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 22 May 2017, One Step Off the Grid, Queensland govt kicks off solar trial for low-income, rental households. A Queensland government-funded scheme to use rooftop solar to cut the electricity costs of low income regional households – as well its half a million rental households – has begun being rolled out in the state’s south-east, with plans to extend the trial throughout the state. The public housing solar scheme, announced in March, kicked off in the suburbs of Logan late last week, in the first phase of installations of up to 6MW of solar PV on up to 4000 rooftops across Queensland. State energy minister Mark Bailey said the aim of the trial was to investigate innovative ways to enable public housing tenants in detached government-owned houses to access the benefits of rooftop solar. In Woodridge, alone, nearly 2000 eligible public housing tenants managed through Logan City’s Woodridge Housing Service Centre would be eligible for the scheme. Meanwhile, the Palaszczuk government is calling for expressions of interest from solar PV suppliers to support the trial in Rockhampton and Cairns. Queensland is not the only state or local government to trial and fund schemes like this. The City of Adelaide launched its “Solar Savers” initiative in April 2016, in an effort to remove the usual upfront costs of installing rooftop solar on rented and low-income households, and provide tenants with a long-term payment plan. The ACT launched a $2 million low-income solar scheme in July 2016, open to eligible households, wishing to install rooftop PV but unable to afford the upfront investment. And in NSW, a number of NGO-led and CEFC-backed schemes have sought to build new, highly energy efficient public housing with rooftop solar included. Read More here 15 May 2017, Climate Home, India and China ‘on track to exceed Paris climate pledges’. With downgraded outlooks for coal use, India and China are set to beat their pledges to the Paris climate agreement, according to an updated analysis of their climate policies. Just as coal plants are cancelled in the two largest emerging economies, in the US, the Trump administration has started to roll back regulations designed to constrict emissions. But analysis released by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) on the sidelines of a UN climate meeting in Bonn, Germany found policies in India and China would more than outweigh slower emissions reductions in the US. The growth in global emissions has stalled in recent years, thanks mainly to reduced consumption of coal in China. “This has been attributed partially to structural changes in the Chinese economy, but also a continued policy drive to reduce coal use to both combat air pollution and climate change,” said Dr Yvonne Deng, a consultant scientist at Ecofys, one of a group of organisations that contributes to the CAT project. Deng said it was unclear whether the last three years of coal data in China was “merely a pause in the steady growth, or whether this is a sign of China having reached its peak in coal consumption”. Earlier this year, China cancelled construction plans for 103 coal power stations. If it turned out to be a sustained decline, she said, the country’s annual emissions in 2030 could be 1-2 gigatonnes lower than CAT predicted at this time last year. China’s current emissions are between 11 and 12Gt a year. Read More here 7 April 2017, The Conversation, The stampede of wind farm complaints that never happened. National Wind Farm Commissioner, Andrew Dyer, has just released his much anticipated first annual report. In its first year of operation until the end of 2016, the National Wind Farm Commissioner says his office received: 46 complaints relating to nine operating wind farms (there were 76 operational wind farms in Australian in 2015) The commissioner’s office closed 67 or these 90 complaints, with the remaining 23 complaints still in process. Of the 67 now-closed complaints, the office closed 31 because the complainant did not progress their complaint. This suggests these complaints were minor. The office closed the file on another 32 after it sent complainants more information about their complaints. This leaves only four, which the report describes two as being settled after negotiations between the parties, and two given the ambiguous category of “other”. These figures are frankly astonishing. The complaint investigating mechanism was set up after a Senate enquiry report that cost undisclosed millions to deal with a “massive” problem with wind turbines. But the hordes of people who apparently needed a way to help them resolve matters have now gone shy. Chair of the Senate Committee on Wind Turbines was ex-Senator John Madigan, a public critic of wind farms. Read More here 5 April 2017, Reuters, ANALYSIS-Trump declares end to “war on coal,” but utilities aren’t listening. Most U.S. power companies have no plans to alter their years-long shift away from coal. When President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week to sweep away Obama-era climate change regulations, he said it would end America’s “war on coal”, usher in a new era of energy production and put miners back to work. But the biggest consumers of U.S. coal – power generating companies – remain unconvinced. Reuters surveyed 32 utilities with operations in the 26 states that sued former President Barack Obama’s administration to block its Clean Power Plan, the main target of Trump’s executive order. The bulk of them have no plans to alter their multi-billion dollar, years-long shift away from coal, suggesting demand for the fuel will keep falling despite Trump’s efforts. The utilities gave many reasons, mainly economic: Natural gas – coal’s top competitor – is cheap and abundant; solar and wind power costs are falling; state environmental laws remain in place; and Trump’s regulatory rollback may not survive legal challenges. Meanwhile, big investors aligned with the global push to fight climate change – such as the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund – have been pressuring U.S. utilities in which they own stakes to cut coal use. “I’m not going to build new coal plants in today’s environment,” said Ben Fowke, CEO of Xcel Energy, which operates in eight states and uses coal for about 36 percent of its electricity production. “And if I’m not going to build new ones, eventually there won’t be any.” Of the 32 utilities contacted by Reuters, 20 said Trump’s order would have no impact on their investment plans; five said they were reviewing the implications of the order; six gave no response. Just one said it would prolong the life of some of its older coal-fired power units. North Dakota’s Basin Electric Power Cooperative was the sole utility to identify an immediate positive impact of Trump’s order on the outlook for coal. “We’re in the situation where the executive order takes a lot of pressure off the decisions we had to make in the near term, such as whether to retrofit and retire older coal plants,” said Dale Niezwaag, a spokesman for Basin Electric. “But Trump can be a one-termer, so the reprieve out there is short.” Trump’s executive order triggered a review aimed at killing the Clean Power Plan. The Obama-era law would have required states, by 2030, to collectively cut carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels. It was designed as a primary strategy in U.S. efforts to fight global climate change. The U.S. coal industry, without increases in domestic demand, would need to rely on export markets for growth. Shipments of U.S. metallurgical coal, used in the production of steel, have recently shown up in China following a two-year hiatus – in part to offset banned shipments from North Korea and temporary delays from cyclone-hit Australian producers.RETIRING AND RETROFITTING Coal had been the primary fuel source for U.S. power plants for the last century, but its use has fallen more than a third since 2008 after advancements in drilling technology unlocked new reserves of natural gas. Hundreds of aging coal-fired power plants have been retired or retrofitted. Huge coal mining companies like Peabody Energy Corp and Arch Coal fell into bankruptcy, and production last year hit its lowest point since 1978. Read More here 13 May 2019, Renew Economy, Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in Australia. New analysis commissioned by the International Monetary Fund has shown that global fossil fuel subsidies continue to grow, despite the growing urgency of the need to decarbonise the global economy. The working paper prepared by the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department estimated that, in 2017, global fossil fuel subsidies grew to $5.2 trillion, representing 6.5 per cent of combined global GDP. China leads all countries in the level of subsidies provided to fossil fuels, which the IMF report estimated to total $1.4 trillion in 2015. The United States followed with $649 billion in subsidies, Russia with $551 billion and the EU with $289 billion. The IMF estimates that annual energy subsidies in Australia total $29 billion, representing 2.3 per cent of Australian GDP. On a per capita basis, Australian fossil fuel subsidies amount to $1,198 per person. Australia ranked below most countries for mortality rate from pollution related illnesses, with the IMF attributing 2.6 deaths per 1,000 in Australia to local air pollution associated with fossil fuels. This is less than half the rate observed in China (5.3 deaths per 1,000) and significantly below Russia (10.0 deaths per 1,000) and the Ukraine (16.0 deaths per 1,000), where little by way of regulation exists to protect people from air pollution. The IMF found that the removal of fossil fuel subsidies would have significant economic benefits, including improved budget bottom-lines for governments. The net benefits of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies would amount to 1.7 per cent of global GDP. Read more here 20 March 2019, Desmog Global Banks, Led by JPMorgan Chase, Invested $1.9 Trillion in Fossil Fuels Since Paris Climate Pact. A report published today names the banks that have played the biggest recent role in funding fossil fuel projects, finding that since 2016, immediately following the Paris Agreement’s adoption, 33 global banks have poured $1.9 trillion into financing climate-changing projects worldwide. The top four banks that invested most heavily in fossil fuel projects are all based in the U.S., and include JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America. Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays in Europe, Japan’s MUFG, TD Bank, Scotiabank, and Mizuho make up the remainder of the top 10. This report comes as March has already brought deadly weather to places such as the American Midwest, where historic flooding has left four dead and farm losses could reach $1 billion, and Mozambique, where Tropical Cyclone Idai has devastated the East African country and President Filipe Nyusi estimated that more than a thousand people are likely dead. Both disasters have been linked to climate change. “Increased flooding is one of the clearest signals of a changing climate,” said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in a statement published by ThinkProgress, adding that flooded Nebraska’s “current trauma is part of everyone’s future.” Read more here
14 March 2019, Climate Home News, US and Saudi Arabia block geoengineering governance push. The US and Saudi Arabia blocked a Swiss push to develop geoengineering governance at the UN Environment Assembly this week.Switzerland withdrew its resolution at the summit in Kenya on Wednesday evening, after several failed attempts at compromise, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), an observer organisation, reported in a summary of the talks. The proposal would have directed the UN agency to study controversial geoengineering technologies, as a first step towards discussing if and how they should be regulated internationally. But the US and Saudi Arabia opposed any move that could crimp their ability to tackle climate change through geoengineering – and continue producing fossil fuels, according to two sources observing the negotiations, who asked not to be named. Brazil also voiced opposition, but less forcibly, they said.Read more here 4 March 2019, Renew Economy, Scientists slap down Australia government over fake climate claims. Perhaps it was federal energy minister Angus Taylor repeatedly declaring on Sunday’s ABC Insiders program that national emissions were “coming down,” and that Australia would meet its Paris climate targets “in a canter.” Perhaps it was the looming federal election and a feeling that now, more than ever, our most senior politicians should be held to account for what they say about such globally significant issues as climate change. Perhaps it is because at the close of Australia’s hottest summer on record, Victoria is now burning through its hottest start to autumn in 30 years. Whatever the trigger, the nation’s leading climate and energy experts have had enough. A group of 28 climate scientists, academics and former heads of energy companies on Monday released a joint statement to correct the record, and remove any ambiguity on the subject: – Australia is NOT on track to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target; – Even if it was (it’s not), the target itself is woefully inadequate for what science says must be done to avert dangerous climate change. Read more here 8 August 2023, Climate Home News: Metals bosses enjoy front row seat at UN deep-sea mining negotiations. Dozens of mining industry representatives joined government negotiating teams at high-stakes United Nations talks charting the future of controversial deep-sea mining last month. Climate Home News identified at least 33 executives and employees of companies directly involved in the nascent deep-sea mining industry on the list of state delegations at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) annual meeting. The little-known UN agency is tasked with setting the rules for the extraction of minerals found on the vast ocean floor in international waters. No such activity is currently taking place at commercial level yet. But this year’s summit came at a pivotal moment, as any member state could now theoretically apply for a mining contract on behalf of a company. That is after a deadline to establish mining rules triggered by the island-nation of Nauru lapsed earlier in July. The meeting pitted a handful of countries pushing for the ISA to introduce regulations and issue permits against a growing coalition calling for a halt to operations until the full environmental impacts are known. Mining companies claim that minerals like nickel and cobalt extracted from polymetallic nodules lying on the seabed are needed in batteries and will help speed up the energy transition. An area of the Pacific Ocean floor known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone, which is under the control of the ISA, contains a high concentration of the golf ball-sized nodules. Read more here 2 August 2023, The Guardian: Australia is not being ‘singled out’ by Unesco’s in-danger recommendation for the Great Barrier Reef. Australia has the wealth, technology and resources to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Until this happens, it is not doing all it can to protect the reef. The latest update from Unesco on the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area has been widely misreported as a decision to not place the reef on the world heritage “in danger” list. In reality, Unesco has simply postponed the next consideration of an in-danger listing until the 2024 meeting of the world heritage committee. Unesco has acknowledged some recent improvements reported to them by the commonwealth and Queensland governments, such as a promised ban on gill nets as well as some additional investments in culling starfish and small-scale reef restoration. But buried deep within the diplomatic language of Unesco’s latest assessment is an acknowledgment of the slow speed of progress being made on meeting targets for reducing coastal pollution, and of Australia’s inadequate responses to the escalating impacts of climate change. Read more here August 2023, Climate Council: POWDER KEG: AUSTRALIA PRIMED TO BURN. Australia has long been referred to as a land of “drought and flooding rains”, prone to bushfires as well as intense rainfall events. Periods of hot, dry, windy weather have regularly dried out vegetation and made it susceptible to ignition, alternating with prolonged wet periods that have promoted rapid and widespread vegetation growth. Climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil, and gas, is worsening these extreme weather events (IPCC 2021a). The Black Summer bushfires in 2019-2020, as well as the record-breaking Great Deluge of 2022— both of which claimed lives, livelihoods, property and crops—were exacerbated by climate change (see, for example, Binskin et al. 2020; Climate Council 2022). For the past three years, Australia has experienced wetter than average conditions, with record-breaking rainfall and floods across New South Wales (NSW), Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania (BoM 2022). This has been due to a rare ‘protracted’ La Niña event together with a negative phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole and a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode. Given the years of rainfall since Black Summer, it is reasonable to expect that fire risk may have slipped from the Australian public’s consciousness. However, very wet periods often make fire services nervous, because they are a double-edged sword. On one hand, rain keeps vegetation wet, reducing the likelihood of ignition and limiting fire spread during the wet period. On the other hand, it leads to prolific growth, even in ‘desert’ areas that typically have insufficient vegetation to pose any fire risk. The wet weather also limits the ability of land managers and fire services to carry out fire prevention and mitigation works, for example, hazard reduction burning cannot be carried out during wet conditions. When wet weather inevitably gives way to hot, dry conditions, light grasses and shrubs die and dry out and we are then left with more vegetation available to burn. Read more here 1 August 2023, The Conversation: Antarctica is missing a chunk of sea ice bigger than Greenland – what’s going on? Deadly heatwaves, raging wildfires and record global temperatures are upon us. But far from the flames, at the southernmost tip of the planet, something just as shocking is unfolding. It’s Antarctic winter, a time when the area of floating sea ice around the continent should be rapidly expanding. This year though, the freeze-up has been happening in slow motion. After reaching a record low minimum extent this summer there is now an area of open ocean bigger than Greenland. If the “missing” sea ice were a country, it’d be the tenth largest in the world. Who cares about Antarctic sea ice? In the face of more immediate climate concerns, why does Antarctic sea ice matter? Floating sea ice is a pivotal climate puzzle piece. Without it, global temperatures would be warmer because its bright, white surface acts like a mirror, reflecting the sun’s energy back to space. This keeps the Antarctic – and by extension, the planet – cool. Antarctic sea ice also plays a particularly important role in controlling ocean currents and may act as a buffer that protects floating ice shelves and glaciers from collapsing and adding to global sea levels. In short, the loss of Antarctic sea ice matters for the whole planet. Southern sea ice: a short history. Every year Antarctic sea ice undergoes a transformation: from its summer minimum in February, its area increases more than sixfold during the winter freeze-up which reaches its height in September. A clear way to monitor the health of Antarctic sea ice is to track these peaks and troughs. Records began in 1979 and until 2015, the yearly average extent of frozen sea around Antarctica was increasing ever so slightly. Yet in the past seven years, Antarctic sea ice has changed dramatically. 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
Germany’s “Energiewende”, which translates as energy transition, conjures up images of bright, sunlit fields scattered with wind turbines and solar panels. But to its critics, it is a story of continued reliance on coal. Both stories are illustrated in Carbon Brief’s new interactive map of Germany’s electricity generating capacity. Our series of charts show how the coal problem reveals the challenge of decarbonising heat, transport and industry – issues that have remained largely hidden in countries such as the UK. Carbon Brief has also published a timeline tracking the history of the Energiewende and the German government’s attempts to secure its future. German energy in 2016 In common with many other rich nations, Germany’senergy use is in decline, even as its economy grows. (There have been ups and downs: the first half of 2016 saw energy use increase by nearly 2% year-on-year). Germany used 320 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2015, the same amount as in 1975. UK energy use has fallen even further, and is now at 1960s levels. (To clarify, this is referring to all energy used by the countries, not just electricity.) Oil overtook coal as Germany’s number one fuel in the early 1970s and today accounts for more than a third of the total. Coal use roughly halved between 1965 and 2000. Yet it has remained relatively flat since then and still supplies more energy than all low-carbon sources combined. Access interactive map and breakdown of energy sources here
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.