6 December 2016, The Conversation. At first glance, the progress reports on the Great Barrier Reef released last week by the Australian and Queensland governments might seem impressive. The update on the Reef 2050 Plan suggests that 135 of the plan’s 151 actions are either complete or on track. The Australian government’s apparent intention in releasing five recent reports is to reassure UNESCO that the Great Barrier Reef should not be listed as “World Heritage in Danger” (as the World Heritage Committee has previously threatened). Sadly, behind the verbosity and colour of these reports, there is disappointingly little evidence of progress in the key areas needed to make a significant difference to a World Heritage Area that is in crisis. Poor baseline The government framework for protecting and managing the Reef from 2015 to 2050, the Reef 2050 Plan, has been widely criticised as failing to provide a sound basis for the necessary long-term protection of the Reef. As well as providing a shaky basis to build effective actions, the Reef 2050 Plan has few measurable or realistic targets. It is therefore not easy to report on the actual progress. Several of the actions that will have the greatest impacts on the overall health of the Reef are shown in the progress reports as “not yet due”. In some cases, such as climate change, the Reef 2050 Plan is silent, instead simply referencing Australia’s national efforts on climate change. Read More here
Category Archives: Impacts Observed & Projected
6 December 2016, Climate Home, Fire bombs: British Columbia prepares for infernos. The second part of our series on vulnerable communities finds BC taking radical action in the face of a pile up of fire threats. Can it move fast enough? Tasmania and British Columbia are kindred lands; wild outposts of Britain’s empire, never fully tamed by settlers, with cool capital cities and a laid-back reputation that attracts nature lovers and marijuana connoisseurs. But the two share a less merry distinction – they are both sitting ducks for catastrophic fire. The first article in this series found Tasmania’s capital Hobart facing the twin threats of climate change and a landscape over brimming with fuel because traditional fire management by Aborigines had ceased with colonialism. There are strong parallels in BC. As the climate warms, fires are predicted to become more severe, larger and occur more frequently in unusual times of the year. The times call for bold ideas. Here, authorities are attempting to avert danger with a scheme so radical that one fire scientist in Tasmania calls it “crazy”, although not as crazy as living in a tinderbox. “Almost every year for the last five years we’ve said: wow, this is the earliest start to a fire season in a long time or ever,” says Lori Daniels, a forest scientist at the University of British Columbia’s tree ring lab. The coastal region in BC gets more rain than the interior. Even so, the capital Vancouver’s northern slopes, where Daniels lives, are desperately exposed once the perennial summer drought arrives. Here the city has made trouble for itself. The hills around the harbour were once lined by old wet forests. But those have been logged and replaced by more flammable woods. “The forests that have grown back are very productive and are a really different structure and now we have more than a million people who live in the vicinity of those forests and are very active ignition sources,” said Daniels. In other words, Vancouverites have laid their bed and manage to set fire to it every chance they get. Read More here
5 December 2016, The Conversation, Nitrogen pollution: the forgotten element of climate change. While carbon pollution gets all the headlines for its role in climate change, nitrogen pollution is arguably a more challenging problem. Somehow we need to grow more food to feed an expanding population while minimising the problems associated with nitrogen fertiliser use. In Europe alone, the environmental and human health costs of nitrogen pollution are estimated to be €70-320 billion per year. Nitrogen emissions such as ammonia, nitrogen oxide and nitrous oxides contribute to particulate matter and acid rain. These cause respiratory problems and cancers for people and damage to forests and buildings. Nitrogenous gases also play an important role in global climate change. Nitrous oxide is a particularly potent greenhouse gas as it is over 300 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Nitrogen from fertiliser, effluent from livestock and human sewage boost the growth of algae and cause water pollution. The estimated A$8.2 billion damage bill to the Great Barrier Reef is a reminder that our choices on land have big impacts on land, water and the air downstream. Read More here
5 December 2016, The Conversation, Can we blame climate change for thunderstorm asthma? Australians have been left unsettled by the recent thunderstorm asthma event that claimed eight lives in Melbourne. As with previous extreme weather events, we are left to wonder whether it was climate change at work, if it will happen again and if it will be worse next time. We can’t say for sure if the thunderstorm asthma event was caused directly by climate change. But modelling each extreme event is neither feasible nor necessary. All weather events should now be considered in the context of climate change and general climate projections are sufficiently alarming to justify the need for governments to prepare for, and adapt to, new risks these pose to our health…..Climate change poses a threat to health directly through extreme weather events, warmer average temperatures and sea level rise. Indirectly it can destabilise the systems that keep our air clean, produce our food, provide us with fresh drinking water and enable economies to thrive. These shifts pose a threat to livelihoods, food and water security, and social and political stability. Read More here