Typhoon Lekima kills at least 13, displaces more than 1 million in China.

Thirteen people have been killed and 16 are missing in eastern China after a major typhoon triggered a landslide and caused widespread transport disruptions and the evacuation of more than 1 million people, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Typhoons Lekima and Krosa shown about 1,500km
apart, eye-to-eye, over the West Pacific on Thursday.

Typhoon Lekima made landfall early on Saturday in the eastern province of Zhejiang with maximum winds of 187 kilometres per hour, although it had weakened from its earlier designation as a "super" typhoon, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Thousands of flights were cancelled in eastern China, according to the country's aviation regulator, with most flights into and out of Shanghai's two major airports cancelled on Saturday afternoon, their websites showed.

Read the story from ABC News - “Typhoon Lekima kills at least 13, displaces more than 1 million in China.”

Enough scandalous time-wasting on climate change. Let's get back to the facts

Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start. I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”.

Drought-affected pastures near Wyandra in Queensland.

“The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”

We knew we had to do something almost three decades ago. Children have grown to adulthood and had their own children during the time we have known, and done not very much.

Read the story from The Guardian by Lenore Taylor - “Enough scandalous time-wasting on climate change. Let's get back to the facts.”

Australia is not on track to meet Paris emissions target – not without policy support

A short briefing on renewables deployment hit the decks today, and it was reported as if it showed that Australia will meet the existing emissions target well before 2030.

Frank Jotzo - serious analyses points
 to need for policy support.

The federal energy minister Angus Taylor trumpeted this as justification for the government’s do-nothing approach. But it won’t be that way unless there is policy support, as serious analyses have shown.

Renewables were deployed quickly and at scale in Australia in recent times, especially during 2018. A huge wind and solar boom is on, and it’s important to recognize that. But it is not a given that it will continue at this rate, and indefinitely.

Read the RenewEconomy story by Frank Jotzo - “Australia is not on track to meet Paris emissions target – not without policy support.”

AGL full year profit almost trebles on higher electricity prices

Energy generator and retailer AGL has reported a near trebling of full year profit, a result supported by higher power prices and favourable hedging contracts.

AGL's generating portfolio has benefitted
from the closure of competing generators.

AGL's 2018 net profit of $1.6 billion rose 194 per cent from the previous year of $539 million.

Its underlying profit, which excludes one-off items and changes in value in investments and hedging positions, rose 28 per cent to $1.02 billion, at the upper end of the company's guidance.

Read the story from ABC News by Stephen Letts - “AGL full year profit almost trebles on higher electricity prices.”

Away from the public gaze, serious threats to the environment keep rising

Threats to the Australian environment get reported in bursts – a contested development decision or a particular conservation campaign can thrust an issue into the headlines and on to the nightly news bulletins for weeks before a deal is crunched and a “solution” heralded.

Our environment is always under threat, especially when we divert our gaze.

But the “solutions” are often illusory and the actual threats keep rising, away from the scrutiny of the political and news cycles.

As the last five-yearly and independent “state of the environment report” found: “The main pressures facing the Australian environment today are the same as in 2011: climate change, land use change, habitat fragmentation and degradation, and invasive species,” with interactions between them amplifying the threats.

It noted that in a few cases (such as air quality and poor agricultural practices) the pressures had eased, but in most (such as grazing, invasive species, habitat destruction, coalmining and urban growth) they had worsened.

After 30 years of environment reporting, on and off, it’s evident that the “deals” to end headline-grabbing environmental battles often aren’t enduring solutions at all, with the scrapping continuing away from the national public gaze.

Read the story by Lenore Taylor from The Guardian  - “Away from the public gaze, serious threats to the environment keep rising.”

Queensland land-clearing shown in aerial and satellite images

The tree-clearing explosion occurring in Queensland, usually reported in seemingly impossibly large numbers of hectares or square kilometres, is now being documented using publicly available satellite and aerial photography, revealing the graphic disfigurement of the remaining untouched bushland there.

In one property about an hour’s drive from Mackay, hundreds of hectares of previously untouched forest have been cleared, in a move that appears to have occurred outside even the lax laws currently in place in Queensland. Using Google Earth, the clearing can be seen in graphic detail.

The area is a reef catchment, which means the clearing is likely to increase sediment run-off into the nearby streams, which will eventually flow into the Great Barrier Reef, damaging the delicate coral and seagrass ecosystems there. Tree clearing in Queensland is considered one of the primary drivers of pollution on the Great Barrier Reef. Unesco has put Australia on notice that it is at risk of losing the reef’s world heritage listing if steps aren’t taken.

Read Michael Slezak’s story on The Guardian - “Queensland land-clearing shown in aerial and satellite images.”

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.”