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 28 September 2017, Australian Institute, Climate outliers: Australia and Turkey the only developed nations breaking emissions records. The Australia Institute’s new Climate & Energy Program has released the National Energy Emissions Audit. The Audit, compiled by renowned energy specialist Dr Hugh Saddler, provides a comprehensive, up-to-date indication of key greenhouse gas and energy trends in Australia. “The report finds, disturbingly, that Australia’s annual emissions from energy use have increased to their highest ever level, higher than the previous peak seen eight years ago, in 2009,” Dr Saddler said. “Australia’s failure to invest in efficient transport infrastructure, such as rail, has led to emissions from transport fuels continuing to grow, again, unlike the rest of the developed world. “The continued rise in fuel emissions demonstrates why requiring a reduction for the electricity sector that is only equal to the Paris target would likely see Australia fail to meet its international commitment,” Dr Saddler said. Key findings: 6 September 2017, IOL Motoring The hydrogen vs battery car debate is far from over. London – With hybrid and full electric cars now becoming mainstream, it may seem as though the early debate between hydrogen and battery power is over. But batteries have considerable drawbacks. They’re heavy, they’re expensive, they require the extensive use of rare earth metals, and the production of lithium-ion batteries is itself an energy-intensive process that creates considerable emissions. Despite the progress made in EV technology, most car companies are predicting it will be a long time before batteries become dramatically cheaper or lighter than they are today. Speaking to investors last year, Stefan Juraschek, vice president of electric-powertrain development at BMW, said the car maker needed to “walk through the valley of tears” of funding highly costly research and development in order to make significant progress on battery power. Electric cars require energy straight out of the mains, which could come from power plants that are not using renewable technology. In Tesla’s home state of California, 60% of electricity was provided by coal and gas power stations in 2015, while only 14% came from wind and solar. China is investing more in renewables than any other nation yet derived roughly 72% of its electricity from coal power in 2014. In a hydrogen fuel cell car (FCEV), electric motors power the wheels but the energy is supplied through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel cell. Unlike the rare and heavy components needed to build a battery, hydrogen is the most abundant and lightest element in the known universe although it is worth noting that hydrogen drivetrains also require rare materials. Read More here 4 September 2017, One Step Off the Grid, Community retailer Enova to buy and sell rooftop solar power, Australia’s first community-owned energy retailer, the Northern Rivers NSW-based Enova Energy, will soon offer customers locally generated rooftop solar power, as part of its goal of producing enough renewable electricity to meet all of its customers’ needs. In a statement released late last week, the company said it would now purchase excess rooftop solar generation from its customers, as well as from local community solar farms and gardens, to sell on to other customers who wanted access to solar power, but could not generate it themselves. The new scheme, which Enova says could meet just under half of existing customer requirements, comes less than two months after the retailer boosted its solar feed-in tariff by 33 per cent, to 16c/kWh. “Using solar supplies such as (the new 18kW system on our own office rooftop in Byron Bay) ….we can now supply locally generated renewable energy to people who don’t own their own solar panels,“ Enova said in a statement late last week. “Enova can meet approximately 40% of existing user requirements with this locally generated renewable energy.” The retailer said that it was also introducing new energy plans to allow customers to access the community generated solar. Read More here 31 August 2017, Renew Economy, Turnbull’s new energy target: Drop the “clean” and ignore climate. The Turnbull government’s draft outline of a clean energy target reportedly attempts to divorce the mechanism from emission reduction trajectories, in the latest sign of the Coalition’s commitment to coal and its attempts to put the brakes on a rapid transition to a renewables-based grid. According to a report in the Guardian on Thursday, a draft document circulated by energy minister Josh Frydenberg’s office to COAG energy ministers last Friday attempts to water down the already weak climate ambitions of the Finkel review, which recommended a CET be adopted. According to the Guardian, the draft removes a key recommendation for an agreed emissions trajectory for the electricity system, and even removes recommendations for subsidised solar and batteries for low-income houses. The Finkel report itself was considered to be a sop to the climate deniers, because it took into account only the target set in place by the Abbott government – a 26-28 per cent reduction by 2030 which is widely considered to be completely inadequate to meet the Paris goals of capping global warming “well below” 2°C. The Finkel Review envisaged that the share of renewable energy in Australia might rise to 42 per cent by 2030, but that coal would still be supplying power as late as 2070 – decades beyond where most climate scientists consider it safe to do so. But while the government has adopted 49 of the 50 Finkel recommendations, the introduction of a CET has caused a blockage, principally because it would provide no financial incentive to build new coal. The revelations from the Guardian came as Turnbull back-tracked on comments earlier in the week about the government’s desire for a new coal-fired generator. After saying on Monday he had no plans to build a new coal plant, Turnbull told media after a meeting with utility CEOs – who all think the idea of a new coal plant is ridiculous – that the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility may still invest in a new facility. Read More here 25 November 2019, The Guardian. Scott Morrison and the big lie about climate change: does he think we’re that stupid? f all the horrors that might befall the burnt-out, the flooded, the cyclone-ravaged and the drought-stricken Australian this summer, perhaps none could be viewed with more dread than turning from their devastated home to see advancing on them a bubble of media in which enwombed is our prime minister, Scott Morrison, arriving, as ever, too late with a cuddle…. In Australia we are all now being treated as children, quietened Australians, most especially on the climate crisis. While the climate crisis has become Australians’ number one concern, both major parties play determinedly deaf and dumb on the issue while action and protest about the climate crisis is increasingly subject to prosecution and heavy sentencing…. In this regard, the climate crisis is a war between the voice of coal and the voice of the people. And that war is in Australia being won hands down by the fossil fuel industry. Which brings us back to that industry’s number one salesman, the prime minister, standing there in the ash in the manner of Humphrey B Bear on MDMA, as, mollied up, he pulls another victim in the early stages of PTSD into his shirt, his odour, his aura – such as it is – and holds them there perhaps just a little too long. Sometimes, at his most perplexing, he lets that overly large head loll on the victim’s shoulder and leaves it there. Prayers and thoughts naturally follow….All this theatre hides a deeply cynical calculation: that Australians will keep on buying the big lie, a lie given historic expression last Thursday morning when on national radio the prime minister declared that Australia’s unprecedented bushfires were unconnected to climate change…. And on this day, when Sydney was blanketed in bushfire smoke, when much of Victoria was declared code red, fires were burning out of control in South Australia, and “climate emergency” was declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, Morrison said that “to suggest that at just 1.3% of emissions, that Australia doing something more or less would change the fire outcome this season – I don’t think that stands up to any credible scientific evidence at all”. This is an argument entirely in bad faith. Two days before saw the release of a major UN report that forecast Australia to be the sixth-largest producer of fossil fuels by 2030. Between 2005 and 2030 Australia’s extraction-based emissions from fossil fuel production will have increased by 95%. By 2040, according to the report, on current projections the world’s annual carbon emissions will be 41 gigatonnes, four times more than the maximum amount of 10 gigatonnes required to keep global heating below 1.5C. Read more here 14 November 219, Renew Economy, Australia set to lie with some strange bedfellows at Madrid climate talks. Australia is likely to find itself relying on some unlikely alliances at the next round of international climate talks to be held in Madrid next month, as the Morrison government faces opposition from a large portion of the international community on the carryover of surplus Kyoto units. As part of the plan to meet Australia’s 26 to 28 per cent emissions reduction goal by 2030, the Morrison government is relying on being able to carry over credit from its 2020 Kyoto Protocol target into the Paris Agreement, to shortcut the amount of greenhouse emissions reductions it will need to achieve. International cooperation on climate change is at a crucial transition point with the previous Kyoto Protocol treaty, which has been in effect since 2008, coming to an end in 2020 when the Paris Agreement comes into force, effectively replacing the Kyoto Protocol. A key area of contention for the COP25 talks in Madrid will be negotiations around the rules for emissions accounting and international cooperation. Read more here 5 November 2019, The Conversation. Scott Morrison wants to outlaw boycott campaigns. But the mining industry doesn’t need protection. On Friday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed to craft new laws targeting social and political protest. Speaking to the Queensland Resources Council, he labelled some activist groups as environmental “anarchists”, and lamented how businesses like banks might be sensitive to consumer or protest group pressure to limit dealings with the mining industry. These laws could ban activists from advocating for certain boycotts against companies. Morrison lambasted progressives, saying they: want to tell you where to live, what job you can have, what you can say and what you can think – and tax you more for the privilege of all of those instructions. Boycott laws already exist. The first thing to note is there is no proposal on the table. Morrison merely warned his government was: working to identify mechanisms that can successfully outlaw these indulgent and selfish practices. The existing law on boycotts has been driven by conservative governments. In the 1970s, the Fraser government sought to crack down on “secondary boycotts”, with stiff provisions in trade practices or competition law. Morrison also specifically invoked “secondary boycotts” in his speech. Read more here 1 November 2019, Renew Economy. Taylor’s ‘expert panel’ in search of emissions reductions shuts out clean energy sector. The ‘expert panel’ to which the Morrison government has delegated responsibility for searching out new sources emissions reductions this week, has effectively shut out the clean energy sector from its secret consultation process. This week, details emerged that federal minister for energy and emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, had stacked the ‘expert panel’, government reps and led by a pair with close ties to the fossil fuel sector. The ‘Expert Panel Examining Opportunities for Further Abatement’ has released a discussion paper, which flags the desire of the Morrison Government to use its rebranded Climate Solutions Fund to eke out additional emissions reduction, in an acknowledgement that the government is not on track to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target. Read more here 24 October 2023, Reuters: Meltdown of West Antarctic Ice Sheet unavoidable, study says. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet will continue to melt this century regardless of how much the world slashes planet-warming emissions, research from the British Antarctic Survey has found, locking in further sea level rise over the coming decades. The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday, found no matter the degree of warming this century, the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will speed up as warmer water in the Amundsen Sea erodes ice shelves bordering the ocean. These ice shelves buttress ice further inland, acting as a cork in a bottle that stops their flow into the ocean. Even under the best-case scenario of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) of warming above pre-industrial levels, ice would melt three times faster this century than it did last century. “Reducing emissions can help to prevent the worst-case scenario of melting, but beyond that mitigation has a negligible impact,” said lead author Kaitlin Naughten, an ocean-ice modeller at the British Antarctic Survey. “It appears we may have lost control”. The collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of nine global climate ‘tipping points’ scientists identified in 2009. The passing of these environmental red lines would be catastrophic for life on Earth. An international team of scientists said in 2022 we may already have passed the point of no return for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet at just 1.1 Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels. If the ice sheet were to fully melt, average global sea levels would rise by more than a metre. Read more here 20 October 2023, Climate Home News: World Bank controversy sends loss and damage talks into overtime. Developing countries are outraged by a proposal to host a climate loss and damage fund at the World Bank, painting it as a US power grab. The president of the next UN climate summit, Cop28, has told government negotiators they must agree how to set up a new loss and damage fund before leaving the Egyptian city of Aswan. The United Arab Emirates’ Sultan Al Jaber addressed the 24 members of the transitional committee by video link on Friday morning, the last official day of talks. At Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, governments tasked the committee with working out what a new loss and damage fund for climate victims should look like and present their proposals to Cop28 in November. The fund is supposed to channel money to people who have suffered loss and damage caused by climate change. This could mean rebuilding homes after a hurricane or supporting farmers displaced by recurrent drought. Failure to reach consensus risks delaying support to those in need. But developing countries were incensed by a proposal to host the fund at the World Bank, painting it as a US power grab. And rich-poor divides persisted on how to define the “vulnerable” groups eligible for funds and who gets to control spending. Al Jaber accused the negotiators of dragging their feet and told them not to leave this task to ministers. “I expect you to deliver,” he said. “If I don’t see real and tangible results, that will not be acceptable.” Read more here 18 October 2023 The Conversation: Slow solutions to fast-moving ecological crises won’t work – changing basic human behaviours must come first. As the world grapples with multiple ecological crises, it’s clear the various responses over the past half century have largely failed. Our new research argues the priority now should be addressing the real driver of these crises – our own maladaptive behaviours. For at least five decades, scientists have worked to understand and document how human demands exceed Earth’s regenerative capacity, causing “ecological overshoot”. Those warnings of the threats posed by the overshoot’s many symptoms, including climate change, were perhaps naive. They assumed people and governments would respond logically to existential threats by drastically changing behaviours. The young researchers in the 1970s who published the Limits to Growth computer models showed graphically what would happen over the next century if business-as-usual economic growth continued. Their models predicted the ecological and social disasters we are witnessing now. Once people saw the results of the research, the authors believed, they would understand the trajectory the world was on and reduce consumption accordingly. Instead, they saw their work dismissed and business-as-usual play out. The behavioural crisis. During these past five decades, there have been innumerable reports, speeches and data, ever more strident in their predictions. Yet there has been no change in the economic growth trajectory. Read more here 2 October 2023, The Conversation: Too hard basket: why climate change is defeating our political system. When I was first asked to write an opening piece in The Conversation’s series on climate change and the energy transition, I wanted to say no. I didn’t want to think about what I and anyone else who has been paying attention knows is coming; not just next summer, which is likely to be a scorcher like the one the northern hemisphere has just endured, but in the summers after that for centuries to come. It may already be too late to save the world as we know it. Coral reefs, low-lying atolls and coastal strips, glaciers, Arctic summer sea ice, will all likely be gone in the near future with predictable and unpredictable consequences for the life that depends on them, including ours. Or should I write “be under threat” instead of “likely be gone”, to soften the story? No, already there has been too much softening and taking comfort in uncertainty. The focus on rising temperatures itself makes the future seem more benign than it’s likely to be. What is a degree or two warmer here or there on a linear graph? But linear graphs are not the main story. The main story is Earth’s complex climate systems, and the risk that the continuing burning of fossil fuels is pushing some systems towards tipping points, including the way ocean and atmospheric currents move heat and moisture around the globe, with unpredictable cascades of non-linear consequences. The climate scientist, the late Will Steffen explained there is a point at which Earth’s cascading feedbacks drive it past a global threshold and irreversibly into a much hotter state. This is the biggest risk, and it is existential. The Albanese government’s softly-softly response. The Albanese Labor government is not denying the risk. In his 2023 Intergenerational Report Treasurer Jim Chalmers included climate change as one of the five major forces affecting future wellbeing. It’s one among many, and the emphasis is on the economic opportunities and jobs offered by the energy transformation. This downplays both the risk and the changes needed to combat it. Chief Climate Councillor Tim Flannery said: Climate dwarfs everything else in this report. If we don’t fix it, nothing else matters. Media commentary, however, has been mostly about the consequences of an ageing population. Soon after it assumed office, the new Labor government ordered a climate and security risk analysis. This has now happened, undertaken by the Office of National Assessments (ONI) and delivered to the government in late 2022. But you wouldn’t know it. The analysis has not been released, and there is no indication it will be. Since then the government has barely said a word about the ONI findings or about climate security risks, although it has said plenty about the risk we face if, as seems likely, China supplants the United States as the dominant power in our region. 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.
In-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.
