Post of the Day
Half Australia’s ‘rubbish’ can be recycled
Australians recycle nearly 30 times the amount they did in the mid-1990s – an increase from seven per cent to more than 60 per cent of all disposed materials, a waste audit has revealed.
On This Day
Climate Change
The COP27 climate summit hits the halfway mark. Here are the main issues on the table
Frosty relations between global leaders, more climate protests and debate over richer countries compensating others for global warming — Here’s what’s under the spotlight at COP27.
Deal on ‘loss and damage’ unlikely at COP, says Chris Bowen
Loss and damage payments from wealthy nations might now be on the negotiating table, just don’t expect an outcome anytime soon.
Fears in Egypt that the gas industry ate the climate talks
Stakes are high, lobbyists thick on the ground and tension mounting as ministers fly in for the crucial week of climate talks in Egypt.
The British right’s hostility to climate action is deeply entrenched – and extremely dangerous
John Harris
With voters increasingly fearful about fires, floods and extreme temperatures, can the Tories find a way back towards reality?
American leaders must continue to focus on climate change
Andrea De Zubiria and Madeleine Para:
From Hurricane Ian’s deadly toll to the destruction in Puerto Rico and fatal flooding in Kentucky, it’s clear an altered climate is hurting Americans.
National
Minister urges Australia to ‘wake up out of cyber slumber’, flags internet security reforms
Some of the potential reforms include making it illegal to pay ransoms to hackers like those who posted highly sensitive customer data from Medibank on the dark web.
Storms are forecast across multiple parts of the country, while South Australians have been warned to expect ‘a lengthy period with no electricity’.
Climate crisis solutions may also ease global financial shocks, Albanese to tell business leaders
The prime minister will use a keynote address at the B20, a business summit alongside the G20 in Bali, to argue for a more sustainable global economy
Global First Nations solidarity vital to climate fight – National Native Title Council head at COP27
National Native Title Council chief executive Jamie Lowe is at the COP27 conference in Egypt working with indigenous people from around the world to stand up for their rights.
Albanese and Biden discuss climate action and Aukus pact ahead of G20 summit
In a 40-minute meeting, the prime minister also invited the US president to address federal parliament next year during meeting of the Quad
Australia not paying its ‘fair share’, EU’s climate chief says
Australia’s renewed climate ambitions do not make up for its failure to pay enough to help poorer nations fight climate, the European Union’s most senior climate policymaker says.
Windfall coal, gas tax won’t bring power prices down: Glencore [$]
Australia’s biggest coal miner says any move to raise taxes on fossil fuels to capture the surge in prices would rattle investors and put jobs at risk.
It already seems that there will be no nuclear powered submarines in Australia
Peter Remta
From the outset Australia will need to have a proper and acceptable method for full and safe disposal of the nuclear waste generated by the operations and maintenance of the submarines
It was an avoidable mistake for Anthony Albanese not to attend Cop27
Adam Morton
Momentum matters on climate, and he won’t get another chance to make an urgent first impression
Labor’s tax plan a recipe for an even worse energy crisis [$]
Andrew Bolt
Australia looks like running dangerously short of electricity, but if Labor now plays Robin Hood on coal and gas companies, who’d dare invest in the fossil fuel projects we need?
Energy customers will pay high price for Brookfields’s bid for Origin [$]
Danny Price
There are good competition reasons why monopoly distribution networks should not be owned by companies that also generate electricity.
Why corporate Australia should care about COP [$]
Hans Van Leeuwen
The climate talks feel opaque, antagonistic and pedantic. But they shape a $10 trillion-a-year challenge, and for corporate chiefs COP has become the new Davos.
Media blind to pantomime on climate stage [$]
Chris Mitchell
It should be obvious that national leaders, presiding over a 6 per cent rise in global emissions this past year, don’t actually believe in an imminent emergency.
Green zealotry will not save battlers from power pain [$]
Gemma Tognini
The loudest voices outside of government pushing the green dream are elites who, from Australia’s largest homes, private planes, islands and yachts, lecture to the rest of us.
Victoria
Landslide in Victoria’s alpine region will take months to clear with ‘no quick fix’
It’s hard news for families divided and businesses facing yet another cancelled tourist season, as a serious landslide blocks access from Mount Beauty to ski village Falls Creek.
The town at heart of country’s malaise and Labor identity crisis
Many in the Latrobe Valley know coal is dying and that the community’s future will look different. But fear and government distrust run deep.
Gas vs green jobs: Major parties put energy into campaigns
The Coalition and Labor both focused on energy supply and cost of living at their formal campaign launches to party faithful on Sunday, 13 days before Victorians head to the polls.
‘More and more confident’: Energy, cost of living the focus as Matthew Guy addresses party faithful
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has used the Coalition’s campaign launch to announce a plan to pay supply charges on power bills for six months and “turbocharge” gas from new Victorian projects in the state.
Andrews puts energy jobs, power bill relief at heart of campaign launch
The premier said his party would link 6000 apprenticeships to its landmark revival of a publicly owned state electricity commission.
What will you do to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions?
It’s unequivocal: Victorians are concerned about the escalating climate crisis.
Paul Strangio
Dan, they call him. The headlines in Victoria’s tabloid Herald Sun have ceased referring to the state’s premier by his second name: Dan is sufficient. It’s symbolic of how much Daniel Andrews bestrides the state political scene.
New South Wales
Bush jobs killed off by NSW green scheme [$]
Country mayors and MPs are calling for a “senseless” biodiversity tax to be dumped before it completely strangles development and jobs in regional NSW.
Perrottet faces bitter internal split over new ‘koala wars’ outbreak
Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes a Court says revisiting the fight over koala habitat in the final week of parliament is a “gift” for the teal movement in NSW.
Rising Tide targets Labor for supporting coal
Rising Tide organised a well attended protest outside the Newcastle office of Sharon Claydon MP, calling on Labor to stop mining and exporting coal.
Does this coal seam gas project really hold the key to our energy future?
Plenty of politicians are pointing to the Narrabri Gas Project as a way to boost Australia’s gas supply, but there are a few hurdles it needs to clear first.
Two young flood victims put big questions to world leaders, asking how they are going to empower youth to be the change the future needs.
Queensland
Brisbane Airport to be carbon-neutral by 2025
Brisbane Airport Corporation has cut a deal to ensure all airport operations – except flights – will be powered by renewable energy in just three years’ time.
Smart-ticketed trains from Monday but wheels barely turn on eastern busway plan
Commuters on two Brisbane rail lines will be the latest to pay with their phones.
Moggill Rd to get separated cycleway as roundabout plan scrapped
Plans to put traffic lights at the Kenmore roundabout in Brisbane have been scrapped, with a cycleway to be built along Moggill Road instead, Transport Minister Mark Bailey said on Sunday.
Land resumption locks in Toowong to West End green bridge
Brisbane City Council has locked in a crucial parcel of land to build a green bridge stretching between two thriving inner-city suburbs.
‘Rewilding’: Brisbane CBD’s subtropical transformation [$]
Brisbane is set to transform into a subtropical paradise teeming with wildlife and an abundance of recreational parklands, experts say.
South Australia
‘They’re coming back’: huge flows set to restore life to parched end of Murray-Darling system
La Niña rains have caused terrible flooding upriver, but South Australia is anticipating a much-needed ‘reset’ for stressed environmental systems
In the dark: Interconnector cuts SA off from the country [$]
Premier Peter Malinauskas has called for calm as SA is cut off from the rest of the country after the worst power failure since the 2016 statewide blackout amid widespread chaos.
This man is using ‘pixie dust’ to solve green hydrogen
Professor Greg Metha and Fortescue might have a solution to Saul Griffith’s fear that Australia will waste time, money and renewable power making green hydrogen.
Tasmania
Deception and death in a Tasmanian forest, as flowers use insects for their own ends
Sexual deception and sticky tentacles are just some of the risks faced by insects in Tasmanian forests at this time of year.
Eagles, Aboriginal sites: Criteria set for possible 210 turbine wind farm [$]
Government agencies and the Premier’s department have listed the topics, including potential acid sulfate soils and disturbance to breeding eagles, which need addressing.
Questions raised over ‘red tape’ in state energy loan scheme [$]
Tasmanian Labor have questioned the state government’s energy loan program over “red tape” that has excluded 90 per cent of the state’s solar contractors.
Western Australia
Gas giant’s $3.2b effort to bury carbon pollution is failing
The world’s biggest carbon pollution reduction project at Chevron’s Gorgon gas plant is working at just one-third capacity after six years, delivering a setback to the credibility of carbon capture and storage as a means to achieve net-zero emissions.
Sustainability
Mobile sources responsible for 83% of Tehran’s air pollution
Some 83 percent of air pollution in Tehran and 70 percent in other big cities of the country are caused by mobile sources, Abdollah Motevalli, deputy director of the Standards and Quality Inspection Company, has said.
Nature Conservation
Utah’s famed Salt Flats are drying out, and it has scientists concerned
Water remains in some parts of the lake’s footprint, including Utah’s Great Salt Lake. But elsewhere, it’s dried out, including at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
‘It’s like winning the lottery’: Lincolnshire rewilding plan welcomed by some… others not so happy
Project promises to create jobs and restore biodiversity, but locals say it is taking food-growing land out of production
Expert fears fin-whale protection will be reduced just as risks rise
Conservation groups are alarmed that the status of fin whales as a threatened species on Canada’s West Coast is about to be downgraded just as the dangers of LNG shipping and climate change are on the rise.
Altaf Hussain
Too much noise is not only annoying for us on land but also to animals underwater; so, three solutions for making the oceans quieter and why less noise is good for the climate.
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