4 November 2016, The Conversation, The Paris climate deal has come into force – what next for Australia? The Paris climate agreement comes into legal force today, just 11 months after it was concluded and 30 days after it met its ratification threshold of 55 parties accounting for at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, the Kyoto Protocol, which this treaty now replaces, took more than 8 years to come into force, slowed by the United States’ persistent and erosive opposition. At the time of writing, the Agreement has been ratified by 94 parties, including the world’s four largest emitters: China, the United States, the European Union and India. As Climate Analytics reports, these nations account for 66% of greenhouse emissions. Even if the United States were to withdraw its support under a Trump presidency, the Paris Agreement will remain in force. The unprecedented speed with which this has been achieved reflects the acute realisation in the international community – following the debacle of the Copenhagen negotiations in 2009 – that a failure to land this treaty quickly would probably have led to the collapse of the United Nations climate regime…..Like other nations, Australia will have to review and toughen its climate targets every five years, starting no later than 2020, and report back regularly on its efforts. While Australia’s 2020 and 2030 emissions targets are seen as weak by international standards, doubts have still been expressed about the federal government’s ability to reach them. Modelling suggests Australia’s emissions are projected to rise to 21% above 2005 levels by 2030 – rather than fall by the 26-28% proclaimed in its official target. Read more here
Yearly Archives: 2016
4 November 2016, Climate Home, South Korea leads list of 2016 climate villains. Seoul *weakened* its climate ambition after the Paris Agreement, joining Saudi Arabia, Australia and New Zealand in laggards’ corner. It has been a year brimming with self-congratulation and post-treaty goodwill. Across the world, politicians have dined out on the signing of the Paris agreement and its rapid ascension into international law. But as the head of the UN climate body and the president of next week’s Marrakech talks said on Friday, it’s just a piece of paper. Now it’s time to actually start cutting emissions. Back at home, the world’s major emitters have at best left their climate plans unchanged. Some have actually implemented policies that will lead to more, not less CO2 in the atmosphere. Before diplomats and politicians return to the table in Morocco, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has released its updated analysis of who has been naughty and who has been nice in 2016. Sadly, the latter is a very short list. Read More here
4 November 2016 The Conversation The Paris climate deal has come into force – what next for Australia? The Paris climate agreement comes into legal force today, just 11 months after it was concluded and 30 days after it met its ratification threshold of 55 parties accounting for at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, the Kyoto Protocol, which this treaty now replaces, took more than 8 years to come into force, slowed by the United States’ persistent and erosive opposition. At the time of writing, the Agreement has been ratified by 94 parties, including the world’s four largest emitters: China, the United States, the European Union and India. As Climate Analytics reports, these nations account for 66% of greenhouse emissions. Even if the United States were to withdraw its support under a Trump presidency, the Paris Agreement will remain in force…..Australia is expected to ratify the Agreement later this year. When it does so, it will be committing itself to regularly increasing its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, improve climate adaptation, and provide climate finance. Like other nations, Australia will have to review and toughen its climate targets every five years, starting no later than 2020, and report back regularly on its efforts. While Australia’s 2020 and 2030 emissions targets are seen as weak by international standards, doubts have still been expressed about the federal government’s ability to reach them. Modelling suggests Australia’s emissions are projected to rise to 21% above 2005 levels by 2030 – rather than fall by the 26-28% proclaimed in its official target. Read More here
3 November 2016, Australia has not disclosed details of its carbon emissions accounting despite repeated requests, the chief scientist of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Thursday. Speaking at the launch of UNEP’s Emissions Gap report in London, Jacqueline McGlade said she had been unable to draw any conclusion about whether Australia is on track to meet its pledges under the Cancun and Paris climate deals. In a repeat of last year, the Australian government continued to claim that it had cancelled licenses for coal power stations but failed to declare the details publicly. That means proposed projects like the Kingston power station in South Australia officially remain part of Australia’s future energy plans. “There’s a process which takes a long time before it comes out into the open that these 15 plants are not going forward. Until we know they aren’t going forward they are in the calculation,” said McGlade. Out of the G20, the only other nations that could not be assessed because of inadequate information were Indonesia and South Africa. McGlade’s travails with the Australians are not new. In fact, she said, there had been some improvement on last year’s impasse. She said that she could now say the government would definitely meet its targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The government also claims it will meet the pledge it agreed in Cancun in 2010 to be emitting 5% less than it was in 2000 by 2020. It has previously been highlighted that this will only be achieved through some creative accounting. But McGlade said that the lack of information from the government meant that no conclusion could be drawn. “Right now Australia is neutral as far as if it is making progress or not,” she said. “When we talk about if it’s going to meet the 2020 trajectory… it’s very difficult to evaluate progress.” “It is a very open dialogue and we continue to press the government that insofar as it is possible to publish the retraction of certain licenses, that will help your case. But until we see that, we can’t document it.” Read More here