Saving the Paris Agreement: Rolling Stone

Bats killed by extreme heat in Australia

"How a team of U.S. diplomats helped salvage the global pact on climate change in the face of Trump’s denialism"

"Nevertheless, what went down in Katowice was a small but not imperceptible sign that maybe all hope is not lost. “The Paris Agreement could have died in Katowice,” says Li Shuo, head of Greenpeace-China. “Instead, it lives. The question now is, ‘Who will step up and show some ambition and political leadership?’ ”

This is what happens to Australia if we don’t act: NEWS.com.au

"World leaders have been warned that civilisation could collapse

 

This year Australians have suffered through one of the worst droughts in living memory, bushfires and a heatwave that saw hundreds of flying foxes “boiled alive”. It also saw the publication of one of the most comprehensive reviews of climate science which delivered a “wildly alarming” report about where the world was headed.

 

Go to video

Yet Australia still does not have a climate change or energy policy.

This week there was an extraordinary act of rebellion from NSW Liberal Energy Minister Don Harwin, who used an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review to accuse the Morrison Government of being “out of touch” on climate and energy policy.

Perhaps some of the doom and gloom from recent reports into the world’s changing climate is finally starting to filter through?

Climate change is certainly being taken seriously by many Australians, with the Climate of the Nation report this year showing the number of Australians concerned about it had reached a five-year high.

The report produced by The Australia Institute found 73 per cent of 1756 Australians surveyed were concerned about climate change, up from 66 per cent in 2017.

But Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor has hit back at pressure from Mr Harwin and other states and territories who want higher emissions reduction targets, suggesting they need to “get back to reality”.

So what is the reality on climate change? Here are some facts.

AUSTRALIA HAS WARMED BY 1 DEGREE

On Thursday a new report was released that confirmed Australia had already warmed by 1C since records were first kept in 1910, according to the State of the Climate, a joint analysis released by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO.

As well as a spike in the number of extreme heat days, oceans around Australia seem to be warning and this is contributing to a rise in sea levels, CSIRO director of the Climate Science Centre Helen Cleugh said.

The report confirms the findings of the “wildly alarming” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which also noted the world had warmed by 1C.

WE’RE ON TRACK FOR 3 DEGREES 

The IPCC report has been hugely influential because it looked at 6000 peer-reviewed studies and involved 91 authors and review editors from 40 countries.

It found current pledges made by countries around the world — including Australia’s target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 — would see temperatures rise by 3C by the end of the century.

Scientists and climate activists have called on countries to ratchet up their carbon-cutting pledges as soon as possible.
Actions taken in the next 12 years until 2030 will be critical in order to have a chance of keeping global warming to 1.5C.
Temperatures are likely to rise by 1.5C between 2030 and 2052 if they continue to increase at the current rate.

WE’LL LOSE THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

The future is bleak for one of Australia’s biggest tourist attractions, which is estimated to be worth $56 billion to the country."



Read the complete News.com.au article and see the video

#climateheating  #animalextinction  #greatbarrierreef  #coralbleaching  #jobs

Related:

Power cuts hit ahead of heatwave

"Victoria braces for hottest day since Black Saturday

Melbourne is expected to swelter through the hottest day since Black Saturday a decade ago. Records are set to tumble across the state."

 

New Zealand's Prime Minister discusses climate change: ABC

Gore, Attenborough and Ardern

NZ PM addresses combating climate change

New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern discusses climate change alongside David Attenborough at a World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

'being on the right side of history'

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and naturalist David Attenborough have issued a strong message to world leaders who do not believe in climate change while appearing together at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

Key points:

• Ms Ardern said combating climate change is "about being on the right side of history'
• Attenborough said "it's difficult to overstate the climate change crisis"

Joining a panel hosted by former US vice president Al Gore, Ms Ardern, a long-time supporter of efforts to combat climate change, said leaders do not have to cede power by acting on the matter.

"There's nothing to fear about your individual political status," she said.

"Actually, this is about being on the right side of history.

"Do you want to be a leader that you look back in time and say that you were on the wrong side of the argument when the world was crying out for a solution?

"It's as simple as that, I think."

ABC article 

#newzealand  #Davos  #climateheating  #climatechange  #worldeconomicforum  #DavidAttenborough

'He's coming home': Tim Flannery returns to Australian Museum

Professor Flannery

"While concerned about Australia's lack of action on climate, Professor Flannery said "you have to remain optimistic". 

"You’ve got to look at this problem over decades. It’s a problem that’s developed over two centuries and it’s not going to be solved tomorrow," he said.;

But he said Australia must do more and said neither side of politics was offering enough of a solution.

"Is any political party doing enough, given the current situation, to avoid two degrees of warming? It’s very unlikely. We’ve got to do more. Our targets need to be increased."

Read the SMH article 

#Professor Flannery,  #global heating  #climate action   # Australia  #  politicians

Pacific shames PM on climate policy: SMH

PM Scott Morrison

"Mr Morrison's visit, which follows a trip to Papua New Guinea last year where he announced a naval base on Manus Island, reflected a new awareness of the need to counterbalance China's growing influence in the region.

The visit was not only diplomatically and symbolically significant. Mr Morrison and his counterparts announced a range of cooperative projects, overwhelmingly funded by Australia, on infrastructure, migration, border protection, military capacity, sport, economics and more.

But while Mr Morrison's gesture in showing the flag was welcome, his trip was marred by a lack of leadership on the region’s biggest issue, global warming – which poses an existential threat through rising sea levels and the increased frequency of catastrophic weather events."

Read the SMH article

#scottmorrison  #global heating  #climatechange  #Pacificnations   #LiberalNationalgovernment

“Hothouse Earth” Co-Author: The Problem Is Neoliberal Economics: the Intercept

"By shifting to a “wartime footing” to drive a rapid shift toward renewable energy and electrification, humanity can still avoid the apocalyptic future laid out in the much-discussed “hothouse earth” paper, a lead author of the paper told The Intercept. One of the biggest barriers to averting catastrophe, he said, has more to do with economics than science.

When journal papers about climate change make headlines, the news usually isn’t good. Last week was no exception, when the so-called hothouse earth paper, in which a team of interdisciplinary Earth systems scientists warned that the problem of climate change may be even worse than we thought, made its news cycle orbit. (The actual title of the paper, a commentary published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, is “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.”)"

Read the article 

Related: The good, the bad and the ugly of climate change in 2018: Green Magazine

#wartimefooting  #fossilfuels  #coal  #hothouseearth  #anthropocene #climateactionnow

Why Saving the Earth Needs To Become Our Primary Political Obsession: Medium

Greenhouse gases

"Will Steffen, one of the authors of the Hothouse Earth paper, puts it like this:

“Absolutely no new fossil fuel developments. None. That means no new coal mines, no new oil wells, no new gas fields, no new unconventional gas fracking. Nothing new. Second, you need to have a rapid phase-out plan for existing fossil fuels.”

He also goes on to make the point that we need to be on something like a “wartime footing” in order to re-align the trajectory of the planet.

I mean, imagine if climate change, and all the other existential threats we have created, were a giant asteroid hurtling to earth — what resources we’d muster to save the planet! But in disaster movie scenarios, no-one ever objects to being rescued on the grounds that it might negatively affect their profits.

And there’s the crunch.

We need to outlaw fossil fuels."

Read the article