https://reneweconomy.com.au/how-carbon-lobbyists-control-the-climate-policy-debate-in-australia/
Date: 10 September 2021 at 9:01:01 am AEST
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Subject: Daily Links Sep 10
Post of the Day
Australia’s rural environment: our wasteful failure to support the ‘good guys’
Paul Martin
Australia needs a feasible investment system for frontline rural stewardship, to achieve our desire for sustainable primary production and protection of biodiversity to help guide the future pathways for Australia.
On This Day
Ganesh Chaturthi – Hinduism
Ecological Observance
Climate Change
World’s biggest machine capturing carbon from air turned on in Iceland
Operators say the Orca plant can suck 4,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air every year and inject it deep into the ground to be mineralised
Big oil’s ‘wokewashing’ is the new climate science denialism
Academic researchers say the fossil fuel industry has a new tool to delay efforts to curb emissions – a social justice strategy
How much of the world’s oil needs to stay in the ground?
Analysis shows future is bleak for fossil fuel industry with trillions of dollars of assets at stake
How to avoid climate change jargon
Here’s a sentence that’s basically unintelligible to most people: Humans must mitigate global warming by pursuing an unprecedented transition to a carbon neutral economy.
Are Iran’s actions sufficient for adapting to climate change?
Climate change has been a major environmental concern for decades, and international agreements have required countries, including Iran, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use fossil fuels. However, some experts believe that our country’s actions in this area have been insufficient.
The Guardian view on fossil fuels: a very long way to go
Guardian editorial
New carbon capture technology should be welcomed. But weaning the world off coal, oil and gas is what matters most
Earth’s tipping points could be closer than we think. Our current plans won’t work
George Monbiot
Climate policies commit us to a calamitous 2.9C of global heating, but catastrophic changes can occur at even 1.5C or 2C
National
What is ‘peak acreage’ and has Australia hit it?
A new report says Australia may have reached a peak in terms of land used for broadacre cropping, but it also predicts production will continue to rise.
Backlash after Australia watered down climate change pledge in UK trade deal
The federal government has not denied the revelation in a leaked email from a British government official, and says trade and climate change are separate matters.
Electric car costs could spark motorists to throw the switch
Motoring group RACQ says the running cost of an electric car has dropped by $10,000 in the past five years as the range of vehicles on the market widen.
Australian company aims high as US declares massive solar target
Backed by Malcolm Turnbull and with ties to Mike Cannon-Brookes, 5B planning a big expansion of sales of its novel solar panels.
How our energy efficient homes are a breeding ground for COVID-19
Home building regulations need an urgent overhaul as the modern construction of air-tight homes to improve energy efficiency is providing the perfect environment for the spread of COVID-19 through families, experts say.
‘We’ll keep mining’: Australia resists climate policy pressure
Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt is promoting Australian coal and lashing calls from international scientists and diplomats targeting Australia’s fossil fuel policies, as the Prime Minister defends a move to excise a reference to climate commitments in a trade deal with Britain.
Australia smashes renewables record again, hits 58.3 per cent on main grid
Australia has easily beaten its previous record for the share of renewables on its main grid, and set a new record for the share of wind and solar.
Trade is trade, not a climate issue, says Scott Morrison [$]
Scott Morrison has defended his government negotiating to drop climate targets from the free-trade agreement with Britain, saying trade and climate should be treated as separate issues.
ARENA “getting up to speed” on carbon capture as it rolls out new investment plan
ARENA says it is still bringing itself “up to speed” on CCS technologies, as agency pivots to Angus Taylor’s preferred technologies in new investment plan.
Is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia really shifting away from ‘climate denialism’?
The media tycoon’s outlets often give voice to ardent deniers of climate science, backers of fossil fuels and opponents of net zero. Is that all about to change?
How carbon lobbyists control the climate policy debate in Australia
Giles Parkinson
New report identifies which fossil fuel companies and lobby groups are exerting the greatest control over the federal government on climate policy.
Morrison is wedged — and it’s not going to get any easier
Michelle Grattan
Scott Morrison is beset by immediate health and economic issues, with COVID out of control in New South Wales and Victoria and worse to come. But that’s not the only crisis on his plate
Australia’s rural environment: our wasteful failure to support the ‘good guys’
Paul Martin
Australia needs a feasible investment system for frontline rural stewardship, to achieve our desire for sustainable primary production and protection of biodiversity to help guide the future pathways for Australia.
The climate doomsday clock is ticking
Canberra Times editorial
The government’s adversarial response to this week’s call by the UN for it to phase out coal by 2030, and revelations it pressured the UK to delink temperature targets from a free-trade agreement, are not a good look ahead of the Glasgow climate summit.
News Corp’s climate change shame
Age editorial
The media giant’s shift on climate change policy comes after years of amplifying distortions of the truth about what is happening to the planet.
How urban soundscapes affect humans and wildlife — and what may have changed in the hush of lockdown
Kurt Iveson and Dieter Hochuli
The dull roar of traffic, the barking of dogs in backyards and the screeching of cockatoos at dusk. The shattering of early morning quiet by the first plane overhead or the garbage truck on its rounds. The squealed delights and occasional fights of a children’s playground.
Frank Jotzo and Mark Howden
A study out today says the vast majority of Earth’s coal, including 95% of Australia’s, cannot be burned if global warming is to be limited to 1.5℃ this century. The findings are undoubtedly true. But examining how much fossil fuel the world can still use is not the question we should be asking.
A betrayal of farmers: The Nationals are lackeys for coal
David Paull
The National Party has abandoned farmers in favour of caving into the demands of fossil fuel donors.
The Nationals and Murdoch media support nuclear power ahead of COP26
Noel Wauchope
On 1 September 2021, Senator Matt Canavan called for Australia to boycott the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to be held in Glasgow in November.
UK trade deal: Morrison begins COP26 season by causing a major international mess
Ketan Joshi
Australia’s eternal quest to protect its fossil fuel industry has caused an incredible and embarrassing international climate policy incident for the hosts of COP26.
Victoria
Labor contender in blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Higgins courts voters concerned about climate
Michelle Ananda-Rajah says climate change and Covid will be front and centre in a ‘watershed election’
New South Wales
The arrival of eastern quoll joeys brings a smile — and hope — to conservationists
The eastern quoll became extinct on mainland Australia 60 years ago and conservation organisation, Aussie Ark, now runs a breeding program. It’s celebrating the recent birth of close to 30 eastern quoll joeys.
‘A scientist’s dream’: Safe, affordable storage batteries to be manufactured in western Sydney
It’s hoped the manufacture of a “breakthrough” energy storage battery in Sydney’s west will join a market worth more than $100 billion, creating jobs and cost-effective technology able to run safely at high temperatures.
Rob Pallin
Earlier this week, NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean claimed he was “fortressing” threatened species from extinction within our national parks reserve system. His announcement was to declare 221 areas of threatened species habitat “Assets of Intergenerational Significance”.
ACT
The Canberra Times’ cartoonist David Pope has drawn attention to the forgotten heroes of Kosciuszko National Park in his recent posters released for Threatened Species Day.
Hard questions need to be asked about ACT’s kangaroo cull
Letters
The 2021 kangaroo cull is finished, with 1505 kangaroos shot to death. Before we celebrate World Kangaroo Day on October 24, we should ask questions the ACT government doesn’t want asked.
Queensland
Keeps on keeping on: Adani starts hunt for workers as coal prices boom
Adani’s mining subsidiary Bravus has almost completed its development of the $2 billion Carmichael and has started hiring operational workers.
A drop in the ocean, but scientists say they can solve Reef’s coral-bleaching crisis
Scientists are investigating the potential impacts of a controversial ‘cloud brightening’ technique off the Queensland coastline, claiming they can cool temperatures to help save the Great Barrier Reef and slow coral bleaching.
Final Brisbane Metro vehicle design revealed ahead of 2022 pilot launch
After virtual reality and life-size timber model testing, accessibility and charging facilities tweaks on the flagship Brisbane City Council project have been finalised with designer HESS.
22 million plastic straws later, Nicole is proudly ‘redundant’
A Queensland marine biologist’s pet project removed more than 22 million straws from circulation, before the law was changed to ban single-use plastics.
Queensland’s first big standalone battery charges up for first time
The first big standalone battery in Queensland grid has begun charging and discharging in the first phase of is commissioning process.
Huge wind, solar and battery project proposed for central Queensland
RES and Energy Estate propose a 900MW wind, solar and battery project, part of a plan for 2GW of renewables to support major industrial loads.
South Australia
How to double money from solar [$]
A world-first trial starts in SA this month allowing households to earn twice as much from solar. But just not quite all the time.
Tasmania
EPA Tasmania to be separated from DPIPWE in attempt to ‘strengthen’ independence [$]
The Environment Protection Authority will be separated from Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment in an attempt to “strengthen” its independence from the government.
Anti-salmon campaign launched on mainland
A roadside billboard campaign alerting Australian mainland consumers to the destruction industrial salmon farms do to Tasmania’s waterways, coastlines and reputation has been launched in Victoria.
Extra cable car conditions to be considered [$]
Mount Wellington Cableway Company chair Chris Oldfield said opponents to the proposal are “desperate”, as the tribunal decides whether extra conditions will be included in the appeal.
‘The “anti-everything Greens” want to smash our mining industry’ [$]
Mining companies delivered $60.7m to the Tasmanian economy over the past 12 months and environmentalists say it continues to be given priority over the wilderness.
Northern Territory
Ministers remain tight lipped on plans while the Territory Wildlife Park remains in limbo [$]
The fate of the Territory Wildlife Park remains in limbo after Parks and Wildlife Minister Selena Uibo spoke publicly about the situation.
New documents reveal that gas company Santos paid for a specially chartered flight for Keith Pitt to attend a company media event in Darwin.
Western Australia
West Aussies’ love of timber will see it sourced from Indonesian rainforests
A government decision to stop native logging in the South West has been labelled short-sighted by those who know how environmentally friendly local production should be.
WA budget 2021 in colour: Your quick guide to the state’s books in graphs
Hamish Hastie
Just how much has the booming iron ore price helped? And where is our money being spent?
Sustainability
Transforming ‘sewer gas’ into clean hydrogen fuel
Scientists have found a new chemical process to turn a stinky, toxic gas into a clean-burning fuel.
Netherlands proposes radical plans to cut livestock numbers by almost a third
Dutch farmers could be forced to sell land and reduce the amount of animals they keep to help lower ammonia pollution
New filtering method promises safer drinking water, improved industrial production
Synthetic polymer membranes mimic the highly selective properties of biological cell membranes
Insect protein has great potential to reduce the carbon footprint of European consumers
The use of insects as food for humans and animals has both the potential to reduce European consumers’ carbon footprint and contribute to reducing incentives for continued soybean cultivation in the Amazon rainforest.
Radioactive Fukushima snake tracked to measure contamination
Snakes have been helping researchers to gauge current levels of radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan where three reactors suffered meltdowns after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Biden wants nearly half the nation’s energy to come from solar by 2050
The Biden administration announced a plan to use solar energy to produce nearly half of the nation’s electricity by mid-century, part of its ambitious bid to address climate change.
Global study: Wildfire smoke kills people in cities far from fires
Wildfire smoke causes more than 33,000 deaths a year across 43 countries, according to a new global study.
France threatened with legal action over use of pesticides
Widespread use of chemicals that can harm wildlife means French state has failed to protect the country’s flora and fauna, say NGOS
Bamboo fabric is less sustainable than you think
Bamboo can be a green material—but many of the products made with it aren’t.
U.S. puts $562 billion price tag on ramping up solar power
The Energy Department said the U.S. could get 44% of its electricity from solar energy if it pursues an aggressive agenda.
Consumer Reports details the big problem with plastic, revealing where most of the plastic you throw away ends up and explaining how to limit its environmental harm.
Protect the power grid by burying the lines
Stephen Elder
Yes, it costs more to bury the lines. But compare that to the cost of repair time after time after every windstorm, ice storm, traffic accident knocking down a pole or pranks by mischievous space aliens.
New estimate makes groundwater, not ice sheets, largest water reservoir on land
New research more than doubles the estimated volume of ancient, salty groundwater stored deep within Earth’s crust.
Conservationists call for urgent ban on deep-sea mining
Motion at Marseille summit wins global support for warning of permanent biodiversity loss and unknown effect on ecosystem
Some coral reefs are keeping pace with ocean warming
Some coral communities are becoming more heat tolerant as ocean temperatures rise, offering hope for corals in a changing climate.
Tampa Bay loses 6,350 acres of seagrass over past two years
The numbers provided to the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission are worse than estimates in April.
What is China’s role in Africa’s environmental degradation?
An unintended consequence of more stringent regulations on pollution globally is how firms relocate production to places with looser environmental regulations – a phenomenon known as the pollution haven hypothesis.
Mangrove restoration frustration
These coastal ecosystems are carbon sinks and coastline protectors, and we know how to restore them. Why have we been doing it the wrong way?
Amazon, meet Amazon: Tech giant rolls out rainforest carbon offset project
How do you get a small rancher to give up cutting trees for pasture and instead produce high-value and sustainable agricultural products without the requisite skills, money, or access to markets?
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