The latest UN climate summit avoided even naming fossil fuels, while mounting evidence shows climate damage accelerating – from melting glaciers to declining ocean life.
Peter Sainsbury
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No COP for Australia. No tears from me
Hosting a UN climate summit should be about global cooperation on combating climate change. Australia’s bid for COP31 reveals how far COP has drifted. (more…)
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Environment: Paris 2015 generated hope, but not enough climate action
Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, staying within the 1.5oC guardrail seems increasingly unlikely, even though there’s plenty of money to do it. Really, it’s legal to chop bits off the Great Barrier Reef and sell them? Microsoft is struggling to meet its promise to become carbon-free. (more…)
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Environment: The reformed EPBC Act – will the environment or business have priority?
After six years, reforming the EPBC Act may be reaching a conclusion. Twelve environmental defenders, many Indigenous, are murdered every month. Removing four dams allowed salmon to return to an Oregon river. (more…)
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Environment: Six strategies will simultaneously reduce emissions and help communities prepare
Six broad strategies will tackle the root causes of climate change and help groups prepare for the consequences of global warming. Environmentally sustainable aircraft are slow to take off. Local governments can take a lead in promoting biodiversity. (more…)
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Environment: Arctic and Europe warming at double the global average
The Arctic and Europe are melting in the heat. Rapid renewable energy transition for Africa will bring multiple benefits and save money. NSW Planning Commission decides all emissions are significant, no matter how small. (more…)
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Environment: Technological revolutions revolutionise society
Technological advances spark social revolutions. Deforestation can have a net cooling effect. Warming makes droughts more severe. China leads the energy transition but still a long way from net zero. (more…)
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Environment: Earth is getting hotter faster thanks to humans
We’ll look back on 2024 as the year we sailed passed 1.5. Marine heatwaves in 2024 and 2025 seriously damaged the Great Barrier Reef, again. Insufficient land and money to create enough new forests to offset carbon emissions. Iceland sends a letter to the future. (more…)
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Environment: Australian Government misleading people about our emissions reductions
Ignore the government rhetoric, Australia’s actual emissions are not falling. NSW Forestry Corporation facing 29 charges of illegal logging. Swift parrot habitat continues to be logged in three states. Trump swimming against the energy tide. (more…)
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Environment: Too much and too little water causing problems from the tropics to the poles
Three-quarters of World Heritage Sites are threatened by water issues. Habitat for orangutans or electricity for the people? Summer 2024 heatwave caused massive ice melt in the Arctic. Humans, dogs, foxes, SUVs, plastics, climate change – parenting is tough for beach nesting birds. (more…)
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Environment: Humanity’s big success: turning forests from saviours to spoilers
We’re destroying the ability of forests to mitigate global warming. Extreme weather events cause food price hikes and social unrest. Airlines are ignoring sustainable aviation fuel, but does it matter? (more…)
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Environment: 18th century vicar describes controlled burning in English countryside
English farmers used controlled burns of gorse 300 years ago. Too hot and dry even for cacti. Urbanisation induces genetic evolution in birds. China powering ahead with the roll out of wind and solar. (more…)
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Environment: Decisive action needed to avoid unmanageable climate tipping points
Global climate tipping points are getting closer, creating danger zones for the biosphere and human societies. Naturally regenerating forests must be left to grow for longer. The North Atlantic Ocean has swapped cod for nanoplastics. (more…)
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Environment: Humans are the wisest mammals, but which have the most biomass?
The biomass of marine mammals is almost double that of land mammals. Clean energy investments are increasing but not quickly enough. Illegal gold mining wreaks havoc on the Amazon’s Indigenous communities and environment. (more…)
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Environment: Judge says advocate and protest to make government responsible for climate damage
Federal Court says Australian government not negligent in failing to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change. Human-induced climate change triples current European heatwave deaths but who is responsible for the harm and damage? (more…)
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Environment: Forget 1.5 degrees C, even 2 degrees C, while forests and peat disappear and natural gas booms
Peatlands are vital for human survival, but we are destroying the few that are left. Australia’s gas industry facing a volatile future. Chinese banks funding the destruction of tropical forests – not good for humans or tigers. (more…)
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Environment: Ocean acidification has left the safe zone for humans
Seven of the nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed. Civil society calls for major reform of COP meetings. Big banks fund Australian deforestation. China leaving USA behind in the energy transition. (more…)
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Environment: Ken Henry and Xi Jinping agree nature is critical to productivity
Ken Henry says high-integrity environmental laws will be the government’s first test but new Labor MPs don’t agree. Great Barrier Reef still suffering from heat, agricultural run-off and overfishing. NATO to increase its spend and its emissions. (more…)
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Environment: Australia declared climate change ‘rogue actor’
A new “water economics” needed to safeguard supplies of domestic water and make it a common good. Australia’s fossil fuels make it a rich “Climate Wrecker”. Carbon capture technologies fail to deliver. (more…)
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Environment: Murray-Darling Plan delivers profits, but not environmental improvement
Murray-Darling Plan has achieved five of seven economic goals but only 2 of 12 environmental ones. Will climate change be good or bad for the economy? Nations’ current emissions reduction policies unlikely to keep global warming under 2oC. (more…)
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Environment: WA addicted to producing, burning and exporting gas
Albanese government eager to support WA’s gas addiction. Tasmania’s natural environment trashed by deer and loggers. Globally, one square kilometre of trees cleared every 10 minutes. Ecological and spiritual values converge in Chinese temples. (more…)
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Environment: 5% of animal species currently threatened by climate change
An Australian rodent was the first mammal to be driven to extinction by climate change. Renewables will supply almost all of global electricity’s 4% per year growth. Four personal behaviour changes could remove much of the average person’s carbon footprint. (more…)
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Environment: Freshwater systems and grasslands, forgotten nature and climate heroes
Human activities are pushing many freshwater fish toward extinction globally and in Australia. (more…)
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Environment: Australians must defend our right to protest
Dissent and protest are under attack across Australia. Thawing permafrost is a problem for everyone, not just Arctic-dwellers. LNG produces more emissions than coal, oil or gaseous natural gas. Renewables rollouts are up, but so are energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)
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Environment: Nations ignoring the need for a just transition to zero carbon
Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions is dangerously slow, but doing it in a fair, just and inclusive manner is all but non-existent. Climate change’s many harmful outcomes for women and girls includes more child marriages. Fishing doesn’t have to kill mammals and birds. (more…)
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Environment: Will Labor now protect our environment? If not now, probably never
The world is getting hotter, seas are rising more quickly, oceans are heating faster and freshwater is getting saltier, but Labor’s first-term environmental performance provides little optimism for its second, even though Australia leads the way with solar energy generation. (more…)
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Environment: Australia’s exported fossil fuel emissions are treble our total domestic emissions
Australia’s exported coal and LNG produce three times more emissions than 27 million Australians. The US wastes prime agricultural land to inefficiently produce energy for cars. Shed snake skin protects young birds. Kosciuszko benefitting from fewer feral horses. (more…)
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Environment: Australian Governments sacrifice the environment for dollars and votes
The sham of biodiversity offsets for coal mining. Will the climate benefit if Australia hosts the COP in 2026? Albanese further weakens Australia’s outdated environmental protection laws. (more…)
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Environment: Adopt a tapeworm. Love your lice. Give a leech lunch
Parasites need our help, not our disgust. Electricity usage increases with the temperature, but the price falls as renewables increase. Cyanobacteria’s sliding door moment. (more…)
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Environment: Coal, oil and gas still produce three-quarters of all greenhouse gases
Three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions still originate from the burning of fossil fuels in the energy sector. Australia’s legislation regarding environmental destruction is hindering environmental repair. Increasing demand for copper requires more recycling. (more…)