18 October 2017, Renew Economy, States gobsmacked by lack of detail, research in Turnbull’s NEG. The chances of the Turnbull government getting the approval of the states for its National Energy Guarantee appear remote after a devastating response to the proposal following an emergency phone hook-up on Tuesday. Approval for the states – through the COAG process – is apparently critical for the Coalition to implement the plan, because it requires changes to the National Electricity Rules. But in a testy phone-hook up between Frydenberg and the state energy ministers, the federal Coalition admitted it had no details, no modelling – and all it had to show for what it describes as “breakthrough moment” was a press release and an eight-page letter from the Energy Security Board. State representatives said they were gobsmacked by the sheer front and incompetence. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said one. “We would be ripped apart if we tried something like that.” Queensland energy minister Mark Bailey was dismissive of the lack of detail. “The detail is threadbare and it would be irresponsible to set the nation’s energy policy based on a short letter which is all we’ve been given.” (Read Bruce Mountain’s account for an explanation as to how this policy farce may have come about). It is particularly ironic because the federal Coalition needs the state approval, yet Frydenberg told the state energy ministers that the states would be relied on to do the heavy lifting to meet the various targets. Read More here
Yearly Archives: 2017
18 October 2017, Media Matters, California newspaper editorials connect the dots between climate change and wildfires. When hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit the U.S. earlier this year, conservatives including Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and Fox News personalities argued that it wasn’t the right time to talk about climate change. But a number of local leaders and journalists in the storm-hit states of Texas and Floridadisagreed. They called for attention to the fact that climate change is making disasters worse, even as they worked to address and report on the immediate needs of their affected communities. Now many political leaders and newspapers in California are following the lead of those in Texas and Florida — demanding that we recognize the threat of climate change and how it’s exacerbating weather events like the wildfires that have been blazing through parts of Northern California for the last week and a half, the most deadly and destructive fires in the state’s history. Many scientists have pointed to climate change as a significant factor that’s intensifying fires like those in California. Columbia University bioclimatologist Park Williams, who co-authored a study last year that foundclimate change was markedly worsening wildfires in the American West, talked to McClatchy about the California fires last week: “The fingerprint is definitely there,” Williams said. “The connection between temperatures and fire is one we see again and again in the correlation analyses we do.” California Gov. Jerry Brown emphasized the connection last week: “With a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture, these kinds of catastrophes have happened and will continue to happen,” he said. Read More here
14 October 2017, The Guardian, Geoengineering is not a quick fix for climate change, experts warn Trump. Leading climate scientists have warned that geoengineering research could be hijacked by climate change deniers as an excuse not to reduce CO2 emissions, citing the US administration under Donald Trump as a major threat to their work. David Keith, a solar geoengineering (GE) expert at Harvard University has said there is a real danger that his work could be exploited by those who oppose action on emissions, at the same time as he defended himself and colleagues from the claims GE strengthens the argument for abandoning the targets set by the Paris climate agreement. Leading climate scientists have warned that geoengineering research could be hijacked by climate change deniers as an excuse not to reduce CO2 emissions, citing the US administration under Donald Trump as a major threat to their work. David Keith, a solar geoengineering (GE) expert at Harvard University has said there is a real danger that his work could be exploited by those who oppose action on emissions, at the same time as he defended himself and colleagues from the claims GE strengthens the argument for abandoning the targets set by the Paris climate agreement. “One of the main concerns I and everyone involved in this have, is that Trump might tweet ‘geoengineering solves everything – we don’t have to bother about emissions.’ Read More here
13 October 2017, UN, Climate change is a threat to rich and poor alike. From Miami and Puerto Rico to Barbuda and Havana, the devastation of this year’s hurricane season across Latin America and the Caribbean serves as a reminder that the impacts of climate change know no borders. In recent weeks, Category 5 hurricanes have brought normal life to a standstill for millions in the Caribbean and on the American mainland. Harvey, Irma and Maria have been particularly damaging. The 3.4 million inhabitants of Puerto Rico have been scrambling for basic necessities including food and water, the island of Barbuda has been rendered uninhabitable, and dozens of people are missing or dead on the UNESCO world heritage island of Dominica. The impact is not confined to this region. The record floods across Bangladesh, India and Nepal have made life miserable for some 40 million people. More than 1,200 people have died and many people have lost their homes, crops have been destroyed, and many workplaces have been inundated. Meanwhile, in Africa, over the last 18 months 20 countries have declared drought emergencies, with major displacement taking place across the Horn region. For those countries that are least developed the impact of disasters can be severe, stripping away livelihoods and progress on health and education; for developed and middle-income countries the economic losses from infrastructure alone can be massive; for both, these events reiterate the need to act on a changing climate that threatens only more frequent and more severe disasters. Read More here