Australia's carbon budget is being whittled away

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he World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, yesterday released analysis suggesting that if the world were serious about limiting global warming to 2 degrees, Australia would consume its remaining allowable budget for carbon emissions within 11 years.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the global carbon budget is an attempt to quantify the cumulative amount of greenhouse gases the world’s people could emit if we wanted to have a reasonable probability of keeping temperature rise to a particular level.

Read Tristan Edis’ story on the Climate Spectator - “11 years left on Australia's carbon budget.”

Abbott's wind symdrome vs Doctors' global climate plea

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s Tony Abbott and his crossbench allies pursue wind farms for creating a health hazard for which medical authorities say there is no evidence, the leading medical research journal in the world – The Lancet – has commissioned research that finds climate change “threatens to undermine the last half-century of gains in development and global health”.

The Lancet Commission on Climate Change involves a collaboration of leading medical health researchers in combination with experts in climate change impacts and emission reduction options and policies.

Read the Climate Spectator story - “Abbott's wind syndrome vs Doctors' global climate plea”.

A technical journey about fairness and justice on emissions

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rendan Mackey takes readers on a technical journey of fairness, reasonableness and justice as his considers Australia’s emissions pledge.

Professor Brendan Mackey.

Writing on Climate Spectator, Mackey says, “Australia is at a critical juncture.

“It can choose to ignore the 2-degree commitment and simply adopt an arbitrary mitigation target that suits its short-term economic national interests. Or it can choose a mitigation target that is justifiable and consistent with its fair share of the global carbon budget.”

His story, “An objective way to decide on a fair Australian emissions pledge”, says, “An arbitrary, self-serving target would necessitate special pleading with the international community at the Paris climate talks, and would be certain to prompt plenty more critical questions from other countries.”

Not even Lomborg an hide Abbott's climate change isolation

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he Abbott Government’s official public line is that climate change is real and serious.

A story in Climate Spectator - “Not even Lomborg can hide Abbott's climate change isolation” – says, “Unfortunately no one is taking their policy approach to climate change seriously. Now state governments and international governments are joining-in, making the Prime Minister look increasingly isolated from the mainstream. 

“The communique from his meeting with State Premiers subtly reveals in its final sentence that they told him to stop playing games over the Renewable Energy Target.

“After dealing with the core agenda items relating to law enforcement and national security, aboriginal disadvantage and state-federal divisions of responsibility and taxation powers, the communique had tacked right at the end the concluding sentence: States and territories noted uncertainty regarding the Renewable Energy Target and that speedy resolution was desirable.”

A U.S. disconnect between energy and growth attributed to technology and government policy

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 disconnect between energy and growth in the U.S. has been articulated by Climate Spectator’s Tristan Edis.

Edis, the Editor at Climate Spector, attributes the disconnect to technology and government policy.

He writes: “The report projects that U.S. energy use will grow at an insipid 0.3% per year from 2013 through to 2040 far below expected rates of economic growth (2.4%/year) and population growth (0.7%/year).”

His story - “Energy demand disconnects from economic growth” – is illustrated with graphs and charts.

Renewable energy safe 'known' compared to geoengineering 'unknown'

Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t talking about climate change when he referred to “known knowns” or “unknown unknowns”, but he could have been.

The former U.S. Secretary of Defence was confusing and distracting listeners when talking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

He said in 2002 “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”

The conversation around climate change is equally confusing and achieves “lift-off” when it wanders into geoengineering, a dynamic loaded with “known knowns” and “unknown unknowns”.

Climate Spectator has bravely ventured into this risky space with its story: “Renewables still better than 'risky' geoengineering” pointing out that the known realities of renewable energy and vastly better than the “unknown unknowns” of geoengineering.

'Open for business' - but carbon ideology holds the door ajar

Climate Spectator
editor, Tristan Edis.

Yes, Australia is, as the PM Tony Abbott says. “Open for business”.

And it is, but only for those within the confines of narrow Abbott-ideology that favours the carbon intensive way of life, ideas embraced by his coalition-cohort.

Australia’s renewable energy industry does not register with the coalition’s ideological views of how Australia should develop and has drawn a rather sharp response from Climate Spectator Editor, Tristan Edis.

Writing in a story headed: “Slashing the RET – it’s about defending mates, not consumers” he says, “This is definitely not about power prices, it’s about defending the corporate establishment against change they should have seen coming.”

An example of the damage cuts to the renewable energy target have caused is illustrated in a story published in this week’s issue of the Weekly Times.

A story headed: “Keppel Prince at Portland to cut 100 jobs due to RET uncertainty" says: “Engineering company Keppel Prince, based in Premier Denis Napthine’s electorate, today announced it would sack 100 staff.”

Coal means wealth, but at the cost of individual health

The burning Hazelwood mine that could
 well force the evacuation of Morwell.

The people of Morwell are learning first-hand about the realities of living next to a coal mine.

Writing on Climate Spectator, Tristin Edis those residents are wondering how this could happen and what needs to change to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

A fire took hold in a disused part of the Hazelwood power station coal mine and now, several weeks later, continues to burn.

Writing in a story headed: “The ticking time bomb exposed by Hazelwood fire” Edis says lax regulation by Victorian governments allows operators to avoid remediation on their mines.

Smith overlooks the simple answer - energy not used is effectively energy saved

Last night’s “Ten Bucks a Litre” was, some have argued, an attempt by Dick Smith to shock people out of their complacency.

Tristan Edis.

Tristan Edis, of the Climate Spectator, saw that as useful, but beyond that a series of omissions during the program made the challenges of understanding the challenges confronting us seemingly more daunting than the really are.

Edis argued that the most important of omissions was Smith’s failure to discuss and acknowledge the importance of energy savings.

Saving energy, the root of the climate change conversation, is, like saving money, arrives from not using it in the first place. And with money, if it is not spent in the first place, then it is effectively saved.

Edis ends his story: “Where Dick Smith went wrong”, with the thought: “Once we look at a combination of technologies, starting with energy efficiency, the challenge of decarbonizing energy becomes far more manageable.”

Dick Smith discussed Australia's energy dilemmas on an ABC program - “Ten Bucks a Litre” on Thursday, August 1.