What you will find on this page: LATEST NEWS; Fossil fuel emissions have stalled; Analysis: Record surge of clean energy in 2024 halts China’s CO2 rise; does the world need hydrogen?; Mapped: global coal trade; Complexity of energy systems (maps); Mapped: Germany’s energy sources (interactive access); Power to the people (video); Unburnable Carbon (report); Stern Commission Review; Garnaut reports; live generation data; fossil fuel subsidies; divestment; how to run a divestment campaign guide; local council divestment guide; US coal plant retirement; oil conventional & unconventional; CSG battle in Australia (videos); CSG battle in Victoria; leasing maps for Victoria; coal projects Victoria
Huge task to decarbonise
Source: Australian Delegation presentation to international forum held in Bonn in May 2012
Latest News 12 November 2015, Australian fossil fuel subsidies put at $5.6bn a year in new report. As Malcolm Turnbull heads to Turkey to attend this weekend’s G20 Summit in Antalya, a new international report has revealed that Australia is still subsidising fossil fuel production to the tune of a massive $A5.6 billion a year. The report, ‘Empty promises: G20 subsidies to oil, gas and coal production’, also highlights how Australian companies have received billions of dollars from other G20 governments to develop liquefied natural gas sites. And it notes that Australia also funds the industry with a further $A292 million ($US262 million) a year in public finance, as it expands fossil fuel production on multiple fronts. The findings come during a week where the Turnbull is coming under increasing pressure – domestically and internationally – to agree to a OECD proposal that would rein in export credit agency financing for new coal plant. Although the Turnbull government is being cagey about its response to the proposal, it has been widely reported that Canberra has joined with South Korea to propose a much-watered down version of the US-Japan deal. Considering the modesty of the OECD proposal – which has been years in the making and needs unanimous support to be adopted – it’s not a good start to global climate negotiations. And it’s not a good look for Australia as it heads to Turkey, and then Paris. But of course, Australia is not the only offender. According to the new report – put together by the UK-based Overseas Development Institute and USA-based Oil Change International – governments from the Group of 20 nations are propping up fossil fuel production with $US452 billion a year. This is almost four times the entire global subsidies for renewable energy ($US121 billion). And it is despite pledges to phase out fossil fuels – and subsidies to the industry – as one of the key measures to prevent catastrophic climate change. Read More here 11 November 2015, Other Words, Who Can Follow This Climate Leader? President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline while backing increased oil, gas, and coal production. Remember that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy hits a fork in the Yellow Brick Road? As she stands there stumped, a friendly character who will accompany her to the Emerald Palace pipes up. “Pardon me, that way is a very nice way,” the Scarecrow advises as he points in one direction. “It’s pleasant down that way too,” he adds, now pointing in the other. Then the Scarecrow crosses his straw-stuffed arms and unhelpfully declares, “Of course people do go both ways.” President Barack Obama’s climate leadership is as hard to follow as the Scarecrow’s directions. After seven years of waffling, Obama finally rejected the Keystone XL pipeline. If completed, this conduit would have moved more than 800,000 barrels a day of filthy oil mined from the Canadian tar sands through Nebraska and five other states to refineries along the Gulf Coast. Rejecting the $8 billion pipeline early in his first term would have been bold. But Obama dallied. He only stopped it once the thing made no financial sense because of low oil prices and similar infrastructure that rendered the project unnecessary. Making this move now, on the eve of global climate talks in Paris, was merely expedient. He made his choice sound like a bigger deal than it was anyway. “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” he asserted. “And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.” So, what’s the state of that leadership? On the one hand, the Obama administration has taken steps to reduce the nation’s reliance on oil, gas, and coal. Its Clean Power Plan will step up the ongoing retirement of coal-fired power plants as it cuts carbon pollution. The federal government is also phasing in higher fuel-efficiency standards while throwing some weight behind renewable-energy initiatives. All the while, this White House has also leased a growing amount of federal land to coal-mining companies and encouraged the nation’s spiking oil and natural gas production. Obama’s inherently contradictory “all-of-the-above” energy policy supports the dangerous practice of hydraulic fracturing — commonly known as fracking — that pumps vast amounts of toxic chemicals underground, imperiling drinking water. Read More here 5 November 2015, Climate News Network, ‘Dragon water’ could power the planet. The quest is on to develop new technology that can tap the intense heat deep below the Earth’s surface and supply the whole world with electricity. An ambitious project is being launched to drill deep into the Earth’s crust to harness super-heated “dragon water” that would generate massive quantities of renewable energy. Unlike traditional geo-thermal heat, which exploits hot rocks to produce steam for turbines, this project goes far deeper − to where the pressure and temperature are huge but the potential benefits are 10 times as great. There is an infinite amount of energy beneath the Earth’s crust. The problem is the technology to harness it. The European Union (EU) believes that deep drilling techniques developed by the oil industry can be adapted to extract the energy. It has earmarked €15.6 million for a project in which potentially the world’s most energy-rich geothermal well will be drilled at Larderello in Tuscany, Italy. Formidable challenge The technical challenges are formidable because of the intense heat and pressure that will turn steel brittle and wreck electrical equipment, so the plan is to develop engineering tools that can withstand the conditions. Iceland, which already exploits traditional geo-thermal energy successfully, has tried and failed to harness super-heated rock. But it has not given up, and a second attempt is being planned. The EU believes using oil company expertise in drilling deep wells will be the key to success. Read More here 5 November 2015, Carbon Brief, Q&A: What does the VW scandal mean for CO2 emissions? The Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal spilled over into climate policy on Tuesday, after the company admitted to “irregularities” in its CO2 testing results. The firm’s share price — already down 60% after revelations it had deliberately cheated air pollution tests — fell a further 9% by Wednesday morning. However, the irregularities also have implications for CO2 emissions, as well as UK and EU climate targets. Carbon Brief investigates. What are CO2 test “irregularities”? On Tuesday, VW issued a “clarification” about the CO2 emissions testing of up to 800,000 of its vehicles in Europe. The statement says: “During the course of internal investigations irregularities were found when determining type approval CO2 levels…It was established that the CO2 levels and thus the fuel consumption figures for some models were set too low during the CO2 certification process.” Though the precise nature of these problems remains unclear, it has attracted wide media coverage. The Times notes petrol cars have become embroiled in the scandal for the first time. The BBC says the “dirty laundry” is piling up for VW. The Guardian says VW might have manipulated CO2 tests, in addition to its now-notorious “defeat device” for NOx air pollution. The New York Times says VW’s pollution problems have taken a “costly new turn”. A Guardian live-blog says costs for VW could exceed the €2bn it has set aside. Current EU regulations limit car CO2 emissions to no more than 130 grammes of CO2 per kilometre, notes Politico. This is set to fall to a fleet-wide average of 95gCO2/km in 2020. In the UK, vehicle excise duty is linked to CO2 emissions meaning some cars may have had unduly low rates, says Autocar. The Telegraph says some drivers could face higher taxes. However, this year’s budget changed the rules to decouple car tax and CO2 emissions from 2017. Read More here 16 December 2016, The Conversation, Full response from Craig Kelly. In relation to this FactCheck on electricity prices, Liberal MP Craig Kelly sent the following comments and sources to support his statement: Firstly, RenewEconomy – a pro renewable energy website. They quote prices (in US cents per kilowatt hour) in the USA at 12 cents per kilowatt hour and Australia at 29 cents – so on their numbers it’s actually closer to 2.4 times higher rather than double. These costs are described as “average national electricity prices” which I’d take as both businesses and households. However, I’d note that these figures can bounce around a bit subject to exchange rate fluctuations. Secondly, a report titled Electricity Prices in Australia: An International Comparison by CME (an energy economics consultancy focused on Australian electricity, gas and renewables markets) concludes: “In 2011/12 average household electricity prices in Australia (just under 25 cents/kWh) were 12% higher than average prices in Japan, 33% higher than the EU, 122% higher than the US.” Read More here 15 December 2016, The Conversation, Rising power bills signal the end of an era for Australia’s electricity grid. Electricity bills are set to rise further for households, according to a report from the Australian Energy Markets Commission (AEMC). The report, released this week to coincide with the December meeting of the COAG Energy Council, forecasts that electricity bills will increase by an average of A$78 by 2018 in the five eastern states and the ACT. Together these comprise the National Electricity Market (NEM). The AEMC has prepared these three-year reports each year since 2010. But no report has received as much publicity as this one. This is largely because the latest report comes hard on the heels of the announcement that Victoria’s Hazelwood power station is to close – the largest power station closure ever in Australia. It also follows the release of a specially commissioned report by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel that opens with the words: “The physical electricity system is undergoing its greatest transition since Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison clashed in the War of the Currents in the early 1890s.” So what does the latest report really say? Read More here 11 December 2016, The Guardian, On climate change and the economy, we’re trapped in an idiotic netherworld. The shrieks of horror that follow mentions of pricing carbon show politics remains wedded to the belief that economic growth trumps concerns of climate change. This week was a prime example of how economics and, by extension, politics doesn’t cope very well with the issue of climate change. The news that Australia economy went backwards in the September quarter was greeted with alarm by politicians and then used as a reason to push their policy barrow. And most of the barrows were piled high with coal. The treasurer and the prime minister in their press conferences on Wednesday made great mention of the need to keep electricity prices low for the economy to grow. Malcolm Turnbull especially was in full Tony Abbott 2010 mode out of a desire to cover the silly back flip on the issue of investigating whether or not to introduce an emissions intensity trading scheme. When asked about the prospect of GDP growth going backwards he immediately responded by suggesting the issue was for Bill Shorten to “explain why he is proposing to increase the price of electricity”. Never mind that such a scheme would more efficiently price emissions than does the current system, for now we remained trapped in an idiotic netherworld where any mention of pricing carbon (no matter how oblique) must be greeted with shrieks of horror, with the prime minister leading the chorus. And while you do wonder if Malcolm Turnbull ever looks in the mirror in the morning and asks himself how it all came to this – or whether he first rings Cory Bernardi to ask whether he is allowed to look into the mirror and ask such questions – the broader issue is that this netherworld is one that inherently sees action on climate change as a negative for the economy. And by contrast, the economic impact of anything that will cause climate change is seen as inherently positive. Read More here 8 December 2016, The Guardian, South Australia says states could go it alone after Turnbull rules out carbon tax. States could go it alone on a carbon scheme for the electricity sector after the federal government ruled one out, South Australia’s premier says. A report by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, to be presented at Friday’s Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra, is expected to recommend an emissions intensity scheme. Jay Weatherill told ABC radio on Thursday he would be pressing for states to team up on their own scheme “in the absence of national leadership”. Weatherill would be discussing the idea with his counterparts before Friday’s formal meeting with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. “Our first instinct is of course to seek a national scheme,” he said, but advice suggests it could be done without federal government support. Turnbull ruled out his government imposing an emissions intensity scheme following a backbench revolt over a review of climate change policy. He also left his environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, to explain why he said on Monday such a scheme would be looked at as part of the inquiry, only to deny mentioning it on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Frydenberg joined the prime minister in insisting one would not be introduced. Weatherill said power prices in his state would go down if an emissions intensity scheme was adopted. “It would clean up our energy system,” he said. Such a scheme would also encourage more base-load gas generation and increase competition. Finkel will brief premiers and Turnbull at the Coag meeting on Friday, after being commissioned to put together a national blueprint on energy security and reliability after blackouts across South Australia. Read More here 18 November 2021, The Conversation: With a federal election looming, is there new hope for leadership on integrity and transparency? As we head into a federal election campaign next year, the focus on whether government – and which party – can be trusted to govern openly and honestly for the public good is looming larger than at any time in living memory. Plans to overhaul Commonwealth whistleblower protection laws were revealed last week by Assistant Attorney-General Amanda Stoker. The Coalition government’s legislation for a federal integrity commission (or ICAC) is also imminent, following feedback on the extensive problems with its draft bill last year. And a plethora of other accountability issues are awaiting action. All these provide a reminder, heading into the election, that trust in government hinges not only on “performance” in a direct, hip-pocket sense. It also depends on who can be trusted to protect public decision-making from becoming a self-serving gravy train for leaders and their friends. Healthy political competition on integrity issues is long overdue. Historically, both major parties have been slow to initiate the reforms needed to reverse Australia’s slide on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index or global press freedom rankings. READ MORE HERE 15 November 2021, Renew Economy. Australia hails COP26 “green light for more coal,” won’t budge on 2030 target. With the ink barely dry on the Glasgow Climate Pact, the Morrison Coalition government has settled straight back into its domestic routine of climate obfuscation and obstruction, proudly declaring its intent to ignore one of the global pact’s most urgent requests, to ratchet up weak 2030 emissions targets. On Sunday, Australia’s minister for emissions reduction Angus Taylor issued a statement welcoming the “positive outcomes” of COP26, among which he appears to count one of its most widely lamented failures – the down-playing of the urgency to phase out fossil fuels. The last minute watering down of the pact – which quite literally brought tears to the eyes of COP26 president Alok Sharma – changed the wording of the agreement to call for a “phase down” of unabated coal use, as opposed to a “phase out.” Equally thrilled was fellow Nationals MP Matt Canavan, who took to Sky News to hail the agreement struck at COP26 as a “green light for more coal production,” which in turn, he argued, would bring more and more people out of poverty. But the real kicker in Angus Taylor’s post-COP26 statement was delivered with this line, towards the end: “Australia’s 2030 target is fixed and we are committed to meeting and beating it, as we did with our Kyoto-era targets.” Read more here 13 November 2021, Renew Economy, Morrison chooses fossil fuels over farmers in “laughable” net zero modelling. The Morrison government’s modelling of its emissions reduction “plan” reveals how the government has chosen fossil fuels over farmers, how it plans to grow – not shrink – Australia’s fossil gas industry and how it fails to deliver on a claimed commitment to reaching zero net emissions by 2050. The modelling release comes weeks after prime minister Scott Morrison announced he would commit Australia to a new 2050 target, and comes as climate talks in Glasgow head into their final hours – and where international climate groups have awarded Australia a “colossal fossil” award for its regressive policies. It is immediately evident from the 100-page report that the Morrison government is not actually aiming to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, but instead is aiming for an 85 per cent cut in Australian emissions. The government’s chosen path does not spell out how Australia would get to net zero emissions in 2050. Instead, a so-called “Plan” maps a path for Australia to cut domestic emissions by around 60 per cent, a further 25 per cent of Australia’s emissions being offset with credits purchased from overseas. It leaves a remaining 15 per cent of emissions reductions – needed to actually reach net zero – to unspecified and unexpected advancements in technologies. Read more here 12 November 2021, The Conversation. ‘The Australian way’: how Morrison trashed brand Australia at COP26. As the COP26 climate talks wind up in Glasgow, Australia has again proved itself a climate laggard on the world stage. Prime Minister Scott Morrison might be a marketing supremo, but he can’t spin his way out of his government’s failures. Indeed, it is baffling the prime minister would think his new commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 would be enough to warrant a plane ticket to Scotland. But while Morrison does not appear to understand – or care – what is required from Australia under the 2015 Paris Agreement, and what is at stake at COP26, his refusal to ramp up emissions reductions is starting to backfire. ‘The Australian way’ In announcing his net zero commitment last month, Morrison declared “Australians will set our own path by 2050 and we’ll set it here by Australians for Australians”. This was also the message he took to the world stage at COP26, where he described his policy of “technology not taxes” to be the core of “the Australian way”. Read more here 27 January 2025, Carbon Brief: A record surge of clean energy kept China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions below the previous year’s levels in the last 10 months of 2024. However, the new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, shows the tail end of China’s rebound from zero-Covid in January and February, combined with abnormally high growth in energy demand, stopped CO2 emissions falling in 2024 overall. While China’s CO2 output in 2024 grew by an estimated 0.8% year-on-year, emissions were lower than in the 12 months to February 2024. Other key findings of the analysis include: As ever, the latest analysis shows that policy decisions made in 2025 will strongly affect China’s emissions trajectory in the coming years. In particular, both China’s new commitments under the Paris Agreement and the country’s next five-year plan are being prepared in 2025. Read More Here 3 November 2020, Carbon Brief: Hydrogen gas has long been recognised as an alternative to fossil fuels and a potentially valuable tool for tackling climate change. Now, as nations come forward with net-zero strategies to align with their international climate targets, hydrogen has once again risen up the agenda from Australia and the UK through to Germany and Japan. In the most optimistic outlooks, hydrogen could soon power trucks, planes and ships. It could heat homes, balance electricity grids and help heavy industry to make everything from steel to cement. But doing all these things with hydrogen would require staggering quantities of the fuel, which is only as clean as the methods used to produce it. Moreover, for every potentially transformative application of hydrogen, there are unique challenges that must be overcome. In this in-depth Q&A – which includes a range of infographics, maps and interactive charts, as well as the views of dozens of experts – Carbon Brief examines the big questions around the “hydrogen economy” and looks at the extent to which it could help the world avoid dangerous climate change. Access full article here Fossil fuel emissions have stalled 14 November 2016, The Conversation, Fossil fuel emissions have stalled: Global Carbon Budget 2016. For the third year in a row, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry have barely grown, while the global economy has continued to grow strongly. This level of decoupling of carbon emissions from global economic growth is unprecedented.Global CO₂ emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels and industry (including cement production) were 36.3 billion tonnes in 2015, the same as in 2014, and are projected to rise by only 0.2% in 2016 to reach 36.4 billion tonnes. This is a remarkable departure from emissions growth rates of 2.3% for the previous decade, and more than 3% during the 2000’s. Read More here Do you want to understand the complexity of energy systems which support our high consumption lifestyles? Most people don’t give too much thought to where their electricity comes from. Flip a switch, and the lights go on. That’s all. The origins of that energy, or how it actually got into our homes, is generally hidden from view. This link will take you to 11 maps which explain energy in America (it is typical enough as an example of a similar lifestyle as Australia – when I find maps for Oz I’ll add them in) e.g. above map showing the coal plants in the US. Source: Vox Explainers Mapped: how Germany generates its electricity – another example Power to the People – Lock the Gate looks back at the wins of 2015 And there’s lots more coming up in 2016. Some of the big priorities coming up next for the “Lock the Gate” movement are: If you want to give “Lock the Gate” your support – go here for more info This new report reveals that the pollution from Australia’s coal resources, particularly the enormous Galilee coal basin, could take us two-thirds of the way to a two degree rise in global temperature. To Read More and download report The 2006 UK government commissioned Stern Commission Review on the Economics of Climate Change is still the best complete appraisal of global climate change economics. The review broke new ground on climate change assessment in a number of ways. It made headlines by concluding that avoiding global climate change catastrophe was almost beyond our grasp. It also found that the costs of ignoring global climate change could be as great as the Great Depression and the two World Wars combined. The review was (still is) in fact a very good assessment of global climate change, which inferred in 2006 that the situation was a global emergency. Read More here The Garnaut Climate Change Review was commissioned by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments in 2007 to conduct an independent study of the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy. Prof. Garnaut presented The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final Report to the Australian Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers in September 2008 in which he examined how Australia was likely to be affected by climate change, and suggested policy responses. In November 2010, he was commissioned by the Australian Government to provide an update to the 2008 Review. In particular, he was asked to examine whether significant changes had occurred that would affect the analysis and recommendations from 2008. The final report was presented May 2011. Since then the Professor has regularly participated in the debate of fossil fuel reduction, as per his latest below: To access his reports; interviews; submissions go here 27 May 2015, Renew Economy, Garnaut: Cost of stranded assets already bigger than cost of climate action. This is one carbon budget that Australia has already blown. Economist and climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut has delivered a withering critique of Australia’s economic policies and investment patterns, saying the cost of misguided over-investment in the recent mining boom would likely outweigh the cost of climate action over the next few decades. Read More here Live generation of electricity by fuel type Fossil Fuel Subsidies – The Age of entitlement continues 24 June 2014, Renew Economy, Age of entitlement has not ended for fossil fuels: A new report from The Australia Institute exposes the massive scale of state government assistance, totalling $17.6 billion over a six-year period, not including significant Federal government support and subsidies. Queensland taxpayers are providing the greatest assistance by far with a total of $9.5 billion, followed by Western Australia at $6.2 billion. The table shows almost $18 billion dollars has been spent over the past 6 years by state governments, supporting some of Australia’s biggest, most profitable industries, which are sending most of the profits offshore. That’s $18 billion dollars that could have gone to vital public services such as hospitals, schools and emergency services. State governments are usually associated with the provision of essential services like health and education so it will shock taxpayers to learn of the massive scale of government handouts to the minerals and fossil fuel industries. This report shows that Australian taxpayers have been misled about the costs and benefits of this industry, which we can now see are grossly disproportionate. Each state provides millions of dollars’ worth of assistance to the mining industry every year, with the big mining states of Queensland and Western Australia routinely spending over one billion dollars in assistance annually. Read More here – access full report here What is fossil fuel divestment? Local Governments ready to divest Aligning Council Money With Council Values A Guide To Ensuring Council Money Isn’t Funding Climate Change. 350.org Australia – with the help of the incredible team at Earth Hour – has pulled together a simple 3-step guide for local governments interested in divestment. The movement to align council money with council values is constantly growing in Australia. It complements the existing work that councils are doing to shape a safe climate future. It can also help to reshape the funding practices of Australia’s fossil fuel funding banks. The steps are simple. The impact is huge.The guide can also be used by local groups who are interested in supporting their local government to divest as a step-by-step reference point. Access guide here How coal is staying in the ground in the US Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign May 2015, Politico, Michael Grunwald: The war on coal is not just political rhetoric, or a paranoid fantasy concocted by rapacious polluters. It’s real and it’s relentless. Over the past five years, it has killed a coal-fired power plant every 10 days. It has quietly transformed the U.S. electric grid and the global climate debate. The industry and its supporters use “war on coal” as shorthand for a ferocious assault by a hostile White House, but the real war on coal is not primarily an Obama war, or even a Washington war. It’s a guerrilla war. The front lines are not at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Supreme Court. If you want to see how the fossil fuel that once powered most of the country is being battered by enemy forces, you have to watch state and local hearings where utility commissions and other obscure governing bodies debate individual coal plants. You probably won’t find much drama. You’ll definitely find lawyers from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, the boots on the ground in the war on coal. Read More here Oil – conventional & unconventional May 2015, Oil change International Report: On the Edge: 1.6 Million Barrels per Day of Proposed Tar Sands Oil on Life Support. The Canadian tar sands is among the most carbon-intensive, highest-cost sources of oil in the world. Even prior to the precipitous drop in global oil prices late last year, three major projects were cancelled in the sector with companies unable to chart a profitable path forward. Since the collapse in global oil prices, the sector has been under pressure to make further cuts, leading to substantial budget cuts, job losses, and a much more bearish outlook on expansion projections in the coming years. Read full report here. For summary of report USA Sierra Club Beyond Oil Campaign Coal Seam Gas battle in Australia Lock the Gate Alliance is a national coalition of people from across Australia, including farmers, traditional custodians, conservationists and urban residents, who are uniting to protect our common heritage – our land, water and communities – from unsafe or inappropriate mining for coal seam gas and other fossil fuels. Read more about the missions and principles of Lock the Gate. Access more Lock the Gate videos here. Access Lock the Gate fact sheets here 2014: Parliament of Victoria Research Paper: Unconventional Gas: Coal Seam Gas, Shale Gas and Tight Gas: This Research Paper provides an introduction and overview of issues relevant to the development of unconventional gas – coal seam, shale and tight gas – in the Australian and specifically Victorian context. At present, the Victorian unconventional gas industry is at a very early stage. It is not yet known whether there is any coal seam gas or shale gas in Victoria and, if there is, whether it would be economically viable to extract it. A moratorium on fracking has been in place in Victoria since August 2012 while more information is gathered on potential environmental risks posed by the industry. The parts of Victoria with the highest potential for unconventional gas are the Gippsland and Otway basins. Notably, tight gas has been located near Seaspray in Gippsland but is not yet being produced. There is a high level of community concern in regard to the potential impact an unconventional gas industry could have on agriculture in the Gippsland and Otway regions. Industry proponents, however, assert that conventional gas resources are declining and Victoria’s unconventional gas resources need to be ascertained and developed. Read More here 28 January 2015, ABC News, Coal seam gas exploration: Victoria’s fracking ban to remain as Parliament probes regulations: A ban on coal seam gas (CSG) exploration will stay in place in Victoria until a parliamentary inquiry hands down its findings, the State Government has promised. There is a moratorium on the controversial mining technique, known as fracking, until the middle of 2015. The Napthine government conducted a review into CSG, headed by former Howard government minister Peter Reith, which recommended regulations around fracking be relaxed. Labor was critical of the review, claiming it failed to consult with farmers, environmental scientists and local communities. Read more here Keep up to date and how you can be involved here Friends of the Earth Melbourne Coal & Gas Free Victoria 20 May 2015, FoE, Inquiry into Unconventional Gas: Check here for details on the Victorian government’s Inquiry into unconventional gas. The public hearings have not yet started, however the Terms of Reference have been released. The state government’s promised Inquiry into Unconventional Gas has now been formally announced, with broad terms of reference (TOR). FoE’s response to the TOR is available here. The Upper House Environment and Planning Committee will manage the Inquiry. You can find the Inquiry website here. The final TOR will be determined by the committee. Significantly, it is a cross party committee. The Chair is a Liberal (David Davis), and there is one National (Melinda Bath), one Green (Samantha Dunn), three from the ALP (Gayle Tierney, Harriet Shing, Shaun Leane), an additional MP from the Liberals (Richard Dalla-Riva), and one MP from the Shooters Party (Daniel Young). Work started by the previous government, into water tables and the community consultation process run by the Primary Agency, will be released as part of the inquiry.The moratorium on unconventional gas exploration will stay in place until the inquiry delivers its findings. The interim report is due in September and the final report by December. There is the possibility that the committee will amend this timeline if they are overwhelmed with submissions or information. Parliament will then need to consider the recommendations of the committee and make a final decision about how to proceed. This is likely to happen when parliament resumes after the summer break, in early 2016. Quit Coal is a Melbourne-based collective that campaigns against the expansion of the coal and unconventional gas industries in Victoria. Quit Coal uses a range of tactics to tackle this problem. We advise the broader Victorian community about plans for new coal and unconventional gas projects, we put pressure on our government to stop investing in these projects, and we help to inform and mobilise Victorian communities so they can campaign on their own behalf. We focus on being strategic, creative, and as much as possible, fun! The above screen shot is of the Victorian State government’s Mining Licences Near Me site. Go to this link to see what is happening in your area Environment Victoria’s campaign CoalWatch is an interactive resource that tracks the coal industry’s expansion plans and helps builds a movement to stop these polluting developments. CoalWatch provides a way for everyday Victorians to keep track of the coal industry’s ambitious expansion plans. To check what tax-payer money has been pledged to brown coal projects and the coal projects industry is spruiking to our politicians. Here’s another map via EV website (go to their website and you should be able to get better detail from Google Maps: Red areas: Exploration licences (EL). These areas are held by companies to undertake exploration activity. A small bond is held by government in case of any damage. If a company wants to progress the project it needs to obtain a mining licence. Exploration Licence applications are marked with an asterix in the Places Index eg. EL4684*. Yellow areas: Mining Licences (MIN). A mining licence is granted with the expectation that mining will occur. A larger bond is paid to government. Green areas: Exploration licences that have been withdrawn or altered due to community concern. Green outline: Existing mines within Mining Licences. Purple areas: Geological Carbon Storage Exploration areas for carbon capture and storage. On-shore areas have been released by the State Government, while off-shore areas have been released by the Federal Government. The Coal Watch wiki tracks current and future Victorian coal projects, whether they are power stations, coal mines, proposals to export coal or some other inventive way of burning more coal. To get the full picture of coal in Victoria visit our wiki page. Get more info and see the full list of Exploration Licences current at 17 August 2012 here August 2015, Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis – powerpoint: Changing Dynamics in the Global Seaborne Thermal Coal Markets and Stranded Asset Risk. Information from one of the slides follows. To view full presentation go here Economic Implications for Australia 83% of Australian coal mines are foreign owned, hence direct leverage of fossil fuels to the ASX is relatively small at 1-2%. However, for Australia the exposure is high, time is needed for transition and the new industry opportunities are significant: 1. Energy Infrastructure: Australia spends $5-10bn pa on electricity / grid sector, much of it a regulated asset base that all ratepayers fund much of it stranded. BNEF estimate of Australia’s renewable energy infrastructure investment for 2015-2020 was cut 30% from A$20bn post RET. Lost opportunities. 2. Direct employment: The ABS shows a fall of ~20k from the 2012 peak of 70K from coal mining across Australia, and cuts are ongoing. Indirect employment material. 3. Terms of trade: BZE estimates the collapse in the pricing of iron ore, coal and LNG cuts A$100bn pa from Australia’s export revenues by 2030, a halving relative to government budget estimates of 2013/14. Coal was 25% of NSW’s total A$ value of exports in 2013/14 (38% of Qld). Australia will be #1 globally in LNG by 2018. 4. The financial sector: is leveraged to mining and associated rail port infrastructure. WICET 80% financed by banks, mostly Australian. Adani’s Abbot Point Port is foreign owned, but A$1.2bn of Australian sourced debt. Insurance firms and infrastructure funds are leveraged to fossil fuels vs little RE infrastructure assets. BBY! 5. Rehabilitation: $18bn of unfunded coal mining rehabilitation across Australia. 6. Economic growth: curtailed as Australia fails to develop low carbon industries. Analysis: Record surge of clean energy in 2024 halts China’s CO2 rise
In-depth Q&A: Does the world need hydrogen to solve climate change?
3 May 2016, Carbon Brief, The global coal trade doubled in the decade to 2012 as a coal-fueled boom took hold in Asia. Now, the coal trade seems to have stalled, or even gone into reverse. This change of fortune has devastated the coal mining industry, with Peabody – the world’s largest private coal-mining company – the latest of 50 US firms to file for bankruptcy. It could also be a turning point for the climate, with the continued burning of coal the biggest difference between business-as-usual emissions and avoiding dangerous climate change. Carbon Brief has produced a series of maps and interactive charts to show how the global coal trade is changing. As well as providing a global overview, we focus on a few key countries: Read More here/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3915730/EIA%20coal%20power%20plants.png)
21 April 2015, Climate Council, Will Steffen: Unburnable Carbon: Why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.Stern Commission Review
Australia’s Garnaut Review
November 2014 – The Fossil Fuel Bailout: G20 subsidies for oil, gas and coal exploration report: Governments across the G20 countries are estimated to be spending $88 billion every year subsidising exploration for fossil fuels. Their exploration subsidies marry bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change. In effect, governments are propping up the development of oil, gas and coal reserves that cannot be exploited if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. This report documents, for the first time, the scale and structure of fossil fuel exploration subsidies in the G20 countries. The evidence points to a publicly financed bailout for carbon-intensive companies, and support for uneconomic investments that could drive the planet far beyond the internationally agreed target of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 2ºC. It finds that, by providing subsidies for fossil fuel exploration, the G20 countries are creating a ‘triple-lose’ scenario. They are directing large volumes of finance into high-carbon assets that cannot be exploited without catastrophic climate effects. They are diverting investment from economic low-carbon alternatives such as solar, wind and hydro-power. And they are undermining the prospects for an ambitious climate deal in 2015. Access full report here For the summary on Australia’s susidisation of it’s fossil fuel industry go to page 51 of the report. The report said that the United States and Australia paid the highest level of national subsidies for exploration in the form of direct spending or tax breaks. Overall, G20 country spending on national subsidies was $23 billion. In Australia, this includes exploration funding for Geoscience Australia and tax deductions for mining and petroleum exploration. The report also classifies the Federal Government’s fuel rebate program for resources companies as a subsidy.
