Coal Pollution Tracker

A live tally of the carbon pollution from Australia’s coal-burning power stations can now be seen on the Coal pollution tracker.

Greenhouse gas emission from burning coal so far this year have already exceeded the annual emissions of 136 nations.

Check out the “Coal Pollution Tracker”.

The Green New Deal doesn’t need to choose between planes or trains. Here’s why

The launch of the Green New Deal resolution sparked significant criticism for supposedly proposing that high-speed trains could be used to replace air travel and its carbon pollution.

ARTIST'S CONCEPT OF NASA'S X-57 MAXWELL AIRCRAFT
 SHOWS THE PLANE'S SPECIALLY DESIGNED WING AND
 14 ELECTRIC MOTORS.

House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) claimed the Green New Deal — a plan to rapidly decarbonize the entire economy — would “outlaw plane travel.”

But while the resolution, introduced this month by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), makes no such claim, it does fail to consider a game-changing technology for cutting the carbon pollution caused by air travel while still traveling by air: electric planes.

As one of its major goals, the resolution proposes “overhauling transportation systems… to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in” zero-emission vehicles, mass transit, and “high-speed rail.”

Read the ThinkProgress story by Joe Romm - “The Green New Deal doesn’t need to choose between planes or trains. Here’s why.”

At least for once, don't let politicking kill off a workable energy policy

Just for a moment, we are going to wind the clock back to 2009. Confronted by repeated requests from Kevin Rudd’s office to go hard against the then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull over climate change, the then junior climate change minister Greg Combet asked a sensible question.

 If Malcolm Turnbull’s new energy idea is to see the light
 of day, he must first persuade the states to implement it.

Combet recalls in his memoir, The Fights of My Life, that he asked Rudd and the office why Labor would “shit on someone you are trying to do a deal with?”

Well versed in the art of the deal as a union official, Combet thought Labor needed to ease off on Turnbull until it had successfully legislated the carbon pollution reduction scheme.

He feared that Rudd himself, and Rudd’s backroom “were confusing politics and policy outcomes, with the risk that Turnbull would be deposed and we would lose a chance to tackle climate change”.

Combet was spot on.

Read Katharine Murphy’s story on The Guardian - “At least for once, don't let politicking kill off a workable energy policy.”

How Americans Think About Climate Change, in Six Maps.

Americans overwhelmingly believe that global warming is happening, and that carbon emissions should be scaled back. But fewer are sure that the changes will harm them personally. New data released by Yale researchers gives the most detailed view yet of public opinion on global warming.

Percentage of adults per congressional
 district who support strict CO2 limits
on existing coal-fired power plants -
national average 69%.

In every congressional district, a majority of adults supports limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. But many Republicans in Congress (and some Democrats) agree with President Trump, who this week may move to kill an Obama administration plan that would have scaled back the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Nationally, about seven in 10 Americans support regulating carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants — and 75 percent support regulating CO2 as a pollutant more generally. But lawmakers are unlikely to change direction soon.

Read the story from The New York Times - “How Americans Think About Climate Change, in Six Maps.”

Fake news tries to blame human-caused global warming on El Niño

A man reading a copy of the Oxford Dictionary
of English. “Post-truth” has been named as
 Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year after a
 spike in its use around the Brexit vote and
 Donald Trump’s presidential bid. The phrase
has long applied to climate denial as well.
 

Human carbon pollution is heating the Earth incredibly fast. On top of that long-term human-caused global warming trend, there are fluctuations caused by various natural factors. One of these is the El Niño/La Niña cycle. The combination of human-caused warming and a strong El Niño event are on the verge of causing an unprecedented three consecutive record-breaking hot years.

Simply put, without global warming we would not be seeing record-breaking heat year after year. In fact, 2014 broke the temperature record without an El Niño assist, and then El Niño helped push 2015 over 2014, and 2016 over 2015.

Sadly, we live in a post-truth world dominated by fake news in which people increasingly seek information that confirms their ideological beliefs, rather than information that’s factually accurate from reliable sources. Because people have become incredibly polarized on the subject of climate change, those with a conservative worldview who prefer maintaining the status quo to the steps we need to take to prevent a climate catastrophe often seek out climate science-denying stories.

Read Dana Nuccitelli’s story on The Guardian - “Fake news tries to blame human-caused global warming on El Niño.”

Nitrogen pollution: the forgotten element of climate change

Nitrogen pollution is arguably more challenging
than the troubles faced from carbon pollution.

While carbon pollution gets all the headlines for its role in climate change, nitrogen pollution is arguably a more challenging problem. Somehow we need to grow more food to feed an expanding population while minimising the problems associated with nitrogen fertiliser use.

In Europe alone, the environmental and human health costs of nitrogen pollution are estimated to be €70-320 billion per year.

Nitrogen emissions such as ammonia, nitrogen oxide and nitrous oxides contribute to particulate matter and acid rain. These cause respiratory problems and cancers for people and damage to forests and buildings.

Nitrogenous gases also play an important role in global climate change. Nitrous oxide is a particularly potent greenhouse gas as it is over 300 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

Nitrogen from fertiliser, effluent from livestock and human sewage boost the growth of algae and cause water pollution. The estimated A$8.2 billion damage bill to the Great Barrier Reef is a reminder that our choices on land have big impacts on land, water and the air downstream.

Lost nitrogen harms farmers too, as it represents reduced potential crop growth or wasted fertiliser. This impact is most acute for smallholder farmers in developing countries, for whom nitrogen fertiliser is often the biggest cost of farming. The reduced production from the lost nitrogen can represent as much as 25% of the household income.

The solution to the nitrogen challenge will need to come from a combination of technological innovation, policy and consumer action.

Read The Conversation piece - “Nitrogen pollution: the forgotten element of climate change.”

In Trump, U.S. Puts a Climate Denier in Its Highest Office and All Climate Change Action in Limbo

Marianne Lavelle - climate
action now upside down.

Donald Trump's astonishing victory has turned the world of climate action upside down, setting back U.S. environmental policy and threatening the international drive to cut carbon pollution and slow global warming.

The stunning upset by Trump, who has routinely suggested that climate change is a hoax, threatens to unravel President Obama's climate action agenda, built on executive orders and regulations, including the Environmental Protection Agency's carbon clampdown at power plants. Trump has vowed to "cancel" the Paris climate agreement, but could cripple it by merely retreating from the U.S. commitment. As the world's second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide pollution, the U.S. could render the global treaty meaningless, at a time when scientists are urging nations to quickly raise their ambition, or risk an escalating climate crisis.

Leading up to the election, the gulf between Trump and Hillary Clinton on climate and energy was wide and the stakes couldn't have been higher. But the campaign was not fought on those issues. And despite environmental groups pouring an enormous amount of money and people power into the race, they were unable to break through with the message that climate action is urgent.

Read the Inside Climate News story by Marianne Lavelle - “In Trump, U.S. Puts a Climate Denier in Its Highest Office and All Climate Change Action in Limbo.”

Global climate change intentions become commitments

Global agreements are about turning intentions into commitments — and commitments into action. That’s why it’s so important that China, Canada, and the United States took key steps this week to advance the global climate goals leaders set last December in Paris.

Wind turbines near
Mt Hood in Oregon, USA.

First came word that China cut its coal consumption for the second year in a row. The world’s largest user of coal and largest emitter of the carbon pollution driving climate change, China burned 3.7 percent less coal last year than it did in 2014. In 2014, coal consumption fell 2.9 percent.

The country’s economy continued to grow at an official 2015 rate of 6.9 percent. The amount of energy consumed as a share of economic output, though, fell 5.6 percent.

Read Rhea Suh’s Natural Resources Defense Council blog - “A Big Week for Climate Action.”

We know what's causing climate change, but what about the cost?

W

e know what’s driving climate change: the carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels and other sources.

But exactly how much damage does each ton of carbon pollution cause when you tally up the harm to crops from drought and heat, property damage from floods and storms, increased rates of asthma attacks and other risks to our environment and health?

The White House did the math this month, pegging the cost of this damage at $36 a ton.

Last year alone, the nation’s power plants pumped 2.1 billion tons of carbon pollution into our atmosphere, accounting for 38 percent of the U.S. carbon footprint. At $36 a ton, that comes to a staggering $73.8 billion in economic costs that rise each year that climate change worsens.

Read the Natural Resources Defense Council story - “The Social Cost of Carbon”.