Costa Rica’s zero-carbon plan could be a model for the world

CARLOS ALVARADO QUESADA has heard all the naysayers before. In February, the 39-year-old president of Costa Rica committed to ridding the country of fossil fuels by 2050. If successful, Alvarado's plan could make Costa Rica the first zero-emissions country.

President Carlos Alvarado Quesada
explains Costa Rica's new plan to
ditch fossil fuels and how it could inspire
others to do the same.

With a population of merely 5 million, this leafy Central American nation is not a major contributor to the world's climate crisis. So why bother then? "People ask me a lot, why do this if you are so small," Alvarado said in a meeting last week with editors at WIRED's San Francisco office. "They say, you're not going to move the needle or affect the scale of the problem." China, the US, and India hold the dark distinction of leading the emissions charts, and the top 10 emitters account for almost 70 percent of greenhouse gasses. Costa Rica's emissions barely register in the global carbon belch-athon that's throwing the climate into disarray.

Read the story from Wired by Sandra Upson - “Costa Rica’s zero-carbon plan could be a model for the world.”

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?”

Sydney and Melbourne vow to ditch coal power

The cities of Sydney and Melbourne committed themselves to phasing out coal on Thursday, in a move at odds with Australia’s aggressively pro-coal national government.

Sydney has committed to 100% renewable electricity by 2035. 

The country’s two largest cities joined an international coalition of states, regions, cities and businesses who have committed to ending coal power generation.

Australia is the fourth largest coal producer in the world. Its federal government is known for its fierce support for the sector and signalled on Wednesday that it would use taxpayer money to underwrite new coal plants.

Neither city provided a specific end date for coal. Sydney has committed to a 100% renewable supply by 2035.

Read the Climate Home News story by Natalie Sauer - “Sydney and Melbourne vow to ditch coal power.”

A new approach to emissions trading in a post-Paris climate.

Despite the US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, other countries, including New Zealand, remain committed to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate teams: if countries pooled resources,
they could support a low-emission transformation.

In our report, we explore how New Zealand, a trailblazer for emissions trading, might drive a low-emission transformation, both at home and overseas.

Emitting greenhouse gases is a lot like overflowing a bathtub. Even a slow trickle will eventually flood the room.

The Paris Agreement gives all countries a common destination: net zero emissions during the second half of the century. It is also an acknowledgement that the world has only a short time to turn the tide on emissions and limit global temperature rise to below two degrees. The sooner we turn down the tap, the more time we have for developing solutions.

Read the piece on The Conversation by an  Adjunct Professor with the School of Government at the Victoria University of Wellington, Suzi Kerr - “A new approach to emissions trading in a post-Paris climate.”

Canberra's cohorts have grossly distorted the narrative around modern Australia

Robert McLean is becoming increasingly distressed about the seemingly pointless behaviour of our Canberra politicians

Those who gather in Canberra to govern our country have lost, or grossly distorted, the narrative around which modern Australia is built

Parliament House, Canberra -
 those who gather here need
to be courageous
and committed.

Pointless rhetoric of our federal politicians is rarely about the effective management of the country rather, it is more about discrediting those who have a different political view.

The 24-hour news cycle has its upside, but the reverse of that is the seemingly silly almost minute-by-minute examination of the lives of politicians, celebrities and their ilk.

Living under the heat of such a fierce spotlight and trapped by public expectations of a faultless performance, our politicians are left without time to reflect, consider and dare not demonstrate any apparent weakness by admitting that they are unsure or simply do not know the answer.

We, the polity, are to blame for that.

Australia, as does the rest of the world, faces pressing problems with the most serious, and the most unyielding, being human induced climate change that will bring unstoppable transformations to our lives demanding that any worthwhile response be bi-partisan.

Rather than simply point-score at the expense of counterparts, our politicians need to work together to prepare Australia to deal with a threat that if left unattended, has the potential to not just seriously disrupt life as we know it, but actually decimate the community.

In recent times the country has almost ground to a halt as we argue endlessly about some insignificant triviality, suggesting we choke on a mosquito, while we swallow, with ease, a camel; the camel being the threat of climate change.

Climate change is just the first order of threats as hard on its heels and invariably implicated in a multitude of ways, is resource depletion, species extinction and an imploding world economy.

You would imagine that with a trio of threats, of which anyone alone has the potential to cause relentless difficulties, those Canberra cronies would put aside their pointless child-like bickering to prepare the country the most all-encompassing challenge it has every experienced, vastly bigger and more consuming than either of the World Wars of the 20^th century.

Courage, commitment and conviction has lifted humanity to where it is at now and should we successfully take the human project any further, those same traits are urgently important and the first to demonstrate that bravery, allegiance and passion must be those who gather in Canberra.

The challenge of steering Australia through the ideological changes of coming decades is so massive that only the most courageous need apply; only those who are genuinely committed to our country’s long term welfare and care little about personal gain; and only those who are convinced that the decisions they make will steer us away from present consumptive life styles.