30 November 2017, The Conversation, It’s 30 years since scientists first warned of climate threats to Australia. Keen students of climate politics might recognise November 30 as the anniversary of the opening of the historic Paris climate summit two years ago. But you might not know that today also marks 30 years since Australian scientists first officially sounded the alarm over climate change, at a conference hailed as the dawn of the ongoing effort to forecast and monitor the future climate of our continent. November 30, 1987, marked the start of the inaugural GREENHOUSE conference hosted by Monash University and attended by 260 delegates. The five-day meeting was convened as part of a new federal government plan in response to the burgeoning global awareness of the impending danger of global warming. The conference’s convenor, the then CSIRO senior research scientist Graeme Pearman, had approached some 100 researchers in the months leading up to the conference. He gave them a scenario of likely climate change for Australia for the next 30 to 50 years, developed with his CSIRO colleague Barrie Pittock, and asked them to forecast the implications for agriculture, farming and other sectors. As a result, the conference gave rise to a book called Greenhouse: Planning for Climate Change, which outlined rainfall changes, sea-level rise and other physical changes that are now, three decades on, all too familiar. As the contents page reveals, it also tackled impacts on society – everything from insurance to water planning, mosquito-borne diseases, and even ski fields. Internationally, awareness of global warming had already been building for a couple of decades, and intensifying for a couple of years. While the ozone hole was hogging global headlines, a United Nations scientific meeting in Villach, Austria, in 1985 had issued a statement warning of the dangers posed by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Read More here
Category Archives: Australian Response
30 November 2017, Renew Economy, Finkel’s frustration: Everyone else has a strategy, but not Australia. One senses that Chief scientist Alan Finkel is just a little frustrated. The center-piece of his land-mark Finkel Review, the clean energy target, has been left in the gutter by weak-kneed politicians, and his attempts to bring perspective to the issue of storage has been branded as “eco-evangelism” by the same forces that make policy makers tremble in their bed at night. Little surprise, then, that Finkel chose to focus his last energy speech of the year on the “Myths and Legends of the Australian electricity market”, delivered to the ANU on Wednesday afternoon. And in doing so, he delivers some major brick-bats to both the country’s policy makers (politicians) and its regulators. Finkel argues that Australia has managed a unique trifecta – high prices, high emissions, and high uncertainty – and fallen behind the rest of the world. And he has no doubt who is to blame. “Everyone else has a strategy,” says one of the key points of his presentation (see above). The next line is equally damming: “Regulatory system suffering 10 years of policy paralysis.” Energy insiders and observers know exactly what Finkel is referring to: the first is clear, the political impasse caused by the Far Right and its opposition to basic economics and science. The second offender would be interpreted as the Australian Energy Market Commission – the rule maker that has stood in the way of blindingly obvious reforms such as introducing environmental considerations into the National Electricity Objective, and which has resisted and delayed nearly every proposed change that would nudge Australia’s ageing, creaking energy infrastructure into the 21st Century. Read More here
3 November 2017, Climate Home: Australian state premier promises to veto funding for giant Adani coal mine. Prospects of massive Indian-owned coal development take a dip after Queensland Labor leader makes surprise announcement. The future of the giant Adani Carmichael coal mine in northern Australian – considered a “carbon timebomb” by opponents – may be decided by a state election this month after the local premier shocked observers by pledging to block a A$900 million loan considered vital for it to go ahead. At a snap media conference late on Friday, Queensland Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reversed her previous support for Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s application for a concessional Australian government loan to pay for rail line from the outback mine site to a coastal port. She said she would exercise the state government’s power of veto over any loan after learning of rumours circulating about the role her partner had played in the proposed mine’s approval. The announcement comes amid heated political debate in Australia and the Pacific region over the proposal to create one of the world’s biggest coal mines in the Queensland outback. Adani says the fully developed Carmichael mine, to be developed in the state’s north about 340 kilometres south-west of Townsville, would produce up to 60 million tonnes of coal annually for 60 years. It plans to export the coal to burn in its Indian power plants. It would increase Australia’s coal exports by up to 30%. Read More here
3 November 2017, Climate Home: Australian state premier promises to veto funding for giant Adani coal mine. Prospects of massive Indian-owned coal development take a dip after Queensland Labor leader makes surprise announcement. The future of the giant Adani Carmichael coal mine in northern Australian – considered a “carbon timebomb” by opponents – may be decided by a state election this month after the local premier shocked observers by pledging to block a A$900 million loan considered vital for it to go ahead. At a snap media conference late on Friday, Queensland Labor premier Annastacia Palaszczuk reversed her previous support for Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s application for a concessional Australian government loan to pay for rail line from the outback mine site to a coastal port. She said she would exercise the state government’s power of veto over any loan after learning of rumours circulating about the role her partner had played in the proposed mine’s approval. The announcement comes amid heated political debate in Australia and the Pacific region over the proposal to create one of the world’s biggest coal mines in the Queensland outback. Adani says the fully developed Carmichael mine, to be developed in the state’s north about 340 kilometres south-west of Townsville, would produce up to 60 million tonnes of coal annually for 60 years. It plans to export the coal to burn in its Indian power plants. It would increase Australia’s coal exports by up to 30%. Read More here