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 14 December 2017, The Guardian, National Australia Bank stops all lending for new thermal coal projects. National Australia Bank says it will halt all lending for new thermal coal mining projects, becoming the first major Australian bank to phase out support of thermal coal mining. While the bank will continue providing finance for coal projects already on its books, NAB said an orderly transition to a low-carbon Australia was critical for the economy and for continued access to secure and affordable energy. “While we will continue to support our existing customers across the mining and energy sectors, including those with existing coal assets, NAB will no longer finance new thermal coal mining projects,” the bank said in a statement on Thursday. “This is a market-leading position for an Australian bank and is even stronger than the position taken by Commonwealth Bank last month because it is formal policy,” Greenpeace campaigner Jonathan Moylan said. The Commonwealth Bank indicated to shareholders in November that it would not fund new, large coal projects, saying its support for coal would continue to decline as it helps finance the transition to a low-carbon economy. ING has promised to phase out coal within a decade and has committed to stop funding any utility company which relies on coal for more than 5% of its energy. ANZ and Westpac both have policies that limit lending to new coal projects under certain conditions. “NAB has lifted the bar above its competitors by becoming the first major bank to end lending to all new thermal coal mining,” said Julien Vincent, executive director of environmental finance advocates Market Forces. “This policy means NAB joins the ranks of dozens of banks and insurance companies globally that are withdrawing from this most climate-polluting of industries.” The World Bank has also announced it will “no longer finance upstream oil and gas, after 2019” in an effort to be consistent with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5C. Read More here 4 December 2017, Inside Climate News, Microgrids Keep These Cities Running When the Power Goes Out. Borrego Springs, California, is a quaint town of about 3,400 people set against the Anza-Borrego Desert about 90 miles east of San Diego. Summers are hot—often north of 100 degrees—and because it lies at the far end of a San Diego Gas & Electric transmission line, the town has suffered frequent power outages. High winds, lightning strikes, forest fires and flash floods can bust up that line and kill the electricity. “If you’re on the very end of a utility line, everything that happens, happens 10 times worse for you,” says Mike Gravely, team leader for energy systems integration at the California Energy Commission. The town has a lot of senior citizens, who can be frail in the heat. “Without air conditioning,” says Linda Haddock, head of the local Chamber of Commerce, “people will die.” But today, Borrego Springs has a failsafe against power outages: a microgrid. Resiliency is one of the main reasons the market in microgrids is booming, with installed capacity in the United States projected to more than double between 2017 and 2022, according to a new report on microgrids from GTM Research. Another is that microgrids can ease the entry of intermittent renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, into the modern grid. Utilities are also interested in microgrids because of the money they can save by deferring the need to build new transmission lines. Read More here 29 November 2017, The Guardian, banks warned of ‘regulatory action’ as climate change bites global economy Australian Prudential Regulation Authority says it is quizzing companies about their actions to assess climate risks. Australia’s financial regulator has stepped-up its warning to banks, lenders and insurers, saying climate change is already impacting the global economy, and flagged the possibility of “regulatory action”. Geoff Summerhayes from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra) revealed it had begun quizzing companies about their actions to assess climate risks, noting it would be demanding more in the future. Apra also revealed it has established an internal working group to assess the financial risk from climate change and was coordinating an interagency initiative with the corporate watchdog Asic, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and federal Treasury to examine what risks climate change was posing to Australia’s economy. In February, Summerhayes put banks, lenders and insurance companies on notice, urging them to start adapting to climate change and warning that the regulator would be “on the front foot on climate risk”. Now, in the first significant update to Apra’s thinking on the topic since that speech, Summerhayes said Apra’s view was that climate change and society’s response to it “are starting to affect the global economy”. In an extended version of a speech to the progressive Centre for Policy Development, and circulated to journalists ahead of its delivery, Summerhayes said a shift occurring in the global economy was increasingly being driven by commercial imperatives – investments, innovation and reputational factors – rather than what scientists or policymakers are saying or doing. Read More here 25 October 2017, ENOVA One Step Off the Grid: Enova launches community “Solar Garden” for those who can’t install. NSW community energy retailer Enova has launched a first-of-its kind project that will enable renters and others who can’t intall rooftop solar to invest in a “solar garden” and benefit from reduced bills. The idea is to build a 99kW rooftop solar system – most likely on a business – and “sell” the panels in 1kW chucks to consumers that can’t put solar on their own roofs, either because they are renting, they live in apartments, in houses that are shaded, or can’t afford to invest in a whole system. Enova held a public meeting in the northern Rivers town of Brunswick Heads on Tuesday to sell the idea, which it says could be the first of many such “solar gardens”, particularly as it moves into the major metropolitan markets of Newcastle and Sydney early next year. “We’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Enova chair Alison Crook said. “People have been saying they want to install solar but they can’t do it …. this makes rooftop solar more affordable and accessible for everyone. We didn’t think that we’d be able to offer this so quickly – but it is here.” The savings from a solar garden are not as great as having your own rooftop solar, but according to Enova’s numbers they are substantial, and can offer a rapid payback time. Customers will be able to buy capacity in increments of 1kW. The upfront price is expected to be $1,000 for each 1kW, and the returns could up to to 23 per cent a year (in the form of a $230 reduction in annual energy bills for each kW). That represents a payback of less than 5 years. The deal lasts for 20 years. Read More here 22 July 2022, Renew Economy: Bowen frees ARENA from Taylor’s fossil fuel mandate, puts focus back on renewables. The Albanese government has moved to reverse the former Morrison government’s attempts to redirect renewable energy funding to non-renewable technologies, issuing a replacement set of regulations to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. (ARENA) Federal climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen said the new set of regulations will restore the agency’s focus on funding renewables, ending years of Morrison government attempts to redirect billions in funds to carbon capture and fossil fuel technologies. ARENA was established under the Gillard government to provide funding for the research and development of new renewable energy technologies, and formed part of the Clean Energy Package negotiated with the Greens, along with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Climate Change Authority. It has has been instrumental in the emergence of a competitive renewable energy sector in Australia, particularly large-scale solar and more recently with battery storage and other supporting technologies needed a renewables based grid. Bowen says ARENA will be provided with a new mandate to “maximise the take-up of renewable energy” and to focus on electrification and energy efficiency. “The best way to put downward pressure on energy prices is to ramp up investment in renewables and that is exactly what we are doing,” Bowen said. Read more here 14 July 2022, Renew Economy: The madness of cutting down forests to grow food crops for supersonic aircraft biofuels. Regular readers will recognise several recurring themes in my writing, including the risks involved with reviving carbon-intensive supersonic aircraft and the challenges of scaling sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). In this installment I deal with both. In June 2021, United Airlines announced that it intends to purchase 15 “Overture” aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with an option to purchase 35 more. In June 2022, United CEO Scott Kirby reaffirmed that United’s purchase remains “on track”. Those planes, we were originally told, will operate on 100% synthetic SAF produced from renewable electricity. In a January 2022 study conducted in partnership with MIT we concluded that even such a high-integrity “e-fuel” isn’t likely to mitigate the climate impact of supersonic aircraft. Unfortunately, the prognosis for delivering supersonic aircraft that burn clean fuels has gotten even bleaker. Last September, the Biden administration announced the “Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge”, a whole-of-government initiative to spur the production of 3 billion gallons of SAF by 2030. That’s more than a 100x increase from 2020 global production. Read more here 19 April 2022, Renew Economy: “Another lie:” It is time to call out Coalition’s climate modelling con. It’s back – the now predictable feature of Coalition election tactics – a scare campaign against Labor’s climate and energy policy. Tuesday saw the latest example of the Coalition making astronomical claims about the costs of Labor climate policies courtesy of federal energy minister Angus Taylor and the Murdoch media, both citing unpublished modelling. It is the latest in a long history of climate policy scare campaigns run by the Coalition, claiming that Labor’s policies will lead to a surge in electricity prices. It is a tactic kick-started by Tony Abbott’s attacks on the Gillard government’s carbon price in the lead up to the 2013 campaign. It helped Abbott win that campaign, and so every federal election since has seen concocted modelling used to produce fanciful claims about the costs of Labor policies and which are then provided to and run uncritically by favoured media outlets. It is designed to scare voters and has been a major factor in Australia’s failure to take meaningful action on climate change for the last decade. It has been responsible for setting Australia back in the global transition to clean energy. Read more here 14 April 2022, Climate Home News: Saudi Arabia dilutes fossil fuel phase out language with techno fixes in IPCC report. Saudi Arabia watered down a major UN climate science report by pushing for the use of unproven technologies that would allow the continued extraction of oil and gas, sources close to the negotiations have told Climate Home News. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s latest report focuses on how to halt global heating below 2C and to 1.5C in line with the Paris Agreement. While it deals with solutions, this is the most politically sensitive part of the IPCC’s three-part assessment. Publication was delayed by six hours on Monday following a marathon 40-hour session over the weekend for scientists and government representatives to finalise its summary for policymakers – the longest approval plenary in the IPCC’s 34-year history. The document concludes “a substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use” is needed to tackle the climate crisis. But compared to earlier drafts, there is a much stronger emphasis on technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide underground (CCS) as a potential solution that extends the lifespan of coal, oil and gas infrastructure…. In the negotiations, Saudi Arabia was isolated on the issue. But its vocal position may have provided cover for others with similar views. “The US was silent on CCS,” Teresa Anderson, climate justice lead at ActionAid International, told Climate Home. “It really seemed like they were happy to let Saudi Arabia be the bad guys.”Read more here 2 April 2025, AMOS: Media Statement from the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) on recent cuts to science capability in the United States. Today, the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) warned recent cuts to science in the United States would affect public safety and the economy—not just in Australia but across the world. AMOS is deeply concerned by recent reports of reductions in science capabilities and mass lay-offs at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States. NOAA is the main governmental agency providing services around weather, climate and oceans to the American public, including weather forecasts and warnings through the National Weather Service. The agency is at the forefront of the science internationally, and it provides global leadership in shaping ocean, fisheries, climate, space and weather policies. As recently emphasised by our sister organisation the American Meteorological Society: Recent terminations within the NOAA workforce are likely to cause irreparable harm and have far-reaching consequences for public safety and economic well-being in the United States. We stand in solidarity with our colleagues in the United States and join their call for strong support for NOAA and the other US science agencies and extreme caution in altering governmental roles and responsibilities for monitoring and forecasting the atmosphere and oceans. Read More Here 21 March 2025, Pearls & Irritations: Government refuses to articulate ‘frankly terrifying’ security risks. The Albanese Government has jammed itself by trying to not talk about the greatest threat to Australia’s future, but has now opened itself to the charge of playing politics with security issues. The absurdity was on full display in a front-page story last weekend, when The Saturday Paper reported that the government gave a secret briefing on 9 December last year to a number of Teal and independent members of parliament on the contents of the Office of National Intelligence assessment of climate-related security risks — one which the government has classified and refused to release in a declassified form for two years. In fact, Pearls and Irritations broke the story on 15 January: “Just before Christmas, a number of independent MPs and senators received a confidential briefing on the report from ONI. This means they are not able to discuss what they learned.” Senator David Pocock was at the secret briefing, which was in effect the selective leaking by a government of an intelligence report it had classified. The briefing occurred after Pocock, the Greens and the Teals had consistently pressed the government on the ONI assessment which was delivered in December 2022 and immediately locked in a bottom drawer after it was seen by members of the security committee of Cabinet. The independents have consistently said that as parliamentarians it was not possible for them to do their job and oversee the government’s security and climate agenda if the key information on the nature of those risks was deliberately being withheld from them. This was in sharp contrast to the government’s preferred narrative of China as the number one security threat, which ministers were only too willing to constantly articulate in public, often without a great deal of substance. Read More Here 15 March 2025, BBC: ‘Do you have communist links?’ US sends 36 questions to UN aid groups. United Nations aid agencies have been sent questionnaires by the US asking them to state if they have “anti-American” beliefs or affiliations. Among the 36 questions on the form, sent by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and seen by the BBC, is one asking if they have any links to communism. Some of the world’s biggest humanitarian organisations have received the questionnaire. This includes the UN’s refugee agency, and – outside the UN – the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Trump administration has launched a cost-cutting drive across the US government, led by billionaire Elon Musk, and has closed down much of its foreign aid. The UN groups fear the move by the OMB is a sign the US is planning to abandon humanitarian work – or even the UN itself – altogether. The US pulled out of the World Health Organization on the first day of US President Donald Trump’s second term. And this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the vast majority of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programmes had been terminated. Surveys indicate that most Americans believe the country overspends on foreign aid. The US spends a lower percentage of its GDP on aid than European countries but, because of its huge economy, still supplies 40% of global humanitarian funding Many of the UN aid agencies who were sent the form receive funding, not just from USAID, but directly from the US government. One question asks: ”Can you confirm that your organisation does not work with entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?” Read More Here 5 March 2025, Climate Home News: Countries fail again to decide timing of key IPCC climate science reports. China, Saudi Arabia and India pushed back against a proposal to align the IPCC flagship reports with the timeline of the global stocktake of climate action. Governments have delayed for the third time a key decision on the timing of an influential climate science assessment, after failing to resolve deep divisions at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over whether and how to align its work with UN climate policy. While officials agreed on the outline of the IPCC’s three flagship reports in Hangzhou, China, on Saturday, they failed to break the deadlock on when they should be delivered, despite week-long talks running into overtime with a nearly uninterrupted 30-hour session on the closing day. Most governments spoke in favour of a proposal put forward by the IPCC’s administrative arm to conclude the scientific review process by August 2028, so that the reports would be ready in time to be considered as part of the “Global Stocktake”, a scorecard of climate action carried out under the Paris Agreement. European nations, Japan, Turkiye, small island states and most Latin American and least developed countries supported the plan, three delegates told Climate Home. But China, Saudi Arabia and India strongly pushed back against that timeline, while South Africa and Kenya asked for further discussions to bridge concerns over the inclusivity of the process, the sources added. 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.
