Category Archives: Climate Change & Sustainability

Posts on aspects of climate science, climate action and climate policy & planning.

Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Great Barrier Reef will never be the same

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Core samples of the Great Barrier Reef going back 400 years show no bleaching before 1998. There was another event in 2002. In those events less than 20% of reefs were bleached in the affected zones. This year 95 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef’s northern reefs were rated as severely bleached. Only 4 out of 520 reefs surveyed, less than one per cent, were found to be unaffected by bleaching.

The bleaching is destroying the northern sector of the Reef as we watch. Continue reading Great Barrier Reef will never be the same →

Climate Action, Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 167

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1. Hybrid wind and solar farms could deliver significant cost savings

    A total of at least 1GW of large-scale solar could be added to existing Australian wind farms, boosting renewable energy development, generation, and and smoothing its delivery to the grid, according to a new report from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency investigation the benefits of solar and wind “co-location.”

Continue reading Climate clippings 167 →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Turnbull’s clean energy stunt

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If you shake hands with Malcolm Turnbull, you best count your fingers to see whether they are still there.

In short, he’s “keeping” ARENA, except that it has no funds, its grant function will be terminated and organisationally it will be absorbed into the CEFC. He starting a new fund, called the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, a subsidiary fund of the CEFC, to lend out to bankable ‘innovative’ ventures, but the funding is less than is already there, and will be dribbled out at the princely rate of $100 million per year for the next 10 years so as “not to overwhelm the market.”

In other words, pretend you are brave and forward-looking, but don’t do anything that might disrupt coal’s predominance any time soon. Continue reading Turnbull’s clean energy stunt →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 166

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1. Temperatures could be rising faster than we thought

Using a new model, researchers from the University of Queensland and Griffith University, predict the global average temperature could rise by 1.5°C as early as 2020. The model is based on forecasts of population and economic growth combined with rising per capita energy consumption. Continue reading Climate clippings 166 →

Climate Science

February 2016 the hottest (satellite) month

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There’s been a story around that February was the hottest single month ever, and I think the ABC segment quoting Professor David Karoly may have added to the confusion. They spoke of:

    preliminary analysis of surface air temperature and comprehensive analysis of satellite-based temperature observations, showing February 2016 had set a new record for the hottest ever February and the hottest ever month in long-term observation. (Emphasis added)

Continue reading February 2016 the hottest (satellite) month →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Climate clippings 165

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1. Cyclone Winston the second strongest to make landfall

Cyclone Winston, which hit Fiji with winds of almost 300 kph, was the second strongest to make landfall, the strongest being Taiphoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013.

Jeff Masters lists the 13 strongest cyclones by windspeed to make landfall using 1-minute averaging: Continue reading Climate clippings 165 →

Climate Action

Clean power for the future

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In this post I’d like to identify a few technologies that are under development which go beyond the standard wind and solar. However, first I’ll link to a Climate Institute report prepared around the time of the Paris climate talks last year, which showed that in 2013 for the first time more new energy capacity was created in the form of renewables, rather than coal, gas, oil or nuclear. Back in 2001 renewables only accounted for 19% of new capacity. Now the proportion has reached 58% and is climbing steeply: Continue reading Clean power for the future →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Climate Science

Saving the planet

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At the Paris climate conference a surprise result was for the world to aim to hold “the increase in … temperature to well below 2°C … and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”.

Fred Pearce in the New Scientist now takes a look at what some are saying needs to be done. Continue reading Saving the planet →

Climate Change & Sustainability

Slowing Gulf Stream brings blizzard(s): extreme weather and climate change

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IR-2015Z-1.22.16_250This time last year Cyclone Marcia destroyed 350 homes in Central Queensland (pictures here). This year Cyclone Winston, said to be the strongest ever in the Southern Hemisphere, ripped through Fiji. I think no-one is claiming these cyclones were caused by climate change, although their intensity could be linked.

In January, however, there was a huge blizzard that dumped record amounts of snow on the east coast of North America. Blizzard Jonas, said to be the fourth largest in history, is being linked to climate change in ways that are quite specific. Continue reading Slowing Gulf Stream brings blizzard(s): extreme weather and climate change →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Australia’s greenhouse emissions to peak after 2030

    Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions have increased for the first time in 10 years and are not expected to peak until after 2030, according to a new report.

By 2020 emissions will grow by 6%, leaving Australia 4% above 2000 levels compared with our official target of -5%. Not to worry, we will use carry-over credits under the Kyoto Protocol to formally meet our international commitments. Continue reading Australia’s greenhouse emissions to peak after 2030 →

Climate Change & Sustainability, Technology

SA keeps the nuclear dream alive

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The key tentative finding of the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission is:

    Taking account of future demand and anticipated costs of nuclear power under the existing electricity market structure, it would not be commercially viable to generate electricity from a nuclear power plant in South Australia in the foreseeable future.

However they think nuclear power may be necessary in the future to meet emission reduction targets, so:

    It would be wise to plan now to ensure that nuclear power would be available should it be required.

Continue reading SA keeps the nuclear dream alive →