Missed opportunity': Australia avoids tougher emissions reduction targets

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
said he was "disappointed" with the
 outcome of the Madrid climate talks.

Australia has avoided tougher emissions reduction targets by banding together with a small group of nations to oppose a measure that would have stopped it using controversial "carry-over credits" to meet its climate goals.

The United Nations' annual climate change summit wound up in the Spanish capital of Madrid on Sunday without the consensus required among the almost 200 member countries to finalise new international standards on emissions reductions.

Read the story from The Age by Mike Foley - “‘Missed opportunity': Australia avoids tougher emissions reduction targets.”

Lonely, unfit and hooked on air-conditioning - is this the summer of the future?

Bela Stantic did not stop to take in the vistas of Walgett on his great Aussie road trip this summer. The vineyards of Griffith passed in a blur. He stopped at Victoria’s Twelve Apostles, but took a few photos and then left.

Illustration by Richard Giliberto

It was not what the Griffith University professor had planned. But as a monster heatwave baked a crust onto southern Australia, “it was not possible to be outside at all”, he says.

“I couldn’t do anything, I was basically just in the car all the time. Even then I got fried because the sunshine was so hot, it went through the glass,” Stantic recalls.

“When I was planning the trip, Uluru was supposed to be 36 degrees. But when I got to Adelaide the weather prediction said it would be 46 degrees there … I like warm weather but I thought ‘this is extreme’.”

Read the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Nicole Hasham - “Lonely, unfit and hooked on air-conditioning - is this the summer of the future?”

This Girl's Letter To Trump Telling Him Climate Change Is Real Is So Poignant

The Earth is warming up and the weather is changing. Say what you will, but this year has shown that global warming and climate change can't be stopped if world leaders and citizens keep ignoring it. It's frustrating to know that people — especially those with power to make actual change — refuse to believe science when so many people are asking them to listen, and that includes kids. Although President Donald Trump won't listen to it, this girl's letter to Trump telling him climate change is real could have the power to make him and other people want to listen.

The girl's letter and Donald Trump.

The letter, written by an 11-year-old Austrian girl, was reportedly handed to Trump during the United Nations General Assembly last week — yes the same United Nations General Assembly where Trump taunted North Korea and called Kim Jung Un "rocket man." Instead of speaking to the world in a way that, according to CNN, "no American President" has ever done, maybe Trump could have paid attention to the letter gifted to him by Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, according to NDTV.

Read the story by Casey Suglia on Romper - “This Girl's Letter To Trump Telling Him Climate Change Is Real Is So Poignant.”