(The Conversation) How Singapore’s Water Management Has Become A Global Model For How To Tackle Climate Crisis

The Conversation - Asit K. Biswas | Peter Joo Hee Ng

Swapnil Bapat/Unsplash

Authors Asit K. Biswas is Distinguished visiting professor, University of Glasgow. Peter Joo Hee Ng is Chief Executive Officer, Public Utilities Board, Singapore's National Water Agency.

Singapore is at the forefront of nearly all countries that have formulated a long-term plan for managing climate change and is steadfastly implementing that plan.

The small island state of 6 million people was among the 40 nations invited by the US President Joe Biden to attend his leaders’ summit on tackling climate change last April.

Singapore is one of most densely populated countries in the world. It faces the twin challenges of ensuring sustainable water supply during droughts as well as effective drainage during intense rain seasons amid climate change.

Much of Singapore is also as flat as a pancake and stands no more than 5 metres above the mean sea level. This puts the country at risk from rising sea level due to climate change.

But thanks to its water system management, Singapore has been a success story as a resilient and adaptable city.

Water-resilient Singapore

The country has to be prepared for when rights to draw water from Malaysia end in 2061. Singapore draws up to 50% of its water supply from the neighbouring country.

For over two decades, Singapore’s National Water Agency, PUB, has successfully added large-scale nationwide rainwater harvesting, used water collection, treatment and reuse, and seawater desalination to its portfolio of conventional water sources, so the nation-state can achieve long-term water sustainability.

The agency has been collecting and treating all its sewage to transform it into clean and high-quality reclaimed water. As a result, the PUB has become a leading exponent of using recycled water, dubbed locally as NEWater, as a source of water.

In 2017, NEWater succesfully supplied up to 40% of the total water demand of 430 million gallons per day in Singapore. As the projected demand will double by 2060, the PUB plans to increase NEWater supply capacity up to 55% of demand.

Under the plan, desalinated water will supply 30% of total demand in 2060 – a 5% increase from its share in 2017.

The remaining share of the country’s water demand (15%) in 2060 will come from local catchments, which include 17 reservoirs, and imported water. The country does not have the land area to collect and store enough run-off despite abundant tropical rains.

To increase the economic viability of these plans, much of the PUB’s current research and development effort is aimed at halving energy requirements for desalination and used water treatment.

Other than that, reducing carbon emissions from water treatment and generating energy from the byproducts of used water treatment have become essential for Singapore.

Embracing ‘life and death’ matters

Based on this success story, the Singapore government applies the same approach of long-term planning and implementation to tackle threats of climate change, including rising sea level.

In 2019, Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, described the country’s seriousness in treating climate change as “life and death matters”. The government estimates it will need to spend US$75 billion, around 20% of the country’s GDP, on coastal protection over the coming decades.

The government has tasked PUB to lead and co-ordinate whole-of-government efforts to protect these coastal areas. The agency is working hard to ensure Singapore does not become a modern-day Atlantis, Plato’s famous sunken city.

PUB’s first order of business is to develop an integrated coastal-inland flood model. This will allow it to simulate the worst-case effects of intense inland rainfall combined with extreme coastal events. PUB expects its flood model to become a critical risk-assessment tool for flood risk management, adaptation planning, engineering design and flood response.

The agency has also undertaken coastline protection studies of different segments. The first study began in May 2021 along City-East Coast, covering 57.8km of the coastline. This section had been identified as prone to flooding and has various critical assets such as airports and economic and industrial districts.

Other segments to be analysed are in Jurong Island, in southwestern Singapore, with the study to begin later this year, and the north-west coast, comprising Sungei Kadut and Lim Chu Kang, starting in 2022.

Rather than mere adaption to coming crisis, protection measures will be designed for multi-functional land use. Nature-based solutions will be incorporated whenever possible, to create welcoming spaces for living, work and play.

For sure, whatever Singapore does in climate mitigation will never move the global needle. But it is a very good example of what a country can do to successfully adapt to the dangers of climate change through good planning.

If its policies are duplicated in other countries, these combined efforts will most certainly cause the needle to move significantly.

After the United Nations High Level meeting on climate change, COP26, just completed this month in Glasgow, UK, Singapore can be considered to be a very good model of how countries can successfully adapt to the dangers of climate change in the coming decades.

Links

• IPCC report indicates Singapore could take bigger hits from climate change
• Impact Of Climate Change In Singapore
• Singapore Prepares For Climate Change
• The Singaporean Using Nature To Boost The Economy — While Fighting Climate Change
• Climate change is likely driving a drier southern Australia – so why are we having such a wet year?
• B.C. floods reveal fragile food supply chains — 4 ways to manage the crisis now and in the future
• The lessons ‘Moby-Dick’ has for a warming world of rising waters
• A new ratings industry is emerging to help homebuyers assess climate risks

(AU The Guardian) Australia’s Spy Agency Predicted The Climate Crisis 40 Years Ago – And Fretted About Coal Exports

The Guardian - Graham Readfearn

In a taste of things to come, a secret Office of National Assessment report worried the ‘carbon dioxide problem’ would hurt the nation’s coal industry

A composite image showing former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser and pioneering scientist Graeme Pearman. Composite: Getty/Supplied

The report was stamped CONFIDENTIAL twice on each page, with the customary warning it should “not be released to any other government except Britain, Canada, NZ and US”.

About 40 years ago this week, the spooks at Australia’s intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA), delivered the 17-page report to prime minister Malcolm Fraser.

The subject? “Fossil Fuels and the Greenhouse Effect”.

Michael Cook, the agency’s director general, wrote in an introduction how his team had looked at the implications of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere “with special reference to Australia as a producer and exporter of coal”.

Cook wrote: “Scientists now agree that if such emissions continue it will some time in the next century lead to a discernible ‘greenhouse effect’ whereby the Earth’s atmosphere becomes measurably warmer with related climatic changes.”

Graeme Pearman, a former CSIRO scientist who was doing work to measure CO2 in the early 1970s. Photograph: Supplied

The agency had several warnings for the Fraser government, but central to the concerns was the potential for the country’s coal exports to be affected.

Those concerns from high levels of government show that from the beginning, the country was seeing the climate change issue through the prism of its fossil fuels.

There were “potentially adverse implications” for the “security of Australia’s export markets for coal beyond the end of the century”.

'What could I have done?' The scientist who predicted the bushfire emergency four decades ago. Read more

About 16 years after the ONA report, the Howard government signed the Kyoto protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

John Howard, who was treasurer when the ONA report was released, later refused to ratify that Kyoto deal, saying it would damage the country’s industries, including coal.

ONA was predicting in 1981 that tensions were likely. Sooner or later the “carbon dioxide problem” would “arouse public concerns and so engage the attention of governments”.

If there wasn’t cost-effective technology “to reduce the carbon dioxide problem” by the end of that century, then concerns could “culminate in pressure for action to restrict fossil fuel usage”.

There was no “anti-fossil fuel lobby” yet that could be compared to “anti-nuclear groups” but some environmental organisations were starting to express concern.

Public attention was only going to increase as more scientific results were published “and are sensationalised by the press and others”.

But in a concluding sentence that could be commenting on the Morrison government’s current defence of fossil fuels from a distance of four decades, the report says: “Australia could well find its export market particularly vulnerable to international policies aimed at limiting the use of coal.”

Dr Robert Glasser, head of the climate and security policy centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said: “It’s the job of intelligence agencies to anticipate these long-term threats and then alert the government.

“In that respect, they were doing their job.”

Former Australian prime minister John Howard refused to ratify the Kyoto deal. Photograph: Mark Baker/REUTERS

The existence of the ONA report – sent to Fraser on 25 November 1981 – is still not widely known.

Scientists working on the issue at the time said they had never seen it until the Guardian sent them a copy. Australia’s longest-serving science minister, Barry Jones, who took up his ministerial role in 1983, also said he had no recall of it.

Glasser says those who have followed the science over decades might not be surprised that Australia’s intelligence was exercised by climate change 40 years ago.

“The science has been clear in terms of a general direction ever since the 1970s – a decade before this report. But we now know the impacts.”

But he says despite the country’s intelligence agency first engaging with the issue 40 years ago, Australia is still “way behind” on the security risks being posed by climate change.

“We are failing to assess the climate and security risks generally, not just in Australia where we can see these simultaneous record-setting compounding events, but even in the region it’s a major security issue.”

Download original document

One of the first people outside government to see the document was likely Prof Clive Hamilton, who says he was handed it by a “senior public servant” while he was researching his 2007 book Scorcher on the “dirty politics of climate change”.

“The document was amazingly prescient and remains accurate in its essentials,” said Hamilton

“It was one of those extraordinary things a researcher occasionally stumbles upon. Almost no one seemed aware of the report. It was just gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.”

As well as forecasting problems for the country’s coal industry, the ONA report included qualified forecasts of the potential impacts on the climate.

The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing. Read more

The area where cyclones could hit could extend as the tropics expand. Sea levels could rise, plants might grow quicker and the polar regions would warm much faster.

There would be global winners and losers, the report said. Canada’s wheat-growing belt could grow, gaining area from the USA as the climate shifted.

A loss of permafrost in the USSR and Canada could deliver more agricultural land (permafrost is now melting, with concerns about the release of large amounts of greenhouse gases that could further raise temperatures).

If CO2 levels doubled in the atmosphere, then the ONA thought this could cause between 2C and 3C of warming. That estimate – from 40 years ago – is within the range of the UN’s latest assessment.

Emerging science

But the science and the concerns among Australia’s top scientists had been building well before the ONA report dropped on Fraser’s desk.

Some of the data in the report was drawn from the work of Dr Graeme Pearman and colleagues at CSIRO. Pearman is a pioneering climate scientist who started working on the issue in the early 70s and remembers speaking to ONA staff at the time.

‘I knew they were aware of the issues’: Graeme Pearman in Melbourne last week. Photograph: Darrian Traynor

“I knew they were aware of the issues but I didn’t know how they would play that game,” says Pearman, who is now aged 80 but who saw the report for the first time this week.

“The report does reflect pretty well the state of our scientific understanding at that time. Where it perhaps falls down is that there seems to be no real attempt to evaluate the risks associated with what may unfold.”

The CSIRO had started measuring CO2 levels in the air using instruments in a wheat field in Rutherglen, Victoria, in 1971.

The following year, Pearman and colleagues had put air-sampling equipment on planes – some commercial and some government-owned. More than 3,500 samples were taken.

Pearman was curious about CO2 measurements that had been taken continually since 1958 in Hawaii by pioneering climate scientist Charles David Keeling, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

To Pearman’s amazement, the amounts of CO2 in the air above the wheat field and from the aircraft instruments were almost identical to Keeling’s findings from Hawaii

In 1974, Pearman took the Australian air samples in six steel flasks across the world, visiting Keeling’s laboratory in California as well as other scientists doing CO2 measurements in Sweden, Canada, American Samoa and New Zealand.

In 1976, the Australian Academy of Science published a Report of a Committee on Climatic Change that mostly dealt with natural variations in the climate.

But that report included a chapter on “man’s impact on climate”. All past climate changes had been due to natural events “on an astronomic or global scale,” the report said.

But then came this sentence: “Human activities are now developing in ways that could have an appreciable effect on the climate within decades.”

Graeme Pearman with a book about climate change that he edited in 1988. Photograph: Darrian Traynor

Four years later, and one year before the ONA report, Pearman edited a book – Carbon Dioxide and Climate: Australian Research that summarised the work going on in Australia. How were the levels of CO2 changing? What could this mean for rainfall? How would plants respond?

“The potential significance of a CO2-induced climatic change is large,” wrote Pearman, but so too were the uncertainties. A lot more work needed to be done.

Pretty ordinary or prescient?

“It is fascinating and remarkable to read how this was being viewed [by the intelligence agency] only 10 years after we started our CO2 and climate work at CSIRO,” says Pearman.

Australia’s longest-serving science minister from 1983 to 1990, Barry Jones, could not recall ever seeing the ONA report, but he wasn’t particularly impressed.

Australia was ready to act on climate 25 years ago, so what happened next?. Read more

“I think it’s pretty ordinary,” says Jones, whose latest book is called What Is to be Done: Political Engagement and Saving the Planet.

“They imposed on themselves a very narrow terms of reference,” he said, and was puzzled why the report mentions other greenhouse gases but ignored methane.

Prof Ian Lowe was lecturing students on the future of energy supply at Griffith University in the early 1980s. He also hadn’t seen the ONA report before.

A Queensland coal-fired power station during construction, circa 1980. Australia has been worried about climate change’s implications for fossil fuels for decades. Photograph: Peter Righteous/Alamy

“It’s stamped confidential top to bottom. I was surprised how accurate it was though,” he said.

“The spy agency thought it was important enough to draw it to the attention of our political leadership largely because of what they saw as the commerce implications for the Australian export markets for coal.

“But what’s politically interesting is there was absolutely no response to this warning, even though the expansion of fossil fuels was tragically compromised.”

Author and academic Dr Jeremy Walker, of UTS in Sydney, is researching the history of climate science and energy policy. He’s been reviewing the ONA report as part of a wider project.

“What’s interesting to me is that this was being considered at the highest levels of government, but the security issue is being interpreted in terms of the profitability of the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel industry is central to the government’s response – then and now.”

Links

• (AU SBS) Climate Change A Security Threat: Report
• (AU SMH) Military Leaders, Security Chiefs Demand Action On Climate Threat
• (AU SMH) Climate Change A Security Threat In Australia, Says Intelligence Expert
• Covid sent Australia’s carbon emissions plummeting in 2020 to lowest levels in 30 years
• Nationals coal push disrupts Scott Morrison's climate policy pivot
• Climate campaigners condemn 'insidious' cocktail party for MPs and coal industry
• Labor denies breakaway pro-coal group points to division on climate policy
• Australia’s hopes to expand coal exports in south-east Asia ‘delusional’, experts say
• David Attenborough attacks Australian PM on climate record and support for coal
• Australian government backs coal in defiance of IPCC climate warning
• Paris climate deal doesn't stop us building new coal plants, Canavan says

(Al Jazeera) ‘Declaration Of War’: Pacific Islands Blast COP26 Pledges

Al Jazeera - Catherine Wilson

Nations most vulnerable to climate change say rich world must step up, meet goal to limit temperature rise to 1.5C.

Pacific island dancers join a rally to call for climate action held in Sydney during COP26 [File: Dan Himbrechts/EPA]

The United Nations COP26 Climate Change Conference held in Glasgow this month was billed as the last chance to save the future of life on earth by ensuring global warming did not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

There were notable pledges by participating nations to roll back the use of coal and fossil fuels, stop deforestation and boost conversion to zero-emission forms of transportation.

But for many Pacific Islanders, the summit failed on the decisive action needed to guarantee the containment of global warming and denied justice to nations that are among the most vulnerable to climate-induced poverty.

“Glasgow missed the 1.5 degrees goal. It was the Pacific’s expectation that this would be firmly and irreversibly secured in Glasgow,” Satyendra Prasad, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations in New York told Al Jazeera.

“We are now dependent on large emitters to offer deeper emissions cuts. But the second part of the equation is more important. These countries have fewer and fewer years left in which to achieve the cuts before 1.5 degrees is lost permanently.”

The 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) threshold can only be attained if global carbon emissions are reduced to net zero by 2050, UN climate scientists have said.

“To anyone in the world who is still listening to the Pacific, let me remind them that 1.5 is the last possible compromise that the Pacific can offer the world,” Prasad added.

“Beyond that, you are asking their leaders to sign away the right to exist as countries on our shared planet. To lose 1.5 is a declaration of war on Pacific Governments, it is a declaration of war on our communities and on our peoples. It is that simple – period.”

In July, three months before the summit opened, Pacific Island leaders attended a preliminary Pacific-UK High Level Climate Dialogue meeting with conference president, Alok Sharma.

They demanded that emission reduction targets by nations had to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2025 – in their view, the mid-century deadline is too late – and for developed nations to make good on a 2009 promise to provide $100bn per year in funding for climate mitigation and adaptation in more vulnerable countries.

Setting a precedent, parties at the summit confronted the issue of fossil fuels with a group of 190 nations, regions, and organisations agreeing to accelerate the transition away from unabated coal power generation.

Pacific island nations are particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis with officials in the atoll chain of Kiribati warning that the country could become uninhabitable within 60 years [File: David Gray/Reuters]

Another pact spelt out the commitment by more than 100 nations to halt and reverse forest destruction and land degradation by 2030.

Governments and car manufacturers, including Ford, General Motors, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz, also pledged to make zero-emission vehicles more accessible and affordable. Road transport accounts for 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Countries, including Denmark, Japan, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand, also vowed to reduce aviation emissions and invest in the development of low and zero-carbon aircraft.

“We need to thank the large emitters especially for undertaking significant commitments. The combined actions across sectors, from energy, transport, agriculture and shipping are significant. They will shape and drive industry and individuals to do more…. Climate action is good business. I think Glasgow demonstrated that forcefully,” Prasad said.

However, Ashwini Prabha-Leopold, Board Chair of the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network told Al Jazeera that the agreement on phasing down coal use does not go far enough.

“After 30 years, governments finally had the guts to talk openly about the problem of fossil fuel dependence at COP26, but failed to encode a bold solution in their final outcomes. Future COPS will have to build on the small steps taken in the Glasgow agreements and go beyond tepid language that ultimately serves fossil fuel interests,” Prabha-Leopold said.

Scientists estimate the collective pledges made in Glasgow would result in an estimated global temperature rise of 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit).

Islanders believe this would be devastating for countries, such as Papua New Guinea (PNG).

“We would continue to experience warmer than normal air temperatures as we are seeing at this time and the sea levels are increasing. Our economy, especially the fishing industry might be at risk. Coral bleaching will continue to rise and PNG will see an increase in flooding due to extreme weather,” Kisolel Posanau, Climate Research Officer at PNG’s National Weather Service in Port Moresby, told Al Jazeera.

Climate inequity

Much of the anger and frustration expressed by Pacific Islanders derives from the inequity of their predicament. While the Pacific Islands region has contributed only 0.03 percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, they face a daily reality of rising sea levels, increasing sea surges, king tides, and regular destruction wrought by cyclones.

More than half of the Pacific Islands population of about 12 million people live less than one kilometre (.6 miles) from the sea.

Extreme climate and weather are affecting people’s access to food and freshwater. And ocean acidification is likely to affect fisheries, a critical industry that islanders depend on for food, income, and national exports.

“PNG’s weather and climate have changed over the past ten, even five years,” Posanau said.

“I work with climate data every day and see this trend. Our wet season and dry season don’t fall on the normal transition months any more, and there have also been high cases of dengue fever, malaria, viral infections and even heat rash.”

The Pacific is also seeing wilder storms, including more cyclones [File: Fiji Ministry of Information via Reuters]

The latest report issued this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land” and is affecting the weather extremes being experienced in every part of the world.

Many Pacific Island nations argue that the longstanding climate finance pledge of $100bn per annum is, therefore, crucial for them to build resilience.

“The basic fact is that the rich world failed to secure $100bn for 2020. We have welcomed the commitment to repackage the commitment over the next five years with $100bn to be delivered by 2023….

"Fiji has proposed with considerable support that the post-2025 package should have $750bn as a floor, and that small states on the front lines should have a dedicated financing window of 10 percent of that.

"Fiji has also said that the largest proportion of climate financing for small states on front lines should be in the form of grants, not loans,” Fiji’s Prasad said.

The provision of finance for climate-related loss and damage is also a demand from many in the region.

“Loss and damage are life and death in the Pacific region and the political will of the global leaders is required to support Pacific Island countries because they are already losing everything because of the devastating impacts of climate change. The failure of the global leaders to address this key area is very disappointing and unsatisfactory,” Tanya Afu, a climate activist in the Solomon Islands, told Al Jazeera.

Reflecting on the outcomes in Glasgow, Prasad said: “Did the world secure a pathway to the end of the age of fossil fuels? No. Did the world secure intense and concentrated climate actions within this decade on the scale that is needed? No…. There is hope, however, stretched that the world can secure 1.5 degrees by the time its leaders meet in Egypt.”

The next climate summit will take place in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh in a year’s time.

Links

• (The Conversation) The Seas Are Coming For Us In Kiribati. Will Australia Rehome Us?
• (AU ABC News) Scott Morrison, At COP26, Pledges Funding To Support Neighbouring Pacific, Asian Nations Dealing With Climate Change
• (AU ABC) Pacific Island Climate Groups Demand World Leaders Halt Support For Fossil Fuel
• (AU SMH) How Australia Got Blindsided In The Great Pacific Climate Coup
• (AU SMH) Pacific Nations Refuse To Be The Canary In The Climate Coal Mine
• (Al Jazeera) Vanuatu To Push International Court For Climate Change Action
• After COP26 letdown, can India’s Gen Z climate warriors prevail?
• ‘Betrayal of people, planet’: World reacts to COP26 climate pact
• Infographic: What has your country pledged at COP26?
• At COP26, nations strike climate deal that falls short
• Edge of the Arctic
• Climate Denialism: Can we stop it?
• Infographic: What has your country pledged at COP26?
• The climate crisis is about the Global South’s present

(AU SMH) CSIRO Study Proves Climate Change Driving Australia’s 800% Boom In Bushfires

Sydney Morning Herald - Mike Foley

Climate change is the dominant factor causing the increased size of bushfires in Australia’s forests, according to a landmark study that found the average annual area burned had grown by 800 per cent in the past 32 years.

The peer-reviewed research by the national science agency, CSIRO — published in the prestigious science journal, Nature — reveals evidence showing changes in weather due to global warming were the driving force behind the boom in Australia’s bushfires.

CSIRO climate scientist Pep Canadell says climate change is the “overwhelming factor” driving a massive increase in bushfires in Australia. Credit: Nick Moir

Lead author and CSIRO chief climate research scientist Pep Canadell said the study established the correlation between the Forest Fire Danger Index – which measures weather-related vegetation dryness, air temperature, wind speed and humidity – and the rise in area of forest burned since the 1930s.

“It’s so tight, it’s so strong that clearly when we have these big fire events, they’re run by the climate and the weather,” Dr Canadell said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison went to the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow to commit Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and to upgrade his expectations for Australia’s 2030 carbon cuts, but he defied a global push to commit to phasing out fossil-fuel use.

Instead, the Coalition government is backing a significant expansion of the gas industry, which it predicts will be 13 per cent larger in 2050 than it is now.

Under the federal government’s gas industry strategy, taxpayers will support the private sector to develop viable new gas fields and develop an extensive network of new pipelines and related infrastructure.

The bushfire royal commission identified climate change as a key risk to ongoing bushfire catastrophe but did not make recommendations about reducing greenhouse emissions to curb the threat.

The CSIRO report found other factors have an impact on the extent and intensity of bushfires such as the amount of vegetation or fuel load in a forest, the time elapsed since the last fire, and hazard reduction burning.

But Dr Canadell said the study showed the link between weather and climate conditions and the size of bushfires was so tight, it was clear these factors far outweighed all other fire drivers.

“Almost regardless of what we do the overall extent of the fire, really, is dictated by those climate conditions,” he said.

Number of years since the last bushfire

Source: CSIRO

Climate scientists have found climate change is exacerbating the key fire risk factors identified by CSIRO’s study, with south-eastern Australia becoming hotter, drier and, in a particularly worrying trend, more prone to high wind on extremely hot and dry summer days.

The weather system that drove a blast furnace’s worth of westerly wind across NSW and Victoria’s forests, sparking some of the worst fires of the Black Summer in 2019-20, will be up to four times more likely to occur under forecast levels of global warming.

Bushfires

Storms, tornadoes and explosions: How bushfires are getting stranger

“All the various climate trends, which are so important, are all on the rise and they’re all connected to various degrees with anthropogenic climate change,” Dr Canadell said.

The study shows fires are becoming bigger and more common even when the Black Summer is not factored in.

When the first half of the study period, from 1988 to 2001, is compared to the period between 2002 and 2018, the average annual forest burned area in Australia increased 350 per cent.

That figured ramps up to 800 per cent when the fires of 2019-20, which burnt more than 24 million hectares of land, are included.

Mega-fires, which burn more than 1 million hectares, have “markedly” increased with three of the four recorded from 1930 occurring since 2000, while the gap between big blazes has had a “rapid decrease”, the study says.

Last year, the bushfire royal commission reported fuel-load management through hazard reduction burning “may have no appreciable effect under extreme conditions” that typically cause loss of life and property.

Bushfire royal commission

'Diminishing effectiveness': Value of hazard reduction during extreme fires questioned

The CSIRO findings bolster that conclusion and call into question calls for native forest logging to be used as a bushfire management tool.

“This is happening regardless of anything that we might or might not do to try to stop the fires,” Dr Canadell said.

The increased frequency of bushfires is giving the bush less and less time to recover, which is changing ecosystems and threatening the survival of many plants and animals that are struggling to adapt to the pace of change and loss of habitat.

Links

• New research links Australia's forest fires to climate change
• Megafires that burn more than a million hectares increasing due to climate change, CSIRO finds
• How the Black Summer bushfires are forcing a rethink of volunteer firefighting
• CSIRO finds climate change greatest factor behind worsening bushfire problem
• The 2019-20 bushfires: a CSIRO explainer
• How the Black Summer bushfires are forcing a rethink of volunteer firefighting

(AU ABC News) Megafires That Burn More Than A Million Hectares Increasing Due To Climate Change, CSIRO Finds

ABC News - Jess Davis

The CSIRO has collected data from the past 90 years to track the increasing frequency of megafires. (ABC News: Brendan Esposito)

Key Points The frequency of megafires, in which over 1 million hectares of forests were burnt, increased suddenly after 2000 The worst fire seasons typically follow a La Niña weather phenomenon, which Australia is currently experiencing The amount of prescribed burning has not changed over the past three decades

Climate change is increasing the frequency of megafires in Australia and putting entire ecosystems at risk, new research by the CSIRO has found.

Over the past three decades, Australian forests have undergone an 800 per cent increase in the extent of the area burnt bushfires, with researchers warning ecosystems are at risk because they are not able to recover between devastating infernos.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, is based on a first-of-its-kind study that used 32 years of satellite data and 90 years of ground-based datasets from climate and weather observations.

The increase in burnt areas has not been limited to the summer months. Since 1988, the fire season has extended into the cooler months, with a more than fivefold increase in the annual mean burnt area in winter and a threefold increase in autumn.

"All these things have completely changed over the last 15 years, where fundamentally fire has spread throughout the entire 12 months," CSIRO chief research scientist Dr Pep Canadell said.

"If we look at just the burn area during the cold season, we don't see a linear increase, we actually see an exponential increase of burn area of this period."

The health impacts of megafires, including from bushfire smoke, can be significant. (ABC News: Jonathan Hair)

Dr Canadell said the study combined analysis of previous forest fire sites with eight drivers of fire activity, including climate, fuel accumulation, ignition and prescribed burning.

"While all eight drivers of fire activity played varying roles in influencing forest fires, climate was the overwhelming factor driving fire activity," he said.

"The results also suggest the frequency of forest megafires are likely to continue under future projected climate change."

Hazard reduction not a factor

Since the Black Summer bushfires, there has been fierce debate over the role hazard reduction burns played in the severity of the fires, but Dr Canadell says prescribed burning has not actually changed.

"Overall, prescribed burning really hasn't changed at all and, perhaps most importantly, just to realise that we are burning one per cent per year of the forests, which is a really a small amount," he said.

"I think it's very difficult to imagine that fuel loads would be an important component in driving what we've seen — it's really climate and weather."

Over the past 30 years, Australian forests have seen an 800 per cent increase in burnt areas. (ABC News: Mridula Amin)

CSIRO scientist Mick Meyer agreed and said prescribed burning was mostly done to protect assets.

"If you tried to burn the whole of the country, you'd be changing the ecosystems in effect," he said.

"Once the fire weather gets really severe, above a fairly low threshold in fact, the fires just take off and they exceed the capacity of the agencies to suppress them."

Don't be fooled by La Niña

Dr Canadell also warns that despite a reprieve with wet conditions this year due to a La Niña, the year following such a weather phenomenon typically brings a bad fire season.

"The highest area of burn actually comes right after a La Niña year, because the wetness across the continent really brings up the fuel loads," he said.

"We expect that most likely next year, unless there was another La Niña, which is highly unlikely, it will be a very important and large fire season across Australia."

The Black Summer bushfires left widespread carnage across the east coast of Australia. (ABC News: Mridula Amin)

Links

• New research links Australia's forest fires to climate change
• CSIRO study proves climate change driving Australia’s 800% boom in bushfires
• How the Black Summer bushfires are forcing a rethink of volunteer firefighting
• CSIRO finds climate change greatest factor behind worsening bushfire problem
• The 2019-20 bushfires: a CSIRO explainer
• How the Black Summer bushfires are forcing a rethink of volunteer firefighting

(AU The Age) ‘Corporate Welfare’: Commonwealth To Support Private Sector In Gas Push

The Age - Miki Perkins

Taxpayers will fund the private sector to accelerate gas exploration across Australia, with the federal government’s new strategy pinpointing locations off the coast of Victoria and the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin as priorities for development.

The national gas infrastructure plan, released on Friday, says the government must act to alleviate the risk of gas supply shortfalls and support companies to open up new gas basins and construct gas pipelines.

A fortnight after nations at the Glasgow climate meeting, including Australia, affirmed the need to keep global warming within 1.5°C and phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies, the new plan has angered climate and environment groups, which describe it as “corporate welfare”.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has been a strong proponent of gas industry expansion. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen.

Under the plan, the Commonwealth will support the private sector to search for viable gas fields and develop an extensive network of new pipelines and related infrastructure.

The plan’s modelling suggests at least one new basin will be required to meet projected domestic and export requirements.

“There may be circumstances where private sector investment is not available in time to ensure priority infrastructure projects are in place when required,” the plan says. “In such conditions, the government stands ready to drive new infrastructure development.”

Climate policy

‘No justification’: Government commits $285 million to gas development

The 36-page plan document, which does not mention climate change, was released along with an investment document that details which types of projects would be prioritised.

Australia’s energy market operator, AEMO, has warned that Victoria and the other southern states face a shortfall of natural gas on peak-demand winter days by 2024, and probable gas price rises.

To date, $285 million has been committed by the federal government to the development of private gas projects, including $224 million for the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory and $21 million for Queensland’s North Bowen and Galilee Basin.

The gas industry’s expansion sets Australia at odds with the global shift towards renewables. Earlier this year the International Energy Agency released analysis that found the global route to net zero emissions was “narrow and extremely challenging”, and that no new fossil fuel projects should be approved.

The federal priorities include the development of the Port Kembla gas terminal in NSW, and envisages opening up new gas basins.

The Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory should be brought into production by 2025, Narrabri in NSW from 2026 and Queensland’s Galilee and North Bowen basins in production by 2028, the plan says.

An alliance of residents, local businesses, and environmentalists have failed to stop Santos’ coal seam gas plans in New South Wales. Credit: Getty Images AsiaPac

The plan also identifies potential offshore supply from the Bass, Otway and Gippsland basins. But the majority of new southern fields within these basins are in the ‘discovery’ phase, and it is unclear when production might start.

Protect Country Alliance spokesperson Graeme Sawyer said the fracking industry in the Northern Territory, still in an exploratory phase, was being supported by “corporate welfare”.

“The Morrison government would be better off giving taxpayer money to just about any other industry if it wanted to seriously stimulate the economy,” Mr Sawyer said.

Demand for natural gas remains strong in Australia and Asia to replace coal, providing back up for renewables and to underpin industrial growth, said Andrew McConville, the chief executive of gas industry body APPEA.

“The National Gas Investment Plan confirms the importance of investment to bring gas to the market. Our members have announced more than $27 billion in new investment this year alone and analysis from EY suggests that could reach $350 billion under the right investment settings,” Mr McConville said.

The Climate Council’s head of research, Dr Simon Bradshaw, described the plan as a “disaster”.

“What part of gas is a polluting fossil fuel does this government not understand? The science is very clear: to avoid a climate catastrophe, fossil fuels must stay in the ground,” he said.

The Beetaloo basin gas project in the Northern Territory has attracted protests and now a climate suit against federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt.

Environmental protection

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The plan underlines the government’s interest in developing its so-called “clean” hydrogen industry, noting hydrogen may be produced using gas and that carbon emissions could be stored using the controversial practice of carbon capture and storage.

This would not be classed as “green” hydrogen, which is produced with renewable energy.

Not everyone is convinced Australia faces a looming gas shortage. Environment Victoria analysis found there is enough gas supply capacity in Victoria until 2027.

Over the following three years there is a shortfall of between 26 petajoules (PJ) and 85 PJ, but the adoption of gas-demand reduction measures, like increasing energy efficiency and electrification, eliminates the forecast shortfall.

Links

• 2021 National Gas Infrastructure Plan (pdf)
• ‘No justification’: Government commits $285 million to gas development
• This is not economic modelling on net zero, it’s adjacent to it
• Australia’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan (pdf)
• Treasury under Labor to model climate change impact on economy and budget
• International Energy Agency calls last drinks on fossil fuels