|
|
Date: 19 December 2022 at 8:51:12 am AEDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links Dec 19
Post of the Day
COP15: Biodiversity experts share 6 reasons why our environment is not yet doomed
While it’s hard to ignore the warning signs, there are plenty of reasons to still have hope for our planet’s future
On This Day
Hanukkah (until Dec 26) – Judaism
`
Climate Change
EU strikes deal to overhaul carbon market
European Union negotiators have reached a political deal to overhaul the bloc’s carbon market, cutting planet-heating emissions faster and imposing new CO2 costs on fuels used in road transport and buildings from 2027.
‘This could be existential’: Behind gas’ desperate global game plan
One of the world’s largest gas lobby groups has mistakenly published confidential papers revealing its messaging plans to keep the fossil fuel’s social licence.
National
Key detail in Albo’s $230 power bill plan
An unprecedented intervention will keep Aussie power bills from rising as much as 66 per cent, but there’s a key detail you may have missed.
Visitors to pay at popular Insta spots
Tourists will be charged to enjoy the natural wonders at some of Australia’s most popular tourism hot spots from next year.
‘A huge worry’: Christmas beetle decline spurs calls for citizen sightings
Researchers urge members of the public to look out for the beloved insect that was once a mainstay of Australia’s summer
Coal exports overtake iron ore as energy crisis ignites prices
Australia’s coal industry is primed to deliver a bigger-than-expected windfall this year, overtaking iron ore as the nation’s most valuable export.
LNG giants fear export curbs as east coast supply doubts deepen
Gas producers could be forced to break export deals amid fears temporary price caps will stunt new supplies and make it harder for regulators to prevent shortfalls.
Australia to host world’s environment ministers, secure investor billions
The global environment summit will try to secure billions of dollars in new investment to restore natural habitats and protect more areas from harmful development.
Boom slows: Dark days ahead for energy exports [$]
Australia’s earnings from resources and energy exports is facing an astronomical hit as global demand slows and markets stabilise.
Hope stirs for UN consensus on deal to save nature [$]
Tanya Plibersek has urged officials at high stakes biodiversity negotiations before the United Nations to use commonsense as the deadline on reaching an agreement looms.
Forestry activists hurt environment [$]
A Labor Senator has blasted inner city environmentalists over opposition to the forestry industry, warning they are imperilling thousands of jobs and retarding climate change responses.
Voters want price caps and more gas extracted: new poll [$]
The Albanese government is consolidating power and is preferred by voters to manage all 14 major policy areas of concern, except defence and national security.
Inside Macquarie’s new green strategy [$]
Nobody paid that much attention in April when the company shifted its Green Investment Group from one part of the empire to another. But they should have.
Electric vehicles are making their way to the mass market, but there are still some roadblocks
The automotive industry transitioning to electric vehicles, but a lack of infrastructure and the rising cost of batteries threaten to hinder those efforts.
Adam Morton on Australia and the climate crisis: what happened in 2022 and what’s next? – Full Story podcast
Labor has had a number of environmental priorities, from trying to slow the rapid decline of Australia’s natural environment to seeking greater influence at international climate talks. Guardian Australia climate and environment editor Adam Morton talks to Jane Lee about how the new government has started to change Australia’s approach to the climate emergency and the challenges ahead in 2023
Free market or freedom to profiteer? Gas giants tie themselves in knots
Ian Verrender
Gas companies claim global investors will look elsewhere to source supplies, which they believe will result in gas shortages and even higher prices
Adam Morton
The fossil fuel industry’s campaign of naked self-interest has failed to get traction. Could this be a turning point?
Anita Foerster
Australian company directors have long had legal obligations to identify, disclose and manage material financial risks to the company. Where risks result from climate change, or from measures to mitigate climate change, they have an obligation to address and report these. But until now there have been no clear rules on how to report.
We’ve just extinguished pilot light to our future [$]
Nick Cater
Australia is attempting an energy highwire act hitherto unachieved anywhere in the world. And apparently we’ll be doing it without gas.
Gas policies should foster investment and returns [$]
Australian editorial
Energy markets have served the economy and export revenue well.
Power politics shines light on reporting bias [$]
Chris Mitchell
Depending on your news source, last week’s gas legislation by the Albanese government was either de facto nationalisation of the industry or perfectly reasonable politics.
How timely, targeted and temporary is the energy market intervention?
Chris Richardson
How does the government’s energy plan measure up against the three-part test economists use to judge unusual interventions into the market?
Rolling blackouts the hollow victory of climate piety over energy reality [$]
Matthew Warren
Our domestic energy shortage isn’t just about Ukraine. We have developed an abusive relationship with the fossil fuels that we rely upon.
Victoria
Goodbye, concrete and steel? Why timber towers could be the future
A 15-storey timber tower in Collingwood is one of a handful of recent major timber developments that signals Australia could be catching onto the trend already established in the US and Europe.
Councils fell trees to make room for Australia Post’s new electric vehicles
Melbourne councils are chopping down trees and removing vegetation from footpaths to make way for Australia Post’s new environmentally friendly fleet of electric delivery vehicles, angering some residents who say they want more green spaces, not fewer.
A tourism jewel, this forest was once the site of a bitter fight over native-forest logging
An epic and sometimes violent battle led to the end of native-forest logging in Victoria’s Otway Ranges, a victory some say made the region what it is today.
New South Wales
Factory to produce plant-based ‘meat’ ingredients
A plant-based “meat” ingredients factory that hopes to provide opportunities to grain growers and cut emissions by keeping the supply chain local has opened in Sydney.
Premier ‘open’ to US-style primaries for NSW pollies [$]
It’s not every day Australian politicians seeks to replicate controversial US politics, but Dominic Perrottet has backed an American idea that could solve his party’s gender woes.
Queensland
Dingo attacks young boy at island campground [$]
A young boy has been flown to hospital after being bitten by a dingo on K’gari (Fraser Island).
‘No sacred sites’: Scientist’s bombshell claim in face of Mt Warning ban [$]
With a push to permanently close Mount Warning to hikers due to its cultural significance, a scientist who spent years studying the area has questioned just how “sacred” the site actually is.
Could floating seaweed ‘sausage’ farms be Queensland’s next big thing?
Seaweed is more than sushi. It can be fed to cattle and could be used in sustainable packaging. It also pulls nitrogen from the water, now there’s a push for it to be the next big agri-industry.
South Australia
Threat reduced as Yorke Peninsula bushfire downgraded [$]
Residents of two Yorke Peninsula townships were told to “leave now” as an uncontrolled bushfire rages, but the threat has eased.
Tasmania
Wipes a worry with one-tonne blockage [$]
TasWater has unearthed a one-tonne blockage of wipes at one of their treatment locations.
Sustainability
Can Central Asian cities resolve their big, ugly smog problems?
With Bishkek’s air being cited as the dirtiest in the world, Central Asian officials are finally focusing on the fossil-fuel based heating, old cars, and poor city planning that are seen as the main causes of their severe air-pollution problems.
Putin is playing with fire as he looks to starve the West of oil
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
A desperate Vladimir Putin is set to respond to the West’s oil price cap with a decree of his own. Unless he backs down, the world may be facing an oil shortfall.
All the reasons why woke world will not work [$]
Tim Blair
Climate change versus parrot protection versus solar colonialism.The woke need to sort out their priorities before they all end up cancelling themselves.
Nature Conservation
Dozens of once crystal-clear streams and rivers in Arctic Alaska are now running bright orange and cloudy—and in some cases, they may be becoming more acidic.
Protecting seabirds will provide broad benefits
A recent study found that populations of tufted puffin, one of Washington’s most charismatic but endangered seabirds, are declining across 75 percent of their range in North America.
COP15: UN pushes to end to $1.8tn in subsidies linked with harm to nature
The UN development chief has warned against “illogical” and “perverse” subsidies to industries estimated at $1.8tn that harm the planet, as the body pushes for a global deal to reverse the widespread destruction of nature.
—
return email, delete it from your system and destroy any copies.