Category: Climate

When a lump of coal was presented in Parliament to the cheers of conservative MPs no doubts could remain regarding their position on global warming, covered with the thin fig leaf of the Paris agreement.  One wonders whether the PM would now be willing to repeat his statement of 2010: “Now our response to climate change must be guided by science. The science tells us that we have already exceeded the safe upper limit for atmospheric carbon dioxide. We are as humans conducting a massive science experiment with this planet. It’s the only planet we’ve got.” (more…)

Politicians are told never to waste a good crisis. Australia’s electricity sector is in crisis, or something close to it. The nation’s first-ever state-wide blackout, in South Australia in September 2016, was followed by electricity shortages in several states last summer. More shortages are anticipated over coming summers.  But for most Australians, the most visible impact of this crisis has been their ever-increasing electricity bills.   (more…)

Water management and decision-making is vulnerable to lobbying by powerful commercial interests, as was illustrated recently by the ABC Four Corners investigation into NSW water management. Even where such conduct cannot be categorised as corrupt in the criminal sense, it can compromise the integrity of public governance of natural resources. Excessive private interest in the exercise of public power needs to be resisted, and may be overcome by reform that ensures stricter standards, accountability and public participation. In water governance, reform based on ‘anti-corruption’ principles, could include increased legal and policy mechanisms such as third party participation rights, administrative hearings and a more prominent role for the public trust doctrine.  (more…)

On the face of it, there was plenty of bad news for the climate in 2017. Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the 2105 Paris agreement and promised to reverse the decline of the coal industry. The Turnbull government rejected proposals for an efficient transition to a low-carbon energy sector, instead announcing a half-baked National Energy Guarantee designed as a lifeline for coal-fired power. Globally, CO2 emissions appeared to rise by around 2 per cent, after remaining stable for three years in a row. (more…)

As we approach the end of the year, it’s useful to look back and forward. Now is an auspicious time, as two major energy-related reports have been released this week: the federal government’s review of their climate change policies, and a discussion paper from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on future energy paths. (more…)

“We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet.”  (Professor Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impacts)

The extreme rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) since the onset of the industrial age, reaching approximately 403 parts per million in 2017, and the corresponding rise in mean global temperature to +1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature, pose an existential risk for the future of civilization and nature.  (more…)

Sometimes it is what is not mentioned, or little-mentioned, rather than widely discussed, which tells the story. (more…)

Maintaining an open mouth of the Murray River in South Australia was a key objective of the Murray Darling Basin Plan (MDBP). The Basin Plan was established by the Australian Government to address the chronic over-allocation of water for irrigation and other purposes. One aim of the MDBP was to recover more water for the environment including sufficient water to maintain an open mouth without the need for dredging most of the time. Following a review of the MDBP by the Wentworth Group it appears that this objective will not be meet. (more…)

CO₂ levels reached 403.64 ppm in October 2017, a rise of 2.07 ppm above October 2016. This has triggered amplifying feedbacks from land and oceans. It is becoming clear the only way to avert environmental and nuclear catastrophes is to down-draw atmospheric CO₂ using budgets on a scale currently only available to the military.           (more…)

We are often told by some politicians and irrigation lobbyists not to worry about our rivers – Australia is a land of droughts and flooding rains – and ever it was thus. After all, Murray-Darling rivers surely fixed themselves when the 2010 and 2011 floods broke the seven year Millennium Drought. This tired old talking point is wrong – unequivocally demonstrated by reductions in river flows and thousands of hectares of dead river red gums. Critics of environmental flows for rivers argue that the so-called poor state of the rivers is nothing more than a figment of the imagination of the disconnected environmental fringe, mostly in our cities and scientists intent on growing their empires. (more…)

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has made $6 billion worth of new loans to coal, oil and gas projects in the 20 months since committing to the Paris climate agreement, a new document has shown – more than four times the amount it loaned to renewable energy projects over that period. (more…)

As humans progressively kill off the living creatures which inhabit the planet, do we risk at the same time killing off ourselves?  (more…)

On the 27 January, 2017, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.5 min to midnight, the closest it has been since 1953, with enormous implications for humanity and nature. A book titled “The Plutocene: Blueprints for a post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth” elaborates the reasons for the decision of the Atomic Scientists. (more…)

Scientific exploration of the solar system planets constitutes one of the most exciting achievements of the human race. However, the idea of colonizing Mars may prove to be one of the most misleading, creating an impression that an alternative exists to planet Earth, which is a unique haven of life in the solar system, perhaps even in the Milky Way, and which is currently suffering from dangerous heating, rising oceans, extreme weather events, mass extinction of species and a growing risk of a nuclear calamity. (more…)

South Australia is already being hailed – or in some quarters demonised – for its leadership on renewable energy technology.  A new report from the Australian Energy Market Operator highlights how far out in front it is in the transition to a consumer-powered grid.The earlier comments by Turnbull and Frydenberg are now looking even more petty and ill informed. (more…)

Leading economist Ross Garnaut has delivered a critical appraisal of the federal government’s proposed National Energy Guarantee, warning that it will unlikely deliver lower prices or investment certainty, and could simply lock in the power of the big incumbent generators. (more…)

How weakened laws in Qld and NSW are failing our wildlife and how the Australian Government is doing little to prevent it. (more…)

As extreme hurricanes and extensive wildfires proliferate around the globe, an internet search suggests that, in reporting these events, the words “climate change” have almost disappeared from much of the mainstream media. Some exceptions include the SMH[1] and the Guardian[2]. Nor have numerous ABC reports of the Houston floods included references to climate change. See for example at the following links[3] (more…)

The Snowy 2.0 project, if it is to realise its contribution to lowering carbon emissions, should proceed hand in hand with a program of environmental restoration of alpine ecosystems which have not recovered from past and present alpine grazing and which, as a result of global warming, will have less water yield for downstream users, including Snowy 2.0. (more…)

While the focus of public debate about energy has been on monetary costs, it has almost entirely ignored the larger issue of human life, health and wellbeing. Julian Cribb sets the record straight. (more…)