Climate change will make fire storms more likely in southeastern Australia

Temperatures across many regions of Australia are set to exceed 40℃ this week, including heatwaves forecast throughout parts of eastern Australia, raising the spectre of more devastating bushfires.

Last year fire storms raged across California.
Similar conditions could become more likely for Australia.

We have already heard warnings this fire season of the possibility of firestorms, created when extreme fires in the right conditions form their own weather systems. 

Firestorms are the common term for pyrocumulonimbus bushfires – fires so intense they create their own thunderstorms, extreme winds, black hail, and lightning. 

While they are very rare, our research published earlier this year, found climate change is making it likely they will become more common in parts of southeast Australia.

Read the story from The Conversation - “Climate change will make fire storms more likely in southeastern Australia.”

The Global Climate Action Summit

The Global Climate Action Summit will bring leaders and people together from around the world to “Take Ambition to the Next Level.” It will be a moment to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of states, regions, cities, companies, investors and citizens with respect to climate action.

It will also be a launchpad for deeper worldwide commitments and accelerated action from countries—supported by all sectors of society—that can put the globe on track to prevent dangerous climate change and realize the historic Paris Agreement.

The decarbonization of the global economy is in sight. Transformational changes are happening across the world and across all sectors as a result of technological innovation, new and creative policies and political will at all levels.

States and regions, cities, businesses and investors are leading the charge on pushing down global emissions by 2020, setting the stage to reach net zero emissions by midcentury. 

Local climate efforts won't be enough to undo Trump's inaction, study says

Individual cities, regions and businesses across the globe are banding together determinedly to confront climate change - but their emissions reductions are relatively small and don’t fully compensate for a recalcitrant US under the Trump administration, a new study has found.

The emissions cuts promised by cities and businesses fall short
 of enabling countries to avoid breaching agreed thresholds for
dangerous warming.

A cavalcade of city mayors, regional government representatives and business executives from around the world will convene in San Francisco next month for a major summit touting the role of action beyond national governments to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.

But the greenhouse gas cuts offered up by these entities are relatively modest, according to new research, placing the onus on nations to raise their ambitions even as the US, the world’s second largest emitter, looks to exit the landmark Paris climate agreement.

An evaluation of climate change pledges by nearly 6,000 cities, states and regions, representing 7% of the global population, and more than 2,000 companies that have a combined revenue comparable to the size of the US economy, found a total projected reduction of between 1.5bn to 2.2bn tons of greenhouse gases by 2030.

Read the story from The Guardian by Oliver Milman - “Local climate efforts won't be enough to undo Trump's inaction, study says.”

Powering Past Coal Alliance Membership Blows Out Past 50

The Powering Past Coal Alliance, launched only last month by the UK and Canada at COP23, has seen its membership blow out past 50 countries, regions, and businesses, according to news revealed at the One Planet Summit held in France on Tuesday.

The Powering Past Coal Alliance membership has blown out past 50.

Among a raft of announcements from the One Planet Summit held in France on Tuesday, the UK and Canada announced that membership to their Powering Past Coal Alliance — which was only launched last month at COP23 in Bonn, Germany — has now blown past 50 countries, regions, and businesses, including the State of California, Sweden, New Zealand, Italy, and France, as well as high-profile corporations such as Unilever, Virgin Group, and EDF.

The Powering Past Coal Alliance wants to accelerate the transition away from coal and toward “low-carbon, climate-resilient economies” and is bringing together “a diverse range of governments, businesses and organisations that are united in taking action to accelerate clean growth and climate protection through the rapid phase-out of traditional coal power.”

Read the Joshua S. Hill story from CleanTechnica - “Powering Past Coal Alliance Membership Blows Out Past 50.”

Record low rain for prime agricultural regions

Some of Australia’s prime agricultural regions have reported record low September rainfall, threatening an already downgraded estimate for crop production.

Some of Australia's prime agricultural regions have
repoerted low September rainfall, threatening an already
 downgraded crop estimate for crop production.

During the past four months there have been serious to severe deficiencies across the majority of NSW, southern and coastal parts of Queensland, a large area of southern South Australia, eastern Victoria and eastern Tasmania.

September rainfall in the Murray-Darling Basin, regarded as the nation’s food bowl, was the lowest on record, the Bureau of Meteorology said in its latest drought statement last week.

Rainfall was well below average — ranked in the lowest 10 per cent of records — for a large area of the mainland’s south-east.

For NSW as a whole, September rainfall was the lowest on record, while for Queensland it was the tenth-driest September since records began in 1900.

Read the Country News story - “Record low rain.”