'Change now or pay later': RBA's stark warning on climate change: SMH

"The Reserve Bank has warned climate change is likely to cause economic shocks and threaten Australia's financial stability unless businesses take immediate stock of the risks."

"Dr Debelle said the bank was speaking about the issue because of the size of the impact climate change would have on the economy.

"Some of these developments are actually happening now," he said.

Dr Debelle said the current drought across large swathes of the eastern states has already reduced farm output by around 6 per cent and total economic growth by about 0.15 per cent.

Victoria can, and should, lead the country on climate change: SMH

Grey Power Climate Protectors

"Many people see climate change as a federal domain, but actually the states are responsible for energy supply and have most of the regulatory levers – like the EPA – to cut pollution across all sectors of the economy. Plus Andrews has already done the hard yards cranking up the renewables we will need as we phase out Victoria’s ageing coal power stations.

All of which means Victoria can, and should, lead the entire country on the issue.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that human civilisation has just 12 years to avert an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. We live in an extraordinary time and it calls for extraordinary leadership, not merely sound management. The Andrews government has just won an election with a massive mandate on climate change and renewable energy and here is the perfect political moment to act. Will they seize it?"

Read the SMH article

Why Growth Can’t Be Green

"New data proves you can support capitalism or the environment — but it’s hard to do both."

"But ending growth doesn’t mean that living standards need to take a hit. Our planet provides more than enough for all of us; the problem is that its resources are not equally distributed. We can improve people’s lives right now simply by sharing what we already have more fairly, rather than plundering the Earth for more. Maybe this means better public services. Maybe it means basic income. Maybe it means a shorter working week that allows us to scale down production while still delivering full employment. Policies such as these — and countless others — will be crucial to not only surviving the 21st century but also flourishing in it."

Read the Medium article

This Statistic Changed My Entire Perspective about Climate Change: Medium

Climate Criminals

"It’s time to stop blaming individuals and start holding institutions and corporations responsible for climate change. This is not to say that individuals cannot do their part to take care of the planet, but that it is going to take more than aggregate small scale change to fix the problem. It is important to remember that we live in a democratic country, and it is our civic duty to contribute to and protect our democracy, especially in a world where the idea of a government by the people, for the people is at risk. 

As election day approaches, remember that voting on its own does not fulfill our responsibility as free American citizens — informed voting does. By staying informed and engaged, we make better decisions both in and out of the voting booth; in a capitalist society, we vote with our dollar too."

Read the Medium article 

Related: Out on its own: Australia the only country to use climate funding to upgrade coal-fired plants

2018 fourth warmest year in continued warming trend, according to NASA, NOAA

"Earth's global surface temperature in 2018 was the fourth warmest since 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Global temperatures in 2018 were 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit (0.83 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1951 to 1980 mean, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. Globally, 2018's temperatures rank behind those of 2016, 2017 and 2015. The past five years are, collectively, the warmest years in the modern record."

Read article  NEWS | February 6

Out on its own: Australia the only country to use climate funding to upgrade coal-fired plants

"Green finance experts say Australia is out of step with World Bank, Europe and the US, which are using funding to combat global warming.

Australia is the only developed country that allows climate change funding to be used to upgrade coal-fired power plants, green finance experts say.

Experts say allowing Vales Point coal-fired power station to register with the Morrison government’s emissions reduction fund, rebadged this week as a “climate solutions” policy, puts Australia out of step with the World Bank, Europe and the US, which have all rejected using climate financing for coal power retrofits.

The World Bank has issued US$13bn in green bonds since

Criminal Countries

2008 to stimulate spending to combat global warming.

China has used green bonds to help build new coal-fired plants to replace older, dirtier stations on the grounds it reduces nitrogen-based emissions causing the country’s oppressive air pollution. But it announced in December it would no longer consider “clean coal” plants – which still emit significant amounts of greenhouse gas – investments in green technology.

Sean Kidney, chief executive of the London-based Climate Bonds Initiative, says China’s shift leaves Australia out on its own."

Read the complete article

Related: The worst-case scenario
 

The worst-case scenario

Vote for my future climate

"Stephen Schneider explores what a world with 1,000 parts per million of CO 2 in its atmosphere might look like."

.... "Fairness must also be taken into account, given that some people would be at much greater risk than others: poor people in hot countries with little adaptive capacity, for instance, indigenous peoples and those exposed to hurricanes or wildfires, or living in low-lying areas. The elderly and children with asthma or other lung ailments would be particularly affected by urban air pollution or wildfire smoke plumes exacerbated by the extreme warming.

The economic outlook is no better. With warming of just 1–3 °C, projections show a mixture of benefit and loss. More than a few degrees of warming, however, and aggregate monetary impacts become negative virtually everywhere; and in a 1,000 p.p.m. scenario current literature suggests the outcomes would be almost universally negative and could amount to a substantial loss of gross domestic product. Millions of people at risk from flooding and

water supply problems would provide further economic challenges." ...

Read Stephen Schneider's essay

See also:

Climate Hackers - 'last ditch solutions to slow global warming': ABC 

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