Author: Neville

Carbon storage research considers Strzeleckis

Posted 6 hours 33 minutes ago

Map data ©2013 GBRMPA, Google – Terms of Use

Map

Map: Sale 3850
Research from the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has found there could be high potential for storing carbon in Strzelecki Ranges’ soil.

The DPI measured existing carbon levels on 630 farm sites across the state for the Victorian Soil Carbon Project.

A senior research scientist with the DPI , Dr Fiona Robertson, says places where there is already carbon in the soil are likely to be better sites for sequestration.

She says farms in regions that received higher rainfall had a higher level of carbon.

“In the northern regions, in the cropping regions in the Mallee, were the lowest carbon levels in the state and that’s almost entirely due to the climate up there,” she said.

“The highest carbon levels were in the very south, in the Otways and in the Strzeleckis in Gippsland.”

She says Victorian farmers are interested in the research but they should not get too excited.

“You have to set levels on your expectations for how much carbon you can store in the soil because it depends to a very large extent on where you’re located, on the climate, so that puts really strict bounds on what you can expect to store in the soil,” she said.

Topics: rural, environment, sale-3850

More stories from Victoria

Search ABC News

Featured Video

VideoGlenn A Baker reflects on the life of Chrissie Amphlett Music critic Glenn A Baker reflects on the life of former Divinyls lead singer Chrissy Amphlett who has died aged 53.

VideoDzhokhar Tsarnaev being arrested by police Authorities may never be able to question the only surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect.

VideoChina quake victims treated in makeshift hospital Stephen McDonell reports from a makeshift hospital in Sichuan province set up to treat earthquake victims.

VideoFour Corners probes murky world of sports doping Four Corners reporter Geoff Thompson reveals what’s really going on behind the scenes in professional sport.

Subscribe to ABC NewsMail

Join us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Got a news tip?

If you have inside knowledge of a topic in the

19 April 2013, 2.45pm AEST
Boycotting Israeli academics, or boycotting academic freedom?

On Wednesday last week, the Student Representative Council at the University of Sydney adopted a motion to boycott Israeli academics. The motion called specifically for the University to cut its current research ties with the Technion, Israel’s leading higher education technology institute, and supported…

Author

Gregory Rose

Professor of Law
.

Disclosure Statement

Gregory Rose receives funding from ARC, AGD, APCMC, UN, UOW.

The Conversation is funded by CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS, UWA, Canberra, CDU, Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, La Trobe, Massey, Murdoch, Newcastle. QUT, Swinburne, UniSA, USC, USQ, UTAS, UWS and VU.

Cr7dcy2q-1366265308Continued boycotts of Israeli academics pose a threat to the very freedoms that academics hold dear. AAP/Joe Castro .

On Wednesday last week, the Student Representative Council at the University of Sydney adopted a motion to boycott Israeli academics. The motion called specifically for the University to cut its current research ties with the Technion, Israel’s leading higher education technology institute, and supported the general academic boycott of Israel called for by the University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS).

That the boycott suppresses academic freedom is clear but less obvious is that it does not promote international peace and that it is fundamentally racist. Earlier this year, The Conversation published an argument in defence of the boycott by the CPACS’ Paul Dulffill, and the issue deserves to have both sides discussed.

What is the launching of a universal boycott of Israel intended to achieve? The purported reason given by CPACS – and supported by the SRC – is that because Israeli academics reside in a country alleged to have breached international law, those smarting academics will supposedly turn around Israeli foreign and security policy.

In reality, Australian academics have minimal influence on this country’s foreign policy, and even less in Israel where national security concerns predominate. Of course, Israeli academics facing attack tend to fight back like the rest of us when pushed against the wall. The academic boycott will never be effective in its supposed objective of changing Israeli policies.

Nevertheless, Students for Palestine and CPACS supporters of the boycott might still assert that it has secondary value in Australia, perhaps because the boycott raises academic awareness here, which might percolate through to Australian foreign policy makers. So, if an implicit objective is to generate Australian antagonism, a local boycott targeting Israeli academics might supposedly influence Australian foreign policy. However, there is no evidence that this symbolic activism at the University of Sydney will influence government or swing votes in the ballot box.

On their own avowal, the members of both the University of Sydney SRC and CPACS are active in Palestine solidarity campaigns and have picked a side in an international dispute – Dulfill says that the CPACS “can hardly be expected to be neutral or disinterested”. That conflict is complex and their choice is morally questionable, but they wish to push their interests on others.

Advocacy for the university to officially engage in a boycott and to propose that it be adhered to by academics is intellectual totalitarianism, anathema to respectable universities which resist political pressure to adopt partisan policies or repress academic research. Within a learning environment the freedom to doubt, to analyse and to form and articulate an independent perspective is fundamental and the essential quality of a university.

Choosing official sides between competing nationalities, religions and races politicises a campus, alienates members of faculty staff and is toxic to faculty collegiality. Jews would be alienated but not only them. It is reminiscent of ideological purges within the Soviet and Chinese communist parties.

Let’s put this in comparative perspective: should the University of Sydney cease all collaborative research with Indonesian institutes until the Papuan self-determination movement is satisfied? What about publishing official Sydney boycott manifestos on the democratic failures in China, Fiji, Malaysia and Singapore? If the problem is military applications of technology, then it must also boycott the ANU, the universities of NSW, Wollongong, and the list goes on.

Should the University of Sydney itself be boycotted if it does not officially adopt a boycott of Israel? Should University of Sydney academics who do not individually endorse an official boycott be penalised?

It has been truthlessly suggested that the academic boycott does not affect individual academics and that the Palestine Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) guidelines are clear on this. To the contrary, the PACBI guidelines do not meaningfully distinguish between Israeli academics and representatives of their institutions. Normally, any academic engaged in an international collaboration is assumed to informally represent his/her own institution. For example, an outstanding Australian-Israeli biomathematics colleague was told by a science journal that it could not publish him because of his Tel Aviv University address.

Academics are members of a social sector who typically tend to be public intellectuals and advocate for individual freedoms, liberal values and social justice. Professor Dan Avnon of the Hebrew University, who was not allowed by the Sydney CPACS to spend part of his sabbatical there, had sought to undertake individual academic work in Arab-Jewish peace studies. Shunning people who typically reach out for peaceful dialogue is an irony all can see.

Of course, the threat to academic freedom would be limited if this is the only boycott. Then, ambivalent University of Sydney staff might feel some relief: the boycott would simply be a symbolic demonstration of the University’s claim of a moral high ground. Just the Jewish state alone and no more. Sad, that is.

Australian suppression of peaceful engagement with Israeli academics could make sense only because its objective has nothing to do with peace. The long-war objective of the academic boycott is the same as the trade and diplomatic boycotts that Arab states have imposed on Israel since its inception 65 years ago.

The Friends of Palestine approach within the SRC and CPACS entails denial of any Jewish state. They are warriors in the conflict, adding fuel to its fire. There could be no more elegant demonstration for why Jews need their own country.

Europe’s climate chief vows to fight on to save emissions trading scheme

Connie Hedegaard’s attempts to introduce longer-term reforms will face fierce opposition from a powerful business lobby
Share 120

inShare.13
Email

Fiona Harvey in Brussels

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 April 2013 17.43 BST

Jump to comments (17)

Member of European Commission in charge of Climate Action Connie Hedegaard
Connie Hedegaard, EU commissioner for climate action, at a press conference on a 2030 framework for EU climate change and energy policies. Photograph: Etienne Ansotte/Shimera/EU Press office

Europe’s climate chief vowed on Wednesday to fight on to save the EU’s flagship environmental policy, the emissions trading system (ETS), after a serious blow on Tuesday when MEPs rejected reforms aimed at repairing the ailing system.

MEPs voted 334 against to 315 in favour of “backloading” the market – a proposal aimed to reverse the plummeting price of carbon that has resulted from a surplus of permits in the ETS market – leading the price of carbon to fall by almost half to under €3 on Tuesday.

Connie Hedegaard, EU commissioner for climate action, said: “We are preparing structural [longer-term reforms]. We will have new meetings for stakeholders, in parallel with an impact assessment. We are preparing an initiative.” The proposals include measures to restrict rights to carbon permits under the system, and to allow for reviews of the number of permits companies receive for free.

Phil Hogan, the Irish environment minister who holds responsibility for the portfolio under the Irish presidency, said: “We are not prepared to allow this issue to die. We have a working party, and we will see what we have to do to put [this issue] up to people in a democratic process.”

These attempts will face fierce opposition, however, from a powerful business lobby that has opposed the penalties on carbon dioxide emissions that Europe has sought to impose, in order to tackle climate change.

The EU ETS, which began in 2005 and covers the majority of the EU’s energy-intensive industries, is one of only two major carbon dioxide trading systems in the world, intended to cut emissions by putting a price on carbon. The vote by the European parliament to throw out reform proposals was seen by analysts and traders as a potentially fatal blow.

Much more is at stake than the EU’s own emissions. A breakdown of the scheme, which is the cornerstone of the European commission’s efforts to tackle global warming, would severely damage Europe’s reputation as a global leader on climate issues and diminish the bloc’s clout in ongoing international climate change negotiations aimed at replacing the 1997 Kyoto protocol. Mechanisms such as emissions trading are viewed as essential to force countries and businesses to cut their greenhouse gases, at a time when global emissions are still rising strongly despite ever more stark warnings from scientists.

Hedegaard said the commission had already put in train a variety of proposals that would require far-reaching structural reform to the trading system.

Under the ETS, energy intensive industries are allocated or required to purchase carbon permits to cover the emissions they produce. The resulting penalty on carbon emissions is supposed to act as an incentive for companies to become more efficient and invest in cleaner technologies, such as renewable energy.

But the system has been troubled since soon after its inception, when it was found that member states had allocated far too many free carbon permits to their industries, resulting in a crash in the carbon price. Permit prices recovered when the rules were tightened, but that was in good economic times – when recession struck from 2008-09, many companies were producing far less while still receiving mountains of free permits. That resulted in a massive surplus of permits in a market that relies on scarcity for its very existence – the resulting price of carbon has been so low, at a few euros per tonne, that it provides no incentive for businesses to change their behaviour.

The reforms that were rejected on Tuesday would have shored up the price of carbon, by postponing planned auctions of 900m new permits. But some business groupings lobbied hard against the proposals, which they said would impose costs on companies that overseas competitors do not face, and the vote was narrowly lost – in part because a number of the UK’s Tory MEPs rebelled against David Cameron’s party line.

For carbon traders and campaigners, the MEPs’ rejection of “backloading” – the postponement, not cancellation, of permit auctions – was a disaster.

Stig Schjølset, head of EU carbon analysis at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, said the vote would “make EU ETS irrelevant as an emissions reduction tool for many years to come” and that it was “very unlikely that any political intervention in the scheme will be agreed during the third phase from 2013 to 2020”.

As a result, he predicted the price of carbon would not rise much above its current €3s and could fall again before 2020.

BusinessEurope, a business group that spearheaded the lobbying of MEPs to reject the shorting up of the carbon market, said its members had been “unanimous” in opposing backloading. However, other business groupings have disagreed, including the CBI which supports shoring up the EU’s carbon price.

Milton Catelin, chief executive of the World Coal Association, called the European parliament vote “a triumph of common sense and balanced policy”.

Report warns of ‘unburnable carbon scenario’

AM
By Simon Lauder
Updated Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:55pm AEST

The report found most oil, gas and coal reserves would become useless if targets are kept. Photo: The report found most oil, gas and coal reserves would become useless if targets are kept. (David Hancock: AFP)

Related Story: Climate change report a wake-up call: Combet

Related Story: Carbon tax fears unfounded: Gujarat NRE

Related Story: Coal-generated power here to stay: study

Map: United Kingdom
British researchers are warning that effective action on climate change could trigger a new global economic crisis by devaluing the price of fossil fuels.

The report, by the London School of Economics and the non-government organisation Carbon Tracker, found 60 to 80 per cent of oil, gas and coal reserves owned by listed companies would become useless if global emission targets are kept.

It is dubbed the “unburnable carbon scenario”.

Under the 2010 Cancun agreement, governments made it a target to stop the global temperature increasing by more than two degrees.

But one report author, James Leaton, says it could be the making of a new financial crisis.

“If we carry on in that direction, then it could create a bubble around these reserves that then don’t have a market,” he said.

“There’s been similar findings from the International Energy Agency.”

Mr Leaton says the world’s top 200 fossil fuel companies are valued at $4 trillion, with a further $1.5 trillion in debt.

“We think there’s a sizeable chunk of that value at risk that the market’s not currently pricing in,” he said.

“We just need investors to start thinking about what that means for their portfolios now.”

Australia could be particularly exposed.

The head of the Investor Group on Climate Change, Nathan Fabian, said it could throw global financial markets into turmoil.

“There’s the local share market exposure but also about a third of the value of coal companies listed in London is based in Australia,” he said.

“From a broader economic perspective there is a lot of coal exposure within Australia.”

Earlier this month the Australian arm of banking giant Citigroup estimated about 14 per cent of the ASX 200 market capitalisation relates to fossil fuels.

Citigroup’s analysts conclude that while the unburnable carbon scenario is an investment risk, the more likely scenario is greater fossil fuel use and a greater degree of global warming.

Topics: environmental-policy, business-economics-and-finance, united-kingdom

First posted Sat Apr 20, 2013 6:07pm AEST

US-Israel arms deal sends Iran ‘clear signal’: Hagel

AFPUpdated April 21, 2013, 10:21 pm

tweet

Email
Print

US-Israel arms deal sends Iran clear signal : Hagel
AFP © Enlarge photo

TEL AVIV (AFP) – A major US arms deal with Israel sends Iran a “very clear signal” that military action remains an option to stop it from going nuclear, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said in Tel Aviv on Sunday.

Hagel’s remarks were made shortly before his arrival in the Jewish state at the start of a six-day regional trip likely to be dominated by worries over Iran’s nuclear programme and Syria’s civil war.

Asked if a multi-billion dollar arms package with Israel was designed to convey a message that a military strike remains an option, he said: “I don’t think there’s any question that’s another very clear signal to Iran”.

The trip, his first since taking over the Pentagon nearly two months ago, was likely to see Hagel putting the finishing touches on plans to sell $10 billion worth of advanced missiles and aircraft to Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in a bid to counter the threat posed by Iran.

The deal, which was unveiled on the eve of Hagel’s departure, will see Israel obtaining anti-radiation missiles designed to take out enemy air defences, radar for fighter jets, aerial refuelling tankers and Osprey V-22 tilt-rotor transport aircraft.

It will also see the sale of US F-16 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates and sophisticated missiles to Saudi Arabia.

American and Israeli leaders have been at odds over Iran, with President Barack Obama’s administration arguing tough sanctions and diplomacy need to be given more time to work.

But Israel, believed to be the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power, has repeatedly warned time is running out and has refused to rule out a pre-emptive military strike to prevent Iran from obtaining an atomic weapons capability.

Hagel insisted there was no rift between Israel and Washington over the threat posed by a nuclear Iran but conceded there were differences over the timing.

“I think it’s clear…. that Israel and the United States see the threat of Iran exactly the same,” he told reporters.

“So I don’t think there’s any daylight there. When you break down into the specifics of the timing of when and if Iran decides to pursue a nuclear weapon, there may well be some differences,” he said.

But he added: “I believe our intelligence is generally pretty close to each other as are other intelligence agencies.”

Last week, Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said the Israel Defence Forces was capable of attacking Iran on its own without US support.

But Hagel declined to be drawn on suggestions the Jewish state could act alone, only saying Israel was a sovereign nation which had “the right to defend itself, to protect itself”.

And he said more time was needed to see if sanctions and diplomacy would convince Iran to change its course.

“I think our policy is the correct policy. Israel has every right to make its own assessments,” he said, adding the two allies were “working very closely”.

During the visit, Hagel will hold talks with his Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres before leaving for Jordan on Tuesday afternoon.

He will also visit Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia where he will discuss the final details of the arms deal, although US officials say it could be months or more for the new weapons and aircraft to be delivered.

Hagel’s arrival in Israel marks the third visit by a top US official within the past month, coming hot on the heels of a trip by US Secretary of State John Kerry and a historic visit in March by President Obama.
Before his appointment as defence secretary, Hagel — a blunt-talking, fiercely independent Republican — was criticised by elements within his own party and in Israel for being being too soft on Iran and too tough on the Jewish state.

Govt unveils draft Anzac centenary plans
Updated: 15:36, Sunday April 21, 2013
Govt unveils draft Anzac centenary plans

A series of interactive ‘travelling museums’ will form part of the federal government’s official Centenary of Anzac program, which has received a $25 million funding boost.

The extra cash, on top of the $83.5 million committed in last year’s budget, will help prepare what Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called the most significant Anzac commemoration ‘in our lifetimes’.

Australia will mark the Anzac Centenary between 2014 and 2018, commemorating 100 years since the nation’s involvement in World War One.

The government’s advisory board on the centenary program released its official blueprint for the proceedings on Sunday, including 25 recommendations the government accepted as a whole.

Ms Gillard thanked the board and its head, former Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, for their excellent work.

‘This will be a time when all Australians can reflect upon the service and sacrifice of those who have served our country past and present,’ she said in a statement.

The $25 million is for projects that need some capital to get started early, including $10 million for the national Anzac Centenary Travelling Exhibition.

A major feature of the program, the museums will travel widely across Australia and include a state-of-the-art interactive wall that allows people to leave their own personal Anzac story.

The high-tech Anzac History Wall will be trucked around the country for three-and-a-half years and is expected to reach 85 per cent of the population.

An event to commemorate the first convoy that left Albany in 1914, a project to protect a Gallipoli submarine and a series of documentaries will receive $2.5 million each.

The remaining $7.2 million of the extra funding will go towards academic research including for the Anzac archives, history grants and the digitisation of First World War repatriation records.

The government in February announced it would double the amount available for local communities seeking grants to join the centenary to $100,000 per electorate.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE: