Million In Beetaloo Gas Grants To Face Federal Court Challenge
• (AU ABC) Legal Challenge Launched Against Federal Government's $21 Million Beetaloo Basin Grant
• (AU ABC) Human Rights Issue Or 'Green Lawfare'? Citizens Take To The Courts To Fight Climate Change
• Lethal Heating: Legal Posts

(USA The Hill) How easily the climate crisis can become global chaos

The Hill - Jeff Masters

© Getty Images

Author Jeff Masters, Ph.D., is a former hurricane hunter and scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as well as the co-founder of Weather Underground. He writes about extreme weather and climate change for Yale Climate Connections.

After months of one extreme weather event after another, it’s hard to imagine how climate impacts could get any worse.

Unfortunately, it could. Imagine a year — not far in the future — just a couple years from now, where it all goes wrong:

A strong El Niño event warms the equatorial Pacific, bringing Earth’s hottest January on record.

Extreme drought grips Australia, the world's No. 3 exporter of wheat, bringing its most intense drought in history. A 58 percent decline in wheat production results, as occurred after their 2002 drought. Global food prices spike.

In April, record rainfall hits Canada, the world’s No. 2 wheat exporter. Canada’s wheat harvest falls 14 percent, as occurred after extreme rains in 2010. Unrelenting torrential rains hit the central U.S., delaying spring planting of crops and bringing near-record flooding on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Fortunately, because of infrastructure bills passed in 2021 and 2022, which gave funds for flood preparedness, the damage is billions of dollars less than from the great floods of 2011 and 1993. 

As summer arrives, the jet stream gets "stuck" in the type of resonant pattern linked to human-caused climate change that has become more frequent in recent years. The stuck jet stream brings cool air, relentless rain-bearing low-pressure systems and record rains to the central United States. Production of corn falls 4 percent and wheat 25 percent, as occurred in 2017 after a similarly wet year. In the western U.S. and Canada, the stuck jet stream brings a record-strength dome of high pressure, exacerbating their intense drought and bringing another year of hellacious wildfires and choking smoke that leads to thousands of premature air pollution deaths.

Severe drought, typical of an El Niño year, hits India and Southeast Asia, causing failure of the monsoon rains. In India, “Day Zero” arrives for an additional 100 million people, as taps run dry from years of excessive groundwater pumping and a wasteful water supply system. Rice yields fall 23 percent in India, the world's No. 1 rice exporter, as occurred in 2002.

In the fall, another bonkers Atlantic hurricane season unfolds as record-warm waters in the Caribbean fuel five major hurricanes, bucking the tendency of El Niño to suppress hurricanes. In mid-October, a hurricane — a carbon copy of 2021’s Hurricane Ida, except occurring during peak harvest season — trashes three of America’s 15 largest ports, which lie along the Lower Mississippi River and handle 60 percent of all U.S. grain exports to the world. Barge traffic on the Mississippi is crippled for months, during the peak export period for U.S. grain.

The extreme weather onslaught causes food prices to spike to quadruple the levels of 2000. Food riots break out in urban areas across the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America. The Euro weakens and the main European stock markets lose 10 percent of their value; U.S. stock markets fall 5 percent. Civil war erupts in Nigeria, famine kills nearly a million people in Bangladesh and Africa, and Mali becomes a failed state. Military tensions heighten between Russia and NATO; nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fight a border skirmish over water rights. Even more dramatic stock market falls ensue, and the global economy tumbles into a deep recession.

This worst-case scenario year — though unlikely to occur exactly this way — illustrates one of the greatest threats of climate change: extreme droughts and floods hitting multiple major grain-producing "breadbaskets" simultaneously. The scenario is similar to one outlined by insurance giant Lloyds of London in a "Food System Shock" report issued in 2015. Lloyds gave uncomfortably high odds of such an event occurring — well over 0.5 percent per year, or more than an 18 percent chance over a 40-year period.

Given the unprecedented weather extremes that have rocked the world recently, the odds of a devastating food system shock are probably much higher. What’s more, these odds are steadily increasing as humans burn fossil fuels and pump more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the air.

A warming planet provides more energy to power stronger storms, and more energy to intensify droughts, heatwaves and wildfires when storms are not present. Earth’s oceans are heating at an accelerating rate, storing energy equivalent to an astonishing three to six  Hiroshima-sized atom bombs per second. That extra heat energy allows more water vapor to evaporate and power stronger and wetter storms — like Hurricane Ida, and the catastrophic storms that hit Europe and China in July, costing over $25 billion each. 

Earth’s extra heat energy also intensifies droughts and heatwaves, like the one that brought Canada’s all-time heat record in June: 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Lytton, British Columbia, a day before a wildfire burned the town down. Global warming also intensified the 2010 Russian drought, which caused a doubling in global wheat prices, helping fuel the Arab Spring protests that led to the deadly uprisings in seven nations and the overthrow of multiple governments.

If business-as-usual is allowed to continue, a civilization-threatening climate catastrophe will occur. Mother Nature’s primal fury of 2021 is just a preview of what is coming. Global temperatures are currently about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial levels, and this year may well be the coolest year of the rest of our lives. Catastrophic extreme weather events will grow exponentially worse with 3 degrees Celsius of warming — the course we are currently on. 

The key to solving the climate crisis: electrify everything — while making sure the electricity doesn’t come from fossil fuels. The clean energy revolution is progressing faster than seemed possible, but it needs a coordinated international effort led by the U.S. and China to push it harder. This will be resisted by the forces of denial and delay: fossil fuel companies, right-wing partisans, media talking heads and oil-funded governments — all of which continue to profit from our dependence on fossil fuels, as detailed in climate scientist Michael Mann’s book “The New Climate War.” The best way people can help solve the climate crisis is to choose leaders committed to climate action.

Humans caused the climate crisis — we can solve it.

Links

• (Independent Australia) Climate Crisis Putting A Billion Children At ‘Extremely High Risk’
• (AU Pearls and Irritations) Solving The Mega-Risks
• (AU) Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack Flags Excluding Agriculture From 2050 Climate Target
• (AU) Climate Change Has Cut Australian Farm Profits By 22% A Year Over Past 20 Years, Report Says 
• (USA The Conversation) Is Climate Change To Blame For Extreme Weather Events? Attribution Science Says Yes, For Some – Here’s How It Works
• (The Conversation) Seemingly Small Climate Changes Can Have Big Consequences
• (AU The Conversation) Australians Are 3 Times More Worried About Climate Change Than COVID. A Mental Health Crisis Is Looming
• (Phys.org) Global Economic Policies Driving Toward A Climate Crisis

(USA NYT) The Climate Crisis Is Worse for Women. Here’s Why.

New York Times - Lauren Jackson

Although climate change is a collective problem, its burdens — displacement, homelessness, poverty, sexual violence, disease — weigh more heavily on women and girls.

Paola Saliby

“If you’re going to be a feminist on a hot planet, you have to be a climate feminist.”
— Katharine K. Wilkinson, a co-editor of the climate anthology “All We Can Save”

The world’s leading climate scientists issued a landmark report this month with their clearest clarion call to date: The climate crisis is here, it’s humanity’s fault, and it’s a catastrophic, planet-threatening problem that will only get worse before it gets better — if it gets better.

The United Nations report, approved by 195 governments and based on more than 14,000 studies, determined that more than a century of extractive energy use has heated the planet by roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of existing emissions, additional warming over the next three decades is inevitable.

But the report stressed that the coming years offered a narrow and urgent window of opportunity: the chance to fundamentally change our consumption habits and energy usage to avoid even more disastrous warming.

Katharine K. Wilkinson, a co-editor of the climate anthology “All We Can Save,” argues that while climate change is a collective problem, its impacts will be disproportionate — skewed in its effects on the world’s most vulnerable populations, specifically women and girls.

“The climate crisis is not gender-equal or gender-neutral,” she said.

Men have a larger carbon footprint than women, by 16 percent, according to one study. And the top 1 percent of income earners globally, who are overwhelmingly male, are responsible for more carbon emissions than the bottom 50 percent of earners. According to the U.N., that’s roughly 70 million at the top compared with 3.5 billion at the bottom.

Yet it is women and girls who bear the burdens in the wake of more frequent climate disasters. Those burdens include displacement — 80 percent of people displaced by climate change are women — as well as increased homelessness, poverty, sexual violence and disease.

In her book, Dr. Wilkinson, who has a doctorate in geography and environment from Oxford, and her co-editor, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, shine a spotlight on the many women researching, leading, campaigning and writing on climate solutions.

In Her Words spoke with Dr. Wilkinson about why the answers are inextricable from gender equality and explained the idea of climate feminism. The conversation has been condensed and lightly edited.

You say the climate crisis is having a disproportionate impact on women. What does that mean?

Dr. Wilkinson: The Pentagon coined this term of climate as a threat multiplier, which, of course, they’re thinking about national security. But I think it’s such a helpful framing that the climate is a multiplier of any cracks, imbalances or injustices that are present in current society. It amplifies them.

The climate crisis is not gender-neutral in its root causes, which grow out of patriarchy, among other things. It is not gender-neutral in its impacts because women and girls are on the back foot, in various ways. Extreme weather events are being tied to early marriage, to sex trafficking, to domestic violence, all of these things that are already present in society that get turned up a notch or five.

Say more about the connection between climate change and patriarchy.

Dr. Wilkinson: The cause of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions. But to me, the question is, well, why do we have such an abundance of these emissions, and why have they been so hard to rein in? And when we start to ask those questions, we find ourselves confronting a system that has been very focused on hierarchy, control, exploitation and, frankly, decision making that has largely sat with a relatively narrow set of folks.

And, certainly, women have not been at the table anywhere near equally in shaping the status quo that we find ourselves in. And the same is true for people of color. The same is true for Indigenous peoples.

How is gender connected to climate solutions?

Dr. Wilkinson: We talk so much in climate about solutions at scale, which we need. We need regenerative agriculture around the world. We need a 100 percent clean electricity system, we need means of mobility that don’t rely on fossil fuels.

We need all of that, of course. But I think sometimes we overlook the values. Because we’re not just trying to build a zero-emissions future, right? We’re trying to build a future also in which we can thrive together.

And to me, patriarchy is fundamentally predicated on some people thriving at the expense of other people. And of course, the same is true of white supremacy. Addressing both of those things is at the heart of climate work.

In your book, you describe the need for climate leadership that is more “characteristically feminine.” Tell me more about that.

Dr. Wilkinson: Sherri Mitchell, an Indigenous attorney, activist and author from the Penobscot Nation, talks about the feminine as heart-centered wisdom and the masculine as action in the world.

When we think about the things it’s going to take to address the climate crisis and build a genuinely life-giving future, that’s going to take a fundamental reorientation to care. It’s going to take collaboration, connection, compassion, creativity, all of these things that fall within this realm of the feminine, regardless of gender identity.

Can you give an example of an area where you would like to see this reorientation manifested?

Dr. Wilkinson: When we look at climate philanthropy, there are still really significant imbalances along the lines of race and gender. Most of the money that’s being invested in the climate movement is going to work that is led by white men. And we want them on the team. They just can’t be the whole team.

How would you respond to someone who says that bold climate action is inherently anticapitalist?

Dr. Wilkinson: If capitalism is not anticlimate, the onus for proving that is on capitalists who so far have come up beyond short in showing how it can be workable within our planetary system.

We have had this very bizarre, fundamental belief in infinity at the core of this economic system, and we’re living on a finite planet, so if you think that there is a way to solve for infinite growth on a finite planet, I would love to see that mapped out.

How do you hope the movement for climate feminism will evolve?

Dr. Wilkinson: I think a lot about how we welcome in people who are committed feminists but have not seen themselves as climate feminists or have felt like the climate space is not super welcoming.

Like, if you don’t have a Ph.D. in atmospheric science, then thanks, we don’t need you. And of course, that couldn’t be couldn’t be further from the truth. If you’re going to be a feminist on a hot planet, you have to be a climate feminist.

If someone came to you and asked what steps they could take now to address the climate emergency, what would you tell them?

Dr. Wilkinson: I often ask people: What are your superpowers, and how can those be contributed in some way to the work that needs doing on climate? Because we are so much more than our consumer choices, we are so much more even than our voting practices and civic participation.

Many of us can find ways to weave climate into our professional lives. And that, for me, is when things start to get powerful.

Links

• (ICIR) Climate Change Threatens Our Survival, Women Farmers In Niger Cry Out
• (USA) Does Solving The Climate Crisis Require Antiracist Feminist Leadership?
• ‘Inequalities Will Become Even More Entrenched’: Why Climate Change Is A Feminist Issue
• Malala Yousafzai Says Educate Girls To Fight Climate Change
• Living With The Legacy Of A Climate Emergency: The Women And Girls Determined To Build A Brighter Future
• (AU) 4 Assumptions About Gender That Distort How We Think About Climate Change [And 3 Ways To Do Better]
• Lethal Heating: Women and Climate Change Posts

(Independent Australia) Climate Crisis Putting A Billion Children At ‘Extremely High Risk’

Independent Australia - Reynard Loki

A new U.N. report has revealed almost half of the world’s children are seriously threatened by the rapidly deteriorating global climate, writes Reynard Loki.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has collaborated with UNICEF to report on the risk of global warming to children (Screenshot via YouTube)

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said in 2019:

“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope. But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.” 

Now the famed young eco-warrior and Nobel Peace Prize nominee might get her wish as she, along with other youth activists, has collaborated with UNICEF – a United Nations agency working in more than 190 countries and territories to provide humanitarian and developmental aid to the world’s most disadvantaged children and adolescents – to launch an alarming new report that has found that a billion children across the world are at ‘extremely high risk’ from the impacts of climate change.

Released ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in November in Glasgow and on the third anniversary of Fridays for Future (FFF) – the youth-led global climate strike movement founded by Thunberg – ‘The Climate Crisis Is a Child Rights Crisis’ is the first climate report to combine high-resolution geographic maps detailing global environmental and climate impacts with maps that show regions where children are vulnerable due to an array of stressors, including poverty and lack of access to education, health care or clean water.

The report introduces the new Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), a composite index that ranks nations based on children’s exposure to climate shocks, providing the first comprehensive look at how exactly children are affected by the climate crisis. It also offers a road map for policymakers seeking to prioritise action based on those who are most at risk. Nick Rees, a policy specialist at UNICEF focusing on climate change and economic analysis and one of the report’s authors, told The Guardian:

“It essentially [shows] the likelihood of a child’s ability to survive climate change.”

Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s executive director, said:

For the first time, we have a complete picture of where and how children are vulnerable to climate change and that picture is almost unimaginably dire.

Climate and environmental shocks are undermining the complete spectrum of children’s rights, from access to clean air, food and safe water; to education, housing, freedom from exploitation and even their right to survive.

Virtually no child’s life will be unaffected. For three years, children have raised their voices around the world to demand action.

UNICEF supports their calls for change with an unarguable message — the climate crisis is a child’s rights crisis.

In addition to finding that approximately 1 billion children – nearly half the world’s child population – live in countries that are at an ‘extremely high risk’ from climate impacts, the report found that almost every single child on the planet has been exposed to at least one climate or environmental stressor, such as air pollution, flooding, heatwaves, tropical storms or drought. Moreover, the report found that 850 million children – approximately one-third of the world’s child population – are exposed to four or more stressors.

Specifically, the CCRI found that:

• 1 billion children are highly exposed to exceedingly high levels of air pollution;
• 920 million to water scarcity;
• 820 million to heatwaves;
• 815 million to lead pollution;
• 600 million to vector-borne diseases;
• 400 million to tropical storms;
• 330 million to riverine flooding; and
• 240 million to coastal flooding.

 In the report’s foreword, Thunberg and three other youth climate activists with FFF – Adriana Calderón from Mexico, Farzana Faruk Jhumu from Bangladesh and Eric Njuguna from Kenya – wrote:

Children bear the greatest burden of climate change. Not only are they more vulnerable than adults to the extreme weather, toxic hazards and diseases it causes, but the planet is becoming a more dangerous place to live.

In 1989, virtually every country in the world agreed children have rights to a clean environment to live in, clean air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat.

Children also have rights to learn, relax and play. But with their lack of action on climate change, world leaders are failing this promise.

The four youth activists, all part of the international youth-led Fridays for Future global climate strike movement, added:

‘Our futures are being destroyed, our rights violated and our pleas ignored. Instead of going to school or living in a safe home, children are enduring famine, conflict and deadly diseases due to climate and environmental shocks.

'These shocks are propelling the world’s youngest, poorest and most vulnerable children further into poverty, making it harder for them to recover the next time a cyclone hits or a wildfire sparks.’

Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a youth campaigner from the Philippines who also helped launch the UNICEF report, told The Guardian:

“One of the reasons I’m a climate activist is because I was born into climate change like so many of us have been.

"I have such vivid memories of doing my homework by the candlelight as typhoons raged outside, wiping out the electricity, and growing up being afraid of drowning in my own bedroom because I would wake up to a flooded room.”

In addition to detailing the climate risks facing the world’s children, the CCRI reveals a worrisome inequity regarding who must ultimately deal with the consequences of climate change. The 33 extremely high-risk countries for children – including the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau – collectively are responsible for a mere 9% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

This finding supports related research published in a 2020 report produced by Oxfam that found that the richest 1% of people are responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions — twice as much as the poorest half of the global population.

Fore said:

“Climate change is deeply inequitable. While no child is responsible for rising global temperatures, they will pay the highest costs. The children from countries least responsible will suffer most of all.”

The UNICEF report’s authors connect this climate inequality to COVID-19, saying that the pandemic:

‘...has revealed the depth of what can go wrong if we do not listen to science and act rapidly in the face of a global crisis.

'It has laid bare the inequality that cuts across and within countries — the most vulnerable are often propelled further into poverty due to multiple risk factors, including poor access to vaccines, creating vicious cycles that are difficult to escape.’

In order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, global net emissions of carbon dioxide must be nearly halved by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body for assessing the current state of the world’s climate science.

The main problem is that the world’s nations are not meeting their targets to achieve these goals. In fact, a report released by the IPCC on 9 August found not only that climate change was unequivocally caused by human activity, but also that within two decades, rising temperatures will cause the planet to reach a significant turning point in global warming.

Average global temperatures are predicted to be warmer than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, causing more frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts and extreme weather events. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called the IPCC’s discouraging findings a ‘code red for humanity’.

Thunberg declared in an address to some 10,000 people gathered for a climate demonstration in Helsinki, Finland, in 2018:

“Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground, so we can’t save the world by playing by the rules because the rules have to change.

"Everything needs to change and it has to start today.”

In their report, UNICEF calls on governments and businesses to protect children from the climate crisis not only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also by increasing investments in health and hygiene services, education and clean water, providing children with climate education and green skills and including young people in climate negotiations and decision making.

The report asked to:

‘Ensure the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is green, low-carbon and inclusive, so that the capacity of future generations to address and respond to the climate crisis is not compromised.’

In December of 2011, during the COP 17 climate talks held in Durban, South Africa, activists marched through the streets calling for action in the negotiations. Christiana Figueres, who was at the time the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) where she later oversaw the establishment of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, told the marchers that the children have a single message for climate negotiators: “Do more, do more, do more.”

A decade later, with the Earth’s atmosphere heating up at a rate unprecedented in the last two millennia and economists suggesting that the Paris Agreement may be doomed to fail, it’s becoming painfully clear that the U.N. and the world’s political and business leaders didn’t do nearly enough.

Thunberg, Calderón, Jhumu and Njuguna, who committed to the climate fight even if it means missing more days at school, wrote:

There is still time for countries to commit to preventing the worst, including setting the appropriate carbon budgets to meet Paris targets and ultimately taking the drastic action required to shift the economy away from fossil fuels.

We will strike again and again until decision-makers change the course of humanity. 

We must acknowledge where we stand, treat climate change like the crisis it is and act with the urgency required to ensure today’s children inherit a liveable planet.

Links

• A billion children at ‘extreme risk’ from climate impacts – UNICEF
• The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis
• United Nations Children’s Fund
• Glasgow Climate Change Conference
• How Children Are Taking European States To Court Over The Climate Crisis – And Changing The Law
• (AU) Extinction Rebellion Grandparents Fighting For The Future Of Their Grandchildren
• (USA) Children Are The Key To Addressing Climate Change And Improving Environmental Health
• Portuguese Children Sue 33 Countries Over Climate Change At European Court
• (AU) Australian Youth Feel Unprepared, Uneducated And Underappreciated On Climate Change: Report
• Children Of The Crisis 

(AU The Guardian) Every One Of Us Should Care About The Climate Crisis. Together We Can Make A Big Difference

The Guardian - Bronte Campbell | Pat Cummins | Daisy Pearce

Three of Australia’s biggest sports stars have joined more than 350 other athletes in a new climate campaign. Here’s why they are calling for urgent action

Bronte Campbell, dual Olympic champion swimmer

Olympic swimmer Bronte Campbell is one of more than 300 athletes who penned
an open letter to Australia’s leaders calling for urgent action on the climate crisis.
Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Bronte Campbell: Sport was the first thing that helped me feel Australian. As a shy girl from Malawi who didn’t like wearing shoes and had second-hand clothes, sport brought me forward and told me I belonged. Twenty years later, sport has given me everything I dreamed of and more. And it’s given me a platform. A chance to join my voice with others and advocate for change.

---

David Pocock leads 300 high-profile
Australian athletes in climate campaign.

Read more

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I grew up in Africa, surrounded by nature, swimming in Lake Malawi. Water was my safe place and I absolutely loved it. But we haven’t been very good at looking after it. Our oceans, waterways, our climate, our planet. The future looks bleak and the progress is too slow.

Signing up to The Cool Down was a way to say I care, we care, and you should too. We should all care about how we’re treating the planet and how we’re going to fix it. We should all care about emissions, and not just because of the planet. We’re not just fighting for nature, we’re fighting for our way of life.

Climate change will impact every aspect of how we live, including how we play sport – the thing that has told so many of us that we are Australian.

Pat Cummins, Australian men’s cricket team vice-captain

Cummins and his partner Becky in the Southern Highlands of NSW.
Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Pat Cummins: In a few months my partner, Becky, and I are expecting our first child. When we think about his future, not only do we think of a good education, of friendships and hopefully a life filled with joy, we want to do our best to make sure he has a planet that’s liveable.

We’re incredibly lucky to live in a country that’s home to beautiful rainforests, coastlines and countryside. From our snowfields to the Great Barrier Reef, Australia’s landscapes and range of ecosystems are truly special. We’re also home to the oldest living cultures in the world.

I think all of that is worth protecting and want to one day share that with my kids.

Australians pride ourselves on punching above our weight and competing on the world stage. But when it comes to climate action, unfortunately, that isn’t the case. We are a country surrounded all around by coasts. The sunniest, windiest continent in the world.

We have the opportunity to lead the way on renewable energy. To build a future that’s great for all of us. One we can be proud to pass on to our kids and grandkids.

Daisy Pearce, AFLW star and media personality

Daisy Pearce plays for AFLW team the Melbourne Demons.
Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Daisy Pearce: I am at my happiest and healthiest when I am immersed in nature. Whether it’s taking in and sharing the beauty of an animal with my two kids, observing the power of the ocean, standing on a sheer rock face on Mt Buffalo, Victoria, or on the hot sand in Exmouth, WA. At those moments it’s easy to feel the exhilaration of how small I really am in the scheme of things.

It has become undeniable that so much of this is in jeopardy. At this rate, it is a very real possibility that my own grandchildren won’t get to enjoy all of these things that are at the core of what I love. That’s what motivates me. I want to do something about it. I believe we all have a role to play.

I believe the responsibility for climate action doesn’t just sit with the government or big organisations, nor does it rest on the shoulders of the stereotypical “tree-huggers”.

Every one of us should care and every one of us can make a big difference. Even if you start small. I think sometimes people get overwhelmed, thinking that to make change you need to be the perfect environmentalist or make a complete overhaul of your lifestyle but small choices at a household level will make a significant difference.

When we take action in our own lives and stand up for the future we want, we stand our best chance of ensuring our grandchildren will be able to enjoy the incredible things we’ve been lucky enough to experience in this incredible country.

Links

• (AU The Guardian) David Pocock Leads 250 High-Profile Australian Athletes In Climate Campaign 
• The Cool Down: Protecting the future of the planet, the future of sport
• David Pocock and Wallabies teammates lead sporting charge on carbon emissions
• David Pocock warns of devastating impact on sport if climate crisis inaction continues
• David Pocock retires: Australian great quits rugby to focus on conservation efforts
• IPCC AR6 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis 
• ‘Not too late’: Australian scientists call for urgent action to avoid worst of climate crisis
• Lethal Heating: Sport Posts

(UK The Guardian) Shell Aims To Install 50,000 On-Street EV Charge Points By 2025

The Guardian - Gwyn Topham

Oil firm sets out plans to provide a third of Britain’s network needed to hit climate targets

The sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2030 in the UK. Photograph: Koen van Weel/EPA

Shell has announced its aim to install 50,000 on-street electric vehicle (EV) charging points in the UK over the next four years, in an attempt to provide a third of the network needed to hit national climate change targets.

Earlier this year, the energy company acquired ubitricity, a leading supplier of local authorities’ on-street EV power points, with a network of 3,600 chargers in lamp posts or bollards.

The paucity of on-street charging in urban areas has been seen as a significant obstacle in the government’s drive to phase out fossil fuel vehicles in favour of electric cars. The sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2030 in the UK.

The lost history of the electric car – and what it tells us about the future of transport.  Read more

Shell will entice local authorities by offering to meet the upfront costs of installation that are not covered by government grants, subject to commercial terms. The government’s Office for Zero Emission Vehicles currently pays 75% of the installation cost.

According to a National Audit Office report into reducing carbon emissions from cars, more than 60% of urban households in England do not have off-street parking, with the number rising to 68% for social housing.

Shell’s UK chair, David Bunch, said: “It’s vital to speed up the pace of EV charger installation across the UK and this aim and financing offer is designed to help achieve that. We want to give drivers across the UK accessible EV charging options, so that more drivers can switch to electric.”

The transport minister, Rachel Maclean, said the announcement was “a great example of how private investment is being used alongside government support to ensure that our EV infrastructure is fit for the future”.

The UK Committee for Climate Change’s progress report to parliament in June recommended as a priority there should be 150,000 public charge points in operation in the UK by 2025 to ensure they would be widely available across the country.

Shell has targeted global growth from 60,000 charge points today – including on fuel station forecourts and commercial premises - to about 500,000 by 2025. BP had previously stolen a march in the UK electric charging business, after snapping up Chargemaster in 2018.

The oil company, which has been regularly targeted by climate crisis campaigners in recent years, has pledged to invest heavily in greener businesses and become net zero by 2050.

This week Extinction Rebellion activists glued themselves to the Science Museum in London in protest against Shell’s sponsorship of an exhibition about greenhouse gases.

Links

• 5000 free fast electric car chargers to be built around Australia
• Charging stations - Electric Vehicle Council
• Charging station - Wikipedia
• Malaysia to have 1,000 EV charging stations by 2025
• Australian Renewable Energy Agency - electric vehicles
• A guide to electric vehicles | RACV
• Millions of electric car batteries will retire in the next decade. What happens to them?
• Blowing smoke: Toyota’s emissions advantage splits sector

(AU The Conversation) 1,600 Years Ago, Climate Change Hit The Australian Alps. We Studied Ancient Lake Mud To Learn What Happened

The Conversation - Zoë Thomas | Haidee Cadd | Larissa Schneider

Shutterstock

Authors Zoë Thomas is ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSW Haidee Cadd is Research associate, University of Wollongong Larissa Schneider is DECRA fellow, Australian National University

If you’ve ever visited Australia’s highest peak — Mount Kosciuszko — you might remember the long uphill trek to the summit past some of Australia’s most picturesque and rugged landscapes.

Vibrant snow gums, boardwalks with meadows of exquisite alpine plants, and blinding patches of snow.

As you approach the summit, a quartet of stunning blue lakes appear, created by glaciers during the last ice age that carved new valleys out of the mountain.

Lakes like these are windows to the past, offering an opportunity to understand how our climate and environment has changed over hundreds to thousands of years. One such lake, Club Lake — so-named for its resemblance to a suit in a deck of cards — was the focus of our new study.

After studying the lake’s sediment, we learned the Australian Alps experienced a sudden climate change about 1,600 years ago that brought a long spell of warmer conditions. What makes this sudden warming event particularly interesting is that it bears striking similarity to today.

Climate change in the Australian Alps

The Australian alpine region is the traditional home of a number of Aboriginal groups, including the Ngarigo, Walgalu and Djilamatang people. It is also home to highly diverse flora and fauna that occur nowhere else, from billy buttons (Craspedia costiniana) known for their vibrant yellow rosette of tiny flowers, to the broad-toothed rat and its chubby cheeks.

Mountain pygmy possums like in Australia’s alpine region, and are under dire threat from climate change. AAP Image/Department of Sustainability and Environment/Tim Arch

But this unique wildlife is under immense threat from climate change.

By 2100, Australia may warm by at least 4℃, with bushfires becoming more frequent and devastating. The fragile alpine ecosystem will be hit particularly hard by these changes.

Many of Australia’s alpine species are already near their climatic limits, and are constrained by altitude. They’re at risk of becoming regionally extinct if their climatic thresholds are exceeded.

As the temperature warms, treelines move upslope to cooler temperatures, pushing alpine flora and fauna to higher elevations. At some point they can go no higher — they’re squeezed out of their niche.

The critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum, for example, relies on the seasonal snowpack for winter hibernation, but increased temperatures are limiting this habitat.

A dip into the past

Our study showed Club Lake holds vital clues to the link between rising temperatures, loss of native plant species and more frequent fires in the Snowy Mountains.

Lake sediments are used all over the world as indicators of climate and environmental change because of the unique way they trap material. A body of water can act as a seal that ensures sediments are largely undisturbed over time.

We extracted sediments from the bottom of Club Lake to a depth of 35 centimetres. This equates to about 3,500 years of history, approximately 100 years for each centimetre.

Club Lake in Mt Kosciuszko. Shutterstock

To work out how temperatures have changed over this time, we looked for the presence of molecular fossils, called “lipid biomarkers”. Analysing these biomarkers in the laboratory can tell us what the temperature in the environment was like, hundreds or thousands of years ago.

In the 3,500 years we examined, we detected a gradual warming trend. Superimposed on this, we found a sudden warming event that started 1,600 years ago, and lasted about six centuries. We suspect it was due to an atmospheric phenomenon linking higher tropical sea surface temperatures to southeastern Australia.

We’re not yet sure how much of Australia was affected by this warming, but other research from 2018 measured similar temperature changes in stalagmites from the Yarrangobilly caves 50 kilometres away.

Alpine snow gums (Eucalyptus pauciflora). Zoë Thomas

What happened during this climate change?

During this unusual warmth, alpine herbs and shrubs declined, while the abundance of trees, particularly eucalyptus, increased. We know this by looking at grains of pollen preserved at different depths within the lake sediment samples, which indicates what types of plants were growing nearby.

We also found small particles of charcoal, produced by bushfires, embedded within the sediment layers. This showed the changes in vegetation also coincided with greater fire activity.

What surprised us most, however, was discovering a large increase in mercury at this time.

Mercury, which occurs naturally in the environment, is the only metal that’s liquid at room temperature, and is particularly sensitive to temperature changes. Higher temperatures enhance mercury deposition from the atmosphere, and our study shows a five-fold increase in mercury flux 1,600 years ago.

Alpine herbfields. Nicola Pain

Industrial activities over the last 150 years, such as burning coal, have increased the abundance of mercury significantly. Our findings suggest future climate change is likely to increase the risk of mercury exposure not just in cities, but also in the seemingly remote Australian alpine environment.

Mercury contamination is a significant public health and environmental problem. At certain levels it’s poisonous to the nervous system, and it does not easily degrade.

What can we do?

Insights from the past can help governments, environmental agencies, and scientists come up with effective strategies to protect the vulnerable flora and fauna of the Australian Alps. But it’s not just changes in climate they’ll have to contend with in future.

There are other perils, such as soil erosion and habitat fragmentation from the legacy of sheep and cattle grazing, and tourism. Invasive pests and pathogens are likely to further reduce the resilience of these alpine ecosystems.

Feral horses are a significant threat to native wildlife in Australia’s alpine region. Shutterstock

Restoration programs over the last 50 years have aimed to revitalise the natural vegetation in the Kosciuszko National Park following 135 years of grazing — finally banned in 1969 — and the environmental damage caused by the Snowy River Hydro-Electric scheme.

More recently, the federal government has committed A$3.5 million towards recovery from the devastating 2019-2020 bushfires. Incorporating Aboriginal knowledge into mainstream fire management is essential for tackling future crises.

This is the critical time for climate action to protect this unique and iconic Australian landscape.

Links

• Climate change has already hit Australia. Unless we act now, a hotter, drier and more dangerous future awaits, IPCC warns
• ‘It is not easy’: how science and courage saved the stunning Australian Alps
• Death of a landscape: why have thousands of trees dropped dead in New South Wales?
• Snowy Mountains rehabilitation program
• Australia, you have unfinished business. It’s time to let our ‘fire people’ care for this land
• ‘Failure is not an option’: after a lost decade on climate action, the 2020s offer one last chance
• Mercury from the northern hemisphere is ending up in Australia
• Late Holocene climate anomaly concurrent with fire activity and ecosystem shifts in the eastern Australian Highlands
• The last ice age tells us why we need to care about a 2℃ change in temperature
• Climate explained: what the world was like the last time carbon dioxide levels were at 400ppm
• A tale of two valleys: Latrobe and Hunter regions both have coal stations, but one has far worse mercury pollution
• Meet the broad-toothed rat: a chubby-cheeked and inquisitive Australian rodent that needs our help