2 May 2017, Renew Economy, The angry denunciation of Westpac’s new climate policy – which rules out funding for new mines in the Galilee Basin – serves only to underscore how crucial support from at least one major Australian bank was to Adani’s push to win finance for its beleaguered Carmichael coal project. Now shunned by all of Australia’s big banks – the Commonwealth Bank, NAB, ANZ and now Westpac – as well as a further 15 banks around the world, Adani is desperate and financially dateless. In its media release following the release of Westpac’s revised climate policy Adani Australia complained Australian banks have “chosen to bow to environmental activists” and decided to “ignore the opportunity to invest” in the Carmichael project. The banks, Adani complained as it played the nationalist card, would continue to invest in overseas coal projects “at the expense of Australians, many of whom are their investors and depositors.” (Curiously, Adani’s media release is not posted on the company’s website.) In its policy Westpac committed to “limit lending to any new thermal coal mines or projects (including those of existing customers) to only existing coal producing basins and where the calorific value for that mine ranks in at least the top 15% globally.” With no existing mines in the Galilee Basin, the bank was explicitly ruling out the Carmichael project – along with other potential but even less viable nearby projects – irrespective of what quality coal they may produce. By any measure, Westpac’s policy is a cautiously-couched incremental improvement on its previous policy but far from being “anti-coal” as the headline on one Fairfax Media article tagged it. (The divestment campaign group Market Forces has a measured analysis of what the policy does and doesn’t mean.) Indeed, aside from the huge climate considerations, there are good financial reasons why a bank like Westpac wouldn’t risk backing any Galilee Basin project: the mines would produce low-quality coal and require huge investments in new railway and port capacity at a time the future price of thermal coal appears to be bleak. Read More here
Tag Archives: Economy
20 April 2017, Bloomberg Climate Changed, The Nightmare Scenario for Florida’s Coastal Homeowners. Demand and financing could collapse before the sea consumes a single house. On a predictably gorgeous South Florida afternoon, Coral Gables Mayor Jim Cason sat in his office overlooking the white-linen restaurants of this affluent seaside community and wondered when climate change would bring it all to an end. He figured it would involve a boat. When Cason first started worrying about sea-level rise, he asked his staff to count not just how much coastline the city had (47 miles) or value of the property along that coast ($3.5 billion). He also told them to find out how many boats dock inland from the bridges that span the city’s canals (302). What matters, he guessed, will be the first time a mast fails to clear the bottom of one of those bridges because the water level had risen too far. “These boats are going to be the canary in the mine,” said Cason, who became mayor in 2011 after retiring from the U.S. foreign service. “When the boats can’t go out, the property values go down.” Jim Cason, mayor of Coral Gables, in his office. He worries that rising insurance costs, reluctant lenders or skittish foreign buyers could hurt home prices well before sea-level rise gets worse. If property values start to fall, Cason said, banks could stop writing 30-year mortgages for coastal homes, shrinking the pool of able buyers and sending prices lower still. Those properties make up a quarter of the city’s tax base; if that revenue fell, the city would struggle to provide the services that make it such a desirable place to live, causing more sales and another drop in revenue. And all of that could happen before the rising sea consumes a single home. As President Donald Trump proposes dismantling federal programs aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, officials and residents in South Florida are grappling with the risk that climate change could drag down housing markets. Relative sea levels in South Florida are roughly four inches higher now than in 1992. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts sea levels will rise as much as three feet in Miami by 2060. By the end of the century, according to projections by Zillow, some 934,000 existing Florida properties, worth more than $400 billion, are at risk of being submerged. Read More here
19 April 2017, Climate Council Report: Pollution and Price: The Cost of Investing in Gas. Investing in more gas will lock in high electricity prices and pollution for decades to come. Our new report, ‘Pollution and Price: The cost of investing in gas,’ shows that tackling climate change and protecting Australians from worsening extreme weather requires our electricity system to produce zero emissions before 2050. Gas is not sufficiently less polluting than coal to garner any climate benefit. Furthermore, greater reliance on gas will drive higher power prices. While renewable energy can provide a secure, affordable alternative to new fossil fuels. Access Report here
7 April 2017, New York Times, Rising Waters Threaten China’s Rising Cities. GUANGZHOU, China — The rains brought torrents, pouring into basements and malls, the water swiftly rising a foot and a half. The city of Dongguan, a manufacturing center here in the world’s most dynamic industrial region, was hit especially hard by the downpour in May 2014. More than 100 factories and shops were inundated. Water climbed knee-high in 20 minutes, wiping out inventory for dozens of businesses. Next door in Guangzhou, an ancient, mammoth port city of 13 million, helicopters and a fleet of 80 boats had to be sent to rescue trapped residents. Tens of thousands lost their homes, and 53 square miles of nearby farmland were ruined. The cost of repairs topped $100 million. Chen Rongbo, who lived in the city, saw the flood coming. He tried to scramble to safety on the second floor of his house, carrying his 6-year-old granddaughter. He slipped. The flood swept both of them away. Flooding has been a plague for centuries in southern China’s Pearl River Delta. So even the rains that May, the worst in the area in years, soon drifted from the headlines. People complained and made jokes on social media about wading through streets that had become canals and riding on half-submerged buses through lakes that used to be streets. But there was no official hand-wringing about what caused the floods or how climate change might bring more extreme storms and make the problems worse. A generation ago, this was mostly farmland. Three vital rivers leading to the South China Sea, along with a spider’s web of crisscrossing tributaries, made the low-lying delta a fertile plain, famous for rice. Guangzhou, formerly Canton, had more than a million people, but by the 1980s, China set out to transform the whole region, capitalizing on its proximity to water, the energy of its people, and the money and port infrastructure of neighboring Hong Kong. Read More here