18 March 2017, The Guardian, CO2 emissions stay same for third year in row – despite global economy growing. International Energy Agency report puts halt in emissions from energy down to growth in renewable power. Carbon dioxide emissions from energy have not increased for three years in a row even as the global economy grew, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. Global emissions from the energy sector were 32.1bn tonnes in 2016, the same as the previous two years, while the economy grew 3.1%, the organisation said. The IEA put the halt in growth down to growing renewable power generation, switches from coal to natural gas and improvements in energy efficiency but said it is too soon to say that global emissions have peaked. The biggest drop was seen in the US, where carbon dioxide emissions fell 3%, while the economy grew 1.6%, following a surge in shale gas supplies and more renewable power that displaced coal. US emissions are at their lowest level since 1992, while the economy has grown 80% since that time….. The pause in emissions growth was welcomed by the IEA, but it warned it was not enough to meet globally-agreed targets to limit temperature rises to below 2C above pre-industrial levels – considered to be the threshold for dangerous climate change. Read More here
hmcadmin
16 March 2017, The Conversation, Year-on-year bleaching threatens Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status. The Great Barrier Reef has already been badly damaged by global warming during three extreme heatwaves, in 1998, 2002 and 2016. A new bleaching event is under way now. As shown in a study published in Nature today, climate change is not some distant future threat. It has already degraded large tracts of the Great Barrier Reef over the past two decades. The extreme marine heatwave in 2016 killed two-thirds of the corals along a 700km stretch of the northern Great Barrier Reef, from Port Douglas to Papua New Guinea. It was a game-changer for the reef and for how we manage it. 
Bleaching caused by extreme heat in summer 2016, based on extensive aerial surveys. Category 4 in red: 60-100% of colonies were bleached; Category 3 in orange: 30-60% bleached. Author provided Our study shows that we cannot climate-proof coral reefs by improving water quality or reducing fishing pressure. Reefs in clear water were damaged as much as muddy ones, and the hot water didn’t stop at the boundaries of no-fishing zones. There is nowhere to hide from global warming. The process of replacement of dead corals in the northern third of the reef will take at least 10-15 years for the fastest-growing species. The Great Barrier Reef is internationally recognised as a World Heritage Area. In 2015 UNESCO, the world body with oversight of World Heritage Areas, considered listing the reef as a site “in danger” in light of declines in its health. Australia’s response falling short. Read More here
15 March 2017, The Guardian, Renewables roadshow: how Daylesford’s windfarm took back the power. From the fertile spud-growing country of Hepburn Shire, 90km northwest of Melbourne, has sprung what many hope will become a revolution in renewable energy in Australia. On Leonards Hill, just outside the town of Daylesford – famed for its natural springs – stand two wind turbines that not only power the local area, but have also added substantial power to the community-owned renewable energy movement in Australia. The turbines, cheesily called Gusto and Gale, constitute the very first community-owned windfarm in Australia. It borrows the idea from a long tradition of community-owned power that was forgotten in Australia, but lives on strongly in Denmark. “In Denmark there’s over 2,100 versions of this,” says Taryn Lane, the community manager for Hepburn Wind, the cooperative that owns and operates the windfarm. “Their model – this way of owning your own energy generator locally – emerged in the late 70s, so they have been doing it for decades.” It was at a community meeting for a large corporate-owned windfarm, like the one near Hepburn, that the idea for Hepburn Wind emerged. Strong community opposition, often encouraged by the fossil fuel industry, has at times been a roadblock for large windfarms built by traditional energy companies. Lane says the Danish founder of Hepburn Wind, Per Bernard, attended the meeting with a few people from Daylesford, and they saw the community express a lot of opposition to one of those projects. “They were quite disappointed that that was our local area’s first response to large-scale renewables development in the area,” Lane says. Bernard figured that if they adopted the Danish model, where the windfarm was smaller, and the local community owned it, support for clean, clean wind energy would grow. The idea of communities owning their own power generators is not new in Australia, according to Lane, it’s just been forgotten. That was the way electricity was first introduced into much of the country, with smaller decentralised generators, owned by the local communities. The mayor of Hepburn Shire, Sebastian Klein agrees. “Hepburn actually used to own its own power generating sources. We used to have our own generator in the main street of Daylesford [and] we used to have our own hydro station down at the lake,” he says. Read More here
15 March 2017, The Climate Institute, The Climate Institute welcomes the opportunity to provide input to the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market. This submission comprises two parts: first, a detailed discussion of the five priorities we believe the review needs to address, which are summarised below, and second, responses to a selection of questions from the Independent Review’s Preliminary Report. For further information regarding any of the issues covered in this submission, please contact Olivia Kember, Head of Policy at The Climate Institute, at 02 8239 6299 or okember@climateinstitute.org.au. Five priorities for the future security of the national electricity system: Access full submission here