Daily Links May 20

Post of the Day

What the major parties’ climate policies mean for global warming

The run-up to the 2019 federal election was dominated by the Coalition’s scare campaign over the cost of Labor’s more ambitious climate policy. Three years on, the public and business community want greater climate action and the major parties are competing over who has the best plan to reach net zero emissions.

 

On This Day

May 20

 

Ecological Observation

World Bee Day

National Endangered Species Day – USA

 

Climate Change

Climate change could expand forests. But will they cool the planet?

Climate change could lead to a net expansion of global forests. But will a more forested world actually be cooler?

 

Suicides indicate wave of ‘doomerism’ over escalating climate crisis

While alarm over wildfires, droughts, flooding and societal unrest is on the rise, not many of us talk about climate angst.

 

Grim warning issued by UN chief – podcast

Two new reports released this week show climate change indicators have hit dangerous new levels, prompting calls for updated emission reduction targets to reflect the new reality.

 

National

Researchers say coal-to-hydrogen project’s lower emissions claims ‘misleading’

A think tank says a project to make hydrogen from coal is unlikely to meet its carbon reduction claims. But the criticism has been dismissed by project bosses who say the researchers have their numbers wrong.

 

Fact check: Does the fossil fuel industry really receive $10b in federal subsidies a year?

Greens Leader Adam Bandt says the fossil fuel industry receives $10 billion in federal subsidies per year. RMIT ABC Fact Check runs the numbers.

 

Fact check: This pervasive furphy on Australia’s emissions was repeated throughout the campaign

Politicians were spinning hard for Australian’s votes during the 2022 election. So who got their facts straight, and who missed the mark?

 

Are Aussies addicted to beef? These researchers think so and they say it’s costing the planet

Researchers who reviewed the environmental impacts of agriculture are calling on Australians to cut most of the beef from their diets in a move that has sparked a strong response from the meat industry.

 

Australians were once again the world’s worst coal power polluters per capita in 2021

As both major parties shy away from climate policy during the election campaign, Australia continues to have the highest coal power emissions per person among the world’s major economies.

 

Labor to set up independent environmental protection agency and restore ‘trust and confidence’

Proposed EPA to collect data on the plight of the country’s wildlife as Labor commits to global biodiversity targets

 

Australian Greens hope election focus on climate will bring their biggest representation yet

Leaders eye balance of power as climate impacts and high-profile independents boost the party’s electoral chances


How the Coalition’s deflated electricity scare campaign was (probably) confected

Remember News Corp’s big climate scare campaign from a few weeks ago? Turns out there was never any modelling behind it – just a clumsy guess.

 

End logging petition delivered to Morrison & Albanese

Prime Minister Morrison and Opposition Leader Albanese will today be delivered 45 000 signatures from Australians calling for an end to native forest logging in Australia.

 

Passing the net zero test: how to achieve policy coherence on climate change

Institute for Government

This report highlights a series of decisions where ministers seem to have undermined their own climate objectives, including on the Cumbria coal mine, roadbuilding, cutting air passenger duty on domestic flights, and boosting UK oil and gas production.

 

What the major parties’ climate policies mean for global warming

The run-up to the 2019 federal election was dominated by the Coalition’s scare campaign over the cost of Labor’s more ambitious climate policy. Three years on, the public and business community want greater climate action and the major parties are competing over who has the best plan to reach net zero emissions.

 

Gas industry and Coalition reach for a get-out-of-catastrophe-free card in climate crisis Monopoly

Graham Readfearn

Carbon capture and storage isn’t working close to a scale that would significantly lower emissions – despite billions in taxpayers’ cash thrown at it

 

This election, are the teals ready to take on the fossil fuel lobby that’s captured the major parties?

Jeff Sparrow

Historians of tomorrow will puzzle over why an election preceded by fire and floods hasn’t centred on the future to which both parties are committing us

 

Oil and gas industry inflates size by 15x

Callum Foote

The oil and gas industry is doing a good job of talking up its contributions to the Australian economy.

 

The Dominoes are falling fast. We face a climate emergency

David Spratt and Ian Dunlop

The belated release of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s “Reef snapshot: summer 2021-22” has exposed the Federal government’s insistence that the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is not endangered as the lie it has always been.

 

Victoria

Maoneng gets grid approval for Victoria’s newest “biggest battery”

Plan for 240MW/480MWh stand-alone big battery project on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula gains grid connection assessment approval.

 

The view from inside Kooyong: is teal wave ‘change we can believe in’?

Andrew Gardiner

There is no bigger target for the climate independents (or teals) than Josh Frydenberg. The federal Treasurer and Liberal deputy leader is locked in a pitched battle to hold his inner Melbourne seat of Kooyong against medical specialist Monique Ryan. 

 

New South Wales

‘We’re forgotten about’: Voters in key marginal seat condemn ‘deafening silence’ on energy transition

A region key to Australia’s energy supply is begging for clarity on its future but the two major parties don’t want to talk about it.

From coal mine to battery giga-factory: Two tales of transition from the Hunter

Nathan Berryman and Kristal Bartlett have made the transition from coal mining and smelter work to green energy. But they say the path is still not clear.

 

Queensland

Queensland town united on climate action

In Far North Queensland candidates from across the political divides have come together in a show of unity in supporting a scheme that would create more renewable energy jobs and infrastructure around the country.

 

Sims gets key port site for new recycling facility

Metal recycler Sims has paid $88 million to pick up a block of land in the Port of Brisbane where it plans a major development.

 

South Australia

New lobby group wants to transform transport policy in SA

A coalition of researchers and community groups has launched a campaign for a new transport plan for South Australia, featuring high-quality public transport including regional rail and better infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians.

 

Ex-Labor staffer lands plum job running hydro plant – with huge pay packet [$]

The state government has appointed a former Labor staffer whose dad was an ALP minister to a plum role in the state’s hydrogen power plant – on an eye-watering salary.


Tasmania

Owner of penguin-killing dog first to be charged under new legislation

A woman whose dog killed a little penguin at Cooee last year is the first person in the state to be prosecuted under legislation specifically designed to protect the flightless birds, a court heard on Thursday.

 

Protest action at Artec woodchip mill turns ugly

Fifteen Bob Brown Foundation protestors staged action at Artec’s woodchip mill in Bell Bay on Thursday, which turned ugly after a female protestor was pushed over.

 

Western Australia

Woodside shareholders back BHP buy but blast climate plan

Woodside shareholders have overwhelmingly approved its acquisition of BHP’s oil and gas business, but almost half rejected its plans to address climate change.

 

Chalice wins permission to drill in WA state forest [$]

One of Australia’s most anticipated critical minerals targets will finally be drilled, after the WA government gave Chalice permission to work in a state forest

 

Sustainability

European Union unveils 210 billion euro plan to ditch Russian fossil fuels

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Europe’s top gas supplier, has prompted the European Union to rethink its energy policies amid sharpened concerns of supply shocks.

 

Millions face famine as droughts hit Horn of Africa – podcast

Oxfam and Save the Children estimate that one person is dying from acute hunger every 48-seconds across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.

 

Environmental toxins are worsening obesity pandemic, say scientists

Exclusive: Pollutants can upset body’s metabolic thermostat with some even causing obesity to be passed on to children

 

This is where dirty old cars go to die

The electric vehicle revolution is gathering speed—but what happens to all those polluting cars already on the road?

 

The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same

George Monbiot

Massive food producers hold too much power – and the regulators scarcely understand what is happening. Sound familiar?

 

The electric car that could power your home

Tristan Edis

Ford has unveiled something new that will allow me to comprehensively out-do my fellow campers – a piping hot jacuzzi (albeit a blow-up one).

 

Nature Conservation

Lost or extinct? Study reveals existence of more than 500 animal species remains uncertain

An international study provides the first global evaluation of all terrestrial vertebrate species that have not been declared extinct and identifies more than 500 species considered to be ‘lost’—those that haven’t been seen by anyone in more than 50 years.


Offshore wind giant to use turbine foundations to “rewild” North Sea

Danish renewables giant partners with ARK Nature to explore “rewilding” opportunities in the North Sea to restore ocean biodiversity.

 



Maelor Himbury
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