Post of the Day
Engineers have built machines to scrub CO₂ from the air. But will it halt climate change?
Deanna D’Alessandro
On Wednesday this week, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at at 415 parts per million (ppm). The level is the highest in human history, and is growing each year.
On This Day
Climate Change
The Climate Question: Does Africa have a voice on climate?
Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate is on a mission to make sure Africa is listened to.
7 climate actions that Biden could take on his first day
From rejoining the Paris Agreement to stopping the Keystone Pipeline to restoring the Bears Ears monuments, some of the Trump administration’s most public environmental rollbacks can be easily reversed by a new president.
Explainer: How Biden could use his whole government to take on climate change
Biden has promised an “all-of-government” approach to fight climate change that would require federal agencies from the Defense Department to the Treasury to help the administration achieve its goal of sharply slashing nationwide greenhouse gas emissions.
These 6 numbers show the state of the climate crisis Biden inherits
Joe Biden takes office during an increasingly obvious and destructive climate crisis. To rein it in, he’ll have to keep these 6 numbers in mind.
How to think about President Biden’s big climate plans
Democrats have learned not to peg their hopes to a single major climate bill.
What the world wants from John Kerry
Joe Biden’s incoming climate envoy will have to restore confidence among foreign leaders that the U.S. is serious about leading a global effort to cap greenhouse gases.
US Supreme Court weighs in on cities’ climate change lawsuits
The court’s decision will likely determine the path for more than a dozen other legal challenges the oil industry is facing and any future claims.
The brakes on Biden’s climate ambitions [$]
Matthew Warren
A global agreement on a cleaner and cooler way forward might still curiously depend on some old-school Republican conservatives.
Engineers have built machines to scrub CO₂ from the air. But will it halt climate change?
Deanna D’Alessandro
On Wednesday this week, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at at 415 parts per million (ppm). The level is the highest in human history, and is growing each year.
National
Software to slash farming emissions secures $30m investment
Australian-designed software aimed at improving farm productivity and cutting emissions through soil carbon has secured $5m from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Subalpine regions struggle to recover after 2019-20 bushfires as eucalypt forests fare better
The Bushfire Recovery Project, led by five scientists, is tracking forest regrowth in NSW and Victoria using data gathered by citizen scientists
Severe heatwave and high bushfire danger forecast ahead of Australia Day
Weather forecast to ease by Australia Day after ‘big burst of summer heat’
Scott Morrison backs coal wealth for decades to come
The Prime Minister fended off calls to phase out fossil fuels, but also ruled out government subsidies for coal mines.
George Christensen struggling to secure numbers for banking climate inquiry
An impasse in Parliament has stymied a push to investigate banks and insurance companies that consider climate change risk as a factor in major deals.
Fact check: Do more people in Australia work for McDonalds than in coal mining?
An Australian economist claims that coal mining employs less than one per cent of the population – and fewer people than McDonald’s.
Hydro, Macquarie, Shell in ‘game-changer’ storage deal [$]
The ability to trade stored energy is expected to become essential to capture revenues from pumped hydro plants and batteries and manage power price volatility.
PM’s gas-fired Covid recovery [$]
Scott Morrison has struck a two-year deal with large east-coast LNG exporters to offer uncontracted gas first to Australian companies, in a bid to keep prices down and lower costs for manufacturers as part of the government’s COVID-19 recovery plan.
Yancoal speaks with forked tongue — and strangled syntax — on effects of China ban [$]
Glenn Dyer
A leading Australian coal exporter talks pretty to its Chinese bosses. Direct and honest? Not so much.
Leading the world by leaving it behind
Marie Low
It seems it has taken a pandemic to make us all think about where and how we live.
The open Australian beach is a myth: not everyone can access these spaces equally
Michelle O’Shea et al
Last week, the McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney came under fire for their (since removed) policy stating “only transgender women who’ve undergone a gender reassignment surgery are allowed entry”. The policy was seemingly in defiance of New South Wales’ anti-discrimintation and sex discrimination acts.
Victoria
Home battery uptake sets record highs in Victoria
New data shows Victoria closed out 2020 with records for solar battery rebate uptake and installation, as fortnightly allocations of discounted home batteries get “snapped up.”
Radical bike plan could solve traffic woes
A radical bike plan with incentives for cyclists could help ease Melbourne’s traffic nightmare.
New South Wales
New front in transmission war, as TransGrid flags Snowy 2.0 network upgrades
NSW ministers called on to prevent “wholesale destruction” of Kosciuszko National Park by Snowy 2.0 transmission line works.
World’s first domestic hydrogen battery developed by Australian firm
Lavo’s hydrogen storage system.
With governments around the world declaring hydrogen to be central to the future, an Australian firm is developing the first domestic hydrogen products.
BHP slashes mine’s value as coal outlook darkens
BHP, the nation’s largest miner, will slash up to $1.6 billion from the value of its Australian thermal coal mine amid weaker coal market conditions and its continuing efforts to offload the asset.
‘Expensive brain fart’: Cost of dam project may triple, documents show
The cost of NSW’s biggest dam project could blow out to $2.1 billion, or more than triple the original estimate, delivering what is likely to be the most expensive water in the Murray-Darling Basin.
One Sydney council has taken the bit between the teeth over a mask issue that threatens to cause ‘enormous’ environmental damage.
Slashing mine value says what about coal, BHP? [$]
Nick Evans
BHP’s decision to slash the value of its Mount Arthur thermal coal mine says plenty about the way the company views the outlook for energy coal.
ACT
Scientists still reeling from ‘catastrophic’ hailstorm one year on
Projects to secure Australia’s food supply and prepare crops for global warming were lost in a devastating hailstorm that swept through Canberra last year. A year on, nothing has been repaired and research has been further compromised.
Queensland
47,000 Queenslanders join class action against firms accused of pushing up power prices
The law firm leading a major class action involving more than 47,000 people is looking for more people to register for reimbursement as it alleges two of the state’s biggest power players artificially created a lack of supply to drive up prices.
Coal seam gas company pushes to drill hundreds of new wells at off-limits Queensland site
Arrow Energy is seeking to amend its environmental authority at Hopeland, where one of the state’s worst contamination disasters occurred
Go up or go out: Sunshine Coast to decide its future growth with new planning scheme
One of Queensland’s fastest growing regions has embarked on a major review of its future development in a move aimed at rejecting continued urban sprawl and accommodating most of the 87,000 new homes it needs over the next 20 years in existing residential areas.
Queensland can-refund scheme sued for $19 million
It comes amid warnings Queensland’s bottle and can recycling scheme could be the target of fraud.
South Australia
‘Tell us your ideas’: South Australia’s recycling industry bolstered by up to $45m
South Australia’s “circular economy” of recycled waste is set to receive a $45 million infrastructure injection following a joint announcement by the Federal and State governments today.
Acidic oceans a positive for one fish, SA researchers find
The common triplefin fish may thrive in the more acidic oceans of the future, according to South Australian scientists.
Tasmania
A researcher from the University of Melbourne says that seeing Tasmanian tigers alive again may be a reality in the future.
King Island Council seeks moratorium on seismic testing off the coast
King Island fisherman Paul Jordan says a proposed seismic survey off the island’s west coast is too much of a big unknown.
Record number of orange-bellied parrot nestlings recorded at Melaleuca [$]
Scientists are cautiously optimistic about the future of the orange-bellied parrot after receiving the first sign that population numbers for the endangered species are improving.
Northern Territory
Alice Springs overrun with stinky predatory beetle [$]
Recent rain paired with warm weather has led to a mass invasion of a certain pretty — but stinky — beetle in Alice Springs, according to an expert
Western Australia
Three years until Carnaby’s cockatoo starvation starts, BirdLife warns
After death by a thousand cuts for Perth’s black cockatoo habitats, one final cut promises to be devastating; and the time to soften the blow is running out.
Sustainability
Electric vehicles drive green investment to new global high in 2020
Global annual investment in low carbon technologies surpassed $US500 billion in 2020, boosted by a 28% increase in investment in electric vehicles and associated infrastructure.
Plastic petition by UK nine-year-old gains over 70k signatures in under a week
After studying how microplastics damage the oceans, schoolgirl Lizzie wants the government to stop sending waste to developing countries
Limiting air pollution ‘could prevent 50,000 deaths in Europe’
World Health Organization estimates air pollution kills more than 7 million people each year
Can the world break up with fossil fuels? Watch the conversation
The New York Times is hosting a series of virtual events ahead of global climate talks in November. This month’s topic: the demand for energy and what can be learned from the pandemic.
Clean Air Act gets boost as court dumps Trump carbon rule
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed out the Trump EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy rule and sent it back to the agency yesterday. What does the ruling mean for Biden and the electricity sector?
Technology could help farms turn back into forests
By changing how we feed the world—with plant-based burgers, bioreactor-grown dairy, and more efficient indoor farms—we could turn land now used for agriculture back into wilderness.
An antidote for environmental despair
When it comes to conservation, hope is much more useful than gloom.
The Anthropocene marks relentless and increasingly grave environmental degradation as the Earth faces tipping points for climate change, biodiversity and survival. To address these ills, scientists say we can learn valuable lessons from the past.
An anode-free zinc battery that could someday store renewable energy
Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, could help decrease the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. But first, power companies need a safe, cost-effective way to store the energy for later use. Massive lithium-ion batteries can do the job, but they suffer from safety issues and limited lithium availability. Now, researchers have made a prototype of an anode-free, zinc-based battery that uses low-cost, naturally abundant materials.
China flicks the electric switch in car revolution [$]
Robert Gottliebsen
We all will remember January 2021 for the start of Joe Biden’s presidency plus COVID-19, but longer term the biggest event was that the internal combustion engine, after dominating road transport for over a century, has finally received its long-term death warrant.
Protecting the environment from plastic PPE
BMJ editorial
The covid-19 pandemic has greatly exacerbated the global environmental threat of plastic pollution.
5 ways we can move away from single-use plastics
Nicole Chatterson
The pandemic is putting even more plastic into our oceans. But we can change that.
Why the environmental justice movement should think locally
Helen Santoro
Saving the planet starts with saving the communities the fossil fuel industry tends to trample.
Wild lynx could be reintroduced into Scottish Highlands
Study tests public support for bringing back species after 500-year absence, while farmers fear for sheep
The ongoing collapse of the world’s aquifers
As the growing human population and more intense droughts brought on by climate change are putting ever more stress on water supplies, land is subsiding all over the world.
Offshore wind power is ready to boom. Here’s what that means for wildlife
Climate change threatens many marine species, but some climate solutions pose risks, too. Researchers say offshore wind needs continued study and better regulations.
Protected areas vulnerable to growing emphasis on food security
New study shows croplands are prevalent in protected areas, challenging their efficacy in meeting conservation goals.
Study shows how network of marine protected areas could help safeguard Antarctic penguins
New research highlights how a proposed network of marine protected areas could help safeguard some of the most important areas at sea for breeding Antarctic penguins.
Crimes at sea: when we frame illegal fishers as human and drug smugglers, everyone loses
Britta Denise Hardesty et al
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing costs economies up to US$50 billion globally each year, and makes up to one-fifth of the global catch. It’s a huge problem not only for the 59.5 million people who depend on fisheries for their livelihoods, but also for the environment.
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