What you will find on this page: LATEST NEWS; Fossil fuel emissions have stalled; does the world need hydrogen?; Mapped: global coal trade; Complexity of energy systems (maps); Mapped: Germany’s energy sources (interactive access); Power to the people (video); Unburnable Carbon (report); Stern Commission Review; Garnaut reports; live generation data; fossil fuel subsidies; divestment; how to run a divestment campaign guide; local council divestment guide; US coal plant retirement; oil conventional & unconventional; CSG battle in Australia (videos); CSG battle in Victoria; leasing maps for Victoria; coal projects Victoria
Huge task to decarbonise
Source: Australian Delegation presentation to international forum held in Bonn in May 2012
Latest News 25 February 2016, Renew Economy, Graph of the Day: The myth about energy subsidies. Ever hear the story about why renewable energy can’t compete without a subsidy? You hear it all the time from the fossil fuel industry. And the response from renewables? Take away fossil fuel subsidies, and they’d be glad to compete on level terms. This graph below, displayed today by David Hochschild, a commissioner with the California Energy Commission, at the Energy Productivity Summer Study in Sydney, illustrates why the fossil fuel and nuclear industries don’t want that to happen. Studies by the International Energy Agency point out that global subsidies for fossil fuels outstrip those for renewable energy nearly 10-fold. The International Monetary Fund said if climate and environmental costs were included, then the fossil fuel subsides increased another 10 times to nearly $5 trillion a year. 24 February 2016, Energy Post, What comes after solar PV? BIPV. The time of ugly solar panels is over. Make way for building-integrated photovoltaics. Fereidoon Sioshansi, president of Menlo Energy Economics and publisher of the newsletter EEnergy Informer, notes that BIPV not only look stunningly better, they also reduce costs. They can even lead to energy-producing buildings. Regardless of whether and how they are subsidized, solar photovoltaics (PVs) panels are gaining in popularity around the world, found on increasing number of roofs in sunny and even not so sunny countries. They continue to be installed in significant numbers even in places where they get little credit for any net generation into the network, as in Queensland, Australia. In such cases, customers adjust the size of the installations mostly for self-consumption. Traditionally, a customer with an existing roof would call a contractor to install them, paying out of pocket, or increasingly leasing them with little or no upfront investment. The result is generally an ugly, incongruous after thought, and an expensive one at that. Many roofs have protruding chimneys and other obstacles resulting in panels distributed in odd and unpleasant patterns. Other roofs are in wrong angles to the sun or shaded by neighbours‘ houses or trees, making them unsuitable for solar PVs. Today, an increasing number of architects and engineers are designing individual houses and entire subdivisions with solar panels in mind. The same goes for many commercial buildings, especially warehouses, parking garages, office buildings, shopping malls, airports, train stations – anything with large flat roofs. Including solar panels at the time the roof is being built reduces installation costs substantially, by some estimates as much as 20%. Read More here 23 February 2016, Climate Home, A flying fairy tale: Why aviation carbon cuts won’t take off. Ten days ago the airline industry stunned the world. After years of prevarication the world’s top airlines and leading manufacturers said they would take climate change seriously. The UN’s aviation body, ICAO for short, announced a carbon emissions standard that would apply to new aircraft from 2020, and to all new deliveries of in-production aircraft – current types, or minor variations on current types – as from 2028. Aircraft that don’t meet the standard will not be allowed to be produced after 2028. None of the operational aircraft currently in the fleet will be affected. The statement was widely acclaimed, notably by the US government. But will it really have any significant impact on reducing emissions? Our contention is it will not, riddled as it is with flaws. It will not be a “rigorous and challenging” standard as industry claimed, nor will it save the 650 megatonnes of CO2 emissions by 2040 that the White House proudly proclaimed. ICAO and states shaped the standard around parochial national manufacturer interests instead of the need to mitigate climate change. Aircraft designers will still face many challenges developing the next generation of airliners, but this standard will not be one of them. Beyond business as usual? New generation aircraft are generally some 10-15% more fuel efficient than those they replace. They need to be to sell. This translates to an average annual efficiency improvement of between 0.5% and 1.0%. Constant market pressures result in a continuously improving line when you plot the average fuel consumption of new aircraft types against their entry into commercial service date. Yet ICAO intends to regulate this ever improving trend with a flat (time independent) carbon standard. Even if the stringency is initially set at a level that will have an impact, its effect will quickly fade over time as market-driven improvements cut in. The maximum theoretical effect of the standard at maximum stringencies is just 1 gigatonne of CO2 between 2020-2040, while total CO2 emissions from aviation over this period will be in the order of some 31 Gtonnes, i.e. a potential saving of just 3%. Read More here 18 February 2016, Energy Post, Biofuels are back on the EU agenda. Biofuels are returning to the political agenda in Europe as EU policymakers start to shape a strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport after 2020. Biofuels producers continue to argue that they are an essential part of the solution, even as the low oil price puts an end to several cutting-edge projects, the European Commission prepares to publish a new report about indirect land-use change (ILUC) and some stakeholders urge a full focus on electrification. Sonja van Renssen investigates. “Are we competitive? Certainly not in the short term, but the long term is what matters,” said Artur Auernhammer, a Member of the German Parliament and Chairman of the German Bioenergy Association (BBE) in his opening speech at a “Fuels of the Future” conference in Berlin, Germany, on 18 January. “Certified sustainable biofuels from Europe must be a key element in the European decarbonisation strategy both at present and beyond 2020.” Dr Veit Steinle from the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure concurred: “If the Energiewende is to be implemented properly in Germany, we need an energy transition in transport. Of course we’re putting money on biofuels in this regard.” “If we look at the current development of oil prices, it is very certain that at least in the short to medium term, the regulatory framework will be very, very important for the perspectives of biofuels.” – Bernd Kuepker, European Commission It is equally obvious for EU biofuels producers that they are part of the solution. But others have moved on. Jos Dings, Executive Director of Brussels-based NGO Transport and Environment, said in an interview: “The big change since the [EU’s] first climate and energy package [in 2008] is the rise of electric vehicles. In contrast, we’ve seen very little progress in liquid fuels.” Still, Gernot Klepper, Chairman of the Board for ISCC System, which certifies bio-based feedstocks and renewables, reminded delegates in Berlin that biofuels make up about a fifth of final energy consumption in transport in 2050, in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s two degrees scenario. Read More here 3 October 2017, The Guardian, Catholic church to make record divestment from fossil fuels. More than 40 Catholic institutions are to announce the largest ever faith-based divestment from fossil fuels, on the anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi. The sum involved has not been disclosed but the volume of divesting groups is four times higher than a previous church record, and adds to a global divestment movement, led by investors worth $5.5tn. Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who helped negotiate the Paris climate agreement, hailed Tuesday’s move as “a further sign we are on the way to achieving our collective mission”. She said: “I hope we will see more leaders like these 40 Catholic institutions commit, because while this decision makes smart financial sense, acting collectively to deliver a better future for everybody is also our moral imperative.” Church institutions joining the action include the Archdiocese of Cape Town, the Episcopal Conference of Belgium and the diocese of Assisi-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino, the spiritual home of the world’s Franciscan brothers. Read More here 2 October 2017, Australian Institute, We have enough cheap, easy-to-extract gas to last 100 years. There’s just one problem. Australia has plenty of cheap gas. The problem is private companies are selling it all overseas, writes principal adviser at the Australia Institute Mark Ogge. Hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true: in the last decade, tens of thousands of square kilometers of Queensland farmland has been covered in gas fields. The export gas rush in Australia is one of the largest and fastest expansions of a gas industry ever seen, anywhere in the world. We are awash with gas. The problem is we are allowing almost all of the cheap and easy-to-get-at gas to be sent overseas. The gas in some areas is close to the surface, in big reserves all together, where there are no bothersome farmers, aquifers or national parks in the way. That gas is relatively cheap to extract. But some gas is deeper and harder to get at for all sorts of geological reasons. And that gas is more expensive to extract. Some gas is not just deep and hard to get at, but is underneath valuable aquifers that would need to be drilled through to get the gas. Much of it is on properties of people who don’t want a gas field on their land, or on properties a long way from where the gas is needed. That gas is very expensive to extract. So, naturally, the gas companies’ first preference is for the easily extractable, cheap gas, and they drill that and sell it first. The problem is, there is a limited amount of that cheaper to extract gas. Once that gas is gone, only the difficult, expensive-to-extract gas remains. That was OK when it was just being sold to Australian customers. There was enough reasonably easily extractable, cheap gas to last for decades at least. Read More here 20 September 2017, Renew Economy, Back to 2009: Abbott declares war on everything. Well, that turned out well didn’t it. Despite prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s desperate attempts to appease the conservative faction of his Coalition government by compromising everything he ever stood for on climate and clean energy, it’s clearly not enough. In doing so, Abbott has done what Turnbull dared not in the past two years: jettison Abbott-era policies. While Turnbull was too afraid to make those policies more ambitious, Abbott has now come out and effectively dumped the very policies he put in place: its Paris climate commitment, and the much-reduced renewable energy target.His predecessor Tony Abbott effectively dialled back the climate and energy debate to 2009 by announcing that he would cross the floor and vote against anything that looked remotely like a climate change policy, or represented even the smallest subsidy for renewable energy. Abbott has reinforced his assertion that climate science is “crap”. In an interview on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News with climate denier and renewables hater Alan Jones and his former chief of staff Peta Credlin, Abbott rates climate changes as “a third order” issue. Read More here 15 September 2017, Renew Economy, Blackouts and baseload: Debunking myths of AEMO reports and Liddell. The day after the release of the two key reports from the Australian Energy Market Operator last week – its annual Electricity Statement of Opportunities and the specially commissioned report on dispatchable generation requested by the federal government – RenewEconomy could barely believe what it read and heard in the media. Consumers were being frightened into thinking that the lights were going out, the economy would collapse, and they’d all be better off going out to buy a generator and a supply of candles and batteries. The only possible solution to the crisis, we were told, was to stop renewable energy and keep the Liddell coal generator on line. What was missed – in the fog of politics, ideologies and deliberate misinformation – were the fundamental messages of the two reports: that the energy system is transitioning quickly, and it is more or less unstoppable, because of the march of technologies and global trends. This is not a bad thing, AEMO boss Audrey Zibelman underlined. But it does require some policy certainty and some co-ordination to ensure that Australia’s dirty, expensive and increasingly unreliable grid can be transformed into a smarter, cleaner, more reliable and cheaper source of power. Read More here 29 November 2021, Carbon Brief: Avoiding temperature ‘overshoot’ reduces multiple climate change risks, say scientists. Allowing global temperatures to temporarily “overshoot” end-of-century targets will drive greater economic loss and more severe climate impacts than staying below these targets throughout the century, new research says. Many future pathways for meeting the 1.5C and 2C warming targets by 2100 project that global temperatures will exceed these goals in the short term – and that negative emission techniques will be used later in the century to ensure that targets are met. However, two new studies published in Nature Climate Change highlight the benefits of meeting global temperature goals outright. The first study finds that staying below 1.5C or 2C throughout the 21st century reduces the risk of climate extremes, such as heatwaves. The authors find that after mid-century, temperature overshoot leads to higher mitigation costs and greater economic losses from the additional climate impacts. The second study highlights the longer-term economic benefits of keeping below temperature thresholds. It projects that by 2100, global GDP will be up to 2% higher in scenarios that avoid overshoot compared to those that do not. These “valuable” papers “give important insights on the consequences of emission pathways without large net-negative emissions during the second half of the century”, says a commentary article on the new research papers. Read more here 26 November 2021, The Guardian: Bridget Archer says she didn’t want to meet PM immediately after crossing floor on integrity commission. Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer says she didn’t want to be hauled into a meeting with Scott Morrison after she crossed the floor to support an independent MP’s integrity commission bill. The prime minister has moved to quell internal revolts by talking to Archer on Thursday afternoon and separately referring the controversial religious discrimination bill to a joint committee. Morrison on Friday defended the “friendly” meeting with Archer after she supported a bid by Helen Haines to suspend standing orders to push for a stronger anti-corruption watchdog… But Archer told Guardian Australia that while the meeting was friendly, it was a “frank discussion – not just a pastoral care meeting”. “I would have preferred not to have the meeting at that time while I was feeling emotional,” she said. The meeting covered Archer’s decision to exercise her right to cross the floor on an integrity commission and her views on religious discrimination. Archer was offered a pair for the final sitting week of parliament, which would have neutralised her ability to support motions like the one attempted by Haines, but she declined. READ MORE HERE 25 November 2021, The Conversation, Grattan on Friday: Assertive Liberal moderates give Scott Morrison curry. The overwhelming impression the Morrison government has projected this week has been one of chaos, with revolts coming from the right and the left. And that’s accurate. But, within the shambles, there has actually been one encouraging sign. We’re seeing a new generation of Liberal moderates belatedly raise their voices. While it’s one thing to get up on your hind legs in the party room, or even to make public statements, it is a big step to call out your government in parliament. It would have taken a lot for Bridget Archer, a moderate who holds the highly marginal Tasmanian seat of Bass, to make herself the story. Archer said outright what a number of her moderate colleagues were thinking, when she criticised the government for not bringing forward its legislation for an integrity commission. READ MORE HERE 18 November 2021, The Conversation: With a federal election looming, is there new hope for leadership on integrity and transparency? As we head into a federal election campaign next year, the focus on whether government – and which party – can be trusted to govern openly and honestly for the public good is looming larger than at any time in living memory. Plans to overhaul Commonwealth whistleblower protection laws were revealed last week by Assistant Attorney-General Amanda Stoker. The Coalition government’s legislation for a federal integrity commission (or ICAC) is also imminent, following feedback on the extensive problems with its draft bill last year. And a plethora of other accountability issues are awaiting action. All these provide a reminder, heading into the election, that trust in government hinges not only on “performance” in a direct, hip-pocket sense. It also depends on who can be trusted to protect public decision-making from becoming a self-serving gravy train for leaders and their friends. Healthy political competition on integrity issues is long overdue. Historically, both major parties have been slow to initiate the reforms needed to reverse Australia’s slide on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index or global press freedom rankings. READ MORE HERE 3 November 2020, Carbon Brief: Hydrogen gas has long been recognised as an alternative to fossil fuels and a potentially valuable tool for tackling climate change. Now, as nations come forward with net-zero strategies to align with their international climate targets, hydrogen has once again risen up the agenda from Australia and the UK through to Germany and Japan. In the most optimistic outlooks, hydrogen could soon power trucks, planes and ships. It could heat homes, balance electricity grids and help heavy industry to make everything from steel to cement. But doing all these things with hydrogen would require staggering quantities of the fuel, which is only as clean as the methods used to produce it. Moreover, for every potentially transformative application of hydrogen, there are unique challenges that must be overcome. In this in-depth Q&A – which includes a range of infographics, maps and interactive charts, as well as the views of dozens of experts – Carbon Brief examines the big questions around the “hydrogen economy” and looks at the extent to which it could help the world avoid dangerous climate change. Access full article here Fossil fuel emissions have stalled 14 November 2016, The Conversation, Fossil fuel emissions have stalled: Global Carbon Budget 2016. For the third year in a row, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry have barely grown, while the global economy has continued to grow strongly. This level of decoupling of carbon emissions from global economic growth is unprecedented.Global CO₂ emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and industry (including cement production) were 36.3 billion tonnes in 2015, the same as in 2014, and are projected to rise by only 0.2% in 2016 to reach 36.4 billion tonnes. This is a remarkable departure from emissions growth rates of 2.3% for the previous decade, and more than 3% during the 2000’s. Read More here Do you want to understand the complexity of energy systems which support our high consumption lifestyles? Most people don’t give too much thought to where their electricity comes from. Flip a switch, and the lights go on. That’s all. The origins of that energy, or how it actually got into our homes, is generally hidden from view. This link will take you to 11 maps which explain energy in America (it is typical enough as an example of a similar lifestyle as Australia – when I find maps for Oz I’ll add them in) e.g. above map showing the coal plants in the US. Source: Vox Explainers Mapped: how Germany generates its electricity – another example Power to the People – Lock the Gate looks back at the wins of 2015 And there’s lots more coming up in 2016. Some of the big priorities coming up next for the “Lock the Gate” movement are: If you want to give “Lock the Gate” your support – go here for more info This new report reveals that the pollution from Australia’s coal resources, particularly the enormous Galilee coal basin, could take us two-thirds of the way to a two degree rise in global temperature. To Read More and download report The 2006 UK government commissioned Stern Commission Review on the Economics of Climate Change is still the best complete appraisal of global climate change economics. The review broke new ground on climate change assessment in a number of ways. It made headlines by concluding that avoiding global climate change catastrophe was almost beyond our grasp. It also found that the costs of ignoring global climate change could be as great as the Great Depression and the two World Wars combined. The review was (still is) in fact a very good assessment of global climate change, which inferred in 2006 that the situation was a global emergency. Read More here The Garnaut Climate Change Review was commissioned by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments in 2007 to conduct an independent study of the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy. Prof. Garnaut presented The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report to the Australian Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers in September 2008 in which he examined how Australia was likely to be affected by climate change, and suggested policy responses. In November 2010, he was commissioned by the Australian Government to provide an update to the 2008 Review. In particular, he was asked to examine whether significant changes had occurred that would affect the analysis and recommendations from 2008. The final report was presented May 2011. Since then the Professor has regularly participated in the debate of fossil fuel reduction, as per his latest below: To access his reports; interviews; submissions go here 27 May 2015, Renew Economy, Garnaut: Cost of stranded assets already bigger than cost of climate action. This is one carbon budget that Australia has already blown. Economist and climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut has delivered a withering critique of Australia’s economic policies and investment patterns, saying the cost of misguided over-investment in the recent mining boom would likely outweigh the cost of climate action over the next few decades. Read More here Live generation of electricity by fuel type Fossil Fuel Subsidies – The Age of entitlement continues 24 June 2014, Renew Economy, Age of entitlement has not ended for fossil fuels: A new report from The Australia Institute exposes the massive scale of state government assistance, totalling $17.6 billion over a six-year period, not including significant Federal government support and subsidies. Queensland taxpayers are providing the greatest assistance by far with a total of $9.5 billion, followed by Western Australia at $6.2 billion. The table shows almost $18 billion dollars has been spent over the past 6 years by state governments, supporting some of Australia’s biggest, most profitable industries, which are sending most of the profits offshore. That’s $18 billion dollars that could have gone to vital public services such as hospitals, schools and emergency services. State governments are usually associated with the provision of essential services like health and education so it will shock taxpayers to learn of the massive scale of government handouts to the minerals and fossil fuel industries. This report shows that Australian taxpayers have been misled about the costs and benefits of this industry, which we can now see are grossly disproportionate. Each state provides millions of dollars’ worth of assistance to the mining industry every year, with the big mining states of Queensland and Western Australia routinely spending over one billion dollars in assistance annually. Read More here – access full report here What is fossil fuel divestment? Local Governments ready to divest Aligning Council Money With Council Values A Guide To Ensuring Council Money Isn’t Funding Climate Change. 350.org Australia – with the help of the incredible team at Earth Hour – has pulled together a simple 3-step guide for local governments interested in divestment. The movement to align council money with council values is constantly growing in Australia. It complements the existing work that councils are doing to shape a safe climate future. It can also help to reshape the funding practices of Australia’s fossil fuel funding banks. The steps are simple. The impact is huge.The guide can also be used by local groups who are interested in supporting their local government to divest as a step-by-step reference point. Access guide here How coal is staying in the ground in the US Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign May 2015, Politico, Michael Grunwald: The war on coal is not just political rhetoric, or a paranoid fantasy concocted by rapacious polluters. It’s real and it’s relentless. Over the past five years, it has killed a coal-fired power plant every 10 days. It has quietly transformed the U.S. electric grid and the global climate debate. The industry and its supporters use “war on coal” as shorthand for a ferocious assault by a hostile White House, but the real war on coal is not primarily an Obama war, or even a Washington war. It’s a guerrilla war. The front lines are not at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Supreme Court. If you want to see how the fossil fuel that once powered most of the country is being battered by enemy forces, you have to watch state and local hearings where utility commissions and other obscure governing bodies debate individual coal plants. You probably won’t find much drama. You’ll definitely find lawyers from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, the boots on the ground in the war on coal. Read More here Oil – conventional & unconventional May 2015, Oil change International Report: On the Edge: 1.6 Million Barrels per Day of Proposed Tar Sands Oil on Life Support. The Canadian tar sands is among the most carbon-intensive, highest-cost sources of oil in the world. Even prior to the precipitous drop in global oil prices late last year, three major projects were cancelled in the sector with companies unable to chart a profitable path forward. Since the collapse in global oil prices, the sector has been under pressure to make further cuts, leading to substantial budget cuts, job losses, and a much more bearish outlook on expansion projections in the coming years. Read full report here. For summary of report USA Sierra Club Beyond Oil Campaign Coal Seam Gas battle in Australia Lock the Gate Alliance is a national coalition of people from across Australia, including farmers, traditional custodians, conservationists and urban residents, who are uniting to protect our common heritage – our land, water and communities – from unsafe or inappropriate mining for coal seam gas and other fossil fuels. Read more about the missions and principles of Lock the Gate. Access more Lock the Gate videos here. Access Lock the Gate fact sheets here 2014: Parliament of Victoria Research Paper: Unconventional Gas: Coal Seam Gas, Shale Gas and Tight Gas: This Research Paper provides an introduction and overview of issues relevant to the development of unconventional gas – coal seam, shale and tight gas – in the Australian and specifically Victorian context. At present, the Victorian unconventional gas industry is at a very early stage. It is not yet known whether there is any coal seam gas or shale gas in Victoria and, if there is, whether it would be economically viable to extract it. A moratorium on fracking has been in place in Victoria since August 2012 while more information is gathered on potential environmental risks posed by the industry. The parts of Victoria with the highest potential for unconventional gas are the Gippsland and Otway basins. Notably, tight gas has been located near Seaspray in Gippsland but is not yet being produced. There is a high level of community concern in regard to the potential impact an unconventional gas industry could have on agriculture in the Gippsland and Otway regions. Industry proponents, however, assert that conventional gas resources are declining and Victoria’s unconventional gas resources need to be ascertained and developed. Read More here 28 January 2015, ABC News, Coal seam gas exploration: Victoria’s fracking ban to remain as Parliament probes regulations: A ban on coal seam gas (CSG) exploration will stay in place in Victoria until a parliamentary inquiry hands down its findings, the State Government has promised. There is a moratorium on the controversial mining technique, known as fracking, until the middle of 2015. The Napthine government conducted a review into CSG, headed by former Howard government minister Peter Reith, which recommended regulations around fracking be relaxed. Labor was critical of the review, claiming it failed to consult with farmers, environmental scientists and local communities. Read more here Keep up to date and how you can be involved here Friends of the Earth Melbourne Coal & Gas Free Victoria 20 May 2015, FoE, Inquiry into Unconventional Gas: Check here for details on the Victorian government’s Inquiry into unconventional gas. The public hearings have not yet started, however the Terms of Reference have been released. The state government’s promised Inquiry into Unconventional Gas has now been formally announced, with broad terms of reference (TOR). FoE’s response to the TOR is available here. The Upper House Environment and Planning Committee will manage the Inquiry. You can find the Inquiry website here. The final TOR will be determined by the committee. Significantly, it is a cross party committee. The Chair is a Liberal (David Davis), and there is one National (Melinda Bath), one Green (Samantha Dunn), three from the ALP (Gayle Tierney, Harriet Shing, Shaun Leane), an additional MP from the Liberals (Richard Dalla-Riva), and one MP from the Shooters Party (Daniel Young). Work started by the previous government, into water tables and the community consultation process run by the Primary Agency, will be released as part of the inquiry.The moratorium on unconventional gas exploration will stay in place until the inquiry delivers its findings. The interim report is due in September and the final report by December. There is the possibility that the committee will amend this timeline if they are overwhelmed with submissions or information. Parliament will then need to consider the recommendations of the committee and make a final decision about how to proceed. This is likely to happen when parliament resumes after the summer break, in early 2016. Quit Coal is a Melbourne-based collective that campaigns against the expansion of the coal and unconventional gas industries in Victoria. Quit Coal uses a range of tactics to tackle this problem. We advise the broader Victorian community about plans for new coal and unconventional gas projects, we put pressure on our government to stop investing in these projects, and we help to inform and mobilise Victorian communities so they can campaign on their own behalf. We focus on being strategic, creative, and as much as possible, fun! The above screen shot is of the Victorian State government’s Mining Licences Near Me site. Go to this link to see what is happening in your area Environment Victoria’s campaign CoalWatch is an interactive resource that tracks the coal industry’s expansion plans and helps builds a movement to stop these polluting developments. CoalWatch provides a way for everyday Victorians to keep track of the coal industry’s ambitious expansion plans. To check what tax-payer money has been pledged to brown coal projects and the coal projects industry is spruiking to our politicians. Here’s another map via EV website (go to their website and you should be able to get better detail from Google Maps: Red areas: Exploration licences (EL). These areas are held by companies to undertake exploration activity. A small bond is held by government in case of any damage. If a company wants to progress the project it needs to obtain a mining licence. Exploration Licence applications are marked with an asterix in the Places Index eg. EL4684*. Yellow areas: Mining Licences (MIN). A mining licence is granted with the expectation that mining will occur. A larger bond is paid to government. Green areas: Exploration licences that have been withdrawn or altered due to community concern. Green outline: Existing mines within Mining Licences. Purple areas: Geological Carbon Storage Exploration areas for carbon capture and storage. On-shore areas have been released by the State Government, while off-shore areas have been released by the Federal Government. The Coal Watch wiki tracks current and future Victorian coal projects, whether they are power stations, coal mines, proposals to export coal or some other inventive way of burning more coal. To get the full picture of coal in Victoria visit our wiki page. Get more info and see the full list of Exploration Licences current at 17 August 2012 here August 2015, Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis – powerpoint: Changing Dynamics in the Global Seaborne Thermal Coal Markets and Stranded Asset Risk. Information from one of the slides follows. To view full presentation go here Economic Implications for Australia 83% of Australian coal mines are foreign owned, hence direct leverage of fossil fuels to the ASX is relatively small at 1-2%. However, for Australia the exposure is high, time is needed for transition and the new industry opportunities are significant: 1. Energy Infrastructure: Australia spends $5-10bn pa on electricity / grid sector, much of it a regulated asset base that all ratepayers fund much of it stranded. BNEF estimate of Australia’s renewable energy infrastructure investment for 2015-2020 was cut 30% from A$20bn post RET. Lost opportunities. 2. Direct employment: The ABS shows a fall of ~20k from the 2012 peak of 70K from coal mining across Australia, and cuts are ongoing. Indirect employment material. 3. Terms of trade: BZE estimates the collapse in the pricing of iron ore, coal and LNG cuts A$100bn pa from Australia’s export revenues by 2030, a halving relative to government budget estimates of 2013/14. Coal was 25% of NSW’s total A$ value of exports in 2013/14 (38% of Qld). Australia will be #1 globally in LNG by 2018. 4. The financial sector: is leveraged to mining and associated rail port infrastructure. WICET 80% financed by banks, mostly Australian. Adani’s Abbot Point Port is foreign owned, but A$1.2bn of Australian sourced debt. Insurance firms and infrastructure funds are leveraged to fossil fuels vs little RE infrastructure assets. BBY! 5. Rehabilitation: $18bn of unfunded coal mining rehabilitation across Australia. 6. Economic growth: curtailed as Australia fails to develop low carbon industries. 
This graph, that Hochschild sourced from DBL Investors, shows the accumulated energy subsidies in the US under federal programs. Oil and gas dominate, followed by nuclear. Federal renewable energy subsidies, in the form of investment and tax credits, are a small fraction. “The fossil fuel industry hates to talk about that,” Hochschild told RenewEconomy in an interview after his presentation. “There is a myth around subsidies, but there is no such thing as an unsubsidised unit of energy.” Read More hereIn-depth Q&A: Does the world need hydrogen to solve climate change?
3 May 2016, Carbon Brief, The global coal trade doubled in the decade to 2012 as a coal-fueled boom took hold in Asia. Now, the coal trade seems to have stalled, or even gone into reverse. This change of fortune has devastated the coal mining industry, with Peabody – the world’s largest private coal-mining company – the latest of 50 US firms to file for bankruptcy. It could also be a turning point for the climate, with the continued burning of coal the biggest difference between business-as-usual emissions and avoiding dangerous climate change. Carbon Brief has produced a series of maps and interactive charts to show how the global coal trade is changing. As well as providing a global overview, we focus on a few key countries: Read More here/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3915730/EIA%20coal%20power%20plants.png)
21 April 2015, Climate Council, Will Steffen: Unburnable Carbon: Why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.Stern Commission Review
Australia’s Garnaut Review
November 2014 – The Fossil Fuel Bailout: G20 subsidies for oil, gas and coal exploration report: Governments across the G20 countries are estimated to be spending $88 billion every year subsidising exploration for fossil fuels. Their exploration subsidies marry bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the development of oil, gas and coal reserves that cannot be exploited if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. This report documents, for the first time, the scale and structure of fossil fuel exploration subsidies in the G20 countries. The evidence points to a publicly financed bailout for carbon-intensive companies, and support for uneconomic investments that could drive the planet far beyond the internationally agreed target of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 2ºC. It finds that, by providing subsidies for fossil fuel exploration, the G20 countries are creating a ‘triple-lose’ scenario. They are directing large volumes of finance into high-carbon assets that cannot be exploited without catastrophic climate effects. They are diverting investment from economic low-carbon alternatives such as solar, wind and hydro-power. And they are undermining the prospects for an ambitious climate deal in 2015. Access full report here For the summary on Australia’s susidisation of it’s fossil fuel industry go to page 51 of the report. The report said that the United States and Australia paid the highest level of national subsidies for exploration in the form of direct spending or tax breaks. Overall, G20 country spending on national subsidies was $23 billion. In Australia, this includes exploration funding for Geoscience Australia and tax deductions for mining and petroleum exploration. The report also classifies the Federal Government’s fuel rebate program for resources companies as a subsidy.
