Monday 23 June 2014

UNESCO rejects 'feeble' Abbott government bid to wind back protection of Tasmanian forests

UNESCO rejects 'feeble' Abbott government bid to wind back protection of Tasmanian forests

UNESCO rejects 'feeble' Abbott government bid to wind back protection of Tasmanian forests





Date






Members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community looking over forests in the Florentine Valley in southern Tasmania.
Members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community looking over forests in the Florentine Valley in southern Tasmania. Photo: Peter Mathew


UNESCO's
World Heritage Committee has summarily dismissed the Abbott
government's bid to wind back protection of Tasmanian forests.
The
committee meeting in Doha took just seven minutes to consider the bid,
which member nation Portugal called "feeble", and setting an
unacceptable precedent for the future.
No
country spoke in favour of the bid to de-list 74,00 hectares of
old-growth forest, which official cultural and natural values advisers
told the meeting would weaken the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage
Area.

Bob Brown: "Global diplomatic humiliation for Abetz and Abbott."
Bob Brown: "Global diplomatic humiliation for Abetz and Abbott." Photo: Peter Mathew


Colombia
and Germany supported the recommendation to reject the de-listing, but
only Portugal spoke at length to the meeting in a passionate defence of
the World Heritage system.
"The justifications presented to the reduction are to say the least feeble," the Portuguese delegation said.
"Accepting
this de-listing today would be setting an unacceptable precedent
impossible to deny in similar circumstances in the future.
"If
this committee cares for conservation according to responsible
engagement of states parties to the convention when they submit their
nominations, we cannot accept these requests to de-list."
Jubilant environmentalist Bob Brown tweeted that the committee rejected an "embarrassing" government bid.
"Global diplomatic humiliation for (senior Tasmanian Liberal Eric) Abetz, and (Prime Minister Tony) Abbott."
In
a statement issued on Monday morning in response to the decision,
Environment Minister Greg Hunt and the Parliamentary Secretary to the
Minister for Agriculture, Tasmanian Senator Richard Colbeck, said the
government had honoured an election commitment by seeking the boundary
change.
"The
Committee has not approved the Australian government’s request.
Australia accepts and will consider the decision of the World Heritage
Committee,'' the statement said.
Greens Leader Christine Milne said on Monday that she was ''absolutely thrilled" by the decision.
"It
is another case of the Abbott government humiliating Australia on the
global stage. It clearly was a humiliation for Australia, and so it
should have been, because it would have been a shocking precedent if
governments can just fiddle with the boundaries of their world heritage
areas, destroy outstanding universal values, just for cheap politics,''
Senator Milne told ABC TV.
Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler said the proposal should never have gone to the committee.
‘‘Australians do not support Tony Abbott’s ‘dig it up, chop it down’ attitude,’’ he said.
Environmental
lobbyist Alec Marr, who was in Doha, said:  “The World Heritage
Committee saw through the deception of the Australian Government’s
efforts here, and the high quality science and professionalism of the
advisory bodies was exemplary.”
“Today
is vindication for every Australian, and people around the world, who
love Tasmania’s forests and want to see them protected,” Mr Marr said.
Also
in Doha, Environment Tasmania spokesman Dr Phill Pullinger described
the decision as ‘‘a great relief for the wild forests of the Great
Western Tiers, Weld Valley, Butlers Gorge and the Upper Florentine
Valley’’.
However,
‘‘much of Tasmania’s natural heritage remains at risk, with the
Tasmanian Government aiming to turn vast areas of protected forest into
logging zones’’, Dr Pullinger said.
‘‘The
World Heritage Committee’s decision sends a clear message that the
international community holds Tasmania’s forests in the highest
regard,’’ he said.
Also
part of the Doha delegation, Australian Conservation Foundation
campaigner Jess Abrahams said the finding underlined the fact Tasmania’s
forests were some of the most spectacular on earth and ‘‘the Southern
Hemisphere’s equivalent of the Californian Redwoods’’.
The
de-listing bid, one of few in UNESCO history, arose of out a 2013
election promise by the Abbott government to roll back a 170,000 hectare
extension to the 1.5 million hectare Tasmanian Wilderness World
Heritage Area.
The
extension fulfilled a key plank of the peace deal struck by industry
and green groups to end the generation-old Tasmanian forest conflict,
and was guided through by former Labor Environment Minister Tony Burke.
After
Liberal landslide wins in three of the five Tasmanian seats in the
election, the government claimed a strong mandate to wind back the
listing.
"We
need to ensure that the great state of Tasmania is a strong economy as a
well as a beautiful national park," Mr Abbott repeated as recently as
last week.
The
Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Richard Colbeck, launched a
campaign arguing that the listing of 74,000 hectares of forests made a
mockery of World Heritage values because of previous logging.
But
the federal Environment Department told a Senate inquiry into the
de-listing bid that only four per cent of the 74,000 hectares had been
heavily disturbed.
The
International Union for the Conservation of Nature advised the World
Heritage committee that the wind back would be "clearly inappropriate",
and diminished the wilderness' outstanding universal values.
Among areas targeted for de-listing was the bitterly disputed Upper Florentine Valley in central Tasmania.
A
total of 150 hectares of its 7,000 hectares tall old growth forest was
logged, and in its heart lies an ice age cave with ancient Aboriginal
remains, part of the Tasmanian Wilderness' rare status as a combined
cultural and natural World Heritage site.
The
International Council on Monuments and Sites said the government had
failed to make a convincing case to exclude areas with significant
cultural attributes.
Lobbyists
at the meeting said there appeared to be little evidence of Australian
government lobbying for the wind-back, in contrast to concentrated
effort last week to avoid the listing of the Great Barrier Reef as in
danger.
with AAP

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/unesco-rejects-feeble-abbott-government-bid-to-wind-back-protection-of-tasmanian-forests-20140624-zsjhz.html#ixzz35VJfm9ks

Sunday 22 June 2014

Australians unhappy over Coalition's response to climate challenge | Environment | theguardian.com

Australians unhappy over Coalition's response to climate challenge | Environment | theguardian.com





Australians unhappy over Coalition's response to climate challenge




Number of people who accept that change is occurring rises 10 points to 70%, according to a new poll





An Edmond firefighter looks at a fire raging in a mobile home park in Oklahoma on Sunday. Wildfires have become more prevalent in the US because of climate change.
Many believe wildfires have become more common because of climate change. Photograph: Nate Billings/AP


The Australian public is deeply unhappy over the government’s
response to the challenge of climate change, amid a revival in support
for climate science and a strengthening belief that Australia is already
feeling the impact of a warming planet, according to new polling.


The
Climate of the Nation poll, conducted by JWS Research among 1,145 adult
Australians on behalf of the Climate Institute, found that 70% accepted
the mainstream scientific position that climate change is occurring.


This
is a 10% increase compared to when the same question was asked in the
poll in 2012, suggesting a rebounding public belief in the findings of
the overwhelming majority of climate scientists. A further 89% said the
effects of climate change were already beginning to bite in Australia.


But
while more than half of respondents felt the federal government was the
primary body which should address climate change, there was a negative
rating of -18 when people were asked to rank the government’s
performance.


This compares to a -1 rating from last year. These
rankings are the differential between respondents’ "good" versus’ "poor"
response to the government’s performance. Some 57% of those polled said
the government should take climate change more seriously.


A mere
20% of those questioned said they are convinced that Tony Abbott is
concerned about climate change, with 53% feeling that he isn’t. Nearly a
third of people believe opposition leader Bill Shorten is worried about
the problem, with around the same proportion of people thinking the
reverse is true.


In a further blow to the Coalition, for the first
time more people support carbon pricing than oppose it. According to
the poll, 34% back the carbon pricing laws, up 6% on 2012. Public
opposition to carbon pricing has collapsed by 22% since 2012, when the
Coalition was repeatedly attacking the then Labor government over the
policy, the poll found.


The finding comes ahead of the latest
government attempt to repeal the carbon pricing mechanism on Monday. So
far, the dismantling of the carbon price, as well as the scrapping of
associated bodies such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, has been
blocked by a combination of Labor and Greens senators.


According
to the poll, 47% of people think that carbon pricing is preferable to no
climate change policy, with just 22% supporting the government’s
alternative Direct Action policy, which will offer voluntary grants to
businesses keen to reduce their carbon emissions.


Meanwhile, 61%
of respondents said they want Australia to be a leader in tackling
climate change, up 9% from 2012, amid solid support for renewable energy
initiatives.


On the Renewable Energy Target, which the government
is currently reviewing amid speculation it may be wound back or
scrapped, 71% of respondents said they want the target to be 20% or
higher by 2020. A further 76% said there should be government incentives
for renewable energy, such as wind and solar.


John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute, which railed against climate change ‘dinosaurs’ alongside former Liberal leader John Hewson on Sunday, said there was a strong public expectation for politicians to tackle climate change.

“There
is mistrust of both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten regarding their
attitudes on climate change, but particularly Tony Abbott,” Connor said.
“Yet a clear majority think the Abbott government should take climate
change more seriously.


“These and many of the other findings this
year reinforce that while the dinosaurs in politics and business are
roaring across our landscape, the majority of Australians are shrewder
about the impacts, the opportunities and the need for leadership.”



Saturday 21 June 2014

Captain Abbott and his Titanic climate stupidity

Captain Abbott and his Titanic climate stupidity

Captain Abbott and his Titanic climate stupidity



Lyn Bender 31 May 2014, 7:45am 142





Tony Abbott is insanely bent on taking us down with the ship if he doesn't address global warming, reports psychologist, Lyn Bender. 



TONY ABBOTT openly declared his war on the environment and our home
the earth from the outset. It was his consistently expressed intent.
Australia has elected a home wrecker.




The story of the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic is an old tale that warns us of the folly of hubris, the danger of disbelief in the possibility of failing, and the foolishness of unfettered commerce.



The fate of people who will live over the next century is in our
hands. What are we bequeathing to them? A trashed planet wracked with
drought, floods, fires, storms, food and water shortages disease and
conflict.




Meanwhile in the lavish opulent first class dining room of the unsinkable Titanic, the Captain reclines, confronting big decisions about the menu. Our Captain Tony Abbott is making captain's calls.



Those who sit at his table are among the world’s wealthiest citizens,
and have paid a hefty price to dine in his company. Any doubts about
icebergs or storms are scoffed at as merely alarmist. In
drunken moments, the Captain calls these fears absolute crap.




His closest cronies are often inebriated and smoking cigars on
deck.The commoners in third class steerage are complaining about cramped
airless cabins and seasickness. They cry that it is unfair and
inequitable on board.


 


The Captain and those who sit at his table, call them a pack of
whingers. They wouldn't be sailing at all if it weren't for the wealthy
paying the bulk of the cost and doing most of the heavy lifting. The
Captain prides himself on not wasting money.




Despite the obvious mathematics of the numbers of passengers and the
numbers of lifeboats, he has not squandered money on too many lifeboats.
He has nevertheless ensured that there are enough life boats for the
important passengers.




It is a pitch-black moonless night. But those dancing inside are
having the time of their lives shimmering beneath dazzling chandeliers.
Except for the plebs in steerage of course. Hubris and a belief in the
superior capacity of humans to overcome nature is to be their undoing.
The ship is going full steam ahead – with coal-fired engines – as the
captain has ordered. The owner insists that they get to their
destination in record time, despite the warnings about ice flows.




They are on a course to catastrophe. How many will survive?



The disaster of the Titanic sinking is over a century old; but what has been learnt? Not much.





The warnings about human induced climate change have reached a
crescendo. The big melt is on. Huge sea level rises are now set in
train. IA reports
that the Western Antarctic glacier shelf melt is now believed to be
unstoppable. Can I repeat that in the way of Captain Abbott? The Western
Antarctic glacier shelf melt is now believed to be unstoppable! Can I be crystal clear? This ominous warning is based on NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States.




In climate science parlance it is a tipping point from which there can be no retreat.





 


The unknowns are how long will it take and how high the sea will
 rise? Estimates are four feet over next centuries. But don’t relax
about that. It’s not something we can fix over time. Coastal cities are
doomed to be inundated. But we have a captain who is doing less than
nothing to try to avert the full catastrophe.




Abbott is turning the clock back decades on climate action. He is
promoting fossil fuels and drowning renewable industries. (The fossil
fuel industry receives over $10 billion
in subsidies.) Tony Abbott is dismissing all warnings and worse than
that, he is ruthlessly undoing any mechanisms already in place to reduce
the rising emissions.






In fact, climate change may be the one thing he almost told the truth
about. He fought the election on the axing of the carbon tax and the
scrapping of the mining tax. These two measures had been heading in the
right direction, to reduce our carbon footprint. They were applauded
internationally.




Al Gore praised the Gillard Government’s carbon price as ‘inspirational.



Jeffrey Sachs US leading economist has also applauded the carbon tax on polluters.



The recent budget cuts have justifiably spawned protests and rage throughout Australia from disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.



But in all this furore, something life shattering has escaped notice.
Yes it’s the planet again. Yawn. I mean who needs a planet when you
have an economy? But that concept is like the value of money on the
Titanic as it sank and is rendered of little worth. With a destroyed
environment there is no viable economy. Yet climate change barely rated a
mention in this budget. The Sydney Morning Herald reveals that




 ‘an analysis of the budget shows that climate change commitments are to be left to the eleventh hour’




When do we start to visibly sink?



But the onslaught of the 2014 budget has voters reeling like punch-drunk boxers in a ring.







Cartoon by John Graham



Thus, the assault on the environment has seemed to go unnoticed.



In quietly received announcements, we learned that renewable energy bodies are to fall under the axe. The following actions are part of Abbott’s war plan on our environment.



  1. Scrapping the carbon price and any progress towards an emissions trading scheme.
  2. No mining tax.
  3. ARENA the Australian Renewable
    Energy Agency is to be abolished. ARENA chairman, Greg Bourne, expressed
    anger at the decision in the budget to rip $1.3 billion out of the
    agency and reduce it to "a  branch of an agency in the Department of Industry with a ‘token amount’ of funds."
  4. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation CEFC which the coalition has vowed to scrap.
  5.  In addition, climate change denier ex Caltex Australia Chairman, Dick Warburton, has been placed in charge of reviewing the renewable energy targets.
  6. Abbott has all but dropped the pretense of Direct Action being a credible answer to climate change with its miserly puny laughable five per cent reduction target.
  7. The CSIRO climate research has also taken cuts in the budget.
  8. Paying polluters to not pollute with no penalties for pollution.
  9. No more than $3.2 million will be spent on Direct Action whether it actually achieves its target or not.
  10. Axing of the Australian Government’s environment ministers’ forum — after 41 years.
  11. Fast tracked environmental approvals to allow increase in mining in Galilee Basin.
  12. Abbot Point to become world’s biggest coal port. News Flash: Deutsche Bank has pulled out of funding due to environmental concerns.
  13. Dumping of three million cubic metres of dredging waste on barrier reef.
  14. Ditched marine parks management plan.
  15. Delisting sought of Tasmanian Forest World Heritage listing.


Environmental groups and activists are fighting back and with some
wins, but climate change has become the great-unnamed humungous elephant
in the room.




 Our planet, mother earth, our only home, supplier of all
infrastructure and life sustaining services, underpinning of all
economies, is facing life threatening danger! 






 


The conversation has been stymied, suppressed and distorted. It has been mocked and science has been denied.



Tony Abbott has at the same time hijacked the lexicon of the actual
emergency: global warming. He repeats the following, but in relation to
his false
(budget) emergency. Yes, it is the great challenge of our time. Doing
nothing and business as usual is not an option. The lives of our
children and grandchildren and the, as yet, unborn, depend on the decisions made today. World-renowned economist, Jeffrey Sachs, has noted the Abbott government’s obdurate recalcitrance regarding climate change action, saying




"It's amateur hour, at a time when we actually need something serious."




 Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State in the Showtime series 'Years of Living Dangerously’:



“We are the first generation to experience climate change and the last generation who can do anything about it.”




Our world and its future are in dire straits and we need to talk seriously about climate change now.



We can’t afford a leader at the helm who criminally denies this. 



Creative Commons Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Obama unveils huge Pacific sanctuary as Leonardo DiCaprio gives Australia a blast

Obama unveils huge Pacific sanctuary as Leonardo DiCaprio gives Australia a blast

Obama unveils huge Pacific sanctuary as Leonardo DiCaprio gives Australia a blast

Date

Coral Davenport



DiCaprio 'devastated' by Barrier Reef damage

Effects of acidification on the
Great Barrier Reef and other marine reserves prompt actor Leonardo
DiCaprio and US President Obama to pledge millions of dollars towards
ocean conservation.



In
an effort to protect diverse habitats of coral reefs, whales, dolphins,
sharks, sea turtles and numerous fish species from commercial fishing
and other activities, President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he
intends to use his executive authority to create the world's largest
marine sanctuary in the south-central Pacific Ocean.




The
proposed marine sanctuary would be expanded from about 225,000
square-kilometres to more than two million square kilometres in a
US-controlled Pacific Ocean area between Hawaii and American Samoa.





The
plan was welcomed by Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio who also made
some blunt comments about the state of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.



Leonardo DiCaprio's reef 'utopia' is gone.
Leonardo DiCaprio's reef 'utopia' is gone. Photo: AFP


‘‘Since
my very first dive in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia 20 years ago
to the dive I got to do in the very same location just two years ago,
I’ve witnessed environmental devastation firsthand,’’ DiCaprio said at
the Our Ocean Conference in Washington DC.



‘‘What
once had looked like an endless underwater utopia is now riddled with
bleached coral reefs and massive dead zones,’’ he said.




Mr DiCaprio's comments come as the reef's World Heritage status is being examined by the UNESCO group at Doha, Qatar.





Leonardo DiCaprio greets US Secretary of State John Kerry on stage at the 'Our Ocean' conference.
Leonardo DiCaprio greets US Secretary of State John Kerry on stage at the 'Our Ocean' conference. Photo: AP






Queensland’s
environment minister Andrew Powell says the World Heritage Committee is
being misinformed about the health of the Great Barrier Reef, and he
doesn’t expect them to list the reef as in danger.




UNESCO
is broadly expected to give Australia another year to continue its work
ticking off previous recommendations on improving the health of the
reef.




Getting around Congress



Obama's
Pacific plan is one of the few ways in which the president can create
new environmental protections without action from Congress. He has also
used his executive authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to
designate 11 new national monuments on land, ensuring that millions of
acres of wilderness will remain untouched.




"Growing
up in Hawaii, I learned early to appreciate the beauty and power of the
ocean," Obama said at a White House event Tuesday. "And like Presidents
Clinton and Bush before me, I'm going to use my authority as president
to protect some of our most precious marine landscapes, just like we do
for mountains and rivers and forests."




Presidents
of both parties have used executive authority to protect public lands
and waters. President George W. Bush created what was at the time the
world's largest marine sanctuary, protecting 140,000 square-miles of
water off the Hawaiian islands from commercial activity.




Republican
lawmakers have criticised Obama for using his executive authority to
create monuments on land, thus blocking commercial activity such as oil
and gas drilling. Experts said that commercial tuna fishing will likely
be the only industry affected by the new sanctuary.




Republican
House member Doc Hastings, who is chairman of the House Natural
Resources Committee, said in a statement, "Oceans, like our federal
lands, are intended to be multiple-use and open for a wide range of
economic activities that includes fishing, recreation, conservation and
energy production. It appears this administration will use whatever
authorities - real or made-up - to close our ocean and coastal areas
with blatant disregard for possible economic consequences."




White
House officials said they have not yet determined the borders of the
new sanctuary, nor the specific statute under which it will be created.
The officials said the White House will spend the next few months
seeking input on the plan from outside groups, including
environmentalists, the fishing industry and elected officials, before
the plan is final.




Obama
is also directing federal agencies to develop a comprehensive program
aimed at deterring illegal fishing, addressing seafood fraud, and
preventing illegally caught fish from entering the marketplace. Black
market fishing constitutes up to 20 percent of the wild marine fish
caught each year around the world.




Oceans and climate



The
moves are part of a slate of actions that the White House and State
Department are rolling out this week aimed at protecting the oceans.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who hopes to make environmental
protection a hallmark of his tenure, is spearheading the oceans
initiative.




This
week, he is hosting an oceans conference at the State Department,
focused on the threats to oceans posed by overfishing, pollution and
climate change.




In his own keynote this morning, Kerry called for the creation of a global ocean strategy.



"Most
people think the ocean is larger than life, an endless resource
impossible to destroy. But people underestimate the enormous damage that
we as humans are inflicting on the ocean every day," he said. "We run
the risk of fundamentally breaking entire ecosystems."




In
addition to praising the creation of the marine sanctuary,
environmental groups also lauded the administration's initiatives on
illegal fishing.




A
2013 study conducted by the environmental group Oceana found that 33
per cent of fish sold in metropolitan in the U.S. areas are mislabeled,
with lower-cost, lower-quality fish often swapped out for higher-quality
fish. For example, the study found that fish containing high levels of
the toxin mercury, such as tilefish, are often mislabeled and sold as
red snapper and halibut.




"From
the amount of mislabeled seafood and illegal seafood products entering
the US markets, it's clear we need a comprehensive solution to ensure
that seafood sold in the U.S. is safe, legally caught and honestly
labeled," said Beth Lowell, a campaign director at Oceana.




The New York Times, AAP



'Most-watched' El Nino gathers pace in Pacific

'Most-watched' El Nino gathers pace in Pacific

'Most-watched' El Nino gathers pace in Pacific








Date







Weather watchers on the look out for an El Nino.
Weather watchers on the look out for an El Nino. Photo: Wolter Peeters







The world’s meteorologists and climate experts are watching
closely for another burst of westerly winds across the Pacific that
could trigger the first El Nino weather pattern since 2009-2010.




“Basically it is primed for a strong El Nino, but it needs
the final push,” said Axel Timmermann, the professor of oceanography at
the international Pacific research centre, University of Hawaii. “This
is perhaps the most-watched El Nino of all time.”





The weather watch comes as winter remains largely at bay for
much of Australia. Sydney and Melbourne broke heat records during autumn
and maximums in both cities have been about 2-3 degrees above average
for June.





An image of the most recent El Nino (2009-10).
An image of the most recent El Nino (2009-10). Photo: NASA






This week, Sydney can expect tops most days of 20-22 degrees,
or about 3-5 degrees above normal, while Melbourne's maximums will be
1-2 degrees above the June average of 14 degrees, the Bureau of
Meteorology said.





An El Nino could make this year another warm one for
Australia. Last year was the country's warmest in more than a century of
records.




El Ninos form when waters in the eastern Pacific turn
unusually warm compared with the west, stalling or reversing the
easterly trade winds. The pattern is a major driver of the world’s
climate and can trigger droughts and bushfires in Australia and east
Asia, while bringing heavy rains to countries bordering the eastern
Pacific.




Drought conditions in Australia are more likely if an El Nino
is coupled with conditions in the Indian Ocean that lead to less
moisture streaming in across the continent from the north-west. Known as
a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, those conditions have backed off
slightly in the past fortnight, the Bureau of Meteorology said in its latest El Nino update, released on Tuesday.




70 per cent-plus chance



For now, the likelihood of an El Nino remains at least 70 per
cent. Confirmation, though, may slip back to spring rather than late
winter as had been predicted earlier, the bureau’s head of climate
prediction services, Andrew Watkins, said.




“The odds of having a very strong event have probably eased
somewhat [from readings in April and May]", he said. “But it can’t be
ruled out.”




A strong El Nino does not necessarily result in extreme
conditions in Australia. For instance, the “super El Nino” in 1997-98,
the largest such event in the 20th century which set then-global temperature records, did not result in Australia suffering a severe drought.




Australia is already experiencing El Nino-like conditions,
with the most recent three-month outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology
indicating the odds favour a drier and warmer-than-average winter for
most of the nation.




Conditions remain favourable for an El Nino event to develop,
with sub-surface temperatures in the Pacific at depths of about 100
metres running about 5 degrees above normal. The patch of anomalously
warm waters has also reached the far-eastern Pacific, Dr Watkins said.
Surface temperatures are about 1-2 degrees above normal for much of the
equatorial ocean.




“Right now, this is the crucial stage for the El Nino to gain
amplitude,” Professor Timmermann said. “If the westerlies do not come
along, it will be a weak to moderate El Nino.”




Dr Watkins said the focus was now on a strong pulse of cloud
and rain in the equatorial Indian Ocean. That pulse – known as a
Madden-Julian oscillation – may be the source of the next burst of
westerly winds if it retains sufficient strength when it reaches the
Pacific.




“We’re all waiting to see what happens,” Dr Watkins said.



China and the UK declare global warming is 'one of the greatest challenges facing the world'

China and the UK declare global warming is 'one of the greatest challenges facing the world'

China and the UK declare global warming is 'one of the greatest challenges facing the world'





Date



Steam rises from a chimney at the Junliangcheng power station in Tianjin, China. Leaders of both China and the UK have called on nations to reveal their action plans.
Steam rises from a chimney at the Junliangcheng power
station in Tianjin, China. Leaders of both China and the UK have called
on nations to reveal their action plans. Photo: Bloomberg








The leaders of China and the UK have declared the threat of
global warming to be “one of the greatest challenges facing the world”,
and have called on all nations to reveal their action plans well ahead
of a major climate summit set for Paris in late 2015.




In a joint statement released on Tuesday by UK Prime Minister
David Cameron and his visiting Chinese counterpart, Premier Li Keqiang,
the leaders said climate change was already happening, “much of it as a
result of human activity”.





“The odds of extreme weather events, which threaten lives and
property, have increased,” the statement said, citing the recent
reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Sea
levels are rising, and ice is melting faster than we expected.”




In a nod to the severe pollution frequently enveloping many
Chinese cities, the statement added: “In addition, the burning of fossil
fuels creates serious air pollution, affecting quality of life for
millions. Both sides recognise that climate change and air pollution
share many of the same root causes, as well as many of the same
solutions.”





The comments are likely to be seen as further proof China,
the world’s largest emitter of the greenhouse gases blamed for warming
the planet, will place a cap on emissions. 




The country is particularly exposed to shifting climate
patterns with much of its agriculture reliant on the regularity of
seasonal snowmelt. In recent days, Chinese newspapers have carried
reports that the area of frozen earth on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has
shrunk 16 per cent in the past 30 years because of global warming.




China and Britain’s “urgent call to action” also follows the
release earlier this month of the most ambitious climate action in US
history by President Barack Obama. Some 1600 fossil-fuel burning power
plants will have to cut emissions 30 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.




The US move was announced days before Prime Minister Tony
Abbott’s visit to Washington. Mr Abbott, who has previously derided
climate science, said he would not support moves to curb emissions that
would “clobber the economy”.




Australia has a target of cutting its 2000-level emissions 5
per cent by 2020, and the Abbott government has said it won’t review the
target until at least 2015.




The country, though, may come under increasing international
pressure – including at the G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane in November –
to raise the bar if momentum builds for stiffer climate measures ahead
of the Paris summit set for December 2015.




“Both sides underline the importance for all countries to
communicate their nationally determined contributions well in advance”
of the Paris meeting, Premier Li and Prime Minister Cameron said in
their joint statement.




Sunday 15 June 2014

Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'? | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com

Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'? | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | theguardian.com


    Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?




    Natural and social scientists develop new model of how 'perfect storm' of crises could unravel global system




    This NASA Earth Observatory released on
    This Nasa Earth
    Observatory image shows a storm system circling around an area of
    extreme low pressure in 2010, which many scientists attribute to climate
    change. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images



    A new study partly-sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight
    Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation
    could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource
    exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.


    Noting
    that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or
    controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical
    data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a
    recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe
    civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse - often lasting
    centuries - have been quite common."


    The independent research
    project is based on a new cross-disciplinary 'Human And Nature
    DYnamical' (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei
    of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center,
    in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The HANDY
    model was created using a minor Nasa grant, but the study based on it
    was conducted independently. The study based on the HANDY model has been
    accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal,
    Ecological Economics.


    It finds that according to the historical
    record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse,
    raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation:


    "The
    fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han,
    Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian
    Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated,
    complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and
    impermanent."
    By investigating the human-nature
    dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the
    most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline,
    and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely,
    Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.


    These
    factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial
    social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed
    on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification
    of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These
    social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the
    process of the collapse," in all such cases over "the last five thousand
    years."


    Currently, high levels of economic stratification are
    linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with "Elites" based
    largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:


    "...
    accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but
    rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population,
    while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by
    elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels."
    The study challenges those who argue that technology will resolve these challenges by increasing efficiency:

    "Technological
    change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to
    raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource
    extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption
    often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use."
    Productivity
    increases in agriculture and industry over the last two centuries has
    come from "increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput,"
    despite dramatic efficiency gains over the same period.


    Modelling
    a range of different scenarios, Motesharrei and his colleagues conclude
    that under conditions "closely reflecting the reality of the world
    today... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid." In the first of
    these scenarios, civilisation:


    ".... appears to be on
    a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal
    depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the
    Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among
    Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is
    important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an
    inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a
    collapse of Nature."
    Another scenario focuses on the
    role of continued resource exploitation, finding that "with a larger
    depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the
    Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse
    completely, followed by the Elites."


    In both scenarios, Elite
    wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most "detrimental
    effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the
    Commoners", allowing them to "continue 'business as usual' despite the
    impending catastrophe." The same mechanism, they argue, could explain
    how "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to
    be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in
    the Roman and Mayan cases)."


    Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:

    "While
    some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving
    towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes
    to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who
    opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable
    trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."
    However,
    the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means
    inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes
    could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable
    civilisation.


    The two key solutions are to reduce economic
    inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to
    dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive
    renewable resources and reducing population growth:


    "Collapse
    can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita
    rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if
    resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."
    The
    NASA-funded HANDY model offers a highly credible wake-up call to
    governments, corporations and business - and consumers - to recognise
    that 'business as usual' cannot be sustained, and that policy and
    structural changes are required immediately.


    Although the study
    based on HANDY is largely theoretical - a 'thought-experiment' - a
    number of other more empirically-focused studies - by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science
    for instance - have warned that the convergence of food, water and
    energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years.
    But these 'business as usual' forecasts could be very conservative.


    Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed

    • This article was amended on 26 March 2014 to reflect the nature of the study and Nasa's relationship to it more clearly.

    Saturday 14 June 2014

    Remarks to UNAA World Environment Day Awards Presentation Dinner | Mark Butler MP

    Remarks to UNAA World Environment Day Awards Presentation Dinner | Mark Butler MP


    Remarks to UNAA World Environment Day Awards Presentation Dinner





    Thanks very much to the UN Association of Australia for the
    invitation to be here with you tonight at the 2014 World Environment Day
    Awards.



    We’ve seen wonderful examples of projects from big and small
    business, NGOs, Local Councils and schools- all against the backdrop of
    the United Nations. And that’s as it should be, because it’s hard to
    think of an area of human endeavour that more neatly blends local and
    global perspectives than the protection of our natural environment.



    And the nominees all remind us that, in Australia, we are blessed
    with an extraordinary natural environment stretching from the Wet
    Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef down to the Tasmanian Wilderness with
    so much else in between.



    But Australia’s beautiful environment is also vulnerable. We were
    reminded again this week by the latest Reef Report Card that the Great
    Barrier Reef faces multiple threats from climate change such as rising
    sea temperatures, ocean acidification and more intense cycles and
    storms; as well as the ongoing impact of human activity along the
    Queensland coast. The Tasmanian Wilderness remains bedevilled by the
    ongoing conflict over the right balance between industry and
    conservation. We’re also reminded as an El NiƱo system apparently builds
    that our southern waterways, in particular, remain vulnerable to
    drought.



    Australia has always respected the role of the UN, through UNESCO and
    the World Heritage Committee, in providing a framework for countries
    like Australia to deal with challenges like these. Ours was only the
    seventh nation to sign onto the World Heritage Convention 40 years ago.
    In that time, we’ve served four terms on the World Heritage Committee.
    We have always been an exemplary citizen of the World Heritage system.



    These issues and more are highly topical today. The World Heritage
    Committee meets this fortnight and will consider contentious positions
    on two Australian World Heritage properties – the Great Barrier Reef and
    Tasmanian Wilderness. The Australian Parliament over the next several
    weeks will debate legislation variously about climate change, renewable
    energy, and the Government’s plans to hand over its environmental
    protection powers to State Governments and Local Councils, including the
    protection of World Heritage properties. These debates will all be
    robust and vigorous, as they should be; because, whatever your view
    might be about all of those issues, policies that impact how we protect
    and nurture our natural environment should always be strongly tested.



    The recipients of tonight’s awards, and all the other nominees, play a
    critical role in Australia’s conservation efforts and I thank them for
    their dedication to protecting and promoting our beautiful environment.



    These remarks were made to the United Nations Association of
    Australia World Environment Day Awards Presentation Dinner in Sydney on
    13 June 2015.