Australian headlines are designed to scare people into not acting on climate change : The Guardian

Global Heating

"As we head into another cycle of climate change politics beware the economic doomsayers"

"Thirdly, because Australia exports a lot of coal and other emissions-intensive products to other countries, what they do matters an awful lot to the Australian economy. As other nations reduce emissions, demand for these products falls regardless of what we do. It has been established for some time that a significant part of the economic impacts of climate change on Australia comes from things we can’t control and this is generally presented in the results (see here for an example). While he does not report this, Brian Fisher knows this because he spearheaded economic analysis in the 1990s that was targeted at convincing Japan, one of our major coal markets, it would be too costly for them to reduce emissions."  .......
 

"Lastly, whenever these headlines are blasted across the papers one point is always lost: these results don’t include the cost of climate change itself. This summer, we have again seen a glimmer of what climate change will mean for Australia. Recent economic analysis indicates the benefits of limiting global warming far outweigh the cost of doing so, in one case by 70-1 (a good summary is here). (Again, this is something Fisher has considered in the past as he once said it would be cheaper to move people from the Pacific and put them in condos on the Gold Coast than act on climate change.)" ......

Read the complete 21/2/2019 The Guardian article

Coal, conservatives, and craziness: Financial Review

Coal Mining

Privately owned electricity generators in Australia don't want to invest billions of dollars in new coal-fired power plants for the simple reason that renewable power with storage is cheaper and quicker to build. The idea that it doesn't make sense to place a 50-year bet on coal-fired generation in Australia, but it does in developing countries, is simply bizarre.

If AGL, the largest consumer of coal in Australia, can't make coal-fired powered stations stack up financially — even with near zero coal transport costs — how can anyone believe that coal will make sense in developing countries that have to cover all of the costs of getting their coal from Australia to Asia?

Read the Financial Review article 

See also: Australia's biggest companies failing to plan for climate change risks: report: ABC NEWS

#coal  #coalmining  #coal mining  #economy  #australia  #energy production  #climate change

Australia's biggest companies failing to plan for climate change risks: report: ABC NEWS

"Australia's biggest companies are ignoring calls from regulators and investors to do more to mitigate the risks of climate change, with a new study finding that many of the nation's top 100 companies still do not identify climate change as a material business risk."

 ................................

 "In October, the Australian Institute of Company Directors' (AICD) survey of more than 1,200 company directors found they had for the first time nominated climate change as the number one issue they want the Federal Government to address in the long term.

Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) chief

Climate Angel

executive Simon O'Connor said investors were increasingly setting decarbonisation targets for their investment portfolios.
"Many responsible investors are rightfully concerned about this low level of disclosure," he said.

"More and more responsible investors are considering divestment from fossil fuel companies as an option on the table."

Read the ABC News story 


#climate change economic impact    #climatechange  #climate activism   #Australia

Young people are about to utterly transform climate politics: Medium

Climate Justice

"Inter-generational justice demands bold, rapid climate action; real climate action demands a giant building boom."

"Young people have a massive self-interest in pushing that boom to happen as fast as possible — a self-interest every bit as strong (and far more ethical) as the self-interest that older people pursue through gradualism and delay.

As young people become more and more powerful in the climate movement, fault lines are going to open. Those cracks are visible now. Older leaders are just in the habit of ignoring them.

The climate movement of the 2020s will be fierce and focused on building the new world we need.

The conflict between old movement interest groups and that new call for action at scale and speed is going to be a — maybe the — major climate story in the coming decade."

Read the Medium article 

#YIMBYS  #climateaction   #building   #youth  #climateconflict   #youngpeople

Polar bears have invaded an island town. Locals are terrified of them and climate change

"The US Geological Survey warned in 2007 that two-thirds of the global population of polar bears could be wiped out by 2050 because of thinning sea ice.

That prediction has periodically found stark visual expression. In December 2017, the world's attention was briefly focused on a video of an emaciated polar bear, struggling to stand in the Canadian Arctic.

"This is what starvation looks like," Paul Nicklen, the photographer who captured the scene, wrote on social media. "The muscles atrophy. No energy. It's a slow, painful death. When scientists say polar bears will be extinct in the next 100 years, I think of the global population of 25,000 bears dying in this manner.""

Read the SMH article 

#polarbears  #polar bear   #human driven mass extinction  #extinction  #global heating

See also: New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a 'Risky Distraction': Desmog

'Climate-change refugees' quit mainland farming in search of greener pastures in Tasmania: ABC News

See ABC story

"This week, farmers in parts of western Queensland saw their stock drown and die from exposure in disastrous flood conditions which Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said will likely claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of cattle.

The floods come after an extended period of drought, when many paddocks across the region were reduced to dust.
But for some farmers, these hellish conditions are a distant dream.

Rob and Sally McCreath quit mainland Australia to farm in Tasmania in 2016, where they foresaw an easier life.
They call themselves "climate-change refugees"."

Read the ABC News Story

FUEL TO THE FIRE HOW GEOENGINEERING THREATENS TO ENTRENCH FOSSIL FUELS AND ACCELERATE THE CLIMATE CRISIS

climate action now

"Executive Summary 

The present report investigates the early, ongoing, and often surprising role of the fossil fuel industry in developing, patenting, and promoting key geoengineering technologies. 

It examines how the most heavily promoted strategies for carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation modification depend on the continued production and combustion of carbon-intensive fuels for their viability. 

It analyzes how the hypothetical promise of future geoengineering is already being used by major fossil fuel producers to justify the continued production and use of oil, gas, and coal for decades to come. 

It exposes the stark contrast between the emerging narrative that geoengineering is a morally necessary adjunct to dramatic climate action, and the commercial arguments of key proponents that geoengineering is simply a way of avoiding or reducing the need for true systemic change, even as converging science and technologies demonstrate that shift is both urgently needed and increasingly feasible. 

Finally, it highlights the growing incoherence of advocating for reliance on speculative and risky geoengineering technologies in the face of mounting evidence that addressing the climate crisis is less about technology than about political will."

Read the original CIEL document 

See also  New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a '...