Social vulnerability and the lack of coordination in disaster planning have been exposed by extreme storm events in the USA. There are lessons for those preparing to mitigate increasing intensity of similar events in Australia.
Category: Climate
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The gas-led recovery repudiates Australia’s IPCC commitments
In promoting gas, the government is rejecting our IPCC commitments to achieve carbon neutrality and inviting others to follow suit. It is looney and dangerous stuff.
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Sunday environmental round up.
Almost half of all children globally are at Extremely High risk of suffering harmful consequences of climate change and other environmental shocks. Frogs and pollinators are at the sharp end of the loss of biodiversity. Fast fashion: first world behaviour with third world environmental and social consequences. Third world?? – bah, who cares?
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Australia has close to zero chance of achieving net zero emissions by 2050
The newly released report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is emphatic: the effects of climate change we are seeing now are irreversible and will worsen. It underscores the critical importance of the upcoming Glasgow climate conference and the need for all countries to lock in net zero emissions by mid-century in order to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic impacts. (more…)
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Greenhouse gas emissions: What are they and how are they measured?
The goal of the Paris agreement on climate change is to limit global warming to well below 2°C, and preferably to 1.5oC above pre-industrial temperatures of the 1700s. This requires countries to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible in order to achieve a climate-neutral world by the middle of this century. Unlike 131 other countries, Australia is yet to commit to net-zero by 2050.
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Sunday environmental round up
Take-away messages from the IPCC’s climate science report and what it means for Australia. Environmental battlegrounds in the current session of parliament. Legal challenges to ministerial discretion and little-known threatened animals.
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The end of a ‘just transition’ on coal. There will be disruption.
Last week’s report by the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) shows that the prospects of achieving a ‘just transition’ to a green economy have all but disappeared.
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Climate Change: will the financial system survive?
One of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal global response to the escalating climate crisis has been the preparedness of financial market regulators to force their regulated institutions to face up to the implications of climate risk.
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The “Green Hydrogen” myth. It is a delusion
Are you also being swamped with optimistic articles about how essential it is for Australia to be a leader in “green hydrogen”? “Green hydrogen” is being spruiked as essential to our decarbonised economic future and as a strategic decarbonised export opportunity.
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The China push for a cleaner and cooler planet
Not a day passes without our media damning China for some imagined infamy or other. So many stories, so many column inches, and nothing positive to be found. At the same time, our television screens are full of other images; real images of a disaster that is enveloping us all. (more…)
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Sunday environmental round up.
Unlike Australia, the USA is actively supporting a just transition for communities hard-hit by the demise of fossil fuels. The science and politics of solar radiation management. An Australian environmental philanthropist’s tips for doing the unexpected, and coastlines as essential infrastructure.
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Technological magic by Morrison and Taylor won’t help in the Australian response to the IPCC report.
The Australian Government seems to think it can solve climate problems through technological magic . It hides a failure of moral leadership. (more…)
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Political and media failure on climate in Australia
The technology roadmap sketched by Morrison and Taylor is a con. It is in fact a statement of support for the fossil fuel industry which is heavily subsidised by and a significant donor to the Liberal and National Parties. (more…)
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Climate change and the impact of humans – A graphical perspective
The recent report by the IPCC (the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is ‘code red for humanity’ according to the UN Secretary-General. This warning is a timely reminder to review the role of humans in global warming due to rising greenhouse gas pollution.
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From pioneers to cavaliers: Australia’s 40-year descent into environmental degradation
In the 1980s Australia was considered one of the most admired countries in the world on an environmental scale. That record, built under the Hawke government and our ideals about environmental protection has now been trampled by the rest of the world. Today, we find ourselves at the bottom of every poll of National regard for the world’s environment and we are never offered a speaking position at any International Environmental Forums. (more…)
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Climate urgency, Australia’s selfishness
In response to the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Treasurer Josh Frydenberg rushed to Sky News to repeat the platitude that technology, not taxes would overcome threats from global warming. Before a Canberra press conference, a smirking Prime Minister claimed Australia would reach targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions because this country always achieves its goals. (more…)
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The climate crisis challenge belongs to all of us
Decisions taken by the US government and the rest of the world during the remainder of 2021 will be among the most important of our generation. (more…)
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Climate Movement Says ‘Apocalyptic’ IPCC Report.
Greenpeace intends to use the new IPCC analysis as evidence in law suits against governments and corporations that continue to obstruct necessary change. G20 nations have provided $3.3 trillion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry since 2015. (more…)
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The net zero emission illusion
With Covid, the government has shown itself manifestly incapable of leading or managing its core responsibilities, beset by corruption and secrecy. The climate challenge is far greater than Covid, and there are no vaccinations or quarantine against climate impacts, which from now on will increase inexorably in the absence of decisive leadership. (more…)
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Nothing dollarable is safe in the Kosciuszko National Park
“Nothing dollarable is safe, however guarded” wrote the great American conservationist and protected area crusader, John Muir in 1909. He was right then, and he’s still right today: maybe more than ever.
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The Climate Emergency: a need for radical honesty – laced with courage and compassion: Part 2
The sight of an ice-free Arctic or Siberia on fire is tantamount to the discovery of cancer spreading to the brain. Some mitigation is possible but the prognosis is bad. (more…)
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The climate emergency – a need for radical honesty – laced with courage and compassion: Part 1
We have all been abandoned by our “leaders”, a pathetic coterie of self-focused, ignorant and immature individuals who lack courage, compassion and the capacity to recognize an impending catastrophe, with likely societal collapse and massive loss of life (already beginning). There is no possibility of technological salvation. (more…)
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Sunday environmental round up – bees like blue.
John Kerry predicts an ‘unlivable tomorrow’ if the Glasgow COP fails to deliver clear plans for the next decade, but are wealthy nations listening? Recommendations for speeding the transition to EVs and making electricity systems more resilient. Bees like blue.
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What goes around comes around: carbon tariffs bite our exports
In his excellent opinion piece, Ross Gittins points out that those posturing against the proposed EU carbon tariffs on our exports are the very people who struck down own effective national greenhouse action. They argued then that that unfair competition from countries who were not acting would impact our industries – so it’s a bit rich now to call out the EU for a tariff designed to protect their emissions intensive trade exposed sectors from unfair competition.
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Sunday environmental round up.
Developing nations issue a ‘last chance’ challenge to rich countries in the lead up to the Glasgow climate change meeting. Exxon’s climate action cynicism exposed by insiders. EU wants all new cars to be EVs by 2035. Alan Kohler calls for more climate change risk analysis. Street art proclaims ‘Don’t Frack the NT’ in Melbourne.
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The idiocracy of America. It is perilously close to becoming a failed state
The hilarious 2006 film “Idiocracy” offers a vivid depiction of American politics. The movie is classified as a sci-fi comedy, but it is more like a searing documentary. It almost perfectly describes America’s crisis of survival today. The American people, and the people of the world, deserve better than an American idiocracy. (more…)
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The EU tariff plan is good news for Australia’s place in the World
The steady deterioration in Australia’s environment and the ineffective revision of the EPBC Act suggests that we need help from other developed nations to solve our problem. This help may come from proposals on trade from the EU and the USA.
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Sunday environmental round up.
Plants and growth: where to plant 60 billion trees in the USA; climate change destroying kelp forests; burning biomass destroys native forests and fuels climate change; and forbs disappearing from Victoria’s basalt plains. Plus degrowth, of the economy rather than vegetation.
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“Fossil fuel economy has reached its limits”: EU to slash emissions and drag Australia with it
The European Commission has outlined its ambitious policy package to more than halve its emissions by 2030, a move which could have major consequences for climate recalcitrant trading partners like Australia – including an A$80 plus per tonne carbon tax on imports. (more…)
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After many years the Great Barrier Reef ‘in danger’ listing shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Environment Minister Susan Ley says she was “blindsided” by UNESCO’s recommendation to declare the Great Barrier Reef ‘in danger’. Prime Minister Morrison was “appalled”. Their responses reflect a concern that the Reef’s political potency may be re-ignited. Then to top it off they blamed the Chinese. (more…)