EcoRadio

Category: Climate chaos

The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity. 

  • Report assesses climate risks of sea level rise for Australia

     

    The report used recent research, as presented at the Copenhagen climate congress in March 2009, of projected sea-level rise from 75 centimetres to 190 centimetres relative to 1990, with 110-120 centimetres the mid-range of the projection. Based on this research 1.1 metres was selected as a plausible value for sea-level rise for the risk
    assessment in the report to 2100. It was noted that sea level is likely to continue to rise beyond 2100 and that sea-level rise projections will change as new research clarifies areas of uncertainty.

    The occurence and severity of extreme weather events will increase “events that now happen every 10 years would happen about every 10 days in 2100. The current 1-in-100 year event could occur several times a year.” says the report.

    In launching the report Climate Change Minister Senator Penny Wong said “The science tells us our climate is changing faster than first projected and the impacts are likely to be more severe as sea-level rises and extreme storms and floods become more frequent. These changes are already happening and we cannot afford to ignore the findings of this report.”

    Port facilities around Australia will be effected, as will Sydney and Brisbane airports. At least 11 power plants/substations are located within 500m of the coastline. The report details that there is a large number of facilities within 200 metres and 500 metres of the coastline, potentially at risk under a changing climate. This includes a large number of hospitals, police, fire and ambulance stations very close to the coast. In an extreme weather event the functionality of these services may be compromised, resulting in significantly greater impacts than might otherwise occur and could result in deaths.

    “Sea-level rise, more intense cyclones and ocean acidification will potentially increase the capital and operating costs of ports quite significantly by mid century,” Senator Wong said. “A number of airports are also located in low-lying areas in the coastal zone, and are at risk of inundation in the coming century.”

    The Torres Strait Islands, containing 17 Island communities with a total population of around 8,700 people, was assessed as extremely vulnerable to sea level rise. The report noted the IPCC finding that “Indigenous communities in the tropical north, home to about 87,000 Indigenous people, are also considered to be very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Such communities often live in isolated areas that are poorly resourced, and tend to have greater health issues and lower incomes than other communities.”

    “Every day we delay action on climate change, we increase the cost,” Senator Wong said
    “This report shows the need to reduce the carbon pollution that is causing climate change, which is why we are determined to pass the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It also shows that Australia must plan to adapt to the climate change we can’t avoid.”

    The Government is in negotiations with the Liberal and National Parties to pass legislation for its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) to be reintroduced into the Senate in the coming week. This legislation will create a ‘carbon market’, with many free credits issued initially to major companies in carbon emission intensive industries, particularly coal and power industries.

    Greens Deputy Leader Christine Milne commented “Despite these dire warnings we have a government intent on increasing the burning and export of coal and the logging and burning of our native forests for decades to come, knowing full well that this will result in the climate change impacts the government says it is concerned about.”

    “The absurdity of the situation is that the government’s own emissions trading legislation to be debated in the Senate in the coming fortnight will do nothing to stop the outcomes outlined in today’s report.”

    “The government should take the report on notice and redesign its emissions trading legislation to adopt strong targets to tackle climate change and end billions of dollars of handouts to the big polluters,”
    Senator Milne said.

    The release of the report was accompanied by the announcement by Senator Wong of the creation of a seven-member Coasts and Climate Change Council to be chaired by Professor Tim Flannery. Other members include: Ms Sam Mostyn – expert in sustainability and risk management; Mr Ron Clarke – Mayor of Gold Coast; Ms Paddi Creevey – Mayor of Mandurah; Professor Barbara Norman – Foundation Chair, Professor of Urban Planning, at University of Canberra; Professor Bruce Thom – President, Australian Coastal Society; and Geoff Lake – President, Australian Local Government Association.

    The Council has been set the task of engaging with the community and stakeholders and advising the Government in the lead up to a Coastal Climate Change Forum, to be held in early 2010. This Forum will bring together all levels of government to develop a strategy for coastal adaptation.

     

    The report was a first pass national assessment – one of the key actions identified in the National Climate Change Adaptation Framework endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 2007.

    Sources:

  • Farmers win changes to carbon scheme

     

    A spokeswoman for Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says farmers will be allowed to generate carbon credits.

    Negotiations are continuing between the Government and Coalition for amendments to the legislation as Parliament resumes on Monday and the Government pushes for a vote in late November.

    Both sides say the talks are progressing but Senator Wong says an agreement will be “difficult”.

    The Opposition are pushing for several changes but are likely to have some knocked back due to budget restraints.

    “What I’ve made clear is we’re not able to accept the entirety of what they’ve put forward – it would be fiscally unsustainable,” Senator Wong said.

    She says the Government made the backdown because it wants the scheme agreed to this year.

    She told ABC 1’s Insiders program this shows the Government is serious about the scheme passing Parliament by the end of the year.

    “We’re moving forward. We are absolutely committed on this side of the table to doing what we are able to, to get a deal,” she said.

    “That’s why we announced this offer on agriculture, that’s why we’ll continue to move forward on these negotiations. This is in Australia’s national interest, we need to get this reform through.”

    The Government had wanted to include farmers in the scheme from 2015.

    Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner told Channel Ten negotiations are continuing to secure the Coalition’s support.

    “We’ve prepared to accede to the Coalition’s request on this front,” he said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say now it’s a done deal.”

    Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull welcomed the concession, but he says the Coalition will keep pushing for further changes before it decides if it will support the emissions trading scheme.

    “There are a range of very important matters raised in the amendments,” he said.

    “I’ve made a deliberate decision not to say what’s a deal breaker, what’s more important, what’s less important.

    “The negotiations are being conducted constructively and I might say confidentially and they’ll reach a conclusion and then we will make a decision.”

     

    ‘Merely a gesture’

     

    The National Farmers Federation lobbied for the amendments, putting it in conflict with the National Party and climate change sceptics within the Liberal Party.

    The National’s Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce says the exemption of farmers from the emissions trading scheme (ETS) is merely a gesture.

    “The ETS is still a massive tax and we’ve got the problem that once the ETS starts, there is nothing in the future to stop it including agriculture,” he said.

    “It’s still a tenuous proposition and still means the only smart thing to do is block this massive new tax.”

    Senator Joyce says the scheme will not change global temperatures.

    “It’s like saying, ‘ah well, we’re only going to burn down a quarter of your house’. I don’t want you to burn down any of it,” he said.

    “Why are we proceeding down this path of a massive new tax when the reason that’s put forward, to change the temperature of the earth, is not possible?”

    The Opposition also wants more free permits for heavy polluters and more compensation for electricity generators.

    Mr Turnbull and emissions trading spokesman Ian Macfarlane will also struggle to get any agreed changes through the party room, which has to approve them before the Coalition decides on its final position.

    He has said that if the majority of amendments are accepted he would recommend the scheme be passed, but others such as Senator Nick Minchin say an agreement does not guarantee support for the scheme.

    Mr Turnbull has staked his leadership on the issue after declaring he could not lead a party that would not act on climate change

  • A terrifying vision of a world devastated by climate change

     

    Oxfam’s remarkable new online interactive documentary – Gabura, from daily life to disaster – launched in conjunction with the Guardian yesterday, allows you both to bear witness to the impact of climate change and to choose your own journey through the story.

    We enable you to see vividly how livelihoods have been ruined, crops destroyed, and families torn apart. To step into their shoes, and see where they go, how they live, and the hardships they suffer from the impact of climate change.

    Why have we chosen this medium to talk about climate change? Because, ahead of crucial talks this December in Copenhagen, we need our message to get out there in as many different ways as possible.

    We wanted to show some of the many stories about the devastating impact of climate change. After all, it is the people in poorer communities whose voices are all too often drowned out in the drumbeat of reports, debates and summits.

    There is Abdus, a farmer whose crops were lost after a bad harvest, who fears he cannot feed his family. There is Hosne Ara Khatun, a young widow too traumatised to speak after her husband was mauled to death by a tiger, starved as its natural habitat has disappeared due to rising sea levels. And there is the young father left to weep over the loss of his wife and young children after the community of Gabura was lashed by the devastation of cyclone Aila.

    They may seem thousands of miles away, but their troubles are real, they are growing worse, and they could soon happen to us unless we take action now.

    So while we show you – and allow you to choose – the images of devastation caused by climate change, we are also letting you know what you can do to stop the damage.

    The UK is currently preparing for its biggest ever climate change demonstration in support of action against climate change, The Wave, on 5 December in London.

    The march is one of scores of events by Oxfam and its partners ahead of the talks in Copenhagen, as we urge world leaders to forge a safe and fair climate deal to halt dangerous global warming and protect those most at risk, such as those living in Gabura.

    By calling on our leaders to act on climate change this December, we help the people of Gabura, and we help ourselves.

    • Barbara Stocking is the chief executive of Oxfam

  • Antarctic iceberg found floating near Macquarie Island

    Antarctic iceberg found floating near Macquarie island

    Australian biologist spots ‘huge floating island of ice’ halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica

     

    A large iceberg spotted off Macquarie Island

    A large iceberg spotted off Macquarie Island. Photograph: Murray Potter/AP

    Dean Miller, an Australian fur seal biologist, was the first person to spot the large white object floating past Macquarie island in the far south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean.

    “I’ve never seen anything like it. We looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice,” Miller told the Australian Antarctic division. “It was a monumental moment for me as it was the first iceberg I have seen.”

    Estimated to be about 50m high – from the waterline – and 500m long, the iceberg is now about five miles (8km) off the north-west of Macquarie island, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean.

    Scientists have said it is rare for icebergs to be seen so far north. Neil Young, an Australian Antarctic division glaciologist, said: “The iceberg is likely to be part of one of the big ones that calved from the Ross ice shelf nearly a decade ago.

    “Throughout the year several icebergs have been drifting slowly northwards with the ocean current towards Macquarie Island. We know there are also a few more icebergs 100km-200km to the west of the island.”

    Several huge icebergs broke off from Antarctica’s Ross ice shelf and the Ronne ice shelf in 2000 and are now drifting away from Antarctica. The first was about 190 miles long and 23 miles wide.

    Scientists believe the iceberg off Macquarie will break up and melt rapidly as it meanders northwards. However, before melting it could present a danger to ships, Young said.

    Since the start of satellite records in 1979, total Antarctic sea ice has increased by about 1% a decade, according to Nasa. The US space agency says it is unclear whether the small overall increase in sea ice expanse is a sign of meaningful change because ice areas vary considerably from year to year and from sector to sector.

    Considered individually, only the Ross sea sector had a significant positive trend, while sea ice extent has actually decreased in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas.

     

  • New Zealand was a friend to Middle Earth, but it’s no friend of the earth

     

     

    Then there are the US and Australia, which both reneged on the protocol after signing it. And Canada, which never reneged but still has emissions up by a quarter (worse than the US) and shows no sign of contrition or of being called to account by the other signatories.

     

    But my prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as “clean and green”.

     

    New Zealand secured a generous Kyoto target, which simply required it not to increase its emissions between 1990 and 2010. But the latest UN statistics show its emissions of greenhouse gases up by 22%, or a whopping 39% if you look at emissions from fuel burning alone.

     

    Some countries with big emissions growth started from a low figure in 1990. Arguably, they were playing catchup. There is no such excuse for New Zealand. Its emissions started high and went higher.

     

    They are today 60% higher than those of Britain, per head of population. Among industrialised nations, they are only exceeded by Canada, the US, Australia and Luxembourg. In recent years a lot of Brits have headed for Christchurch and Wellington in the hope of a green life in a country where they filmed the Lord of the Rings. But it’s a green mirage.

     

    To rub our noses in it, last year New Zealand signed up to the UN’s Climate Neutral Network, a list of nations that are “laying out strategies to become carbon neutral“.

     

    But if you read the small print of what New Zealand has actually promised, it is a measly 50% in emissions by 2050 – something even the US can trump.

     

    Where do all these emissions come from? New Zealand turns out to be mining ever more filthy brown coal to burn in its power stations. It has the world’s third highest rate of car ownership. And, with more cows than people, the country’s increasingly intensive agricultural sector is responsible for approaching half the greenhouse gas emissions.

     

    You might expect the UN Environment Programme to throw New Zealand off its list of countries supposedly pledged to head for climate neutrality. Sadly no. These steely guardians of the environment meekly say that the network “will not be policed… nor will UNEP verify claims“.

     

    Indeed, it seems to go to great lengths to deny reality. Check the UNEP website and you will find an excruciating hagiography about a “climate neutral journey to Middle Earth“, in which everything from the local wines to air conditioning and Air New Zealand get the greenwash treatment.

     

    After extolling the country’s green credentials, it asks: “Have you landed in a dreamland?” Well, UNEP’s reporter certainly has. He cheers New Zealand’s “global leadership in tackling climate change“, when the country’s minister in charge of climate negotiations, Tim Groser, has been busy reassuring his compatriots that “we would not try to be ‘leaders’ in climate change.”

     

    This is not just political spin. It is also commercial greenwash. New Zealand trades on its greenness to promote its two big industries: tourism and dairy exports. Groser says his country’s access to American markets for its produce is based on its positive environmental image. The government’s national marketing strategy is underpinned by a survey showing that tourism would be reduced by 68% if the country lost its prized “clean, green image”, and even international purchases of its dairy products could halve.

     

    The trouble is, on the climate change front at least, that green image increasingly defies reality.