Australia small-minded on climate change
Debate on climate change in Australia is small-minded and a repeat of the Victorian bushfires is possible if global temperatures do not ease, climate change expert Tim Flannery says.
At best, Prof Flannery says, children who aspire to be firefighters may be alive long enough to avoid severe weather conditions that fuelled February’s Black Saturday and claimed 173 lives.
Prof Flannery expressed his views on Saturday in a speech on extreme climate events at the International WildFire Management Conference in Sydney.
Regulations fail to quiet ETS dissent
Regulations fail to quiet ETS dissent
Lenore Taylor, National correspondent | June 20, 2009
INDUSTRY and green groups have raised serious concerns about draft regulations released yesterday detailing some of the proposed compensation arrangements for heavy polluting industry under the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government was releasing the “first tranche” of regulations earlier than usual because of the political sensitivities surrounding the emissions trading debate.
“It is unusual that draft regulations be released for public comment ahead of the passage of legislation. The government is taking this extra step to make available as much information as possible to parliament,” she said.
Climate report stresses urgent action
Climate report stresses urgent action
Researchers are warning the planet is facing a growing risk of abrupt and irreversible climatic shifts unless carbon emissions are reduced.
A new report says greenhouse gas emissions and other indicators are closing in on the upper limits forecast by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change two years ago.
The University of Copenhagen released the Synthesis Report overnight which draws on 1,600 scientific contributions to a global climate summit held in Copenhagen earlier this year.
Australian National University Professor Will Steffen was one of 12 researchers who contributed to the report, along with Sir Nicholas Stern.
“The climate system is now moving out of the envelope of variability in which our civilisations have developed,” Professor Steffen said.
Multinationals eye up Lithium reserves beneath Bolivia’s salt flats.
Multinationals eye up lithium reserves beneath Bolivia’s salt flats
Metal deposits may be key to green car revolution but government in La Paz yet to agree deal
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 June 2009 19.26 BST
- Article history
Half the world’s reserves of lithium, the metallic element used to make batteries in electric cars, are believed to be in the salt desert, Salar de Uyuni. Photograph: Jose Luis Quintana/Reuters
Stand in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world’s greatest salt desert, and the first word that springs to mind is nothing. As far as the eye can see, nothing. Not a shrub or tree, not a hill or valley, just an endless expanse of white.
This salt flat in Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, is a harsh and eerie landscape, perhaps the closest thing nature has to a void. From the Incas to the present day, humanity has made little impression here.
Carbon capture plans threaten shutdown of all UK coal-fired power stations.
Carbon capture plans threaten shutdown of all UK coal-fired power stations
Radical proposals to require existing plants, including Drax, to fit the technology would force their closure, government admits
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 June 2009 18.54 BST
- Article history
All of Britain’s coal-fired power stations, including Drax, the country’s largest emitter of carbon, could be forced to close down under radical plans unveiled by government today.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is proposing to extend his plans to force companies to fit carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) onto new coal plants – as revealed by the Guardian – to cover a dozen existing coal plants.
The consultation published by his Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) conceded that if this happened “we could expect them to close”.
$200m wind farm planned for Shannon’s flat
$200m wind farm planned for Shannons Flat
ABC News
One of Australia’s highest wind farms could be up and running on a site near Canberra within three years.
Sydney-based company CBD Energy Limited has acquired a license to build the $200 million wind farm on a site at Shannons Flat between Cooma and Canberra.
The turbines would produce about 50 megawatts of energy which would be fed into the New South Wales electricity grid.