Dirty Power: Big Coal’s network of influence over the coalition government

Watch and listen to this Greenpeace research on the machinations and intrigue surrounding the Australian Government and the fossil fuel industry - “Dirty Power: Big Coal’s network of influence over the coalition government”.

Australia rejects Pacific criticism of emissions targets, carryover credit

The Australian government has flatly rejected calls from Pacific countries to stop using carryover credits to meet emissions reductions targets.

Minister for International Development and the Pacific,
Alex Hawke, said Australia will continue using carbon credits.

More than half a dozen Pacific leaders are seeking an end to the policy that sees Australia count emissions reductions from the past towards future targets. 

But the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Alex Hawke, has dismissed the call, which was a central part of the Nadi Bay Declaration signed by Pacific leaders in Fiji earlier this week.

Read the ABC News story by Melissa Clark  - “Australia rejects Pacific criticism of emissions targets, carryover credits.”

Government accused of hiding full extent of climate change

The Australian Government has been accused of going to "extraordinary lengths" to hide the full extent of climate change from the public, according to a new report. 

Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said the report's findings were shocking. 

The Climate Council's Climate Cuts, Cover-Ups and Censorship report found the government had slashed climate science funding, rejected advice from climate bodies, and weakened the nation's climate science capability by cutting jobs at the CSIRO.

Read the SBS story by Claudia Farhart - “Government accused of hiding full extent of climate change."

Neil Westcott, Parkes says climate change data is ‘real’

A fifth-generation farmer from Alectown, near Parkes, has described climate change as "scary" and "real" and would like to see the Australian government appoint a dedicated minister to help tackle the issue.

More needs to be done: Alectown farmer Neil Westcott
walking across his failed canola crop in 2018. Since 1993
he said they have lost on average about three
millimetres of rain per year.

Neil Westcott, 59, grows canola, wheat and barley on his central west, NSW property and has been working on the land since 1978.

Mr Westcott is frustrated with Australia's leadership on climate change and would love the government to go that little bit further and dedicate a climate change minister within cabinet.

"Every policy should have an element of climate change within it," he said.

Read the Western Magazine story by Taylor Jurd - “Neil Westcott, Parkes says climate change data is ‘real’."

Buildings produce 25% of Australia’s emissions. What will it take to make them ‘green’ – and who’ll pay?

In signing the Paris Climate Agreement, the Australian government committed to a global goal of zero net emissions by 2050. Australia’s promised reductions to 2030, on a per person and emissions intensity basis, exceed even the targets set by the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea and the European Union.

Across our growing cities more and more
 buildings are going up, as are their emissions.

But are we on the right track to achieve our 2030 target of 26-28% below 2005 levels? With one of the highest population growth rates in the developed world, this represents at least a 50% reduction in emissions per person over the next dozen years.

Read the piece from The Conversation - “Buildings produce 25% of Australia’s emissions. What will it take to make them ‘green’ – and who’ll pay?”

Hydrogen: renewable power to gas facility

The Australian Government is supporting an Australian-first trial of a renewable hydrogen-powered electricity generation facility in Western Sydney.

The innovative project will use surplus solar and wind energy to power a 500kW electrolyser, splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen molecules.

Through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), the Government is providing $7.5 million in funding to Jemena for the trial.

The hydrogen will be injected into Jemena’s existing gas network in small amounts, demonstrating the potential of existing gas networks as a form of carbon-free energy storage.

As the proportion of intermittent generation increases, energy storage is becoming increasingly important to ensure the stability of the electricity grid.

The development of renewable hydrogen production, storage and export facilities at scale would also deliver economic benefits to Australian businesses and communities and provide reliable, affordable and low emissions energy to overseas trading partners.

This technology has been successfully trialled in the United Kingdom and Germany.

This project is an example of how the Government is supporting Australian innovation and opening new markets for businesses.

(This is a press release from the Federal Energy Minister, Angus Taylor)

Drought bites in the east as ABARES forecasts 12pc cut to grain production

A rough winter for grain growers on the east coast has led the Australian government commodity forecaster, ABARES, to predict a 12 per cent drop in winter grain production from last year's total.

Crops in New South Wales and Queensland have
 wilted through the drought this winter.

Released this morning, the latest crop report is tipping winter production — including wheat, barley, canola, pulses and oats, among others — to yield 33.2 million tonnes.

Overall, the harvest is nine per cent below the 20-year average.

Just two season ago, farmers across Australia's grain growing regions were preparing to reap a record-breaking 59 million tonne harvest.

But this year fortunes will vary wildly depending on what side of the country crops are growing, with drought-sapped crops on the east coast and predictions of a bumper harvest in Western Australia's wheatbelt.

Read ABC Rural story by Clint Jasper - “Drought bites in the east as ABARES forecasts 12pc cut to grain production.”

Technology is making cities ‘smart’, but it’s also costing the environment

The Australian government has allocated A$50 million for the Smarter Cities and Suburbs Program to encourage projects that “improve the livability, productivity and sustainability of cities and towns across Australia”.

A smart city is usually one connected and managed
 through computing — sensors, data analytics and other
information and communications technology.

One project funded under the program is installation of temperature, lighting and motion sensors in buildings and bus interchanges in Woden, ACT. This will allow energy systems to be automatically adjusted in response to people’s use of these spaces, with the aim of reducing energy use and improving safety and security.

In similar ways, governments worldwide are partnering with technology firms to make cities “smarter” by retrofitting various city objects with technological features. While this might make our cities safer and potentially more user-friendly, we can’t work off a blind faith in technology which, without proper design, can break down and leave a city full of environmental waste.

Read the story on The Conversation by a Lecturer in Architecture from the University of Western AustraliaTechnology, Mark Sawyer - “Technology is making cities ‘smart’, but it’s also costing the environment.”

Adani says it still needs a loan for rail line if coalmine is to go ahead.

Adani says its Carmichael coalmine remains contingent on a loan to build a rail line to the Galilee Basin – comments that analysts believe will ramp up pressure on the Australian government to further subsidise the project.

Adani needs to build a $2bn, 300km rail line
 if the Carmichael coalmine is to go ahead. 

Karan Adani, the son of company boss Gautam Adani, and the head of the conglomerate’s ports business, told India’s Economic Times the company had “completed financing on the mine” and that it had received all necessary approvals.

He said Adani was “just closing” a loan to pay for a rail line connecting the Galilee Basin to the Abbot Point port. “Once that is done, we will start,” he said.

Read the story by Ben Smee from The Guardian - “Adani says it still needs a loan for rail line if coalmine is to go ahead.”

How to break up with plastics (using behavioural science)

Australia is responsible for over 13 thousand tonnes of plastic litter per year. At the end of June 2018, the Australian government released an inquiry report on the waste and recycling industry in Australia. One of the recommendations was that we should phase out petroleum-based single-use plastics by 2023.

Single-use plastics are convenient, but it’s time to phase them out. 

This means a real social shift, because the convenient plastic products that we use once and throw away are ubiquitous in Australia.

Bans, as Coles and Woolworths recently adopted for plastic bags, are one option – but are not suitable for every situation. They can also feel like an imposition, which can inspire backlash if the community is not on board. Behavioural science can offer a path to curb our plastic use.

Read the report by a  Doctoral Candidate & Research Officer at BehaviourWorks Australia from the Monash Sustainable Development Institute at Monash University, Kim Borg, from The Conversation - “How to break up with plastics (using behavioural science).”

Up in smoke: what did taxpayers get for the $2bn emissions fund?

At some point in June, the Australian government will announce it has spent up to $2.3bn over three years on a scheme that the prime minister believes is a reckless waste of public money.

The government’s enthusiasm for the Direct Action
climate policy has visibly waned since Malcolm
Turnbull returned to the leadership in 2015. 

That is not how it will be expressed. If the past is a guide, the government is likely to quietly issue an understated press release saying the latest auction of the emissions reduction fund – the scheme better known as Direct Action, which the former environment minister Greg Hunt described as the centrepiece of Australia’s efforts to tackle climate change – has been a success.

However, the specifics of how the money is to be spent will be all but impenetrable to most people.

Read the story from The Guardian by Adam Morton - “Up in smoke: what did taxpayers get for the $2bn emissions fund?.”

Australia needs 75% renewables by 2030 to meet Paris targets, cut costs

Less than one year after the Australian government agreed to ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change, a new report has warned that Australia risks falling short of its own national emissions targets  without significantly ramping up the electricity sector’s shift to renewable energy.

The report, the first major publication from The Australia Institute’s new Climate & Energy Program, finds that to meet Australia’s unambitious 26-28 per cent by 2030 Paris commitment – and to do so for the least cost to the economy and other key sectors like manufacturing – electricity sector emissions would need to be cut by between 40-55 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The good news, is that this “least cost” emissions reduction approach is eminently doable. The bad news – at least for the Turnbull government and its right-wing anti-renewables rump – is that it will mean building a great deal more renewable energy generation between now and then, and framing policy to support that build-out.

Read the RenewEconomy story - “Australia needs 75% renewables by 2030 to meet Paris targets, cut costs.”

Alan Finkel urges Turnbull to adopt clean energy target before states act

Alan Finkel has urged the Australian government to swiftly commit to the final recommendation of his energy review, warning the longer that commitment takes, the more likely states and territories are to set up conflicting emissions reduction schemes.

 Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, says he does
not care whether coal remains part of the energy mix,
 as long as emissions keep heading down. 

Speaking at the Melbourne economic forum at Victoria University on Monday, Finkel, Australia’s chief scientist, said that a failure to establish a clean energy target would create more uncertainty for investors, who would have to navigate various state policies.

The Victorian government announced two days after the review had been released that it was prepared to implement its own clean energy target if the federal government didn’t commit.

Read Calla Wahlquist’s story on The Guardian - “Alan Finkel urges Turnbull to adopt clean energy target before states act.”

Finkel’s Clean Energy Target plan ‘better than nothing’: economists poll

Few topics have attracted as much political attention in Australia over the past decade as emissions reduction policy.

Enough blue-sky thinking: economists back the
emissions policy that Alan Finkel has put on the table.

Amid mounting concern over electricity price increases across Australia and coinciding with blackouts in South Australia and near-misses in New South Wales, the Australian government asked Chief Scientist Alan Finkel to provide a blueprint for reform of the electricity industry, in a context in which emissions reduction policy was an underlying drumbeat.

In a new poll of the ESA Monash Forum of leading economists, a majority said that Finkel’s suggested Clean Energy Target was not necessarily a better option than previously suggested policies such as an emissions trading scheme. But many added that doing nothing would be worse still.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Director of Carbon and Energy Markets at Victoria University, Bruce Mountain -  “Finkel’s Clean Energy Target plan ‘better than nothing’: economists poll.”

Three-quarters of Australians say climate warming "a catastrophic risk", even as government turns a blind eye

Three in four Australians understand that climate warming poses a “catastrophic risk,” even as the Australian government turns a blind eye. That was the clear result from a new survey for the Global Challenges Forum (GCF), and the publication of its 2017 Global Catastrophic Risk report.

84% of 8000 people surveyed in eight countries for the GCF consider climate change a “global catastrophic risk”. The figure for the Australian sample was 75%.

Question were asked about a number of risks, including nuclear war, pandemics, biological weapons, climate change and environmental collapse. The climate question asked how much participants agreed or disagreed that “climate change, resulting in environmental damage, such as rising sea levels or melting of icecaps” could be considered as "a global catastrophic risk”? A global catastrophic risk was described as “a future event that has the potential to affect 10% of the global population”.

For Australia, the results were: 39% “strongly agree” and 36% “tend to agree” (for total agree of 75%); with “tend to disagree” at 15%, “strongly disagree” at 6% and 4% “don’t know”.

Read David Spratt’s story on Climate Code Red - “Three-quarters of Australians say climate warming "a catastrophic risk", even as government turns a blind eye.”

Great Barrier Reef probation report

The Australian Government made a pile of promises to the World Heritage Committee to avoid the international shame of having our Great Barrier Reef added to the ‘in danger’ list.

Last year, the World Heritage Committee heard the hundreds of thousands of people asking for more protection for the Reef, and made the decision to put our governments on probation until the health of the Reef improved.

Now it’s crunch time. The Government must report to the WHC on progress made in the coming week, and you can bet they’ll give themselves a pat on the back.

Now, read the “Reef probation report.”

Australia ratifies Paris agreement on climate change

Malcolm Turnbull and his
coalition government endorses
 the Paris climate agreement.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced the Australian government has ratified the Paris agreement on climate change.

Speaking alongside Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg in Canberra today, Mr Turnbull said the agreement was in Australia's best interests.

"Almost a year from the Paris conference, it is clear the agreement was a watershed, a turning point and the adoption of a comprehensive strategy has galvanised the international community and spurred on global action," Mr Turnbull said.

"As you know, we are playing our part with ambitious targets.

"We are on track to meet and indeed beat our 2020 targets."

Mr Turnbulll said his government's climate and energy policies would be reviewed next year to ensure the 2030 targets under the agreement were also met.

Read the News.com.au story - “Australia ratifies Paris agreement on climate change.”

Bjørn Lomborg centre got $640,000 for report saying limiting warming rise to 2C not worth it

Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus
Centre was paid $640,000 before
  its Australian program was dropped.

Australia’s education department paid Bjørn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre $640,000 to help produce a report that claimed limiting world temperature increases to 2C was a “poor” use of money.

The $640,000 cost, incurred before the CCC’s controversial $4m Australian program was junked, is revealed in the 2016 incoming ministerial brief published under freedom of information laws.

An education department spokeswoman told Guardian Australia the $640,000 represented the Australian government contribution to the CCC for the Smarter UN Post-2015 Development Goals project.

Read The Guardian story - “Bjørn Lomborg centre got $640,000 for report saying limiting warming rise to 2C not worth it.”

People gather to acknowledge success of Power Down Project

About 45 people gathered in Shepparton recently to celebrate and acknowledge the closing chapter of a two-year project funded by the Australian Government.

Some of those at the recent
GVCE "Celebration Luncheon."

The “Power down project” saw GV Community Energy (GVCE) undertake more than 1000 home energy assessments and conduct seminars involving some 500 people from throughout the Goulburn Valley.

The May 20 “Celebration Luncheon” was held at the St Pauls African House in Shepparton’s Popular Av.

GVCE board member, John Pettigrew, as the keynote speaker, discussed the importance of household energy use in a future in which energy and climate change are inextricably linked.

Guests included the mayor of the City of Greater Shepparton, Dr Diny Adem; the Member for Shepparton, Suzanna Sheed; and the Member for Euroa and deputy leader of the National Party, Steph Ryan.

Guests at the luncheon were entertained by local Congolese singers and, according to GVCE chief executive officer, Geoff Lodge, complimented a productive session “as we collectively move towards a low carbon economy”.

Australia references scrubbed from major UN climate report

Every reference to Australia was scrubbed from the final version of a major UN report on climate change after the Australian government intervened, objecting that the information could harm tourism.

Guardian Australia can reveal the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate”, which Unesco jointly published with the United Nations environment program and the Union of Concerned Scientists on Friday, initially had a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as small sections on Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests.

But when the Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the report, it objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by Unesco. Will Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed section on the reef, said Australia’s move was reminiscent of “the old Soviet Union”.

No sections about any other country were removed from the report. The removals left Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions.

Read The Guardian story - “Australia scrubbed from UN climate change report after government intervention.”