7 December 2015, The Conversation, Australia’s climate diplomacy is like a doughnut: empty in the middle. There is a profound disconnect between Australia’s international climate diplomacy and its national climate and energy policies. The diplomacy could be cast in positive terms, on the surface at least. During the first week of the climate negotiations in Paris, Australia displayed a preparedness to be flexible and serve as a broker of compromises in the negotiations over the draft Paris Agreement. Australia has also agreed to support the inclusion of a temperature goal to limit global warming to 1.5℃, which is a matter very dear to the hearts of Pacific Island nations for whom climate change is a fundamental existential threat. Australia will serve as co-chair (with South Africa) of the Green Climate Fund in 2016, which will be channelling money to the most vulnerable countries in the Pacific and elsewhere to enhance their preparedness for the harmful impacts arising from a much warmer world. …. Yet appearances can be deceiving. The A$200 million in annual climate finance comes from the aid budget and is not new or additional. Nor does it represent an enhanced commitment relative to previous contributions. And it is widely acknowledged that an enhanced commitment to climate finance by rich countries to assist poor countries to develop clean energy and adapt to climate change will be central to garnering the support of developing countries to a Paris agreement. Australia had every reason to ratify Kyoto II, since it had one of the lowest emissions targets in the developed world for 2020 (5% below 2000 levels). Australia has also been able to benefit from greenhouse gas accounting rules (including a carry over of surplus emissions allowances from the first commitment period) that will enable achievement of this target at the same time as greenhouse emissions outside the land sector are set to increase by around 11% by 2020. Read More here
Category Archives: PLEA Network
7 December 2015, Renew Economy, Paris, COP21: Australia ignoring energy transition as emissions soar. Australia is being put on the spot at the Paris climate talks about its treatment of surplus credits from the Kyoto Protocol, and the fact that it will more than likely meet its short- and mid-term targets without actually reducing its industrial emissions. Indeed, it seems that the Turnbull government – like those before it since the Kyoto Treaty was first signed in 1997 – is insisting that its focus remain on accounting and ticking boxes, rather than reducing industrial and energy emissions and preparing the country to decarbonise its economy. That rise in industrial emissions is one reason why Australia will not be following the example of five European countries and cancelling their Kyoto surplus. On Friday, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain announced that they will cancel 634.6 million excess Kyoto credits that they could have counted towards their Kyoto targets for 202. They decided to do this as part of a bid to remove what has been described as a giant “hot air” loophole that has favoured some countries. “By cancelling surplus units we hope to send a strong positive signal of support for an ambitious global climate agreement here in Paris,” the European nations said in a joint statement. But don’t expect Australia to follow suit. Australia is still intent on using its surplus of 128 million units to meet its modest 2020 targets, which it will do despite it becoming increasingly clear that its industrial emissions, and its power sector emissions in particular, will continue to rise. That doesn’t appear to faze the Turnbull government. When RenewEconomy asked environment minister Greg Hunt on Friday if the government was worried that its approach would not position Australia to decarbonise its economy and compete with other countries committed to doing so, Hunt simply said that the critical thing for Australia was to meet its targets. Its Direct Action program is buying emissions abatement through its emissions reduction fund, and $2.55 billion of taxpayer money – but as quickly as it is doing this, emissions are rising in the electricity sector and elsewhere. A new report from Pitt & Sherry says electricity emissions alone are rising 10 per cent, and estimates by Reputex put the increase in industrial emissions at 6 per cent by 2020. Read More here
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
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