Author: Neville

UN group links heatwave to climate change

AM
By environment reporter Sarah Clarke
Updated Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:05pm AEDT

Video: IPCC meets in Australia for first time (ABC News)

Related Story: Climate change will force farmers to adapt: CSIRO

Map: Hobart 7000
The United Nations’s (UN) chief climate science body says there is no doubt last week’s extreme heat in Australia is part of a global warming trend.

More than 250 of the world’s top climate scientists are meeting in Hobart today to prepare the next major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

They have vowed to deliver “scientifically defensible” findings when the report is released in just over eight months’ time.

You will get more heatwaves… and we are also going to get extreme precipitation events.

If you look at the trend it’s pretty unmistakeable and any proper analysis would tell you we are heading in that direction.

IPCC chairman Rajenda Pachauri

Speaking to AM, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri says the world is on track for a rise in temperature of between 1.1C to 6.4C.

“Now this depends on the kind of economic growth you get, a whole lot of other drivers that would essentially lead to climate change,” he said.

“But if you’re going to end up towards the upper end, then that clearly is a very, very serious outcome that we’re looking at.

“You will get more heatwaves – we already are getting more frequent heatwaves – and we are also going to get extreme precipitation events.

“If you look at the trend, it’s pretty unmistakeable and any proper analysis would tell you we are heading in that direction.”

In December, a draft of the report was leaked on climate sceptic websites, in a move Dr Pachauri describes as “very unfortunate”.

“It certainly goes against the agreement that you have with the expert reviewers,” he said.

“Every page of the draft report clearly carries this expectation that this is confidential, because this is a work in progress.”

Video: Extreme weather driving up food prices: Oxfam (ABC News)

‘Solid, robust, defensible’

Dr Pachauri says scientists are still working very hard on the final report.

“It’s entirely possible that what we get in the final version may be far stronger or in some cases maybe a little more moderate,” he said.

“I wouldn’t go by any of the conclusions that people have seen as part of the draft report.

“But I’m absolutely certain that what we will get is a very solid, very robust and scientifically defensible report.”

He said the IPCC would look at whether there was any need to change processes in the wake of the leak.

Audio: Heatwave ‘part of unmistakeable warming trend’ (AM)

“On the one hand we are supposed to be as open as possible and we should get as many expert reviewers as possible,” he said.

“In the second order draft we’ve had over 31,000 comments.

“We don’t want to restrict it to a point where people might say that you only get your own chosen people to comment on the report.”

But he said drafts should not be made public because they could be misleading and “may not give you the true picture of what the report will finally contain”.

He remains confident of the potential for global action on climate change.

“I am concerned, no doubt, but I also have a high opinion of human wisdom that I think at some stage we will bring about change,” he said.

“I mean the world did act on the Montreal Protocol, the whole problem of depletion of the ozone layer and it happened very fast.

“Now I expect that perhaps this, as is the case, is going to take a little longer, but hopefully we will get action across the board.”

Topics:climate-change, environment, science-and-technology, research-organisations, world-politics, hobart-7000, tas, australia

First posted Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:45am AEDT

More stories from Tasmania

Rio Tinto chief quits after heavy writedowns

Updated 1 hour 26 minutes ago

Photo: Stepping aside: Tom Albanese (Christinne Muschi, file photo: Reuters ( FAMILIAR SURNAME)!!!!

Related Story: Rio hits record iron ore production

Map: Australia
Mining company Rio Tinto has announced the sudden resignation of its chief executive Tom Albanese.

Mr Albanese’s decision to stand down follows more than $13 billion worth of writedowns on the company’s aluminium assets and its coal division in Mozambique.

The projects were two of Mr Abanese’s most significant acquisitions, and Rio Tinto chairman Jan du Plessis has described the results as “unacceptable”.

“I would like to pay tribute to Tom for his considerable contribution to Rio Tinto over more than 30 years of service and for his integrity and dedication to the company,” he said in a statement.

Mr Albanese, who became chief executive in 2007, says his resignation is effective immediately.

“While I leave the business in good shape in many respects, I fully recognise that accountability for all aspects of the business rests with the CEO,” he said in a statement.

Mr du Plessis says the head of Rio’s iron ore division, Sam Walsh, will step into the role.

“He is ideally placed to cast a fresh eye over how we address the challenges and opportunities in the business and derive greater value from it,” he said.

Until now, Mr Albanese had largely survived the consequences of his damaging $US38 billion acquisition of aluminium group Alcan in 2007, a top-of-the-market deal when Rio was under pressure from rivals to bulk up or be acquired.

The group has since seen years of losses in aluminium and took a $8.9 billion charge a year ago.

It had planned to shrink the division by hiving off most of its Australian and New Zealand assets for sale, but buyers have not flocked.

The finance world has expressed surprise at the announcement, but business commentator Tim Treadgold says Mr Albanese’s departure was inevitable.

“These guys always look good when they’re buying things and spending shareholders money, but they don’t look good when it comes time to earn profits off those investments and they simply haven’t been able to do that,” he said.

The announcement comes a day after the mining giant unveiled record production in 2012 and beefed up expansion plans for its flagship Australian iron ore operations.

Acquisition

Rio bought Mozambique-focused coal miner Riversdale in 2011.

Doug Ritchie, who led the acquisition and integration of the Mozambique coal assets, has also stepped aside.

Neither will get a lump sum payout or outstanding bonuses.

Rio says the non-cash impairments in its 2012 results include a charge of around $3 billion relating to the Mozambique business, as well as reductions in the carrying values of Rio’s aluminium assets in the range of $10 billion to $11 billion.

The group also expects to report a number of smaller asset writedowns in the order of $500 million.

The final figures will be included in Rio Tinto’s full-year results on February 14.

“The Rio Tinto Board fully acknowledges that a writedown of this scale in relation to the relatively recent Mozambique acquisition is unacceptable,” Mr du Plessis said.

“We are also deeply disappointed to have to take a further substantial writedown in our aluminium businesses, albeit in an industry that continues to experience significant adverse changes globally.”

ABC/Reuters

Topics:mining-industry, industry, business-economics-and-finance, company-news, australia, united-states, wa

First posted 3 hours 21 minutes ago

Iconic Beach Resorts May Not Survive Sea Level Rises

Jan. 16, 2013 — A leading coastal scientist has warned that some of the world’s best known beach resorts may not survive projected sea level rises and that problems caused by changing sea levels are compounded by a lack of political will and short-term coastal management initiatives.

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Professor Andrew Cooper, Professor of Coastal Studies in the School of Environmental Sciences at the university’s Coleraine campus, said a rise in sea level of even a few feet could threaten some of the world’s most iconic resorts.

Professor Cooper has investigated and reported on the world’s coasts in a research and teaching career that has taken him to more than 50 countries on six continents over the past quarter century. He co-authored the book “The World’s Beaches: a global guide to the science of the shoreline” last year.

The Coleraine-based academic said that while the most pervasive driver of coastal change at present is global sea level rise, rising sea levels alone do not necessarily threaten beaches — the problem arises when beaches are artificially hemmed in and not given room to move.

“Beaches have survived 120 m of sea level rise over the last ten thousand years. Problems only arise if we don’t give beaches room to move and to adjust to the changing sea level,” he said.

Professor Cooper explained: “A key attractor in most of the world’s examples of coastal resort cities has been the presence of an adjacent beach. Some well-known examples are Benidorm, Torremolinos, (Spain), Cannes (France), West Palm Beach, Florida, Atlantic City, New Jersey (USA), Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (USA), Virginia Beach, Virginia (USA), Cancun (Mexico) and the most rapidly developed of all coastal resort cities, Dubai (United Arab Emirates). In all of these resorts the challenge is to preserve the real estate behind the beach and still save the beaches, which are being pushed landwards by rising sea level.

“All around the world, people are responding to the threat of rising sea level by building concrete walls to protect valuable beachfront property. When sea level rises, the beach wants to move, generally further landward, but the wall stops it so eventually, the beach gets squeezed out. When the rising water reaches this protective wall, as it inevitably does, the beach is drowned.”

He continued: “Coastal defences built to protect valuable developments along shoreline are stopping beaches from moving landward which is where they want to go. That’s really the Achilles heel of coastal resorts as beaches must be allowed to ‘move’.”

Beach replenishment or nourishment is sometimes seen as panacea for disappearing beaches but, according to Professor Cooper, this is not a solution either.

“There are a lot of issues with beach nourishment — not least the cost — but beach nourishment would not be needed if developments were properly planned in the first place to give beaches room to move. Maintaining resort beaches by nourishment is a major challenge with rising sea level.

Professor Cooper recently published the results of a study along Australia’s Gold Coast to assess adaption options for coastal resort cities. The study, believed to be the first of its kind to specifically assess adaptation options for coastal resorts, could become a blueprint for other resorts around the world.

“On developed coasts, human activities dominate over natural processes in shaping the coastline. Beach resort cities are mostly artificial creations on the shoreline that rely on beach nourishment to sustain them and on their reputation for a clean and safe environment. To maintain this during rapid sea level rise will be near impossible. To hold beaches stationary while sea level rise is pushing them landwards will require a massive increase in the amount of sand being pumped onto beaches.

“Our study of resorts along the Gold Coast of Australia suggests that with advance planning, we might just cope with a 1metre sea level rise but not even careful planning beforehand could enable resorts to survive more than that.

“The problems are the volume of additional sand required to hold the beach in place and the engineering requirements for protection of low-lying developments and infrastructure. These problems are compounded by a lack of political will to adapt, uncertainty regarding how much sea level will rise, short-term coastal management initiatives, and the climate change skeptics.”

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Park and unit block stop trams in their tracks

Date January 17, 2013 72 reading now
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Jacob Saulwick

Transport Reporter

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Tram plan distresses residents

Owner occupier Sid Hickman is concerned that the new Sydney tram line will go through the Surry Hills unit block he lives in.
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THE route for the planned tram line from Circular Quay to the eastern suburbs is pretty easy to understand – with one exception.

From the Quay, trams will head along George Street to Central Station, turn left and pass along Eddy Avenue. They will then turn right to run along Chalmers Street on the eastern side of the railway. They then turn left into Devonshire Street and run eastwards into the heart of Surry Hills.

But Devonshire Street stops at Bourke Street, right by that street’s eponymous and popular bakery.

Mystified … unit residents Henry Chou, left, and Syd Hickman. Photo: Tamara Dean

So before the planned tram line can get to South Dowling Street and cross into the eastern suburbs it somehow needs to pass from the end of Devonshire Street through a park and probably some Surry Hills apartment blocks and terrace houses.

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The trouble is, no one knows what houses or apartment blocks will need to be demolished for the light rail line, announced by the O’Farrell Government in December. The uncertainty has owners and residents unnerved.

”It is pretty crazy,” said Syd Hickman, the chairman of the owners’ committee of Olivia Gardens apartments, a block of 69 that stands right in the middle of where, on the government’s maps, the line needs to go.

What the light rail will look like near Martin Place.

Mr Hickman wrote to the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, late last year asking if his apartment block would need to be torn down. He has not heard back. ”They put out these glossy brochures … they must have a plan,” he said.

Mr Hickman is not against the light rail line. But he would just like to know if it will mean knocking down the block, or if another route is planned.

He said some older Olivia Garden residents were particularly nervous because they might have to sell their apartments to move into aged-care.

”Most of us are not wanting to go to the barricades,” he said.

In a statement, Ms Berejiklian said that more design work was needed before she could confirm the route through Surry Hills.

”I can appreciate that local residents are keen to know what the route will be and the government will make sure they are notified as soon as possible once the preferred alignment is confirmed,” Ms Berejiklian said.

There might be alternatives to knocking down the Olivia Gardens block. Trams could pass through a narrow laneway that runs parallel to the block, Parkham Lane. But that would need to be widened to fit twin tracks, possibly at the expense of the backyards or terrace houses on adjacent Parkham Street.

”I just don’t know how they are going to do it,” said James, a self-funded retiree and home owner on Parkham Street.

”I just thought it would be all crap so I ignored it.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/park-and-unit-block-stop-trams-in-their-tracks-20130116-2ctsl.html#ixzz2ICjSktZ1

Thousands flee from Jakarta floods

By Indonesia correspondent George Roberts

Posted 34 minutes ago

Video: Thousands flee from Jakarta floods (ABC News)

Map: Indonesia
Widespread flooding across the Indonesian capital of Jakarta has forced more than 10,000 people to flee their homes, with two people killed so far in the seasonal chaos.

Disaster management authorities are preparing for the possible evacuation of up to 350,000 people, with 30 per cent of the city already inundated by floodwaters.

“My home is destroyed – all of it. It’s in chaotic piles of mess,” resident Umar Dani said through a translator.

He said the flood reached the roof of his house.

The National Disaster Management Centre’s Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said a child was among the two victims swept away in the floods overnight.

“Days of heavy downpours caused the rivers to overflow and triggered floods up to three metres,” he said through a translator, adding that rivers in Jakarta had a low capacity to contain the monsoonal rain.

In 2007, major floods forced 350,000 people to leave their homes and authorities are preparing for the same impact this year.

However, they say it is hard to predict how bad things will get.

Mr Nugroho says the 2007 floods caused nearly $500 million of damage in Jakarta alone.

“It’s serious because this is the capital of Indonesia and flooding can affect the economy locally and nationally,” he said.

Indonesia is regularly afflicted by deadly floods and landslides during its wet season, which lasts around half the year, and many in the capital live beside rivers that periodically overflow.

At least 11 people were killed and seven missing in November after flash floods triggered by heavy rain hit a village on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island.

ABC/AFP

Topics:floods, disasters-and-accidents, indonesia

Report warned of threat to rail safety

Date January 17, 2013 Read later

Sean Nicholls, Jacob Saulwick

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Cuts … Gladys Berejiklian. Photo: Dean Sewell

SENIOR RailCorp executives warned that continued cuts to maintenance funding would jeopardise the safety of the network a year before the O’Farrell government announced 450 jobs would be axed, leaked documents reveal.

The confidential report of an executive management meeting shows RailCorp was already struggling with funding cuts in February 2011, a month before the state election in which the O’Farrell government took office.

It had asked the then Labor government for a maintenance budget of $1.175 billion for the 2011-12 financial year. But the government offered only $1.049 billion – a shortfall of $126 million.

”Ongoing forward estimate reduction … will not allow the existing levels of safety and reliability to be maintained in the long term,” the report warns.

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Maintenance funding for 2011-12 ended up at $1.11 billion, higher than the proposed amount but less than initially requested and the same as the previous year.

This meant the maintenance budget was cut in real terms in the first year of the O’Farrell government when inflation was taken into account, reversing a trend of higher yearly spending on maintenance.

Last November, the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, announced that as part of the government’s ”fixing the trains” policy, 450 maintenance jobs, or 10 per cent of the workforce, would be cut from RailCorp.

The cuts would be achieved by merging smaller maintenance depots across the network to create larger ”centres of excellence”, Ms Berejiklian said.

The O’Farrell government’s maintenance budget for the present financial year is $1.165 billion, still less than RailCorp’s request of two years ago but a record high. However, this would include spending to build the new centres.

Separate documents obtained by Fairfax Media show the government plans to collapse 126 maintenance depots into six ”super depots” and 17 satellite depots.

The national secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, Bob Nanva, said the documents were ”alarming”.

”RailCorp warned that track safety would be compromised by budget cuts almost two years ago, yet since then the government has only accelerated its program of cuts,” he said. ”The wholesale axing of maintenance depots will gut RailCorp of the experience and knowledge needed to keep our rail network safe.”

Ms Berejiklian said: ”This is a Labor government document written two years ago. Any restructure and changes in responsibility across RailCorp are being reviewed by Australian Transport Safety Bureau commissioner and former head of the Independent Transport Safety Regulator Carolyn Walsh.”

The February 2011 document shows RailCorp was planning to delay refurbishing Tangara trains as one way of coping with its lower budget. But the document says deferring cosmetic maintenance on Tangaras were only short-term initiatives.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/report-warned-of-threat-to-rail-safety-20130116-2cttr.html#ixzz2IBG0SWEC