New York Rejects Keystone-Like Pipeline in Fierce Battle Over the State’s Energy Future

In a major victory for environmental activists, New York regulators on Wednesday rejected the construction of a heavily disputed, nearly $1 billion natural gas pipeline, even as business leaders and energy companies warned that the decision could devastate the state’s economy and bring a gas moratorium to New York City and Long Island.

Clean Water Clam, whose founding family has been
harvesting clams near the Raritan Bay for four generations,
fears that the pipeline would irreparably harm its business.

The pipeline was planned to run 37 miles, connecting natural gas fields in Pennsylvania to New Jersey and New York. Its operator, the Oklahoma-based Williams Companies, pitched it as a crucial addition to the region’s energy infrastructure, one that would deliver enough fuel to satisfy New York’s booming energy needs and stave off a looming shortage.

But environmental groups said Williams was manufacturing a crisis to justify a project that would rip apart fragile ecosystems, handcuff New York to fossil fuels and hobble the state’s march toward renewable resources.

Read the story from The New York Times by Vivian Wang and Michael Adno - “New York Rejects Keystone-Like Pipeline in Fierce Battle Over the State’s Energy Future.”

Antarctic’s future in doubt after plan for world's biggest marine reserve is blocked

A plan to turn a huge tract of pristine Antarctic ocean into the world’s biggest sanctuary has been rejected, throwing the future of one of the Earth’s most important ecosystems into doubt.

 A humpback whale shows its flukes while feeding in Antarctic waters.

Environmental groups said Russia, China and Norway had played a part in blocking the proposal, with the other 22 members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the organisation set up to protect Antarctic waters, backing the proposal.

The 1.8m sq km reserve – five times the size of Germany – would have banned all fishing in a vast area of the Weddell Sea and parts of the Antarctic peninsula, safeguarding species including penguins, killer whales, leopard seals and blue whales.

Read the story from The Guardian by environmental reporter, Matthew Taylor - “Antarctic’s future in doubt after plan for world's biggest marine reserve is blocked.”

Cabinet ministers rejected Turnbull's $1.6 billion plan to cut power bills before leadership implosion

Cabinet ministers rejected a $1.6 billion plan to cut power bills for thousands of Australians in the days before a Liberal Party brawl on energy policy that helped bring down Malcolm Turnbull.

Energy policy and power affordability played a role
in Malcolm Turnbull's demise as prime minister.

Fairfax Media can reveal the Coalition government had drafted plans for a one-off bonus to help pensioners and others in financial stress pay their electricity bills, in a bid to demonstrate stronger action on power prices alongside tougher consumer laws.

Mr Turnbull put the plan to federal cabinet in early August at the same time he was trying to shore up support for the National Energy Guarantee against threats from Tony Abbott and others to cross the floor.

In a crucial decision, cabinet members rejected the plan to lower power bills and left the government without new measures to address household energy costs in the face of the backbench revolt over the NEG.

Read the story from The Age by David Crowe - “Cabinet ministers rejected Turnbull's $1.6 billion plan to cut power bills before leadership implosion.”

Climate changing, but focus on power price cut

CANBERRA: Prime Minister Scott Morrison knows the ‘‘climate is changing’’, but has rejected its relevance in the debate to ease the effects of drought.

‘‘Climate is changing, everybody knows that,’’ he said in drought-stricken regional Queensland yesterday.

Tackling drought: Scott Morrison with sheep
and cattle graziers Stephen and Annabel Tully
and National Drought Coordinator Major-General
Stephen Day at the Tully property in Quilpie in
 south-west Queensland yesterday.

‘‘I’m interested in getting people’s electricity prices down and I’m not terribly interested in engaging in those sorts of (climate) debates at this point.’’

Mr Morrison said engaging in climate discussions would not help farmers fill out forms to seek government assistance.

The energy and environment portfolios, which used to have the same minister, have been severed under Mr Morrison’s newly unveiled ministry.

Angus Taylor is energy minister, while Melissa Price has been handed the environment portfolio.

The prime minister lauded Mr Taylor as the ‘‘minister for getting electricity prices down’’ as he announced his cabinet on Sunday.

Mr Morrison said the challenge for the energy sector was to ensure reliable power and for the market to drive prices down.

The government’s proposed National Energy Guarantee was shelved by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull when threats to his leadership were ramping up.

The guarantee brought climate and energy policy together and sought to legislate an emissions reduction target pledged by Australia under the Paris agreement.

Labor Senator Murray Watt said the new energy minister was a vocal opponent of the policy.

‘‘I have been wondering whether Scott Morrison has almost done this as a bit of a ‘get square’ with the conservative wing,’’ he told Sky News yesterday.

‘‘He’s basically said: ‘Well you break it, you own it,’ by putting one of their people in charge of it’.’’

Story from The Shepparton News - “Climate changing, but focus on power price cut.”

(We may have changed our government’s leadership (from the PM down), but we haven’t changed its attitude to the most pressing problem that has ever faced Australians, and the world. Nationally, we are still in climate denial mode, This has sadly become a conversation of power prices and not one about reducing our carbon dioxide emissions - Robert McLean)

Documents shed light on BP’s failures in the Great Australian Bight

BP’s plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight were controversial from the outset. Even more so after the regulator twice rejected its environmental safety plan.

The coast of the Great Australian Bight. 

For the first time, Climate Home News can reveal why. Government documents have been released under freedom of information laws, nearly two years after they were requested. BP had tried to suppress the information.

A major oil spill in the sensitive seascape would pollute up to 750km of beaches and shoreline, according to BP’s own modelling, and the company thought drilling may disrupt migration of the endangered southern right whale.

Read the ClimateHome story by Karl Mathieson - “Documents shed light on BP’s failures in the Great Australian Bight.”

Judge Rejects Exxon's Attempt to Shut Down Climate Fraud Investigations

With a sharp rebuke, a federal judge on Thursday rejected Exxon's attempt to shut down two state investigations into whether the oil giant misled investors for years about the risks of climate change.

The attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts are
 investigating whether Exxon's questioning of climate change
science and downplaying of its risks constituted fraud against the public and investors. 

U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni dismissed Exxon's complaint with prejudice, meaning the company can't refile it.

In the first line of her ruling, the judge describe Exxon's actions as "running roughshod over the adage that the best defense is a good offense.”

"The relief requested by Exxon in this case is extraordinary: Exxon has asked two federal courts—first in Texas, now in New York—to stop state officials from conducting duly-authorized investigations into potential fraud," she wrote. "It has done so on the basis of extremely thin allegations and speculative inferences.”

Read the Inside Climate News story - “Judge Rejects Exxon's Attempt to Shut Down Climate Fraud Investigations.”

Government denies claims it knocked back Chinese climate change offer and reveals ‘joint action plan’

The Turnbull government rejected a landmark Chinese invitation to issue a formal joint statement on climate change earlier this year, Greenpeace has claimed, saying Australia vetoed an unprecedented step in the Asian power's emerging international role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Premier Li Keqiang and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in March.

But the Australian government has denied the claim and revealed the two countries' energy departments were working on a "joint action plan" on climate change as part of their commitments under the Paris agreement.

According to Greenpeace East Asia senior climate policy adviser Li Shuo, the government quietly knocked back an offer – perhaps the first time the Chinese government had proactively sought such an arrangement – during Premier Li Keqiang's state visit to Australia in March.

Mr Li said the offer was "very, very significant" because it suggested China had become "diplomatically proactive" after previously being on the receiving end of invitations from the European Union and United States to outline mutual commitments on climate change.

Read Fergus Hunter’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Government denies claims it knocked back Chinese climate change offer and reveals ‘joint action plan’.”

Has ‘denying’ won? - Radio National

The science is 150 years old and growing each day, yet it is still being rejected by politicians and some academics. 

The "pale blue dot".

We shall talk to a few of those who remain unconvinced by climate research and its conclusions: a former vice-chancellor, a renowned Princeton mathematician, a space scientist from WA who worked on the Apollo program, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a climate researcher in America. 

Have they ever changed their minds on the topic? Do they perceive any risk at all? What do they think of President Trump’s policies? How can critics remain unmoved as the evidence mounts? Sharon Carleton reports.

Listen to the Science Show on Radio National - “Has ‘denying’ won?”