17 February 2016, The Guardian, The key to halting climate change: admit we can’t save everything. Climate change, and human resistance to making the changes needed to halt it, both continue apace: 2015 was the hottest year in recorded history, we may be on the brink of a major species extinction event in the ocean, and yet political will is woefully lacking to tackle this solvable problem. Given these dire ecological trends, limited public funding and legislative gridlock, the time is ripe for a budget-neutral, executive-branch approach for managing our natural resources: triage. A science-based triage approach should be used to classify areas and species into one of three categories: not at immediate risk, in need of immediate attention or beyond help. Refusing to apply triage implicitly assumes that we can save everything and prevent change, which we cannot. Prioritization will occur regardless, just ad hoc and shrouded. This triage system would replace the status quo of inadequately managing our full portfolio of over 1m square miles of public land and 1,589 threatened and endangered species. For areas or species not at immediate risk, we can delay action while monitoring to detect changes in that status. For example, increased temperatures and prolonged periods of drought may increase both wildfires and populations of tree-killing beetles in forests of the Pacific north-west. Knowing this, we can track these variables and explore management options that minimize risk without prematurely devoting disproportionate resources. For areas needing immediate help, we must act now. For the coral reefs of the Florida Keys and US Virgin Islands, all anthropogenic impacts (such as overfishing, pollution and coastal development) must be dramatically reduced. Otherwise, because the health of these coral reefs is currently so compromised, they are unlikely to survive the sea level rise, rising ocean temperatures and increasing acidification resulting from climate change. For species protections, it would be wise to focus on keystone species such as oysters (water filterers), parrotfish (algae eaters on overgrown coral reefs), bees (pollinators) and wolves (key predators). For areas we can no longer maintain, we must make the most difficult of choices – give up, and accept that change is not always preventable. In Alaska, it may be too late to prevent the climate change-induced shift from coniferous-dominated to deciduous-dominated stands, with unfortunate impacts on forest-dwelling species and the logging industry. In the ocean, entire fisheries can be lost from an area when species shift due to warming waters. Read More here
Category Archives: PLEA Network
11 February 2016, Renew Economy, Victorian climate review calls for 1.5°C long-term emissions target. An independent review into the Victoria’s Climate Change Act has found the current legislation to be “inadequate” in its response to the threat of global warming, and has made 33 recommendations on how it can be strengthened. The most striking recommendation for the state that hosts Australia’s fleet of highly polluting brown coal-fired power generators is the introduction of a long-term state emissions reduction target based on restricting global warming to 1.5°C, as well as five-yearly interim targets. The proposed target is in keeping with the landmark pact made at the Paris COP21 to keep global temperature increase “well below” 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. It is also in line with the current climate science, that argues 2°C could be “inadequate” as a safe limit. But the target could prove ambitious for a state that hosts some of the world’s dirtiest coal-fried power stations, and a fossil fuel dominated grid. Indeed, some – like Australian climate activist David Spratt – have questioned the target’s ability to be achieved in Victoria – even in the long term. He suggests that the “carbon budget” for the state is already used up for a 1.5C target. #Springst #Climate Change Act Review delusion: calls for long-term emissions target for 1.5C, but carbon budget for 1.5C already used up! Undertaken in 2015 and tabled in the Victorian parliament on Thursday, the review’s main goal, according to the government, was to “undo the damage” the previous Coalition government had done to the 2010 legislation, and to help restore Victoria as a leader in climate change action. …. Among its recommendations, the Committee proposes an increase in the powers of the state Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in regulating emissions reduction, and the development of a comprehensive climate change strategy every five years. It also recommends the state consider “the suite of options available to reduce emissions at their source;” and that the Act introduces a requirement for each lead department to develop an Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction Action Plan (ADDRAP). Read more here
8 February 2016, Climate Home, EU faces two-year wrangle to ratify Paris climate deal. The European Union faces months of internal wrangling before it can ratify the UN climate deal agreed in Paris last December. Brussels will take part in a signing ceremony to be hosted by Ban Ki-moon at UN headquarters in New York this April. But experts say it could take until late 2017 or 2018 to get the detail member states need to formally accept the agreement. And the 28-strong bloc’s leaders are showing little appetite for raising ambition during that time, despite Brussels backing a tougher global goal at the critical UN summit. At a panel event hosted by think tank Bruegel on Monday, climate and energy commissioner Miguel Arias Canete reeled off a long list of policies. “We will have to work very hard in 2016 to overcome the last hurdles of the agreement,” he said. “All signatories have to live up to their responsibilities and implement the agreed provisions.” What was not evident was any shift in strategy post-Paris. It was left to Hendrik Bourgeois of General Electric to point out that the EU’s 2030 climate targets were inconsistent with the Paris pact. At the UN summit, Canete boasted of helping to build a “high ambition coalition” between rich and poor nations. The resulting text promised to hold global warming “well below 2C” and “pursue efforts” for a 1.5C limit. The EU2030 package agreed in 2014 – emissions cuts of “at least” 40% from 1990 levels – was based on an earlier, less demanding 2C threshold. “Things will have to change and action will be necessary,” said Bourgeois. Read More here
5 February 2016, Renew Economy, Five things we learned this week about Tony Turnbull/ Malcolm Abbott. Remember Tony Abbott? He was the leader of the Coalition government who thought that climate change was crap, dismantled the carbon price, trashed the Climate Council, and tried to dismantle the Climate Change Authority, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corp. Tony Abbott brought investment in large scale renewable energy to a screeching halt by threatening to kill the renewable energy target, and then cutting it sharply, so encouraging a capital strike by major utilities. He also threatened to decimate the ranks of climate scientists through major cuts to the CSIRO. He said he hated the sight of wind farms, and said he thought coal was good for humanity. Remember Malcolm Turnbull? He was the former Opposition leader who enthusiastically launched the Beyond Zero Emissions Plan for a rapid transition to 100 per cent renewable energy in Australia in 2010, who spoke of the moral and economic importance of acting decisively on climate change, who spoke of Direct Action as “irresponsible” and a “fig leaf” for a climate policy, and who spoke of many fine Liberal policy initiatives in whole sentences. Nearly six months ago, something strange happened. Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister after Tony Abbott was dumped by his own party. But nothing changed. If the swap had been made by deed poll or a cardboard cut-out, the practical impact on climate and clean energy policies would have been no greater. The carbon price is still scrapped, the “fig leaf” remains the centrepiece of the great policy misnomer Direct Action; Australia’s emissions are surging to a record high; the capital strike by utilities continues and large scale renewables investment remains at zero; the legislation to repeal the CCA, ARENA and the CEFC has not been withdrawn; coal is still considered good for humanity, and even a solution to hunger; and 300 or so climate scientists have just been told, in the parlance of modern football, to “do one” by the CSIRO and find another job. Yet, in spite of all this, all Turnbull needs to do to be assured of election victory this year – in the absence of a credible opposition leader – is to make sure he does not actually morph into Tony Abbott. That means woo-ing the “soft centre” who chose to believe – like they did in 2013 – that Tony Abbott would “do the right thing”, despite all the evidence to the contrary. In fact, Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t even need to be Malcolm Turnbull. He certainly doesn’t need to drop Abbott’s policies, and appears to have made a promise not to. A new composite figure, call him Malcolm Abbott or Tony Turnbull, has emerged. How do we know this? Here’s five reasons why: Read More here