435 people died in an 1896 heatwave — but scientists say the extreme heat events of today are still hotter: ABC

"Newspaper reports describe temperatures in Bourke reaching 48.9 degrees Celsius on three occasions, and the maximum temperature remaining above 38C for 24 consecutive days.

As Australia endures a series of intense and record-breaking heatwaves this summer, the 1896 event is sometimes viewed as evidence that Australia has always experienced extraordinary heat, and that the effects of climate change are overblown.

But climate scientists say that is an oversimplification, and the heatwaves we experience today are significantly hotter than those in the past."

"The temperature recording methods used in 1896 were flawed

Methods of recording temperature were not standardised until the early 1900s, leading to inflated temperature readings before then.
The global standard for temperature measurement includes the use of a Stevenson screen, which is a white louvred box allowing ventilation and ensuring thermometers inside are never exposed to the sun. 

A Stevenson screen was not installed in Bourke until August 1908, meaning temperature readings from before that could be inflated by as much as 2C.

University of Melbourne climate researcher Linden Ashcroft said thermometers in Bourke were likely placed in sub-standard conditions in 1896.

"Some thermometers were under verandahs, or they were against stone buildings," she said."


Read the complete ABC article

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How the Political Right Uses Fossil Fuels to Galvanize Opposition to Climate Action : Green Market Oracle

How the Political Right Uses Fossil Fuels to Galvanize Opposition to Climate Action : Green Market Oracle

It is widely understood that in the main, conservative far-right political movements support fossil fuels and oppose the veracity of climate change and climate action. In the U.S. Republicans have worked with the old energy industry to subvert the facts for many years. Thanks to insidious disinformation campaigns 73 percent of Republican voters have been hoodwinked into believing that climate change is not a serious threat and 70 percent do not believe that humans are the cause. The resistance to climate action does not stop at disinformation. Republicans have actively thwarted the democratic process through redistricting (gerrymandering) and voter suppression. In Oregon Republican lawmakers refused to appear in the state legislature to avoid passing a sweeping climate change bill by the Democratic majority.
No individual has done more harm to global climate action that Donald Trump. He has dismissed climate change as a "hoax" and his administration's resistance to science is unprecedented. This president and his Republican minions actively support the expansion of fossil fuels and wanton deregulation. The Trump administration's raft of anti-environmental policy positions including withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Trump has helped to pave the way for climate denial from far-right politicians in Brazil, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. They have stoked opposition to climate action to build support for anti-science policy.  The result is the right wing leaderships in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia have all killed their net-zero emissions plans this year.
The key to resistance to science-based climate action can be found in marrying opposition to fossil fuel tax hikes and resistance to climate action. The so called yellow vest protests in France and other parts of Europe illustrate this point. Opposing increases in gas prices serves as both a mustering point of resistance and a segue to oppose climate action. However, this is a manufactured crisis as gas taxes were already high.
In a play on Trump's nationalistic "make America great again" French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to "make our planet great again". French right wing political leaders have seized on Macron's climate leadership to galvanize opposition to climate action. As one slogan put it, "Macron is concerned with the end of the world. We are concerned with the end of the month."
Similar contrarian sentiments can be found in other countries that support climate action including Sweden which is widely recognized as one of the most climate forward nations on the planet. Resistance to gas tax hikes in Sweden are called Bensinupproret. The leader of the movement's 600,000 Facebook members is Peder Blohm Bokenhielm he dismisses climate action as "hysteria". In climate friendly Finland, opposition to climate action is also being used by the right for partisan purposes. Finns Party chairman Jussi Halla-aho also dismisses climate action as "hysteria".
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore climate science, even for right wing politicians whose policy agendas are commonly rooted in obfuscation and outright deception. The new center-right European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, placed climate policy at the top of her "agenda for Europe," ahead of even economic policy. "I want the European Green Deal to become Europe's hallmark," she explained.

From Green Market Oracle 

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The Madrid climate talks failed spectacularly. Here's what went down: The Conversation

New study: changes in climate since 2000 have cut Australian farm profits 22%: The Conversation

ABARES/Shutterstock

The current drought across much of eastern Australia has demonstrated the dramatic effects climate variability can have on farm businesses and households. 

The drought has also renewed longstanding discussions around the emerging effects of climate change on agriculture, and how governments can best help farmers to manage drought risk.

A new study released this morning by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences offers fresh insight on these issues by quantifying the impacts of recent climate variability on the profits of Australian broadacre farms. 

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Read more: Droughts, extreme weather and empowered consumers mean tough choices for farmers

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The results show that changes in temperature and rainfall over the past 20 years have had a negative effect on average farm profits while also increasing risk. 

The findings demonstrate the importance of adaptation, innovation and adjustment to the agriculture sector, and the need for policy responses which promote – and don’t unnecessarily inhibit – such progress.

Measuring the effects of climate on farms

Measuring the effects of climate on farms is difficult given the many other factors that also influence farm performance, including commodity prices. 

Further, the effects of rainfall and temperature on farm production and profit can be complex and highly location and farm specific.
To address this complexity, ABARES has developed a model based on more than 30 years of historical farm and climate data—farmpredict — which can identify effects of climate variability, input and output prices, and other factors on different types of farms.

Cropping farms most exposed

The model finds that cropping farms generally face greater climate risk than beef farms, but also generate higher average returns.
Cropping farm revenue and profits are lower in dry years, with large reductions in crop yields and only small savings in input costs. 

Read the complete article on The Conversation

The Madrid climate talks failed spectacularly. Here's what went down: The Conversation

Low ambition from polluting nations derailed the COP25 climate talks. Supplied by author

 
Kate Dooley, University of Melbourne
 
The United Nations’ COP25 climate talks concluded on Sunday morning in Madrid, almost 40 hours overtime. After two weeks of protracted talks meant to address the planetary warming emergency, world leaders spectacularly failed to reach any real outcomes.

The degree to which wealthy nations, including Australia, blocked progress on critical points of debate incensed both observers and country delegates.

These points included robust rules for the global trading of carbon credits, increased commitments for finance to help developing nations tackle climate change, and most importantly, raising ambition to a level consistent with averting catastrophic climate impacts.

Australia’s Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor, far left, with other delegates to the COP 25. JUAN CARLOS HIDALGO

High hopes

COP25 was a conference of “parties”, or nations, signed up to the Paris Agreement, which takes effect in 2021. I attended the conference as an observer. 

Emissions reduction targets of nations signed up to Paris put Earth on track for a 3.2℃ temperature increase this century. However the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says warming must be kept below 1.5℃ to avoid the most devastating climate impacts.
Much was riding on the outcome in Madrid. However, it failed to deliver.

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Read more: Earth has a couple more chances to avoid catastrophic climate change. This week is one of them

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One of the key agenda items was Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, involving international carbon trading between nations.
The previous COP in Poland failed to reach consensus on these trading rules, and after this latest meeting, many contentious issues remained unresolved. These include:

• how to ensure that an overall reduction in global emissions is achieved and that the rules prevent double counting (or emissions reduction units being counted by both the buying and selling nation)
• whether a levy would be applied to proceeds from carbon trading to finance adaptation in developing nations
• the recognition of human and indigenous peoples’ rights, and social and environmental safeguards, given the harms caused by previous carbon trading mechanisms
• critically for Australia, whether countries could use “carryover” carbon credits from the Kyoto Protocol to meet commitments under the Paris Agreement.
  

An indigenous woman from Amazon reacts during COP25, which largely failed to deliver. JUAN CARLOS HIDALGO/EPA

The question of Kyoto credits

Australia was pushing to allow use of Kyoto Protocol units, for which it drew scathing criticism from other nations, international media and observers. It plans to meet more than half its Paris target via this accounting loophole.
Brazil, India, South Korea and China also want to carry over credits earned under the Clean Development Mechanism, a trading scheme under Kyoto.

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Read more: Now Australian cities are choking on smoke, will we finally talk about climate change?

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No consensus was reached. The negotiations for rules for carbon markets will now continue at COP26 in Glasgow next year, just weeks out from the Paris Agreement’s start date. 

The argument will not be easily resolved. Five of the last seven COP meetings failed to reach a decision on carbon market rules, indicating the extent of international divisions, and calling into question the disproportionate focus on carbon trading, given its limited ability to address climate change.

In Madrid, 31 nations signed up to the San Jose principles, seeking to ensure environmental integrity in carbon markets. Upholding these principles would mean emissions must go down, not up as a result of trading carbon.

Steam rises a German coal-fired power plant. The COP25 failed to make progress on cutting emissions from coal and other sources. EPA/FRIEDEMANN VOGEL

Other failures

The conference also discussed measures to strengthen the governance and finance arrangements of the Warsaw International Mechanism, a measure designed to compensate poor nations for climate damage.

Little progress was made on mobilising finance from developed nations. The US, which will soon exit the Paris Agreement, played a key role in stymieing progress. It resisted efforts for broad governance arrangements, and pushed for language in the rulebook which would exclude high-emittiong nations from liability for the loss and damage experienced by vulnerable countries under climate change.

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Read more: Global emissions to hit 36.8 billion tonnes, beating last year's record high

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At Glasgow, all nations under Paris are required to submit new emissions reduction commitments. It was widely expected that the Madrid meeting would strongly urge nations to ensure these targets were more ambitious than the last. Instead, the final text only “reminds” parties to “communicate” their commitments in 2020.

President of COP25, Carolina Schmidt (right), and UN official Ovais Sarmad. EPA/MAST IRHAM

‘Crime against humanity’

When the COP finally closed on Sunday morning, the meeting had failed to reach consensus on increasing emissions reduction ambition to the level required.

The results are disheartening. The world has let another chance slip by to tackle the climate crisis, and time is fast running out.
The implications of this were perhaps summed up best by the low-lying Pacific island state of Tuvalu, whose representative Ian Fry said of the outcome:

There are millions of people all around the world who are already suffering from the impacts of climate change. Denying this fact could be interpreted by some to be a crime against humanity.

Kate Dooley, Research Fellow, Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Push for carbon loopholes sends climate talks into overtime: Skeptical Science

Australia, US and Brazil threatening ‘spirit’ of the Paris Agreement, says Costa Rican minister, as fractious talks could drag into the weekend

The plenary room at Cop25 in Madrid. Diplomats are locked in tense negotiations to try and find a deal (Photo: UNFCCC)

Negotiations at the UN climate talks are going into extra time as diplomats are at loggerheads over commitments to boost ambition and rules to set-up a new global carbon market.

As the second week of negotiations drew to a close, negotiators were set to work through the night on Friday to find landing zones and finalise the last unresolved rules of the Paris Agreement.
“We are reaching the final hours of the Cop and now is time to show the world we are capable of reaching an agreement,” Cop25 president Carolina Schmidt told negotiators.

“The eyes of the world are on us. Our kids, the women of the world, indigenous people, our communities, the youth will not understand that we are not able to get to an agreement that is committed ambition to the world. It is our responsibility to find that agreement,” she said.

But entrenched positions have run into political deadlock, with little progress on the most contentious issues, including creating a new carbon market, known as Article 6.

Push for carbon loopholes sends climate talks into overtime by Chloé Farand, Climate Home News, Dec 13, 2019

Click here to access the entire article as posted on the Climate Home News website.

Greta Thunberg’s speech at UN climate change conference

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Swedish activist Greta Thunberg says "we no longer have time to leave out the science," as she gave a speech at the U.N. global climate conference in Madrid - accusing world leader of “clever accounting and creative PR” to avoid action on the climate crisis. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) 

 

Thunberg told the crowd that the world's rapidly declining carbon budgets would be gone within eight years based on current emission levels. "How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger? And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist? I would really like to know,” she said.

 

 #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #GlobalWarming #EmergencyOnPlanetEarth  

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Swedish activist Greta Thunberg says "we no longer have time to leave out the science," as she gave a speech at the U.N. global climate conference in Madrid - accusing world leader of “clever accounting and creative PR” to avoid action on the climate crisis. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) Thunberg told the crowd that the world's rapidly declining carbon budgets would be gone within eight years based on current emission levels. "How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger? And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist? I would really like to know,” she said. #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #GlobalWarming

Climate Change and Why We Should Panic voiced by Keira Knightley | Extinction Rebellion Video

Extinction Rebellion

 

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British Academy Film Award and Academy Award nominee, Keira Knightley, OBE, has come out in support of Extinction Rebellion. Keira has lent her voice to defend the climate and tell the truth in this new, short film that summarises the crisis from how we got here, and what we must do now. The animation shows why government must enter crisis mode and choose a different path than the one we are on because it will lead us to extinction. Keira joins Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, William Dafoe, Javier Bardem, Paloma Faith, Radiohead and all other people who know that we are facing an unprecedented global emergency.

 Learn more and #rebelforlife 

Website: https://Rebellion.Earth World Map of Extinction Rebellion Groups: http://bit.ly/2wri78B 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExtinctionR Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExtinctionRe... 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ExtinctionR...

Caption author (Italian)

Chiara

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