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 February 2018, Climate News Network, Hydrogen could see off fossil fuels. Hydrogen is the least talked-about renewable energy but has the greatest potential to replace fossil fuels, both to heat homes and to provide fuel for road transport. The possibility of using hydrogen has been known about for generations, but only in the last two years has it become both practical and financially viable to see it as a large-scale competitor to both gas and oil. Networks of hydrogen filling stations are now being opened in Europe and parts of the US. Batteries for road transport have attracted most of the recent publicity around renewables and have become the focus of many governments with targets for switching away from petrol and diesel, particularly in cities with air pollution problems. But hydrogen has even greater potential because its only emissions are pure water and warm air. Storage potential What has made hydrogen so attractive is that it can use surplus renewable electricity from wind and solar farms by using electrolysers to produce hydrogen. This is a process of passing an electric current through water and converting it into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be stored. Read More here 15 January 2018, Climate News Network, District heating warms cities without fossil fuels. Heating homes and offices without adding to the dangers of climate change is a major challenge for many cities, but re-imagined district heating is now offering an answer. A district heating scheme is a network of insulated pipes used to deliver heat, in the form of hot water or steam, from where it is generated to wherever it is to be used. As a way of providing warmth for thousands of homes, typically in multi-storey apartment buildings, district heating has a long history in eastern Europe and Russia. But the hot water it distributes typically comes from power stations burning coal or gas, which means more greenhouse gas emissions. Tapping into other forms of producing hot water, from renewable energy, bio-gas or capturing waste heat from industrial production, supermarkets or IT systems, provides alternative sources of large scale heating without adding to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Sweden has pioneered the switch from fossil fuels to other ways of heating water. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency says the country has gone from almost exclusively relying on fossil fuels to being 90% powered by renewable and recycled heat in 2017. Read More here 11 January 2018, The Conversation, A month in, Tesla’s SA battery is surpassing expectations. It’s just over one month since the Hornsdale power reserve was officially opened in South Australia. The excitement surrounding the project has generated acres of media interest, both locally and abroad. The aspect that has generated the most interest is the battery’s rapid response time in smoothing out several major energy outages that have occurred since it was installed. Following the early success of the SA model, Victoria has also secured an agreement to get its own Tesla battery built near the town of Stawell. Victoria’s government will be tracking the Hornsdale battery’s early performance with interest. Generation and Consumption Over the full month of December, the Hornsdale power reserve generated 2.42 gigawatt-hours of energy, and consumed 3.06GWh. Since there are losses associated with energy storage, it is a net consumer of energy. This is often described in terms of “round trip efficiency”, a measure of the energy out to the energy in. In this case, the round trip efficiency appears to be roughly 80%. The figure below shows the input and output from the battery over the month. As can be seen, on several occasions the battery has generated as much as 100MW of power, and consumed 70MW of power. The regular operation of battery moves between generating 30MW and consuming 30MW of power. Read More here 11 January 2018 Boomberg, Hype Meets Reality as Electric Car Dreams Run Into Metal Crunch. When BMW AG revealed it was designing electric versions of its X3 SUV and Mini, the going rate for 21 kilograms of cobalt—the amount of the metal needed to power typical car batteries—was under $600. Only 16 months later, the price tag is approaching $1,700 and climbing by the day. For carmakers vying to fill their fleets with electric vehicles, the spike has been a rude awakening as to how much their success is riding on the scarce silvery-blue mineral found predominantly in one of the world’s most corrupt and underdeveloped countries. “It’s gotten more hectic over the past year,” said Markus Duesmann, BMW’s head of procurement, who’s responsible for securing raw materials used in lithium-ion batteries, such as cobalt, manganese and nickel. “We need to keep a close eye, especially on lithium and cobalt, because of the danger of supply scarcity.” Like its competitors, BMW is angling for the lead in the biggest revolution in automobile transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine, with plans for 12 battery-powered models by 2025. What executives such as Duesmann hadn’t envisioned even two years ago, though, was that they’d suddenly need to become experts in metals prospecting. Automakers are finding themselves in unfamiliar—and uncomfortable—terrain, where miners such as Glencore Plc and China Molybdenum Co. for the first time have all the bargaining power to dictate supplies. Read More here 7 September 2023, Climate Home News: A wolf in sheep’s clothing: why Africa should shun carbon markets. Turning Africa into a source of carbon credits will benefit polluters and middlemen, not most Africans and not the planet. There is increasing hype and push for so-called voluntary carbon markets in Africa. Politicians, businesses, some NGOs and big philanthropy are trying to get an African Carbon Market Initiative off the ground, which would allow companies to buy carbon credits in exchange for continued emissions. It’s become a major topic of controversy in the run up to the Africa Climate Summit this month. But Africa’s leaders should think twice before supporting this wolf in sheep’s clothing. The idea is that some of the money paid by the corporations for these “carbon credits” – or more accurately, permits to pollute – would go towards projects in Africa that avoid or reduce emissions: renewable energy projects, or land and nature schemes that aim to capture carbon from the atmosphere. But a number of key questions are being ignored – do they work for African people, the climate and development? or western polluters, they are a silver bullet painkiller that allows them to keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But for Africa, they are a placebo drug that ends up making the pain of climate change far worse. Africa is indeed right to demand climate funding from the global north, who caused the climate crisis which is devastating African people, economies, and nature in the first place. But instead of signing up to a carbon market initiative that is full of booby traps, African leaders should use the opportunity to work together with others in the global south to interrogate where the real and essential money is for the critical role we play in protecting forests and nature, without which the Paris Agreement would fail? Where is the money for the actions to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change that we need and deserve? Read more here 6 September 2023, The Guardian: Australia’s export of fossil fuels like selling drugs to ‘maintain’ lifestyle, former top fire chief says. Exclusive: Greg Mullins calls for fossil fuel subsidies to be torn up as he blasts Labor over ‘incomprehensible’ coalmine approvals. The former New South Wales fire chief Greg Mullins has accused the Albanese government of an “incomprehensible” decision to continue approving new coalmines despite accepting global heating is adding to bushfire risk. In an interview on Tuesday, Mullins – a member of the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group – likened Australia’s continued export of fossil fuels to selling drugs, after he delivered a briefing to the crossbench about the coming bushfire season. Mullins, the Greens and independent MPs including Sophie Scamps are calling for more decisive action on global heating, including tearing up fossil fuel subsidies. The International Monetary Fund recently calculated fossil fuels cost the Australian budget $65bn a year – although most of the cost ($55.6bn) is indirect subsidies for failing to recoup the environmental and health costs from polluters. Earlier in September, the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, approved an expansion of the Gregory Crinum coalmine in central Queensland, which produces metallurgical coal used in steelmaking. Coalmine expansions and developments approved in Australia so far this year are expected to add nearly 150m tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over their lifetimes. Climate scientists and bushfire experts have warned the country faces an elevated risk of bushfires this spring and summer compared with the past three wet years, with a predicted El Niño likely to deliver drier and hotter conditions. Mullins said a degree of warming was “baked into the system … until 2050” but what happened after was “entirely reliant” on what the government does to reduce emissions today. Read more here 5 September 2023, The Guardian: Australia has highest per capita CO2 emissions from coal in G20, analysis finds. Australia used twice as much electricity as China on a per capita basis and 48% of it came from coal plants, thinktank says. Australia still emits more greenhouse gas from burning coal on a per capita basis than other G20 countries despite a significant rise in solar and wind energy. While Australia and South Korea have cut per person emissions from coal-fired electricity since 2015 – by 26% and 10% respectively – they continue to release more CO2 than other major economies, according to an analysis by the energy thinktank Ember. China – the world’s biggest annual emitter in absolute terms – ranks third after its per capita emissions from coal power rose by 30% over seven years due to its growth in electricity use outpacing its growth in zero-emissions generation. It has installed 670 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity – about a third of the world’s solar and wind – since 2015. The Ember analysis, released before a G20 leaders’ summit in India starting on Saturday, said Australia used twice as much electricity as China on a per capita basis, and 48% of it came from coal plants. It was down from 64% in 2015 after an influx of solar and wind energy. But Australia’s per capita emissions from coal last year were more than four times the global average. Read more here 15 August 2023, Climate Home news: US sparks controversy by backing oil company’s carbon-sucking plans. The CEO of Occidental Petroleum has said that direct air capture is a way of prolonging the life of the oil industry. The US government has been criticised for plans to hand out up to $500 million to help an oil company suck carbon out of the air in Texas. The Department of Energy announced it would invest in two direct air capture facilities, which will suck the planet-warming gas out of the atmosphere and store it underground. One of those facilities will be built by Occidental Petroleum, whose CEO Vicki Hollub said earlier this year that direct air capture will help “preserve our industry” and get more oil out of the ground. The proper role. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists say the world needs to develop some direct air capture to compensate for the emissions of the hardest to clean up sectors. But IPCC author Glen Peters told Climate Home that Occidental “do not really understand the role of carbon dioxide removal” and Hollub’s views are “not consistent with the science”. Peters said that “in principle” the US government should not have given Occidental this money, although he questioned how such an exclusion could be justified. The $1.2 billion handout. In November 2021, Congress members from the Democrats and Republicans agreed to a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which included $1.2 billion for direct air capture hubs. On Friday, they announced that up to $500 million each of this investment would go to Occidental’s hub in Texas and to another center run by air direct capture company Climeworks in Louisiana. Read more here 12 May 2025, RealClimate: The most recent climate status. The Arctic Council’s Arctic Monitoring and assessment Programme (AMAP) recently released a Summary for PolicyMakers’ Arctic Climate Change Update 2024. It is one of several stock taking exercises on the regional and global states of Earth’s climate. The other reports include the 2024 European State of the Climate (ESOTC) report, NOAA’s Assessing the Global Climate in 2024, Berkeley Earth, and the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) state of the climate 2024. So why bother with several similar assessments? One reason is that they have been written by different people who independently come to the same conclusion: Earth’s climate is changing at a fast pace, and 2024 was the warmest year measured in modern times. The warming in the Arctic is particularly fast due to an effect known as the polar amplification. Another question is why we should care about the changes in the Arctic that are documented in the most recent AMAP report. There are several changes in the Arctic that will affect both the globe as well as the mid-latitudes. Melting land ice contributes to a higher global sea level. The overall Arctic ice loss has contributed far more to global sea-level rise than any other region on Earth. Read more here 9 May 2025, Renew Economy: What happens when Australia’s methane bubble pops? A major new update from the International Energy Agency (IEA) reveals that Australia was the world’s sixth largest emitter of methane from coal mines, in 2024. The 1.7 million tonnes of coal mine methane emitted in 2024 has a climate impact greater than Australia’s entire transport sector, according to analysis by energy analytics group Ember. Not only are these figures high in absolute terms, they are significantly higher than the numbers Australia reports both domestically and internationally. The IEA’s estimate of total energy sector methane emissions is 2146 kilotonnes. The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) value is a whopping 57% lower, and Australia’s reported methane emissions to the UNFCCC are 36% lower. It is quite a remarkable piece of work, illustrating the sheer scale of the methane underreporting problem: The IEA’s data also reveals that Australia’s coal mining sector bears the brunt of the responsibility for the dumping of methane gases into the atmosphere, and the subsequent damage done through heating effects, with methane released by coking coal and steam coal promising 77% of the total energy-related methane release (onshore and offshore oil and gas comprise 14.1%). A recent report from Ember analysing Australia’s coal mine methane data produced their own estimates of government underreporting, estimating 40% greater methane release than government reports. The IEA’s report has a very clear message for the fossil fuel industry: there is simply no excuse for failing to stem the dumping of methane gas into the open atmosphere, given that no real technological breakthroughs are required. Yet the global coal, oil and gas industries have persisted in a deep, ongoing failure to curb this greenhouse gas. Read more here 8 May 2025, Renew Economy: Australian politics loses climate warrior as Greens leader Adam Bandt concedes “purple” defeat. The Australian Greens will start the process of appointing a new leader in the aftermath of a federal election that delivered the highest vote in the party’s history but ended up with the ousting of its leader, Adam Bandt, and two other MPs in close contests with Labor. In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Bandt conceded defeat in the seat of Melbourne, after 15 years as the federal member (he was the first Greens MP to be elected in the lower house) and five years as leader of the Greens. In a cruel twist to an election that delivered an unexpected majority to the returning Albanese government, the Greens obtained their highest vote in Melbourne, but One Nation and Liberal preferences directed to the Labor candidate, Sarah Witty, gave that party the win. “To win in Melbourne we needed to overcome Liberal, Labor and One Nation combined, and it’s an Everest we’ve climbed a few times now, but this time we fell just short,” Bandt said on Thursday. “We know about the Greens, the Teals, and now there’s the Purples. Mix red and blue together and you get purple. There are now a swathe of seats where Labor MPs owe their political life to the Liberals’ preferences, and the Greens are the real opposition to the two party system.” As a key member of the Greens team that supported the Gillard minority Labor government, Bandt pushed for world leading climate laws and has since campaigned to deliver billions of dollars to drive Australia’s shift to renewable energy.. Read more here 7 May 2025, CIEL: UK Agency Starts Funding Highly Controversial Solar Geoengineering Experiments Despite Enormous Risks. The United Kingdom’s Research and Development funding agency ARIA today unveiled information about the first projects to receive funding under its controversial £56.8 million solar geoengineering program. The Center for International Environmental Law has cautioned that these risky initiatives, including five different projects conducting outdoor experiments, could violate the precautionary principle and must be halted to safeguard both people and the planet. The Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA)’s program thesis Exploring Options for Actively Cooling the Earth, published last year, outlines the agency’s intention to prioritize funding outdoor field trials of various solar geoengineering interventions. 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.
While the document states that “ARIA will not fund experiments where the activities proposed are prohibited by domestic or international law,” geoengineering is subject to a de facto moratorium under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which the UK is a party to. According to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, deployment of geoengineering technologies “could seriously interfere with the enjoyment of human rights for millions and perhaps billions of people”. The news of ARIA’s first funded projects comes amid growing political momentum for a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. Countries across Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific have signaled their support for such an initiative, which is additionally backed by over 500 multidisciplinary academics and almost 2000 civil society organizations. Read more hereAnalysis: 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.
