2 December 2015, Climate News Network, Climate change threatens US influence. Security experts say a modern Marshall Plan of aid for the Asia-Pacific region is needed to protect US strategic and economic interests from climate-related challenges. Two American security experts say the Asia-Pacific region needs massive international aid to tackle its greatest problem − climate change. And they fear that without a huge outlay on development, diplomacy and defence, the US claim to global leadership may be challenged. In a report they edited for the Centre for Climate and Security (CCS), Caitlin Werrell and Francesco Femia say the region needs a new version of the Marshall Plan, the visionary scheme that helped to rebuild western Europe after the second world war. The US contributed $13 billion (worth about $130 bn today) to that Plan, which was an international package of development assistance to help European economies, beginning in 1947 and running for four years.The CCS report starts with a foreword by the former US Pacific commander, retired admiral Samuel J Locklear III, who says climate change “may prove to be Asia-Pacific’s greatest long-term challenge”, with “potentially catastrophic security implications”. Political tensions Werrell and Femia say the US has “a new strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific: a rising China; rapid economic and population growth; the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials (five of the world’s nuclear powers are in the Indo-Asia-Pacific); increased economic activity and political tensions in the South China Sea; military build-ups (the area has seven of the world’s 10 largest standing militaries); and the opening of previously impassable sea lanes by a melting Arctic”. They see a clear military imperative for Washington to act. They believe nations in the region may be tempted to “accept the reality of a regionally dominant China, and the economic and political consequences of that reality . . . More robustly addressing the region’s climate challenges offers the US an opportunity to enhance its regional influence.” Read More here
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2 December 2015, Renew Economy, As Paris talks, Australia’s energy emissions are going in the wrong direction. As all readers will know, publication of this report comes during the first week of the crucial UN Climate Change Conference (COP21 under the UNFCCC) in Paris. For that reason, we devote most of the full report to looking at overall trends in Australia’s energy combustion emissions, including changes since 2004-05, the reference year chosen by the Australian government for its official 2030 emissions reduction target. Energy combustion emissions covered by CEDEX® include all emissions arising from the generation of electricity in the National Electricity Market (NEM), all emissions from the combustion of petroleum products within Australia, i.e. excluding international ship and aircraft bunkers, and all emissions from the combustion of natural gas by gas consumers (i.e. not including emissions from the gas industry’s own use of gas – see below) in NSW, Victoria, SA and Tasmania. All data are reported as moving annual totals, so as to remove seasonal effects on consumption of relevant products, and in terms of the changes since June 2009. The emissions reported by CEDEX® reached their historical maximum in December 2008, i.e. in the calendar year 2008. By June 2009 the annualised total, i.e. total for financial year 2008-09, had fallen by 0.7%. The financial year 2008-09 is also the year in which Australia’s total emissions from fossil fuel combustion, as reported in Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, reached their historic maximum. Read More here
2 December 2015, Renew Economy, Paris, COP21: Poor countries want 100% renewables, not coal. PARIS: If coal is good for humanity, then someone has forgotten to tell the world’s poorest countries. In a strongly worded statement that came out on the first day of talks at the Paris climate summit, the leaders of 30 of the world’s poorest countries said they wanted the world to be 100 per cent renewable by 2050. The level of ambition on renewable energy and the climate target will be a key theme of these talks. There is a major push by poorer nations for their – and the world’s – energy needs to be supplied by renewable energy, as part of their insistence that the climate target be tightened to prevent average warming of more than 1.5C. Philippine President Benigno Aquino said it was part of the push for a “fairer”, more “climate-proactive world.” The basic message is that they see themselves as most vulnerable to climate change, and don’t want more coal fired generation that could worsen their prospects. This, of course, is in stark contrast with the marketing campaign of the global coal lobby – and its echo chambers in governments like Australia’s – could not be more profound. Indeed, when environment minister Greg Hunt was challenged at an OECD event about the approval of the controversial Carmichael coal mine, a project that could emit more than many country’s total emissions, he retorted: “I am not a neo-colonialist. I think the poorest should be able to make their own decisions.” And some of them have. The call by the 30 developing countries was followed by a separate announcement on Tuesday that African countries intended to install 10GW of new renewable capacity by 2020, and up to 300 GW by 2030. The majority of this will come in solar and wind, rather than hydro. France is contributing a total of nearly $10 billion. Read More here
2 December 2015, New Scientist, Massive El Niño sweeping globe is now the biggest ever recorded. The current extreme El Niño is now the strongest ever recorded, smashing the previous record from 1997-8. Already wreaking havoc on weather around the world, the new figures mean those effects will probably get worse. Climate change could be to blame and is known to be making the extreme impacts of El Niño on weather more likely. The 1997-8 El Niño killed 20,000 people and caused almost $97 billion of damage as floods, droughts, fires, cyclones and mudslides ravaged the world. Now the current El Niño has surpassed the 1997-8 El Niño on a key measure, according to the latest figures released by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. El Niño occurs when warm water that has piled up around Australia and Indonesia spills out east across the Pacific Ocean towards the Americas, taking the rain with it. A key measure of its intensity is the warmth of water in the central Pacific. In 1997, at its peak on 26 November, it was 2.8 °C above average. According to the latest measurements, it reached 2.8 °C on 4 November this year, and went on to hit 3.1 °C on 18 November – the highest temperatures ever seen in this region. Read More here