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Category Archives: Environment

Plan to dump eight toxic oil platforms off Gippsland

Friends of the Earth Media Release

Threat from mercury, lead & radioactive waste pollution

A multinational fossil fuel company has applied to the federal government to dump the majority of eight offshore oil platforms into Bass Strait close to the Gippsland coast in Victoria.

Esso, which is owned by Woodside and ExxonMobil, wants to remove the topsides of the platforms before cutting the massive pylons, or jackets, and dumping them into the ocean.

The eight facilities are among 13 that need to be decommissioned in coming years.

They have been found to contain high levels of asbestos, mercury, lead and other heavy metals, as well as thousands of tonnes of hazardous radioactive waste, technically enhanced and worsened in the extraction process*.

Esso says that they will be creating so-called artificial reefs, but the level of toxins and radioactivity in the resulting sea life is likely to be high, given recent studies.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) is calling on the government to immediately reject the application, and to force the company to safely and responsibly remove all of the steel and other recyclable materials from the facilities.

Friends of the Earth Offshore Fossil Gas campaigner Jeff Waters says Esso is being deceptive, because it’s “rigs to reef” scheme is nothing but an attempt to save money.

“Esso has to rent a European decommissioning ship, so they are rushing to complete the Bass Strait decommissioning in one season,” Jeff Waters said.

“If they were to be forced to recycle the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of perfectly good steel, they’d need to hire such a ship over several years.”

“Esso’s toxic fish factory has to be stopped.”

“They’re using scientific studies that they paid for to justify turning the ocean off Gippsland into a toxic dump,” Waters said.

”Those retired oil platforms contain huge amounts of mercury and hazardous radioactive waste, which will poison the areas around them and render the sea life too dangerous to consume.”

“It’s also a waste of perfectly good steel that could be recycled and turned into much-needed wind turbine towers and bases.”

Friends of the Earth is also calling on the Victorian government to intervene.

“The state government needs steel to build wind turbine towers and bases,” Jeff Waters said.

“The state government should be picking up the phone to their federal colleagues today and demanding that this steel be recycled.

Friends of the Earth is calling on the government to extend the existing temporary decommissioning levy to force the oil and methane industry to pay for world-standard onshore breaking and recycling facilities.

FoE has also launched a new website and petition that can be signed at RecycleTheRigs.org

 

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What are the spiders trying to tell us?

Change can be gradual, or it can be sudden.

Either way, we humans are usually prepared for it. We’ve seen it coming. We’ve been warned.

Our technology and mass forms of communication keep us in touch with the progress of a changing planet.

We know when a pandemic is on our doorstep. We know when the weather is changing. We know if an asteroid is hurtling towards us. We know the likelihood of conflict in faraway places. We know when new laws are being introduced and how they will affect us (good or bad).

No matter what it is, someone is always on hand to tell us.

But who tells the animals we share the planet with? My guess, nobody. They work it out themselves.

And then they tell us. But who listens?

What of their world?

Let’s take a look at one part of their world, to them, their only world: my backyard.

This world is a green one: filled with trees, shrubs, bushes, flowers, birds, bees, bugs, lizards, frogs, butterflies, spiders and heaps of creepy-crawlies. It’s a nice world. They’re happy.

Though hot summers can be a frenzy of flying creatures: flies, beetles (including Christmas beetles), moths, mosquitos and other little creatures that sting or bite.

The Christmas beetles were the first to disappear. We haven’t seen them for about three years.

Then the flying bugs – whatever they were.

Two years ago, with the disappearance of those flying beasties, the spiders took action. Food become scarcer, so they built larger webs in order to catch whatever was flying about.

As the food grew scarcer, the webs grew bigger.

No two trees weren’t connected by a web. They stretched also across our paths – from gutter to tree. It was impossible to walk around the house and garden without walking into a web (followed by wild karate chops and strange dances from moi as I tried to shake off unseen spider).

But there was a message. The spiders were telling me they were hungry. They were also telling me that food was scarce.

This year the flying creatures are scarcer. Even the annoying flies are no longer annoying us.

But also this year the spider webs too disappeared.

What are the spiders telling us?

Their world – their environment – is changing. For the worse. So then, is ours.

 

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Over six million people face hunger, malnutrition and water scarcity in Zambia, Oxfam warns

Oxfam warns that over six million people from farming families in Zambia are facing acute food shortages and malnutrition until next growing season, which is twelve months away, due to a severe drought, exacerbated by climate change and El Nino, which has caused massive crop failures for half of the nation’s “planted area.”

The drought has forced the Zambian government to declare a national disaster and emergency. President Hakainde Hichilema said last week Thursday that the country had gone without rain for five weeks at a time when farmers needed it the most. The drought had hit 84 of the country’s 116 districts, affecting more than a million farming households.

Ezra Banda, Director at Keepers Zambia Foundation, a partner organisation that works with Oxfam, says this crisis is coming at the time when the country is still recovering from the worst cholera outbreak that has claimed more than 700 lives, on top of another dry spell and last year’s flooding.

“Urgent support in form of food and clean water is what people need the most now,” said Banda. “Many have no food left because they did not harvest enough last year, and this El Nino-induced weather phenomenon has killed the slightest hope they had to feed themselves”.

He added that water shortages that are likely to ensue because of low rainfall this year could spark yet another cholera outbreak.

Mainza Muchindu, a smallholder farmer from Lusaka, Zambia, told Oxfam: “I have a family of ten people and I depend on farming to support them. I support my children’s education through agriculture and my little children need food the most, for their nutrition. With this crop failure, I am really in trouble.”

Standing by his drying maize crop, he said: “I don’t know what else to do because I invested all my money into this two-hectare maize crop and as you can see there is nothing that will come from here. I don’t know where else I will get food from. I can only hope that there will be food relief from the government, otherwise we are facing a big problem.”

Oxfam in Southern Africa Programme Director, Machinda Marongwe, says it is times like when climate financing is most needed, to build up practical and accessible solutions for vulnerable smallholder farmers like Mainza. However, commitment by rich countries remains an unfulfilled one.

“As long as rich countries don’t lower their carbon emissions, we know that climate shocks will be frequent and more severe. Smallholder farmers need to be insulated from this and must be adequately supported to transform their agriculture so that they can still grow food for their families amidst this climate change reality.

“Sadly, they are not getting support to solve problems they didn’t cause, none is coming their way because rich nations are offering nothing but lip service. Countries like Zambia and many others in Southern Africa need this climate financing to help them build up the resilience of their smallholder farmers, because that is wearing out.”

Yvonne Chibiya, Oxfam in Zambia Country Representative, says Oxfam and partners are doing further assessments in the targeted districts to inform the humanitarian response. Oxfam urgently needs 6 million Euros to provide 600,000 people with cash transfers and clean water, help with winter cropping, and improving local sanitation and hygiene services to prevent a resurgence of cholera outbreak.

 

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Climate pollution is “cooking” the Reef with law reform needed

Climate Council Media Release

THE CLIMATE COUNCIL is sounding the alarm on a severe bleaching event unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef, with new vision showing the damage that stretches more than 1100 kilometres from Lizard Island to the Keppel Islands.

Marine heatwaves are bleaching swathes of the Southern Great Barrier reef white, which have brought direct observers to tears. With an ominous marine forecast for the coming weeks, authorities could declare another mass bleaching event.

The Reef, a cherished global icon and home to diverse marine life and a cornerstone of Australian natural heritage, faces repeated and escalating threats from climate pollution, caused by the burning of coal, oil, and gas, including more frequent and severe marine heatwaves.

Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said: Relentless pollution from coal, oil and gas is Australia’s number one environmental problem and it’s literally cooking the Reef. Our environmental protection laws are outdated and in desperate need of an overhaul to prevent new reef-destroying gas and coal projects.

“At least five coal and gas projects have been waved through under our outdated law by the Federal Government since it was elected, and more than 20 other highly polluting proposals are sitting on the Environment Minister’s desk right now. These projects will keep being waved through without stronger laws, endangering our Reef, all marine life and the livelihoods of Queenslanders who depend on a healthy, vibrant reef.

“Australians expect our national environment law will protect the precious natural environments like the Great Barrier Reef, and the numerous communities that depend upon it – not destroy them. Unless this law is fixed to make climate pollution a core consideration, the Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate before our children’s eyes.”

Climate Councillor Professor Lesley Hughes said: “As ocean temperatures continue to increase, our precious Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger. The composition and diversity of our once mighty Reef has already been changed after repeated marine heatwaves and mass bleaching events driven by the relentless burning of coal, oil and gas. Our focus must be on limiting further harm as much as possible.

“Australians understand the Reef is irreplaceable. Many Queensland workers and communities rely directly on it for their livelihoods, and every one of us depends on a healthy ocean. Scientists and tour operators are being brought to tears by what they’re observing.

“The Reef can be restored, but it needs at least a decade to recover from a severe bleaching event, and the only way to ensure that can happen is to rapidly reduce climate pollution from coal, oil and gas. The only way to safeguard the Great Barrier Reef as well as everyone and everything that depends on it is to cut climate pollution at the source.”

Dr Dean Miller, Climate Council Fellow and reef expert said: “We’re seeing the most vulnerable corals to heat stress start bleaching along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, which is alarming.

“It’s not just about how many corals are bleaching, but that the ones most at risk are suffering. This stress is affecting corals of all sizes, from the largest ones that have survived past bleaching events to the smallest, youngest corals.

“If the heat stress continues, we’ll see more widespread bleaching affecting a higher diversity of coral species, which is a major concern for the reef’s health and ultimately its resilience.”

For a closer look at the impacts of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef, explore our collection of recently recorded footage.

LINKS TO CURRENT BLEACHING VISION:

Southern GBR

Hervey Bay: Must credit Hervey Bay Coral Watch (Feb 2024)

Heron Island: Must credit Divers for Climate (Feb 2024)

Northern GBR:

Port Douglas/Cairns: BEFORE VISION (October in 2023) & AFTER VISION (Feb 2024)

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ASEAN-Australia Special Summit must address climate crisis in the region: Oxfam

Oxfam Australia Media Release

As the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) -Australia Special Summit commences this week in Melbourne, Oxfam is calling for the Australian government and other world leaders attending to ramp up ambition to tackle the climate crisis in the region, beginning with an urgent phase out of Australia’s massive coal and gas exports, and an increase in climate finance flows to support the energy transition in the region.

Southeast Asia’s energy demand has increased by an average of 3% a year over the past two decades, and is projected to double by 2050. Australia is a substantial supplier of the region’s resource needs – almost $31 billion in exports, excluding crude petroleum in 2022 – and is expected to remain a long-term energy security partner for Southeast Asia.

Countries in the region have long been calling for countries like Australia to support ASEAN countries to respond to climate impacts and transition their economies away from fossil fuels. ASEAN member countries are some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with floods, droughts and storms wreaking havoc across the region and leaving women, Indigenous communities and vulnerable groups displaced and devastated. However, Australia continues to export coal and gas to the region and deliver climate finance well below its fair share.

As the world’s third largest exporter of coal and gas, Australia bears high responsibility for accelerating the climate crisis. Australia and its fossil fuel exports are amplifying carbon emissions, and keeping ASEAN countries locked into dangerous, fossil fuel-dependent futures, instead of leading Just Energy Transition efforts both here and in the region.

Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Lyn Morgain said nations such as Australia needed to step up and play their part to respond to the climate crisis.

“Those who have contributed least to the crisis are the most at threat – women, youth, Indigenous peoples, our neighbours in the region. This is not fair. It’s time to change this by putting fairness at the centre of our climate change response.

“The path ahead will be challenging, but it is an imperative choice. The negative impacts of staying invested in coal and gas exports will be much higher. It is time for Australia to redirect its trajectory, become a renewable energy leader and a long-term Just Energy Transition partner for ASEAN, rather than a peddler of outdated and dangerous energy sources,” she said.

Oxfam is calling for Australia to stop all new fossil fuel projects immediately. They are also asking the Australian government to:

  • Commit to an urgent phase out of Australia’s massive coal and gas exports to ASEAN and transition to become a leader in sustainable renewable energy.
  • Stop subsidising fossil fuels and redirect these resources for climate action including adaptation and support for a Just Energy Transition in Australia and ASEAN.
  • Provide new and additional climate finance to support climate-vulnerable ASEAN countries respond to the impacts of climate change and accelerate the energy transition process.
  • Increase transparency on climate risk assessment of all engagements and projects with ASEAN.
  • Promote the inclusion of civil society organisations that represent the rights, interests and voices of women, youth, Indigenous and vulnerable communities in the collaboration with ASEAN.

 

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Capital cities to swelter through twice as many days above 35°C unless stronger climate action is taken

Climate Council Media Release

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL CITIES are set to swelter through twice as many days above 35°C by the end of the century, a detailed analysis from the Climate Council has found.

But there’s hope: reducing climate pollution globally now could slash the number of scorching days by an average of 20 percent across Australian communities.

Thousands of data points from CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate Change in Australia project were analysed by the geospatial team Spatial Vision, who worked alongside the Climate Council to develop a new interactive heat map tool.

The map projects the average number of hot and very hot days, as well as very hot nights, for each Australian suburb by 2050 and 2090 under three scenarios:

  1. No action, where global emissions rise throughout the 21st century
  2. Existing action, what we’d see if all countries meet their current commitments for emission reductions
  3. Necessary action, a much stronger pathway that requires almost all countries, including Australia, to substantially strengthen their existing climate commitments and actions.

Any Australian can input their suburb or postcode to the heat map, to see how stronger action on climate pollution can affect the heat in their area.

Amanda McKenzie, Climate Council CEO said: “Climate pollution is rapidly turning up the heat in Australia. Whether we live in cities or regional towns, all Australians are sweltering through even hotter days and killer heatwaves.

“Australia must keep building out renewable energy to completely phase out pollution from coal, oil and gas and protect our families from unlivable temperatures. If we don’t take further steps now, some neighbourhoods and communities will become so hot people will struggle to live there. It’s not something that’s far off, it’s here now and it will define the coming decades.

“This map makes it clear that Australia’s pathway to cut climate pollution this decade will play a critical role in determining the future health and prosperity of entire communities across our country.”

Head of Research at the Climate Council Dr Simon Bradshaw said: “This tool empowers Australians to see the real impacts of climate pollution in their own neighbourhoods.

“Choices being made this decade will dramatically affect the kind of community our children and grandchildren inherit. Cutting climate pollution further will limit the number of extremely hot days and the number of very warm nights we’re forced to endure, and ensure a better future for all Australians.”

Doctors for the Environment Australia executive director Dr Kate Wylie said: “Extreme heat is lethal. Dangerously hot temperatures put our health and wellbeing at serious risk, and threaten our families, community and animals.

“As well as the risks of heat exhaustion and heat stroke in extreme conditions, we know that heat exposure increases the risks of many serious illnesses, such as heart and respiratory diseases, mental health presentations and premature births.

“Older adults, infants and young children, pregnant women, people with underlying health conditions and those living in vulnerable communities have a heightened risk of illness during heatwaves. But by embracing renewable energy and cutting climate pollution, we can shield our communities from the worst consequences of extreme heat and safeguard our future health.”

Key findings and local impact

Western Sydney / New South Wales

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Western Sydney will swelter through twice as many days above 35°C by 2050 and three weeks above 35°C every summer.
  • The urban heat island effect notably worsens living temperatures in Western Sydney, with materials like asphalt and concrete amplifying heat. This can elevate temperatures by as much as 10 degrees during extreme heat, exacerbating climate change and urban development challenges.

Darwin / Northern Territory

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Darwin could experience four times as many days over 35°C each year by mid-century, with residents facing almost three months of extra days above 35°C by 2050.
  • If no action was taken to reduce climate pollution, by 2090, Darwin could experience a whopping 283 days over 35°C each year – an increase of 243 days – and a similar number of nights above 25°C. In other words, by the time a child born today is entering retirement, the city could be facing temperatures over 35°C for more than nine months of the year.
  • Housing in remote communities in the Northern Territory is often old and badly constructed, with little insulation. Climate change is turning these houses into ‘dangerous hot boxes’ that threaten the health of residents, especially older people and those with existing health conditions.

Perth / Western Australia

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Perth could swelter through twice as many days above 35°C by 2050.
  • This summer, people in Perth have had a taste of the hotter future to come, with unprecedented late-summer heatwaves. In February, Perth set a new record for the number of days over 40°C in a single month, with 7 consecutive days of sweltering heat.

Melbourne / Victoria

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Melbourne residents face double the number of days above 35°C by 2050.
  • Extreme heat poses a growing threat to sporting competitions such as the Australian Open, challenging player safety. Losing tournaments like the Australian Open will negatively impact Victoria’s economy and Australia’s international reputation as a major event destination.

Canberra / ACT

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Canberra residents face twice as many days above 35°C by 2050.

Brisbane / Queensland

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Brisbane faces three times as many days above 35°C by 2050 and four times as many by 2090.
  • Extreme heat is critically endangering flying fox populations, causing mass fatalities and pushing the species towards extinction.

Adelaide / South Australia

  • Based on existing action to reduce climate pollution, Adelaide faces an extra week of days above 35°C by mid-century.
  • South Australia’s wine regions, including the Barossa Valley, face threats from climate change with rising temperatures hastening grape ripening, impacting quality. Adapting through new grape varieties or relocating vineyards remains costly and complex.

Hobart / Tasmania

  • Based upon existing action to reduce climate pollution, by mid-century the extreme temperatures Hobart experienced over the 2019-20 summer could become the norm.
  • Rising sea surface temperatures off Tasmania’s coast, which are rising nearly four times faster than the global average, is endangering Tasmania’s marine life and fisheries. The longest marine heatwave in 2016 devastated commercial species.

 

SEE THE CLIMATE COUNCIL’S CLIMATE HEAT MAP HERE

 

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Revealed: Properties in nature’s firing line

With Australians enduring intense climate-related disasters during the past five years, analysts and lawyers are warning that prospective homeowners and investors could be buying into a perfect storm.

Making buyers aware of the potential bushfire, flooding and coast erosion threats to property could be a compliance issue for governments, property lawyers, and the insurance industry.

A 30-year climate outlook exclusively commissioned by The Australian Conveyancer magazine exposes threats to thousands of properties in NSW and suggests owners will be impacted by land valuation, zoning restrictions and insurance premiums.

The Australian Conveyancer Magazine’s February edition unpacks the implications for owners, investors and the property industry in a 20-page spotlight report.

The digital magazine can be viewed here.

Scientific modelling from Groundsure’s ClimateIndex details the regions more affected by lightning strikes and bushfires in the next three decades; shows how some current flood zones will worsen; and why more beach-side properties will suffer severe erosion.

It says, the impact on safety, development planning, land values and compliance is real:

  • It claims that 40 per cent of all properties in NSW are now at moderate to high risk of flooding.
  • The risk of catastrophic loss, both financially and physically, will drive up insurance premiums.

The report also draws attention to the state’s experience of catastrophic events during the past five years:

  • NSW’s so-called Black Summer bushfires of 2029-20 cost $4.9 billion.
  • Insurers have paid our $13 billion in climate-related claims in NSW.
  • The combined value of coastal properties exposed to coastal erosion damage is $25 billion.

Detailed mapping shows the extent of the risk but also provides relief to some property owners and investors.

  • Some suburbs and land lots will see reductions in risk from the elements due to favourable weather forecasts.
  • Some regions will see no change at all. But for many, the situation will worsen during the next 30 years.

The digital magazine can be viewed here:

Key facts:

  • 40 per cent of all properties in NSW are now at moderate to high risk of flooding.
  • The risk of catastrophic loss, both financially and physically, will drive up insurance premiums.
  • NSW’s so-called Black Summer bushfires of 2029-20 cost $4.9 billion.
  • Insurers have paid our $13 billion in climate-related claims in NSW.
  • The combined value of coastal properties exposed to coastal erosion damage is $25 billion.
  • Some suburbs and land lots will see reductions in risk from the elements due to favourable weather forecasts.
  • Some regions will see no change at all. But for many, the situation will worsen during the next 30 years.

 

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CSIRO study shows marine heatwaves have significant impact on microorganisms

CSIRO News Release

A new study led by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, shows that marine heatwaves (MHWs) are altering the microorganism communities that form the base of the marine food chain, disrupting coastal ecosystems.

Australia has recently experienced a number of marine heatwaves off the East Coast and Tasmania.

They are prolonged oceanic warm water events that can have significant impacts on marine life, including fish, coral reefs and kelp forests.

MHWs can be caused by a range of factors, and large climate drivers such as El Niño are known to impact their frequency, intensity and duration.

Lead author Dr Mark Brown said the researchers analysed a MHW off Tasmania in 2015/16, an extreme warming event, finding it had significant impacts on microorganisms.

“The marine heatwave transformed the microbial community in the water column to resemble those found more than 1000 km north, and supported the presence of many organisms that are uncommon at this latitude,” Dr Brown said.

“This reshaping leads to the occurrence of unusual species, the development of unique combinations of organisms, and can cause cascading effects throughout the ecosystem, including changes in the fate of carbon sequestered from the atmosphere.

“For instance, we observed a shift away from the normal phytoplankton species at this site towards smaller cells that are not easily consumed by larger animals, potentially leading to profound changes all the way up the food chain.”

The study is the result of a long-term effort to observe marine microbiota for over 12 years.

CSIRO principal research scientist Dr Lev Bodrossy said researchers used a new approach to simplify the way they observed tens of thousands of marine microbes.

“This will enable us to evaluate the health of the marine ecosystem and predict how it will change with predicted global warming,” Dr Bodrossy said.

“We’ll be able to better predict the future of fish stocks and marine carbon sequestration in different regions of the global ocean.

“Observations like these, especially those done in the open ocean, are difficult to sustain but are crucial for understanding and forecasting the future status of the marine ecosystem,” he said.

The article ‘A marine heatwave drives significant shifts in pelagic microbiology’ was published in Nature’s Communications Biology

 

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Australia finally joins rest of developed world on new vehicle efficiency standards

Electric Vehicle Council Media Release

The Electric Vehicle Council has today congratulated the federal government on driving Australia into the global mainstream through the introduction of New Vehicle Efficiency Standards, promising greater choice and lower fuel bills for Australian motorists.

New Vehicle Efficiency Standards (NVES) incentivise car manufacturers to ensure all new cars they sell, on average, meet benchmarks for efficiency. This means manufactures can still sell vehicles with heavy emissions, but they must be offset by sales of low or zero emission vehicles.

NVES have ensured that drivers in North America and Europe have been offered maximum choice, including the best and most efficient new vehicles on the global market. Australian cars use a third more petrol than American cars on average.

“Because previous federal governments failed to introduce New Vehicle Efficiency Standards, some car manufacturers have treated Australia as a dumping ground for their most inefficient models,” said EVC chief executive Behyad Jafari.

“This announcement from the federal government, when legislated, will give Australians a greater choice for the cars they want and put money back in their pockets through lower fuel bills.

“Within a few short years it will mean the average family will not have to spend as much on imported petrol, which we know is hugely volatile on price.

“Australia has always been at the back of the queue when it comes to the best and cheapest electric vehicles, because car makers have been incentivised to offer them elsewhere first. That should end now with this policy, and Australian car buyers should notice the change very quickly.

“By bringing Australia into line with the US and Europe, car manufacturers will now be incentivised to offer Australians their best zero and low emission vehicles. Motorists will still have the choice to buy what they want, but they will be offered much better options to choose from.

“Right now Australia is one of only two developed countries without new vehicle efficiency standards. Very soon, Russia should be on its own.”

 

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National fuel efficiency standard puts Australia on the road to fuel and pollution savings

The Climate Council Media Release

Proposed settings for a strong fuel efficiency standard announced today by the Federal Government will give Aussies better access to cleaner cars that are cheaper to run.

The Climate Council welcomes the Federal Government’s announcement of a simple and transparent standard for new cars which will get Australia on track with countries like us to clean up our fleet of light vehicles. The proposed settings will deliver more choice for people in our cities and regions, by increasing access to all kinds of lower and zero emissions cars, vans and utes.

The Federal Government now needs to put the pedal to the metal and lock in these strong settings before the end of 2024 so Australians can start saving.

Climate Council CEO, Amanda McKenzie, said: “Today’s important announcement gets us off the starter’s grid and on the road to cheaper, cleaner transport.

“Many Australians are doing it tough right now, with petrol one of the expenses causing the most financial stress for households. At the same time, pollution from inefficient petrol-guzzling cars is fuelling harmful climate change.

“By giving Australians better choice of cleaner, cheaper-to-run cars, a strong fuel efficiency standard will cut household costs and clean up our air.”

Climate Councillor and energy expert, Greg Bourne, said: “A fuel efficiency standard will benefit all Australians – no matter what type of new car they are buying.

“Aussie drivers who have long commutes from our suburbs and regions are hurt the most by high and rising petrol bills. This means they’ll also see the biggest benefits from getting access to a wider range of affordable lower and zero emissions vehicles that are cheaper to run.

“Australians – especially those in our suburbs and regions – deserve access to the same choice of affordable, clean and safe cars that are already being sold in their millions overseas. A strong fuel efficiency standard can help deliver this.”

Fuel efficiency standards should be accompanied by other policies that support and enable the uptake of low and zero emissions vehicles. The National Electric Vehicle Strategy’s focus on improving the availability of charging infrastructure and incentivising uptake of the cleanest vehicles remains important to prepare our roads for this transition.

Learn more about Fuel Efficiency Standards here

View the Climate Council’s Fuel Efficiency Standards Consultation submission here

 

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Why stronger environmental safeguards are a necessary part of climate action

By Dr Michael Seebeck

Response to Dr Jennifer Rayner’s article arguing for exemption of renewables infrastructures from normal environmental laws – “Climate laws are key to protecting nation’s environment” – the New Daily, 26/1/24.

“Clean energy” is a misnomer and a wonderfully successful marketing term for an industry absolutely reliant on fossil fuels (1)(2)(3), and deforestation (4), and other facets of ecocide, including industrialisation of previously intact desert ecosystems (5), and previously never-cleared remnant forests on the Great Dividing Range (6), and decimation of cetacean populations (7).

There are massive environmental problems worldwide, not only in Australia, with the current and planned expansion of renewable industrialisation: “We identified 2,206 fully operational renewable energy facilities within the boundaries of these conservation areas, with another 922 facilities under development. Combined, these facilities span and are degrading 886 Protected Areas (PAs), 749 Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) and 40 distinct wilderness areas. Two trends are particularly concerning. First, while the majority of historical overlap occurs in Western Europe, the renewable electricity facilities under development increasingly overlap with conservation areas in Southeast Asia, a globally important region for biodiversity. Second, this next wave of renewable energy infrastructure represents a ~30% increase in the number of PAs and KBAs impacted and could increase the number of compromised wilderness areas by ~60%. If the world continues to rapidly transition towards renewable energy these areas will face increasing pressure to allow infrastructure expansion.” (8)

The infrastructure works at Port Hastings, which prompted the article by Dr Rayner (on behalf of the Climate Council in the New Daily), would destroy the integrity of the internationally recognised Ramsar Wetlands (9) there – is Dr Rayner actually suggesting that such international agreements, in this case to protect populations of migratory birds, which are in rapid decline (10), should be binned in favour of industrial development? The ecosystem that many migratory birds rely on are wetlands and freshwater habitats, which are the most destroyed and degraded worldwide (11).

The biggest cause of destruction of our environment is overshoot – population and economic growth (12), which has caused rampant ecosystem and habitat destruction worldwide (13)(14). This has been the case and will remain the case in the future unfortunately, given the power of the proponents of growth (15)(16). Climate change is simply a facet of this (17), and it certainly will cause more damage in the future. And political scientist Dr Rayner neglects to mention that climate change is at least 50% caused by ecocide and agriculture (18), and greenhouse gas emissions from ecosystem destruction are often grossly underestimated (19) and often not reported (20).

In 2013, the world had about 549 million hectares of intact tropical forests left, the study said:

Ensuring their future should now be a priority, with increased efforts and policies to keep them safe, Evans said. That should include better recognition of indigenous land rights and a halt to the expansion of mining, fossil fuel extraction, agriculture and infrastructure which often drives forest loss, he added.”Our results revealed that continued destruction of intact tropical forests is a ticking time bomb for carbon emissions,” the study’s lead author Sean Maxwell, a scientist with Australia’s University of Queensland, said in a statement.”There is an urgent need to safeguard these landscapes because they play an indispensable role in stabilizing the climate.” (83)

The Climate Council published an article on deforestation and climate change in 2019. They alleged that deforestation emissions were 8-10% of total emissions (84). This is somewhat at odds with other information which suggests “land use change emissions”, principally deforestation, accounts for 12-20% of total annual emissions (85); since 1850, 30% of all emissions have come from deforestation. (86) The scientists who reported that emissions from damage to tropical forests were 626% more than what was previously estimated, highlighted the role of edge effects: “we expect that cumulative net emissions from edge effects will approximately double those from direct forest clearance events observed in intact forest in the 2000s.” (87) Wind turbine industrialisation through old growth forests requires thousands of kilometres of interconnecting haulage roads, and often the adjacent degraded forests subjected to edge effects are often the “ecological offsets’ used to supposedly neutralise the damage done by forest clearing. Has the Climate Council updated their article and opinions in light of these findings?

Reducing fossil fuel emissions during Covid lockdowns (21) showed no demonstrated reduction in the upward trajectory of CO2 concentration (22), nor the concentration of any other greenhouse gas. So her stance is based on two false premises, that renewables will reduce emissions, and that emissions reduction, if it were to occur, will somehow solve climate change. There is no evidence for either assertion, except “modelling” based on the false assumption that renewables will stop emissions and committed warming, and that deforestation and loss of C sequestration will somehow cease despite ongoing population and economic growth (23). Hansen et al (24) allege that rapid phasing out of GHGs will stop most of “equilibrium warming” to plus 10 degrees Celsius though they assume that “clean energy” and other unspecified measures will achieve this.

Despite $11.7 trillion having been spent on “clean energy” globally from 1995 to 2022, fossil fuels increased by 58%, and the share of fossil fuels only decreased by 3.8% (25). We have now breached the 1.5 degree warming level and temperatures are rapidly increasing, possibly into a runaway phase (26). There is a 25- to 30-year time lag between greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere and their full warming potential taking effect (26). Whatever we are doing or attempting to do is clearly not working. Obviously tackling growth, stopping and reversing it, is just as important as any attempt to directly reduce emissions. This has never yet been attempted anywhere. “A comprehensive comparison of ‘degrowth’ with established pathways to limit climate change highlights the risk of over-reliance on technology to support economic growth, which is assumed in established climate modelling” (27).

Dr Rayner did not mention that stopping deforestation is just as important for the climate as reducing fossil fuel consumption, which was stated at COP26 (28), and here Dr Rayner is barracking or “quicker approvals”, which one can only surmise will mean more environmental destruction and more rapid environmental destruction for “clean energy”.

Queensland already has “quick approvals” for renewables, so much so that the approval process of any industrial renewable energy facility is virtually automatic. State Code 23 was drafted for this purpose (29); it overrides all other relevant legislation, including the Vegetation Management Act (VMA). The purpose of the VMA was to give protection to essential remnant forests and wildlife habitat. The only factors which can stop RE in Qld now are proximity to schools and churches. State Code 23 has already led to catastrophic destruction of the environment at Clarke Creek and Kaban and Mt Emerald, and allowed ecocidal wind developments at Lotus Creek, Chalumbin (Wooroora), Upper Burdekin (Gawara Baya), and Mt Fox – all destroying remnant biodiverse forests on the Great Dividing Range. Lotus Creek is on the same Connors Range as Twiggy Forrest’s Clarke Creek wind development, which has led to the destruction of several hundred hectares of good koala habitat. Lotus Creek holds probably the best remaining population of koalas in North Queensland, and maybe the whole of Queensland, and was knocked back by Sussan Ley over environmental concerns, then approved by Tanya Plibersek when the proponents, Neoen, a French RE company, re-submitted a revised application (30). Clearly, “quick approvals” for renewable energy can have disastrous consequences. It should also be mentioned that solar farms in Queensland only need local government approval. The massive solar farm at the foot of the DeSailly Range north of Mt Carbine, FNQ, for instance, was approved by the unelected CEO of Mareeba Council. This solar farm will necessitate clearing of around 2000 hectares of dry sclerophyll forest and wildlife habitat.

It’s also a well-known fact that charcoal from tropical forests is used in high temperature kilns in the production of solar panels (31), and that balsa from virgin rainforests in central and South America is used for the blades in wind turbines (32). And renewables are the most land and sea area-intensive form of energy production, meaning inevitably that forests are destroyed for deployment, as evidenced in Scotland (33), Sweden (34), Germany (35), Brazil (36), and Australia (37)(38), and destruction of peat bogs in Scotland and elsewhere (39). The fragmentation and disturbance of wind industrialisation and the thousands of kilometres of haulage roads necessary is catastrophic to the habitat of many species – roads are the leading cause worldwide of habitat fragmentation and degradation, and their presence always leads to more destruction of habitat and ecosystems. New dams for “clean hydro-electric power” are destroying many rivers and ecosystems worldwide. (40)(41)(42) (43) (44). Mining for the “critical minerals” necessary for “green energy” and EVs already has had catastrophic consequences in Indonesia (45), the Amazon (46), WA’s jarrah forests (47), Cape York Peninsula wilderness (48), to name a few. In fact, mining for critical minerals has been identified as having catastrophic consequences to ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide (49). And then there’s the likely catastrophic impacts of deep-sea mining (50), which may cause 25x the biodiversity loss of land-based mining, as well as unleashing unknown carbon emissions from the seabed (51).

Could the reason for Dr Rayner’s stance be related to the fact that billionaires, investors, and the renewables industry itself, are major donors to the Climate Council, and that nature, wildlife, and threatened and endangered species, have no money to invest? A brief perusal of the funding of the Climate Council suggests this (52). The Climate Council seems to be flush with funds, and has had donations from 12 anonymous donors as well as, for example, Boundless Earth, a Cannon-Brookes charity (53), and The Sunrise Project, a renewable energy financing conduit, co-headed by the former chief of staff of Adam Bandt (54), and the European Climate Fund. The European Climate Foundation is funded by many large foundations, many based in the United States. Some of these funders include the Bloomberg Family Foundation (billionaire Michael Bloomberg), ClimateWorks Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (hedge fund billionaire Sir Chis Hohn), Rockefeller Brothers Foundation (fossil fuel billionaires), the Growald Family Fund (Rockefellers), and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Hewlett-Packard billionaires) (55). These monolithic foundations have all backed renewable initiatives but money for environmental protections is scant or absent. For example, the Bloomberg FF donated only $2.5 million to Pew Charitable Trusts for conservation of marine protected areas (56).

“… billionaires’ investments in climate change solutions are often driven by personal interests, rather than a broader commitment to the planet’s well-being. While it is undeniable that many billionaires genuinely care about the environment, their motivations can be complex and multifaceted. For instance, investments in renewable energy can be viewed as profitable business opportunities, rather than purely altruistic endeavours. This profit-driven approach may lead to an uneven focus on certain technologies or industries, neglecting other critical areas that require attention. Furthermore, the unpredictable nature of private investments leaves room for sudden shifts in priorities, making long-term planning and consistency difficult to achieve.” (57)

I am not supporting fossil fuels – I would agree they should be phased out as rapidly as possible. However, advocates of “clean energy” are completely disingenuous, because if fossil fuels were to be phased out, renewables could not be mined, manufactured, and maintained. Same with steel, concrete, ammonia (food), plastics (58), modern medicine; everything that modern civilisation takes for granted for its current scale let alone growth. The globalism that allows minerals for “clean energy” to be mined all over the globe, transported to the factories, then shipped off to other countries to be deployed, is entirely dependent on fossil fuels. Such trade constitutes 30% of transport emissions and is projected to increase fourfold by 2050 (59). There are many reasons why hydrogen cannot replace fossil fuels for international transport (60), which I won’t go into here.

Scientific research of supply chains has shown that rare earth mining & processing has been responsible for 32 billion tons of CO2 emissions over 10 years (61). Magnets (wind turbines and EVs) are responsible for 23% of that (62); however, the amount mined for magnets needs to increase 11-25x over the next 25 years (63) for the attempted transition, resulting in around extra 16-17 billion tons CO2 emissions/ year (global emissions are currently 38 billion tons CO2e per year). And that’s just rare earths; the mining of many minerals needs to increase by multiples (64), contributing massive increases in emissions. There is doubt that there are sufficient reserves for many required critical minerals (64). And rare earths are difficult and energy-intensive to recycle (65). Increase in “clean energy” of 1% gives a 0.9% increase in CO2 emissions (61) but this may in fact be an underestimate as it’s based on rare earth elements. This calls into question the assumed emissions reductions of renewables, which is based on cherry-picking impacts, limiting scope, assuming unreasonably high average wind speeds (66), assuming insignificant ecocidal impacts, ignoring grid effects emissions of battery storage and balancing FF emissions which increase due to green energy, and fallacious presentation of emissions per energy delivered. That’s a topic for another article.

In addition, it appears that the royalties from coal mining are being used to finance renewables and their required infrastructure in Queensland (67), as well as other facets of new infrastructure made necessary by population and economic growth. It is unlikely that renewable energy could ever contribute to funding of other facets of infrastructure as it has a lower Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI) (68) and it is a net drain on government (taxpayer) funds, which seem to be mainly going to billionaires and foreign corporations and investors (69) as they expect return on their “green” investments. It should be remembered that “With the exception of [Australia’s richest person and fellow mining magnate] Gina Rinehart, no Australian has ever caused more damage to the environment than Andrew Forrest,” an Australian Financial Review columnist said in a recent commentary.”(70) “Green” billionaire Andrew Forrest has significant ecocidal renewables investments, including the Great Dividing Range’s Clarke Ck wind farm (power purchasing agreement with Anglo-American Coal (71)) and Gawara Baya (Upper Burdekin) wind farm – adjacent to Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. (Apple pulled out of a power purchasing agreement over environmental concerns (72)). The new Kaban wind industrialisation (owned by Neoen), which decimated old growth forest near Ravenshoe, has a power purchasing agreement with coal miner BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (73). Twiggy Forrest’s climate advocacy should be interpreted in this context.

Perusal of Australian and state governments press releases regarding mining and infrastructure for “critical minerals’ reveals that they actually believe the rampant mining made necessary for an attempted renewables transition to be a great boon for “jobs and growth’ (74), which is clearly what they are most interested in supporting – increasing energy demand, increasing ecocide, and worsening overshoot. “The climate” is just a useful pretext, a specious justification.

Commentary from the Australian Government’s Clean Energy Regulator, reveals that increasing electricity NEM spot price is regarded as beneficial for investment in renewables (75). The main investors in renewables in Australia are billionaires Twiggy Forrest, Cannon-Brookes and millionaire Simon Holmes a Court, as well as a large collection of foreign companies including Spanish Iberdrola, French Neoen, Irish Mainstream, Dutch Ingka, Thai Thatchaburi, and Filipino ACEN. Obviously fossil fuel suppliers of electricity also benefit from increasing NEM spot prices. Population growth via mass immigration is the chief means our government uses to increase demand for electricity and increase profits to energy providers, whilst destroying carbon sequestration and increasing overall emissions. Its quite clear who our government is governing for, and it isn’t average Australians, and certainly not our ecosystems and wildlife, and not the climate.

Australia’s Carbon accounting reveals net uptake of carbon during non-severe bushfire years (76). This has been confirmed by NASA satellite analysis of CO2 emissions and uptake over the course of 2021 (77). We only contribute about 1.3% of global emissions, obviously not including exported emissions of fossil fuels, which I do not support. The 1.3% of emissions that Australia directly contributes also does not include the offshored emissions of manufactured items. This obviously includes renewable energy industrial components such as solar panels and wind turbines.

Clearly what we should be doing is enhancing our carbon sequestration, protecting all remaining old growth forests from all development, and restoring degraded forests and farmland, and stopping burning everything, including forests, as the science shows that forests actually increase fire resistance as the fire-free interval increases (78). Forests also have beneficial effects on the climate as well as carbon sequestration. They also sequester energy that would have otherwise been released as heat, increase rainfall to enhance sequestration and cool through evapo-transpiration and shading (79). We should be winding down fossil fuel exports and unsustainable population growth, which contributes to more emissions and destruction of carbon-sequestering ecosystems. And reducing or eliminating the import of industrial products especially those with a high carbon footprint. Our coal-fired power stations should be converted to nuclear, as nuclear power is an easy substitute and does not require vastly increased transmission networks, more substations, switching stations, battery firming/storage and has far lower emissions and negligible destruction of carbon sequestration capacity compared to renewable energy (80). Unfortunately for nuclear power, it does not require the massive overbuilding (81) and mining (and huge emissions burden) that renewables do, so the profit potential is not there compared to renewables, so the billionaires aren’t interested. However, allowing more destruction of forests and habitat for any reason, is simply lunacy, and not based on science and reality.

We must ask ourselves, do we want a planet teeming with life or do we want lifeless industrial wastelands interspersed with monocultures grown for food & timber, in desperate states due to climate change and loss of insect pollinators, with global famines and other aspects of a ghastly future (82) just around the corner, and remnant wildlife populations of selected species incarcerated as breeding populations in zoos, being bred for release into habitat which no longer exists. The billionaires and their proxies in media and governments and environmental and climate NGOs clearly want the latter.

Dr Michael Seebeck, Conservationist with Rainforest Reserves, Far North Queensland

 

REFERENCES

(1) What I See When I See a Wind Turbine

(2) Why do we burn coal and trees to make solar panels?

(3) Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition

(4) Renewable energy targets may undermine their sustainability

(5) “Study: California solar farms threaten desert species”

(6) Blowing in the wind: Former Greens eco-warrior says we should all fear wind turbines

(7) Letter: ‘Take’ authorizations prove NOAA is lying about whale deaths

8) Renewable energy development threatens many globally important biodiversity areas

(9) Tanya Plibersek blocks Victorian government’s plan to build wind turbine plant at Port of Hastings

(10) Rapid population decline in migratory shorebirds relying on Yellow Sea tidal mudflats as stopover sites

(11) 75% of Earth’s land areas are degraded; wetlands have been hit hardest, with 87% lost globally in the last 300 years

(12) Recognizing Overshoot: Succession of an Ecological Framework

(13) Population and economic growth are destroying biodiversity

(14) Increasing impacts of land use on biodiversity and carbon sequestration driven by population and economic growth

(15) ‘Extra level of power’: billionaires who have bought up the media

(16) Billionaires are out of touch and much too powerful. The planet is in trouble

(17) Why climate change is the symptom of a much deeper and bigger problem

(18) Why Agriculture’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Almost Always Underestimated

(19) Climate emissions from tropical forest damage ‘underestimated by a factor of six’

(20) Countries’ climate pledges built on flawed data, Post investigation finds

(21) Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement

(22) Broken record: Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels jump again

(23) The Zero Emissions Commitment and climate stabilization

(24) Global warming in the pipeline

(25) Opinion: The world still depends on fossil fuels despite trillions for clean energy

(26) How close is runaway climate change?

(27) Bet on technology or limit growth? Climate modelling shows ‘degrowth’ less technologically risky

(28) Not just coal: End to deforestation sought at COP26 climate summit

(29) Renewable energy project planning and approvals

(30) Australia’s approval of renewable projects has doubled, says Plibersek

(31) Burning down the house: Myanmar’s destructive charcoal trade

(32) A green paradox: Deforesting the Amazon for wind energy in the Global North

(33) 14m trees have been cut down in Scotland to make way for wind farms

(34) The wolf forests of Sweden threatened by onshore wind farms

(35) German government begins razing the forest that acted as a backdrop for many a Grimm’s fairy tale, to make way for wind turbines

(36) In Brazil, rural communities are caught in the eye of the wind farm storm

(37) Conservationists rubbish plan to build a windfarm near protected north Queensland rainforests

(38) The giant wind farms clearing Queensland bush

(39) Climate pollution from wind farms on peat ‘underestimated’

(40) Impacts of hydropower on the habitat of jaguars and tigers

(41) 8,700+ new hydropower plants threaten Europe’s biodiversity

(42) Batang Toru Hydropower Project

(43) Before the Flood: The dam that threatens one of Africa’s oldest national parks

(44) Giving a dam: how hydropower is destroying Europe’s rivers

(45) Nickel miners linked to devastation of Indonesian forests

(46 Ford’s Electric Pickup Is Built From Metal That’s Damaging the Amazon

(47) Mines clear more trees than logging in WA’s threatened forests

(48) Galalar Silica Project

(49) Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

(50) Deep-Sea Mining Could Cause 25x the Biodiversity Loss of Land-Based Mining, Report Warns

(51) Deep Sea Mining and the Green Transition

(52) Climate Council Annual Report 2022-2023

(53) Mike Cannon-Brookes is ramping up the climate tech founder pipeline with Startmate

(54) The Sunrise Project

(55) European Climate Foundation

(56) Bloomberg Family Foundation (Bloomberg Philanthropies)

(57) Why Billionaires Won’t Save Us from Climate Change

(58) The Modern World Can’t Exist Without These Four Ingredients. They All Require Fossil Fuels

(59) The Carbon Footprint of Global Trade; Tackling Emissions from International Freight Transport

(60) Hydrogen Half Truths Keep Shipping Fuel Hopes Afloat

(61) Global environmental cost of using rare earth elements in green energy technologies

(62) Market imbalances for rare earths persist

(63) Critical Rare-Earth Elements Mismatch Global Wind-Power Ambitions

(64) The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth

(65) Why rare earth recycling is rare – and what we can do about it

(66) A review of life cycle assessments on wind energy systems

(67) Queensland’s record coal earnings used for transition

(68) Wind and solar energy are neither renewable nor sustainable

(69) For better or worse, billionaires now guide climate policy

(70) A bit rich? Billionaires’ climate efforts draw scepticism, praise

(71) Anglo American sources 100% renewable electricity supply for Australia operations

(72) Apple pulls out of Andrew Forrest-backed windfarm at centre of threatened species controversy

(73) BMA signs new five-year renewable power purchase agreement

(74) What are critical minerals and why are we mining them in Queensland?

(75) Large-scale generation certificates (LGCs): Strengthening price signal for renewable investment

(76) Australia is already a net zero CO2-e emitter – thanks to our forests and rangelands

(77) Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Tagged by Source

(78) Contrary to common belief, some forests get more fire resistant with age

(79) More than carbon storage – The role of forests in climate change

(80) Two studies make a strong case for nuclear power: less pollution, smaller footprint

(81) ‘Massive overbuilding’ of renewables is the way to 100% decarbonisation

(82) Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future

(83) Carbon emissions from tropical forest loss underestimated, scientists say

(84) Deforestation and Climate Change

(85) What is the role of deforestation in climate change and how can ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation’ (REDD+) help?

(86) Forests and Climate Change

(87) Degradation and forgone removals increase the carbon impact of intact forest loss by 626%

 

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Plastic packaging waste tax could raise billions

The Australia Institute Media Release

New research from the Australia Institute shows a European Union-style tax on plastic packaging could raise nearly $1.5 billion each year.

The analysis finds the federal government could raise $1,300 per tonne of ‘virgin’ or un-recycled plastic through a levy on businesses that import or manufacture plastic packaging.

“Australia is facing a growing tsunami of plastic waste and is expected to miss every recycling target it has set,” the Australia Institute’s Circular Economy & Waste Program Director Nina Gbor said.

“We’re recovering less than a fifth of the plastic waste used each year, with consumption expected to more than double to nearly 10 billion tonnes by 2050.

“If recycling was the solution to the plastic waste crisis, it would have been solved by now. Instead, it just encourages the production and consumption of even more waste that is choking our landfill and oceans.

“Unless we drastically reduce or gradually phase out plastics altogether, in favour of compostable materials, this plastic waste problem will continue to grow.”

An EU levy introduced in 2021 requires member states to pay €800 per tonne of plastic packaging waste that is not recycled.

In Australian dollars, that equates to $1,300 per tonne. Given Australians go through 1.121 million tonnes of ‘virgin’ plastic packaging waste a year, the federal government could raise $1.46 billion through a user-pays levy.

Voters polled by the Australia Institute backed stronger measures to crack down on plastic waste. Of the 1,002 people surveyed, 85% support legislated waste reduction targets for producers, suppliers and retailers.

A similar proportion back laws requiring plastic products to contain recycled material, while 78% endorse a ban on plastics that cannot be recycled in the curbside bin.

“We know that Australians support tougher action to curb plastic waste, and that taxes and schemes requiring producers to fund the collection and recycling of plastic they produce are working overseas,” Ms Gbor said.

“Australia’s plastic consumption is increasing, not falling. The government needed to act yesterday and should start by following the EU’s lead.”

Key facts:

  • Australians consume 3.8 million tonnes of plastic each year, equivalent to 72 Sydney Harbour Bridges. By 2049-50, this is expected to rise to 9.7 million tonnes.
  • Just 14 per cent of Australia’s plastic waste is recovered through recycling, composting or by being turned into energy, falling from 18 per cent in 2008.
  • Australia has a target of 20 per cent of recycled content in new plastic packaging, and to recover 70 per cent of all plastic packaging, by 2025.

 

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Impact of Climate Change must be included in the Bureau of Meteorology Inquiry

Queensland Conservation Council Media Release

The Queensland Conservation Council urges the Government to ensure that the impact of climate change is a key focus within the Federal Government investigation into the nation’s emergency warning system, triggered by heightened scrutiny over announcement delays from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

Dave Copeman says; “Australia is facing unprecedented challenges due to climate change, and our emergency systems must adapt to these new realities. We know that as the climate warms, extreme weather events become both more intense and more unpredictable.

“What we have seen in Cairns and the Gold Coast are clear examples of this. The inquiry is an essential step in ensuring that our emergency warning system is responsive to current challenges, but it also needs to ensure that it can handle the increased uncertainty and amplified risks posed by a changing climate.

“Climate change has been missing from the public discussion about these disasters, by political leaders and media reports, and yet the lessons for how we report and respond to these must be informed by climate science.

“We call on the Government to take a holistic approach, where the inquiry includes the impact on a changing climate into the core of emergency warning systems and response strategies.

“With it predicted that Australian households will be paying $35.24 billion every year for the direct costs of extreme weather by 2050, we must invest in more than just an improved warning system. Faster warning systems are important, but they can’t predict every extreme event, and are only part of the solution.

“We need to build greater community capacity to act together as they prepare and respond to extreme weather events. The research shows that a community’s capacity to collaborate, for neighbours to reach out and organise is an essential part of emergency response, and more effective ways to support this action needs to be part of the solution.”

 

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JASPER … You Mongrel !

Day One Wednesday – 13 December 2023

Increasing swirling wind with horizontal rain lashing house.

Jasper is not our first cyclone since we moved to Far North Queensland forty years ago. Probably the worst for us was Larry in 2006 as we had structural damage which took many months to have fixed. That was one of the things that I was dreading with Jasper as there are just no tradies around nowadays. But fortunately we seem to have avoided structural damage so far and the main storm is now moving slowly out across Cape York and into the Gulf of Carpentaria ; still lots of rain.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about these cyclones is that the power goes out almost immediately, in this case we lost power shortly after lunch on Wednesday (13 December).

When the power goes, so does our ability to communicate: we have a mobile smart phone and a landline, both failed instantly – I’m still baffled about that as I had believed that we would at minimum have access to emergency services : and of course the internet is down.

We live in a regional area in the Atherton Tablelands, we don’t have reticulated town-water, relying on rainwater tanks and a bore – all of which depend on pumps to generate water flow and that requires electricity. So we fill buckets from a tank with a gravity tap – some of our neighbours fill wheely bins with water for flushing toilets etc. There are no showers while the power is off.

Mobile devices have their place and on the first night I was very pleased that I had a Kindle reader and could read a book before nodding off. But devices run down and can’t be recharged readily. I’m hoping to recharge my Kindle and my radio through the USB on my computer which still has battery power. Interestingly, the portable radios we used to see that took AA batteries have largely been replaced by fixed batteries which need to be recharged, like your phone, if there is power – which there isn’t.

I listen avidly to the regional ABC to get updates on the cyclone’s progress but oddly the announcer keeps directing listeners to the BOM website for updates – hello there is no internet ! She also encourages listeners to phone in details of ‘what things are like at your place’. Obviously only people with a phone signal will call in – you won’t hear from us.

Day Two Thursday – 14 December 2023

Still no power.

A large tree came down on the road opposite our place. A neighbour and I revved up our chainsaws and cut a path through for passing traffic. I now realize that I should have bought a spare chain for my chainsaw.

Rechargeable battery devices are running down – I recharged my Kindle and my portable radio from the Laptop USB port but now the laptop battery has run out.

We have a stove with an electric oven but a bottled gas range so we were able to fix some scrambled eggs for tea. Those who suggest that we should do away with gas appliances in the home need to think about what happens when there is no electricity. At least with a gas top we can heat water for washing, washing-up, making a cup of tea, heating baked beans in a saucepan and even doing a small roast in the cast-iron pot. As we hasten the transition to renewable energy – we need to think about these situations. We have solar panels but are still obliged to rely on the grid – we need to think about what we do when the power goes down.

Early to bed as obviously we have no light and no TV. The announcer on the regional ABC radio is still asking us to text or phone in with our story : mate, we still have no external communications !

Day Three Friday – 15 December 2023

The rain continues, we have a rain gauge with 250mm capacity (ten inches in the old money). It overflowed overnight so I don’t know how much rain we have had but it’s lots.

Our daughter-in-law arrived this morning with a small Honda generator she had borrowed from friends in Malanda who have not lost power. As she was leaving, another large tree came down blocking the road and bringing down the powerlines : we alerted emergency services and told our neighbours not to try to clear the tree as even though we were without power there was still a risk with cables all over the road. The Fire Service arrived and shared our concern but they don’t do trees or powerlines but they alerted Ergon our power supplier who removed the powerlines and they contacted our local council as the council are responsible for trees.

With the generator we have light and can recharge all of the rechargable devices but it won’t operate the coffee maker – two days without a caffeine hit – we tried pounding some coffee beans in the mortar & pestle but there must have been some residual pepper in it – it didn’t taste so good.

On the radio they’re talking about flooding of the Daintree, Mossman, Barron and Mulgrave river systems and cattle finding no safe haven being washed away, out to sea: also concerns about salt water crocodiles on the move as their habitats are destroyed and they sense a feed floating by – very well adapted are the crocodiles, not surprising that they have survived so well over the millenia.

Water is of course plentiful and we continue to carry buckets from our rainwater tank with the gravity feed. Still haven’t had a shower but a squirt of deodorant will suffice again today.

We have moved the major contents of our freezer to a neighbour who has a big chest freezer and a bigger generator. Don’t know how long the power will be off. It was ten days after Larry and as I recall Premier Anna Bligh gave us all a $1000 handout recognising that over ten days much frozen food would have been lost and whilst the ever helpful Home Insurers cover loss of frozen food stuffs it will be subject to an minimum $500 Excess. I wonder if our newly minted Premier, whose name I forget, will give us a handout.

Can’t help thinking of those poor sods in Gaza, herded into an enclave, starved of food, power, water and having bombs rain down on them. We have little cause to complain.

Our emergency services are first rate, this morning we have had fire services out, energy people making the fallen powerlines safe and local council preparing to remove the fallen tree : all in torrential rain – well done you !

Went out to get some fuel for ours and neighbour’s generators. Our local servo has no internet so can only take cash – I have no cash. Drove to next nearest town, Malanda, and was able to buy fuel on credit card. Clearly we are not a cashless society when in extremis. Heard of an EV owner and strident supporter for the elimination of fossil fuels who is only able to charge his Tesla from a neighbours petrol generator – oh the irony !

Heard on the car radio that Telstra has sheepishly advised that their mobile towers rely on electricity from the grid and only have limited battery backup ; that’s why our phones crashed as soon as the power went off.

Day Four Saturday 16 December 2023

Still no power.

Ergon Energy removed the fallen power lines from the road and those tangled in the fallen tree. Council workers then cleared the fallen tree. Had a chat with them but they know nothing about power situation. One of the workers has a broad Glasgow accent. He was chainsawing in torrential rain. I asked him if all this made him want to go back to Scotland. He said ‘not when I’m having so much fun’. They have cut up the logs into manageable lengths and brought in a loader to shift them off the road.

Ergon returned and have restrung the wires and we got power back on at 2 pm today.

Conclusion

Really impressed with the co-ordination, dedication and professionalism of the Ergon workers. We are fortunate in Queensland that the distribution of power and the ‘poles & wires’ are still in public hands although the former LNP government tried to privatise them and will no doubt try again if they to get back into office in Queensland in 2024.

Just a note to the activists who daub orange paint on works of art and disrupt sporting events insisting that we shift away from fossil fuels immediately. It may be an idea for those people to present their plan for the transition to renewables whilst ensuring a consistent and reliable supply of power including during severe weather and fire events. The one thing that this episode has brought home is our complete dependence on continuity of electricity supply.

The resilience of ordinary people and the importance of good neighbours is a comforting constant in our community and the broader society. Cairns and the Daintree are in flood as the massive amounts of water pass through the stressed river systems.

The rain continues !

Good night and Good luck.


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False Transitions and Global Stocktakes: The Failure of COP28

The time has come to treat the sequence of UN Climate Change Conferences, the latest concluding in Dubai, as a series of the failed and the abysmally rotten. It shows how a worthless activity, caked (oiled?) with appropriately chosen words, can actually provide assurance that something worthwhile was done. Along the way, there are always the same beneficiaries: fossil fuel magnates and satirists.

COP28, which featured 97,000 participants, including the weighty presence of 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists, was even more of a shambles than its predecessor. Its location – in an oil rich state – was head scratching. Its chairman Sultan Al Jaber, taking advantage of the various parties who would attend, had sought to cultivate some side business for the United Arab Emirates, notably for the state oil company ADNOC.

This did not deter UN climate change bureaucrats and negotiators, who seemed to equate climate change policy with an account of goods held by a business. Consider the wording of the COP Agreement released on December 13: “The global stocktake is considered the central outcome of COP28 – as it contains every element that was under negotiation and can now be used by countries to develop stronger climate action plans due by 2025.” It was a “global stocktake” supposedly signalling the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era, to be facilitated by “laying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep emission cuts and scaled-up finance.”

These words have been treated as sacerdotal by many of its participants, the be all and end all, the event’s great culmination. But long hours of deliberation can confuse effort with achievement, and this proved to be no exception. Tinkering with meaning can be taken as a triumph. Recognising words such as “fossil fuels” and “science” can make delegates weak at the knees. Promises to set targets for a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) make others swoon.

It was such tinkering that led to the call for a “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable way with developed countries continuing to take the lead.” The emphasis here is on a “transition away” from their use, not their “phase out”, which is what 130 of the 198 participating parties were willing to accept.

The term “phase-down” was used regarding “unabated coal power” while “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” would be phased out, presumably leaving the question open as to what, exactly, efficient subsidies might look like. Parties were also “encouraged to come forward with ambitious, economy-wide emission reduction targets, covering all greenhouse gases, sectors and categories and aligned with the 1.5°C in their next round of climate action plans (known as nationally determined contributions) by 2025.”

Jaber was in a gleeful mood at the outcome. The naysayers’ warning that the summit would be an unmitigated failure had been disproved. “Together, we have confronted realities and we have set the world in the right direction. We have given it a robust action plan to keep 1.5°C within reach. It is a plan that is led by the science.”

US climate change envoy John Kerry thought the document convincing: it sent “very strong messages to the world” providing a much firmer statement on preventing global warming from exceeding the 1.5°C limit. Danish Climate Minister Dan Jørgensen seemed to angle for praise in noting that his country, being “an oil rich country surrounded by oil countries that are now signing a piece of paper saying we need to move away from oil” was “historic”.

The agreement had an eager audience desperate to identify signs of progress. Prof. Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization called the COP28 agreement “historic in that – for the first time – it recognizes the need to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time.” Even the Scientific American made the observation that none of the previous 27 climate change conferences had even mentioned fossil fuels and its link to a rise in global temperatures.

A good gaggle of climatologists and geophysicists were less enthused. “The lack of an agreement to phase out fossil fuels,” opined Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania, “was devastating.” To use such an expression as “‘transition away from fossil fuels’ was weak tea at best. It’s like promising your doctor that you will ‘transition away from doughnuts’ after being diagnosed with diabetes.”

An editorial in Nature was also steely in rejecting the way science had been manipulated at the summit, noting Jaber’s own declaration on November 21 that there was no scientific basis that would necessitate phasing out fossil fuels to restrict global warming to the agreed limit. While the editorial had gone to press before the release of the final agreement, the journal was correct in assuming that it “would not include language on phasing out fossil fuels. That is more than a missed opportunity. It is dangerous.”

The dangers are considerable, given the number of transitioning states. They include, for instance, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who seeks the expansion of renewable energy while building coal-burning power plants, and the current US administration, whose Bureau of Land Management approved more oil and gas leases on federal lands in the first two years and seven months than the previous Trump administration did over the equivalent period. In the usual doublespeak of the Biden administration, such a policy could comfortably exist alongside its overall green strategy.

As weak tea as the document is, it’s not even binding. Countries can still pursue fossil fuel projects, at the behest of strong coal, gas and oil lobbies, even as they claim to be pursuing abating technologies that supposedly minimise emissions. In Australia, opposition spokesman for climate change and energy Ted O’Brien provided something of an exemplar of this. “While the final communique names fossil fuels, it also promotes carbon, capture and storage as abating technology for such fuels along with nuclear energy which can be a zero-emission substitute.”

The record of actions taken to such agreements is not promising. For one, COP28 seemed riddled with pledges and gestures, a matter of theatre. The heralded “loss and damage fund” received commitments to the total of US$700 million, but this is wretchedly meagre when compared to the annual US$200 to US$400 billion required by Africa alone, let alone the US$400 billion a year for climate change adaptation.

Debates of herculean obstinacy over word changes in a text can spell the doom of its object. In future experiments in hot air summitry of the sort witnessed at Dubai, the powerful and wealthy will have room to stretch and delay meaningful change, adopting that famous plea by St. Augustine: “Please God, make me good, but not just yet.”

 

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