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 28 September 2015, The Guardian, Shell abandons Alaska Arctic drilling. Oil giant’s US president says hugely controversial drilling operations off Alaska will stop for ‘foreseeable future’ as drilling finds little oil and gas. Shell has abandoned its controversial drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic in the face of mounting opposition. Its decision, which has been welcomed by environmental campaigners, follows disappointing results from an exploratory well drilled 80 miles off Alaska’s north-west coast. Shell said it had found oil and gas but not in sufficient quantities. The move is a major climbdown for the Anglo-Dutch group which had talked up the prospects of oil and gas in the region. Shell has spent about $7bn (£4.6bn) onArctic offshore development in the hope there would be deposits worth pursuing, but now says operations are being ended for the “foreseeable future.” Shell is expected to take a hit of around $4.1bn as a result of the decision. The company has come under increasing pressure from shareholders worried about the plunging share price and the costs of what has so far been a futile search in the Chukchi Sea. Shell has also privately made clear it is taken aback by the public protests against the drilling which are threatening to seriously damage its reputation. Ben van Beurden, the chief executive, is also said to be worried that the Arctic is undermining his attempts to influence the debate around climate change. His attempts to argue that a Shell strategy of building up gas as a “transitional” fuel to pave the way to a lower carbon future has met with scepticism, partly because of the Arctic operations. Read More here 28 September 2015, Renew Economy, Coalition dumps chief climate denier Newman, Hunt still hamstrung. In one of the surest signs yet that the Malcolm Turnbull-led Coalition is making a departure from the climate denying, anti-renewable energy thinking that has guided the party’s policy-making from the top down, Maurice Newman will not be reappointed as chairman of the prime minister’s business advisory council. Newman, a far-right conservative and outspoken denier of climate change, was appointed to the role by Tony Abbott in one of his first acts after becoming Prime Minister in 2013, and has been a key influence on Abbott’s policy direction since then. His controversial views on climate change – essentially that it is not happening, and ratherit’s global cooling we should be worried about – have been given a regular airing in a weekly column Newman writes for The Australian. Newman was also behind the push to investigate whether the Bureau of Meteorology was exaggerating temperature data records as part of what he saw as a broader climate change conspiracy. A push that, according to recent evidence revealed by the ABC, was knocked on the head by environment minister Greg Hunt. And so, Turnbull’s decision not to reappoint Newman now that his chairmanship has expired – one of the eight things we recently suggested the new PM could do to show support for renewable energy and climate change – is good news, not least for Hunt, who is now overseeing these departments in a so-called environment “mega-office”. Read More here 22 September 2015, Post Carbon Institute, A long-term abundance of oil & natural gas, but what if the boom is just a bubble? Tight oil reality check. Much of the cost-benefit debate over fracking has come down to the perception of just how much domestic oil and gas it can produce and at what cost. To answer this question, policymakers, the media, and the general public have typically turned to the U.S. Department of Energy’sEnergy Information Administration (EIA), which every year publishes its Annual Energy Outlook (AEO). In Drilling Deeper, PCI Fellow David Hughes took a hard look at the EIA’s AEO2014 and found that its projections for future production and prices suffered from a worrisome level of optimism. Recently, the EIA released its Annual Energy Outlook 2015 and so we asked David Hughes to see how the EIA’s projections and assumptions have changed over the last year, and to assess the AEO2015 against both Drilling Deeper and up-to-date production data from key shale gas and tight oil plays. In July 2015, Post Carbon Institute published Shale Gas Reality Check, which found that in 2015 the EIA is more optimistic than ever about the prospects for shale gas, despite substantive reasons for caution. This month we turn our eyes to the EIA’s latest projections for tight oil. KEY CONCLUSIONS: 18 September 2015, The Guardian, Is new Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull already a climate change turncoat? Malcolm Turnbull once endorsed common sense positions on climate change. Then he became prime minister. During the first few days of being prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull seems to be doing his best to argue about climate change with a former version of himself. I know I might have already given the game away here, but who do you think said this only five years ago? “We are as humans conducting a massive science experiment with this planet. It’s the only planet we’ve got…. We know that the consequences of unchecked global warming would be catastrophic. We know that extreme weather events are occurring with greater and greater frequency and while it is never possible to point to one drought or one storm or one flood and say that particular incident is caused by global warming, we know that these trends are entirely consistent with the climate change forecasts with the climate models that the scientists are relying on…. We as a human species have a deep and abiding obligation to this planet and to the generations that will come after us.” Stirring stuff eh? That was Turnbull in August 2010, speaking at the launch of a report demonstrating the technical feasibility of moving Australia to a 100% renewable energy nation. During his first question time as PM earlier this week, Turnbull was asked if he would join Labor in its aspiration (and that’s about the extent of Labor’s policy on this right now) that Australia should be generating 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2030. Turnbull’s response? “[Opposition leader Bill Shorten] is highlighting one of the most reckless proposals the Labor party has made. Fancy proposing, without any idea of the cost of the abatement, the cost of proposing that 50% of energy had to come from renewables! What if that reduction in emissions you needed could come more cost-effectively from carbon storage, by planting trees, by soil carbon, by using gas, by using clean coal, by energy efficiency?” What did the Turnbull of 2010 make of a plan to move away from fossil fuels that was twice as ambitious as Labor’s, that actually explained how it could be done and that proposed doing it faster? Read More here 22 October 2016, The Economist, Let the haggling begin – With the announcement of a national carbon price, Justin Trudeau opens a new phase of his government. “THIS is betrayal,” thundered Saskatchewan’s long-serving premier, Brad Wall. His grievance: the decision this month by Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to set a minimum price for carbon emissions that all provinces would have to adhere to. Since taking office nearly a year ago, Mr Trudeau and his ministers have spent much of their time consulting the provinces (and ordinary Canadians) on such issues as judicial reform and defence. His carbon-price announcement marks a transition from talking to acting, and a new contentious phase in relations between the federal government and the ten provinces. Canada’s grand political bazaar, in which the prime minister and the premiers strike the bargains that determine how the country will be governed, is again open for business. Despite Mr Wall’s profession of shock, the carbon-price policy is no surprise. Mr Trudeau has made it plain that, unlike his Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, he takes the threat of climate change seriously. One of his first acts in office was to agree last December to sign the Paris climate accord, under which Canada is to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 30% below the levels of 2005 (see chart). The deadline is 2030. Although Canada emits just 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases, it is one of the world’s biggest emitters per person. Without carbon pricing, it will not keep its climate promises. Read More here 20 October 2016, Climate Home, Netherlands accounting fudge reduces 2020 carbon cuts. The Dutch government could avoid setting tough new climate policies thanks to carbon accounting changes. Ordered by a court to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25% from 1990 levels by 2020, the authorities were under pressure to close new coal power plants. In a convenient twist for reluctant ministers, the latest national energy outlook shows that target is much closer than previously thought. The official emissions forecast for 2020 is now a 23% cut, up from 17% a year ago. Economics minister Henk Kamp claimed in a statement this showed the success of a 2013 energy agreement, which predates the landmark court ruling. An official response to the Urgenda case is due out in late November. Green groups maintain that stronger action is needed to meet the spirit of the court judgment – and ambition of the UN climate deal struck in Paris. The new numbers owe more to methodological tweaks than carbon-cutting initiatives, lead analyst Michael Hekkenberg explained on the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands website. Under the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidelines on methane’s global warming potential, the 1990 baseline emissions have been revised up. “This revision is obviously not good news for the climate,” Hekkenberg stressed. Meanwhile, the forecast 2020 emissions have been revised down, but largely due to shifting assumptions about renewable power imports and declining energy demand. Read more here 19 October @016, Renew Economy, Storm of controversy erupts over AEMO blackout report. Another storm of controversy about the role of wind energy is certain to erupt after the latest report about the state-wide blackout in South Australia by the Australian Energy Market Operator. In its second update, AEMO has pointed the finger at settings on certain wind farms and fossil fuel generators in the events immediately before and after the state-wide outage last month, but the handling of the report has also raised questions about the actions of the market operator itself – both before and after the event. The report dismisses suggestions – mostly from the Coalition and mainstream media – that it was the intermittent nature of wind energy that was the cause of the blackout. But it also underlines the failure of the market operator to make any preparations for the storm that it could obviously see spreading across the state. The AEMO makes clear that it was major voltage disturbances – six in 80 seconds – caused by the collapse of three major transmission lines that led to the blackout. “Five transmission line faults, resulting in six voltage disturbances on the network, led to the SA region black system,” it writes. But – not for the first time – AEMO’s press release and executive summary differs in emphasis to the detailed report, and focuses on the role of the so-called “self protect mechanisms” in wind farms rather than major voltage collapse that followed the collapse of the transmission lines. Even though these self protect mechanisms are just a matter of software and are easily fixed, AEMO’s emphasis has horrified many in the wind industry, who suggest that the market operator is deliberately allowing wind to be blamed even though its report highlights a collapse of voltage that could have been the main cause of the outage. They also point to basic errors in its report, and its failure to take any preventative action as the storms approached. Read More here 18 October 2016, Renew Economy, Abbott all over again? Coalition ramps up attack on renewables. The Coalition attacks against renewable energy in the last few weeks have reached their highest peak since the early days of the Abbott government, when the former prime minister hired a climate denying corporate leader to “review” the renewable energy target and try to have it scrapped. It managed “only” to reduce the target by around a third, but the uncertainty it created still succeeded in bringing the industry to a halt: so much so that since Abbott’s election in September 2013, only one large-scale project has escaped the snare – the 175MW White Rock wind farm that is being built by the deep-pocketed Chinese turbine manufacturer Goldwind. All other projects that have been, or are being built, with finance or grants from institutions that the Coalition has spent much of the past three years trying to dismantle, such as the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, or thanks to state-and territory-based targets (such as the ACT’s) that the federal government is now trying to destroy. The new campaign against state-based renewable energy targets – and the deployment of its most potent weapon, policy uncertainty – has reached a new intensity since the blackout in South Australia and the release of an independent report into Queensland’s 50 per cent renewable energy target for 2030. The Murdoch media have dutifully switched into relentless attack mode. The Courier-Mail ran three opinion pieces demonising the renewable target over the weekend, and The Advertiser in Adelaide and other Murdoch media have been full of anti-renewable commentary. The Australian mothership has followed suit, quoting the usual assortment of vested interests and Coalition politicians about what a disaster high levels of renewables would be. Read More here 7 April 2020, The Guardian, Great Barrier Reef’s third mass bleaching in five years the most widespread yet. Government’s chief marine scientist says he fears people will lose hope for the future of the reef but it is a clear signal for action. The government’s top Great Barrier Reef scientist says a third mass bleaching event in five years is a clear signal the marine wonder is “calling for urgent help” on climate change. One quarter of the Great Barrier Reef suffered severe bleaching this summer in the most widespread outbreak ever witnessed, according to analysis of aerial surveys of more than 1,000 individual reefs released on Tuesday. Dr David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, told Guardian Australia: “My greatest fear is that people will lose hope for the reef. Without hope there’s no action. “People need to see these [bleaching] events not as depressing bits of news that adds to other depressing bits of news. They are clear signals the Great Barrier Reef is calling for urgent help and for us to do everything we can.” Prof Terry Hughes, director of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, surveyed 1,036 reefs from a plane over nine days in late March. The marine park authority also had an observer on the flights. Hughes has released maps showing severe levels of bleaching occurred in 2020 in all three sections of the reef – northern, central and southern – the first time this has happened since mass bleaching was first seen in 1998. Read more here 2 April 2020, Renew Economy: 2020: When the great disruption began. It was always going to come to this. Whether it was a pandemic triggering a shutdown, a climate emergency bursting the carbon bubble, a populist backlash against inequality, wars over water or countless other possible triggers, this moment has long been inevitable. COVID-19 is just like a match thrown on a tinder dry forest floor on a hot windy day and starting a wildfire. The match isn’t the key – it’s where it lands. While of course a pandemic would always be an enormous economic and health challenge, the context in which it lands is the key to our ability to manage it. Thus, we now see our economic system’s inherent instabilities clearly exposed. The house of cards is collapsing. Won’t this all pass? We’ll find a cure, develop a vaccine, boost the economy and then everything will get back to normal. Wrong, very wrong. We are at the beginning of a process with an uncertain end. It could be a major recession, a full-scale depression, or a slide into systemic collapse. Or it could be a turning point – where we recover and build a very different kind of economy, one defined by sustainability and resilience with a focus on improving human well-being. Read more here 1 April 2020, BBC, Coronavirus forces postponement of COP26 meeting in Glasgow. A key climate summit in Glasgow will be delayed until next year due to disruption caused by the coronavirus. The announcement was made in a joint statement from the UK and UN after a “virtual” meeting of officials. Dozens of world leaders were due to attend the COP26 gathering that was set to run in Glasgow from November 9 this year. It is expected that the conference will now take place by the middle of next year. As the virus has spread around the world, there has been a growing expectation in recent weeks that the COP26 talks would be delayed. Around 30,000 delegates, journalists and environmental campaigners were due in Scotland for the meeting. However the changing priorities that coronavirus has forced on governments can be clearly seen in Glasgow’s Scottish Events Campus (SEC) which was due to host the talks. It is now set to become a temporary hospital to house patients affected by Covid-19. The decision to move COP26 was taken by UN officials, including UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa and UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma, who is president-designate of the meeting. “The world is currently facing an unprecedented global challenge and countries are rightly focusing their efforts on saving lives and fighting Covid-19,” Mr Sharma said in a statement. “That is why we have decided to reschedule COP26.” Read more here 21 March 2020, CASSE blog, The Silver Lining of the COVID-Caused Recession is Supra-Economic. COVID-19 has done in a deadly way what steady-state economists would prescribe in a healthy way: putting the brakes on a runaway economy. In fact, the pandemic has slammed on the brakes and jammed the GDP gearstick into reverse. It has ushered us into a recession that will be pronounced and protracted. In a COVID-caused recession, it’s nature at bat, not the Fed. In these dark times, any source of comfort is welcome. Steady-state economists offer one of the only economic comforts to be found, a bona fide silver lining that warrants inspection by the mainstream media, public, and policymakers. There are three qualifiers. First, the silver lining is mostly macroeconomic, not micro. In fact, it is so big-picture we might call it supra-economic as it transcends the standard economic indicators. Second, the comfort it provides will be palpable primarily to younger generations. Third, it may take a paradigm shift to feel the comfort, especially for older readers who’ve spent most of their life in the 20th century, when a burgeoning economy was such a good deal for people and nations. The silver lining begins to appear when we recognize that the $88 trillion GDP ($21 trillion in the USA alone) was so big and bloated, it was causing more harm than good. It had grown into bad-deal territory, in other words. All else equal, that means a reversal—recession, degrowth, declining GDP—is actually a better deal at this stage. While it still sounds incredible to most citizens and policy makers, the logic is irrefutable. Recession is the antidote to the outbreak of GDP “illth,” the term favored by Herman Daly to more clearly contrast with “wealth. 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.
