Australia’s carbon emissions rise again, largely thanks to LNG industry

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise despite the Morrison government claiming it is taking “sensible, responsible action” to address the climate crisis, the latest official data shows.

Part of the LNG projects in the north of Western Australia.
 The growth of the industry is primarily responsible for
 the recent rises in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

National emissions increased by 3.1m tonnes in the year to March to reach 538.9m tonnes, a 0.6% jump on the previous year, the report released on Friday revealed.

Carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation continue to decrease, reflecting the falling cost of solar and wind energy, but this is being more than cancelled out by the growth in emissions from the liquefied natural gas (LNG) export industry, mostly in northern Western Australia. Emissions from LNG were up 4.7m tonnes over the year.

Read the story from The Guardian by Adam Morton -  “Australia’s carbon emissions rise again, largely thanks to LNG industry.” 

Nature’s furies batter Asia and the United States

Hong Kong: Death tolls are expected to rise as the two storms that have lashed the Philippines and China and North Carolina continue to wreak havoc.

A police officer carries a girl in rain during a No 10
 Hurricane Signal raised for Typhoon Mangkhut in
Hong Kong on Sunday.

Typhoon Mangkhut battered Hong Kong and threatened the southern coast of China on Sunday, after cutting a destructive path through the Philippines and killing dozens of people there.

Read the story from The Age - “Nature’s furies batter Asia and the United States.”

‘Critical turning point' as more nations hit peak carbon emissions: think-tank

The number of countries in which greenhouse gases has peaked continues to rise, representing a "critical turning point" in the task of curbing climate change, according to a report by the World Resources Institute.

While offering a "silver lining", the rate of national peaking won't be fast enough to prevent emissions reaching a zenith before 2030, assuming countries implement their Paris climate pledges, the Washington D.C.-based think-tank said.

Any backsliding by China and the US, the two biggest emitters accounting for more than a third of the total, would also "significantly compromise" the peak projections, it said.

Most of the early peakers were former Eastern Bloc nations, whose heavy industry sectors hammered in the run-up to the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Germany, France and the United Kingdom, though, had also seen their greenhouse gas pollution top out by that year.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “‘Critical turning point' as more nations hit peak carbon emissions: think-tank.”