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 11 August 2015, Renew Economy, Solar undercuts coal in India, as another bank quits Adani mega-mine. Another week, another couple of nails hammered into the coffin for the Australian coal mining and export plans of Indian conglomerate, Adani Group. The first came with the news on Monday night that Standard Chartered – one of the largest investment banks in the UK – has become the latest international financier to withdraw its support for the development of one of the largest new coal mines in the Southern Hemisphere, in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. In a statement released on Monday, Standard Chartered said both parties – the bank and Adani – had agreed to end the bank’s role in the Carmichael coal mine after an ongoing review of its feasibility and delays experienced by Adani in getting project approvals. Read More here 7 August 2015, Renew Economy, Coal industry assets are the penny dreadfuls of new economy. They used to be known as penny dreadfuls – the highly speculative stocks that became the playthings of the mining boom of the 1960s and 1970s and what followed. And judging by the moniker accorded them, they were mostly bad outcomes. The currency units might have changed, but it seems that the moniker still applies – not just to speculative mining stocks with tall tales of mythical or unobtainable ore bodies, but to the thermal coal industry, with equally tall tales of a long-term market for its commodity. And it seems that one dollar, a greenback, or even just one euro can go an awfully long way in the coal industry these days. In Australia, it can buy you a mine that just three years ago was valued at $860 million. Brazilian miner Vale and Japan’s Sumitomo Corp have just sold the Isaac Plains coking-coal mine in Queensland to Stanmore Coal for a single dollar. Sumitomo bought a half stake for $A430 million in 2012. In Germany, one euro can buy you a share in a brand new, never used, 1.6GW coal-fired generator in Hamm. RWE has offered to pay €1 to the 23 municipalities for their share of the $4 billion facility that not only faces major technical issues, but it is also effectively redundant and not needed in a country now more dependent on renewable energy. Still, the Abbott government doesn’t get it. Environment minister Greg Hunt has launched an extraordinary attack on the environmental groups that have fought the Carmichael mine. Abbott himself told The Australian on Friday that environmental groups were “sabotaging” the coal industry through protests and court action. Which might explain why the Abbott government is keen to support the mining lobby, which has forced a parliamentary inquiry into whether environmental NGO’s should be allowed to receive tax deductible donations. “As a country we must, in principle, favour projects like this (Carmichael),” the Prime Minister told The Australian. “This is a vitally important project for the economic development of Queensland and it’s absolutely critical for the human welfare literally of tens of millions of people in India.” Not so much a triumph of hope over reality, but a stunning disregard for environmental impacts and market forces. If Abbott were to put money into Carmichael – as his government has signalled it might, via its northern infrastructure development fund – it would be an act of absolute recklessness, and make even the proverbial lift boy look like an investment genius. Read More here 7 August 2015, Renew Economy, Cheaper renewables force closure of NZ’s last coal-fired power units. Utility-scale coal-fired power generation will soon be a thing of the past in New Zealand, after local gentailer Genesis Energy said it would close the last two coal-burning units at its coal and gas Huntly power station in Waikato, on the North Island, due to falling demand and lower-cost renewables. Stuff.co.nz reports that the 953MW plant’s remaining two coal-burning units – the two others have already been retired – will be shut down in 2018, after running “at the margin of the market” for a number of years, according to Genesis. Indeed, the gentailer said it had been on track to retire the four coal/gas fired “Rankine” units – which were commissioned in the early 1908s, when they were seen as less expensive than building extra hydropower – since 2009. “The development of lower cost renewable generation, principally wind and geothermal, investment in the HVDC link (the Cook Strait cable), and relatively flat growth in consumer and industrial demand for electricity have combined to reinforce the decision to retire the remaining Rankine units, which will deliver further operational efficiencies to Genesis Energy,” said Genesis chief executive Albert Brantley. Closure of the coal units – which Genesis said would mark the end of large scale coal-fired generation in New Zealand – is expected to produce operational and capital cost savings for the company of approximately $20 to $25 million a year. The shuttering of the coal plants has been welcomed by NZ green groups, and – in stark contrast to Australian PM, Tony Abbott, and his response to the likely abandonment of the proposed Adani mega-coal mine project in Queensland – even by NZ Prime Minister John Key, who is reportedly “unsurprised” by the closures. “I mean, in a lot of ways it’s unsurprising because the costs actually for Genesis, with the ETS and the likes, means that probably in the long-term coalfire power plants aren’t the most sensible plants to have,” Key said. “From New Zealand’s emissions perspective, this is actually probably a good thing.” Read More here 5 August 2015, The Nation, Why Are Americans Switching to Renewable Energy? Because It’s Actually Cheaper. Fossil fuels have become an economic liability—for both consumers and energy companies. Deborah Lawrence had been watching a once-empty parking lot near Midland-Odessa, Texas, fill up with idled drilling rigs usually at work plumbing for oil in the nearby Permian Basin. In January she noticed 10 rigs, then 17 a few weeks later. As winter turned to spring, the number climbed to 35. That trend has continued across the country. By the end of July, the nationwide rig count had slipped 54 percent since the same time a year ago, indicating distress in the oil and gas industry. The most obvious culprit is the precipitous drop in crude prices. But the trouble goes deeper, as Lawrence knows—and she isn’t just a casual observer. Lawrence is a former Wall Street financial consultant who now runs the Energy Policy Forum, helping to identify and analyze trends in the industry. Read More here 12 September 2016, Renew Economy, Garbage in, garbage out: Why the CCA got it so wrong. If Australia continues to rely on a renewable energy target to help meet its share of the global goal of capping global warming by 2°C, it is likely to result in new coal plants being built in the 2040s. Sound implausible? Does it sound completely crazy? Yes, but this is the advice that was given to the Climate Change Authority and presumably helped them form their controversial stance on climate policies that was delivered to the government last week. The idea that Australia, in a world aiming at cutting missions, would be likely to open new coal plants at a time when it should be hitting a zero net carbon target seems extraordinary. Yet that is what consultancy Jacobs is suggesting, even though its modelling shows that 90 per cent of Australia’s generation by 2040 would come from renewables under an extension of the RET. Here’s the graph above. Under Jacobs’ modelling – apart from the reference case where Australia ignores global warming – coal-fired power becomes extinct in all its policy scenarios in Australia by the mid 2030s. Until suddenly, in the renewable energy target scenario, it makes a comeback in the late 2040s. (That’s the blue uptick on the bottom right). “Fossil generation increases from 2040, largely driven by new CCGTs (combined cycle gas plants), although some supercritical black coal generators are also built,” it says. This is despite the share of renewable energy in generation being at 74 per cent in 2030, and peaking at 91 per cent in 2039. Quite where baseload coal plants, or gas plants for that matter, fit into that high renewables scenario is not clear, given the need for flexible generation. And just who would invest in a new coal plant two decades hence, with 90 per cent renewables, as the world nears the zero emissions target it has locked itself into through the Paris agreement, boggles the mind, but that is what we are told the modelling tells us. Read More here 6 September 2016, Renew Economy, G20 baulks at ending fossil fuel subsidies, “dumbest” policy of all. The G20 meeting in China may have been notable for the decision by both China and the US – the two biggest carbon emitters on the planet – to ratify the Paris climate treaty, an initiative that will almost certainly see the deal come into force by 2017, three years earlier than anticipated. But the grouping of the world’s most powerful nations is still taking little action on ending fossil fuel subsidies, despite agreeing to the move in 2009 to end what has been described as the “dumbest policy” in the world. The International Energy Agency estimates that countries spent $US493 billion on consumption subsidies for fossil fuels in 2014, while the UK’s Overseas Development Institute suggests G20 countries alone devoted an additional $US450 billion to producer supports that year. Throw in the unpaid environmental and climate impacts, and the International Monetary Fund puts total annual subsidies for fossil fuels at more than $5 trillion. Last week, the Bloomberg Editorial Board said fossil fuel subsidies were the dumbest policy they could find in the world, saying that the “ridiculous” outlays would be economically wasteful even if they didn’t also harm the environment. “They fuel corruption, discourage efficient use of energy and promote needlessly capital-intensive industries,” the Bloomberg team wrote. “They sustain unviable fossil-fuel producers, hold back innovation, and encourage countries to build uneconomic pipelines and coal-fired power plants. “Last and most important, if governments are to have any hope of meeting their ambitious climate targets, they need to stop paying people to use and produce fossil fuels.” The Bloomberg team said the G20’s pledge in 2009 is “no use” and “too vague”, and called on the governments to first agree on a standard measure to report various subsidies (Australia, for instance, rejects the claims by NGOs and others that it has $7 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies) and to set strict timelines for eliminating them. They didn’t; despite the call being echoed by 200 civil society groups, and multi-national insurers with $1.2 trillion in assets, led by Aviva, who called on the G20 leaders to “kick away the carbon crutches” and end fossil fuel subsidies by 2020. Read More here 5 September 2016, Renew Economy, One small gain for battery storage, one big win for fossil fuel industry. Australia’s principal policy maker for the energy markets has waved through a rule change that could accelerate the use of battery storage to provide grid stability as more renewables enter the market. But the rule maker has shocked participants with another decision that may reinforce the dominance of the big fossil fuel utilities. The Australian Energy Market Commission late last week made two rulings that it was first asked to consider way back in 2012 (such is the glacial pace of change in Australian regulatory circles) but which seen as critical as more wind and solar enter the market and old fossil fuel generators are phased out. One of the rulings was good news and largely expected: The AEMC said it would allow “unbundling” of ancillary services for the grid – which provide fast-acting balancing responses following a “contingency” event, usually the unexpected loss of a large thermal generator. This means that these services, known as FCAS, can now be more easily provided by more players, and not just the big generators, which currently control the supply (and thus the price) of FCAS services. Allowing new players like batteries and demand response loads should increase the supply of FCAS, and lower market prices. That ruling was largely uncontroversial and expected, with any opposition by incumbents lukewarm at best. The second ruling, however, has stunned some participants in the industry, because it effectively limits the amount of battery storage and new ideas – such as aggregating power plants in homes – by leaving it in the control of the major players. The proposal was to create a “demand response” mechanisms in the spot market to respond to times of high load, and high electricity prices, as were experienced in South Australia and other states in recent months, and which used to be frequent years ago, and may well become regular again as gas prices rise. Read more here 5 September 2016, The conversation, Can, or should, we save ARENA? Once again the essential development of the renewable energy sector has been stymied by short-term, opportunistic politics. Included in the Turnbull government’s “omnibus” savings bill is a A$1.3 billion cut in the funding of ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, a cut, coming on the heels of a couple of previous cuts, that basically wipes out any future role for ARENA. The proposed cut is part of the Abbott legacy that sought to effectively close down the renewable energy sector. Although the government has presented the bill in the name of budget repair, it is also very much a political manoeuvre designed to wedge opposition leader Bill Shorten, by claiming that he had committed to these cuts during the election campaign, and recognising that a couple of the proposed cuts are either inconsistent with “traditional Labor values”, or with declared Labor policy, such as their commitment to a 50% renewable energy target for 2030. Shorten is under considerable pressure to demonstrate his bona fides on budget repair, and especially as he has expressed a willingness to “reach across the aisle”, to work with the government on this urgent policy challenge. However, both sides seem to still be stuck in campaign mode, moving from one stunt to the next. It is all about short-term politics, not good policy and good government. Read more here 7 January 2020, The Conversation, Australia can expect far more fire catastrophes. A proper disaster plan is worth paying for. Australia is in the midst of inconceivably bad bushfires. The death toll is rising, thousands of buildings have been destroyed and whole communities displaced. This scale is like nothing before, and our national response must be like nothing that has come before. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday somewhat acknowledged the need for unprecedented action. He took the extraordinary step of calling up 3,000 Australian Defence Force reservists and mobilising navy ships and military bases to aid the emergency response. This has never before happened in Australia at this scale. But it’s not enough. As this horrific summer of disaster continues to unfold in coming weeks, we clearly need to overhaul our emergency management plan with a workforce that’s large, nationally mobile, fully funded, and paid – rather than using under-resourced volunteers. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction says weather and climate related disasters have more than doubled over the last 40 years. Although expensive, the cost of not acting on disaster risk, planning and preparation will be greatly outstripped by the cost of future climate and weather catastrophes. Read more here 6 January 2020, The Conversation, Disaster recovery from Australia’s fires will be a marathon, not a sprint. After reporting on the deadly 2011 Queensland flash flood disaster, I spent a year documenting accounts of heroic rescues, tragic deaths and extraordinary survival. Five years later, I returned for a follow-up study. I found some survivors had recovered, but many were far worse off. This research suggests there is a long road ahead for survivors of the current bushfire crisis. However, there are key lessons to be learned. At the time of the 2011 Queensland flood crisis, the Australian Defence Force arrived to help. Community spirit was high. Australia and the world donated very generously. But after the first few weeks, initial assistance gave way to often intractable difficulties with housing, insurance claims, job losses and chronic physical and mental health conditions. Blanket media coverage of the crisis soon dwindled. And for many people, there simply was no return to “normal” life. Read more here 5 January 2020, The Conversation, As bushfire and holiday seasons converge, it may be time to say goodbye to the typical Australian summer holiday. For 40 years I have studied bushfires in Australia. It has been my life’s work to try to better understand Australian landscapes and the interaction of humans and landscape fire. As we contemplate a future where catastrophes like the one currently engulfing Australia become increasingly frequent, there’s an idea to which I keep returning: maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the typical summer Australian holiday. Perhaps it’s time to rearrange Australian calendar and reschedule the peak holiday period to March or April, instead of December and January. It’s easy to dismiss this idea as stupid but that’s the nature of adaptation. Things that once seemed absurd will now need serious consideration. What’s truly absurd is the business-as-usual approach that sees thousands of holidaymakers heading directly into forests and national parks right in the middle of peak bushfire season. Read more here 4 January 2020, ABC News: Bushfire response to be boosted by deployment of 3,000 ADF reservists, Prime Minister announces. Three thousand Australian Defence Force reservists will be deployed to help with the bushfire recovery, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced. The Prime Minister also announced Chinook helicopters from Townsville and other military aircraft would assist, as well as the opening of defence force bases from Adelaide to Brisbane for emergency short-term accommodation. The Navy’s largest amphibious ship, HMAS Adelaide, will sail from Sydney this afternoon to sit off the coast should it be required to help with evacuations. “They will sail this afternoon, they will be located offshore from the fire-affected areas from tomorrow afternoon,” Mr Morrison said. “The Adelaide is fully equipped for disaster relief and humanitarian aid, is able to operate helicopters, 400 crew including medical staff, as well as 300 tonnes [of emergency relief supplies] which have been loaded up in recent days.” 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.
