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Coal lobby is prominent at COP24 U.N climate change conference

COP24 President defends participation of coal companies at climate talks, ABC, The World By Erin Handley 7 Dec 18, COP24 President Michal Kurtyka has defended displays of coal soap and jewellery at key climate change talks in Poland, saying “it’s good to have everybody on board”.

Key points:

  • The climate talks drew some ridicule for putting coal on display in the foyer
  • New Zealand has named climate change as its biggest security threat
  • Pacific nations are facing an existential threat, Michal Kurtyka said

Conference attendees were confronted with coal displays in the foyer and greeted by a performance from the Polish Coal Miners Band during the talks designed to bring about global action on climate change.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said using coal was not in conflict with climate protection, and with the climate change talks taking place in the city of Katowice — a coal mining stronghold — some observers said the setting undermined the purpose of the talks.

Mr Kurtyka, who is also a secretary of state in the Ministry of Environment, denied that coal companies “sponsored” the event, which he said was publicly funded by Poland — but said there were several partners, including Ikea and energy companies. …….

Richie Merzian, director of the Australia Institute’s Climate and Energy Program, said the coal-heavy setting left “a sour taste in the mouths of those who are committed to climate action”.

“But at the same time it is symbolic of trying to deal with the vested interests and the long history of reliance on fossil fuels in many of these cities and countries.”

Mr Merzian added that coal companies were not on the same page as delegates seeking an ambitious plan to combat climate change.

“Their core business is directly in contrast to … the goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to transition completely away from reliance on fossil fuels,” he said, adding that the influence of coal companies on governments ran deep.

“Stopping that outright, in-your-face sponsorship would definitely help in terms of optics, but a lot of the influence is just strongly embedded into the positions that the countries bring forward.”………

Yesterday New Zealand released a defence policy statement naming climate change as its biggest security threat and stressing the impact of climate change on the Pacific.

“It identifies climate change as one of the most significant security threats of our time, and one that is already having adverse impacts both at home and in New Zealand’s neighbourhood,” said Defence Minister Ron Mark in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Australia, however, has turned its back on its Pacific neighbours in terms of climate change, Mr Merzian said.

“The Pacific are getting desperate, and instead of their friends helping, they’re hurting,” he said.

“Poland is the Australia of the EU — the largest coal user, the largest coal producer — but unlike Australia that can operate in its own bubble, Poland has to marry up its position with its EU colleagues as a bloc, and that’s why they help drag Poland to be better than what it would otherwise be.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-07/coal-company-participation-at-climate-talks-defended/10592146

December 8, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, politics international | 2 Comments

World Bank funding for action on climate change, and for adaptation to climate change

World Bank to raise $200 billion to fight climate change   SBS News 4 Dec 18 The World Bank Group will spearhead a five-year, $200 billion investment to fight climate change. The World Bank has unveiled a $200 billion in climate action investment for 2021-25, adding this amounts to a doubling of its current five-year funding.

The World Bank said the move, coinciding with a UN climate summit meeting of some 200 nations in Poland, represented a “significantly ramped up ambition” to tackle climate change, “sending an important signal to the wider global community to do the same.”

Developed countries are committed to lifting combined annual public and private spending to $100 billion in developing countries by 2020 to fight the impact of climate change — up from 48.5 billion in 2016 and 56.7 billion last year, according to latest OECD data.

Southern hemisphere countries fighting the impact of warming temperatures are nonetheless pushing northern counterparts for firmer commitments.

In a statement, the World Bank said the breakdown of the $200 billion would comprise “approximately $100 billion in direct finance from the World Bank.”

Around one third of the remaining funding will come from two World Bank Group agencies with the rest private capital “mobilised by the World Bank Group.”……..

Much of the climate action financing is being set aside for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, notably through development of renewable energy strategies.

However, the World Bank stated that “a key priority is boosting support for climate adaptation,” given the millions of people already battling the consequences of extreme weather.

“By ramping up direct adaptation finance to reach around $50 billion over (fiscal) 21-25, the World Bank will, for the first time, give this equal emphasis alongside investments that reduce emissions,” the bank stated.

Given the urgency to act in the face of sea level rise, flooding and drought “we must fight the causes, but also adapt to the consequences that are often most dramatic for the world’s poorest people,” said World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva.

The countries whose representatives are meeting at the UN climate summit which opened Sunday in the Polish city of Katowice are seeking to make good on commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

That agreement saw countries commit to limiting global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius and to the safer cap of 1.5C if at all possible. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/world-bank-to-raise-200-billion-to-fight-climate-change

December 4, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | 1 Comment

Grim warning from David Attenborough on climate – he urges world leaders to LEAD

Our greatest threat’: David Attenborough’s grim warning on climate Naturalist David Attenborough has told delegates at a UN conference the world is facing the end of civilisation if it does not unite to tackle climate change. SBS News, 4 Dec 18  British broadcaster and environmentalist David Attenborough has urged world leaders, meeting in Poland to agree ways to limit global warming, to get on and tackle “our greatest threat in thousands of years”.Known for countless nature films, Attenborough has gained prominence recently with his Blue Planet II series, which highlighted the devastating effect of pollution on the oceans.

Leaders of the world, you must lead,” said the naturalist, given a “People’s seat” at the two-week UN climate conference in the Polish coal city of Katowice alongside two dozen heads of state and government.

“The continuation of our civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend, is in your hands,” he said.

“Climate change is running faster than we are and we must catch up sooner rather than later before it is too late.”

Attenborough told the delegates: “Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate Change.”……….

Representatives of some of the most powerful countries and biggest polluters were conspicuous by their absence, and the United States is quitting the UN climate process.

To maximise the chances of success in Poland, technical talks began on Sunday, a day early, with delegates from nearly 200 nations debating how to meet the Paris target of limiting global warming to between 1.5 and 2.0 degrees Celsius (2.7 and 3.6 Fahrenheit).

Michal Kurtyka, Poland’s deputy environment minister and president of the talks, said that without success in Katowice, Paris would not be a success, as it had only decided what was needed, not how it could be done.

Moreover, the wider political environment had changed.

“The wave of optimism and global co-operation that carried us to and through Paris has now crested, broken and is now tumbling,” he told delegates. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/our-greatest-threat-david-attenborough-s-grim-warning-on-climate

December 4, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | 2 Comments

Flawed arguments in nuclear industry’s push to be seen as climate change solution

Should We Subsidize Nuclear Power to Fight Climate Change? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should-we-subsidize-nuclear-power-to-fight-climate-change/
That’s what some are advocating, but the arguments in favor of doing so are flawed By M. V. Ramana on December 3, 2018 Last month, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) put out a reportentitled The Nuclear Power Dilemma: Declining Profits, Plant Closures, and the Threat of Rising Carbon Emissions that calls for offering subsidies to unprofitable nuclear power plants. Not surprisingly, it has been widely welcomed by nuclear advocates, who interpret the report as essentially saying “yes to nuclear power” in order to reduce carbon emissions.

But that interpretation misses the many important but less prominent insights in the UCS report.

Nuclear power plants are associated with significantly less carbon dioxide emitted per unit of electricity produced when compared to fossil fuel plants, even when including the emissions associated with the fuel chainrequired to generate nuclear energy. Therefore, the report’s basis for argument—if utilities were to replace “existing nuclear plants with natural gas and coal rather than low-carbon sources,” then it would compromise “our ability to achieve the deep cuts in carbon emissions” (p. 1)—is obvious. Whether nuclear plants would be replaced by fossil fueled plants is questionable.

Nuclear plants are hugely expensive, and it has been known for a while that they are not an economically competitive choice. Thus, building new nuclear plants makes no sense. In the UCS report too, the power planning model used does not recommend constructing new nuclear plants, even at the highest assumed price of carbon. The authors, unfortunately, do not highlight this outcome of their modeling, sidestepping its implications by not “assessing the potential role of new nuclear plants in meeting long-term emissions reduction targets” (p. 12).

For decades, nuclear advocates had a comforting response: although expensive to build, nuclear plants are cheap to operate and profitable in the long run. That is no longer true. Several nuclear plants have been shut down because the utilities operating them are losing money. As shown by the UCS report and similar studies, many more are likely to be shuttered.

So, the question in essence is how to deal with a dying source of electricity generation in the United States. Globally, the share of nuclear energy in the world’s electricity generation has been declining continuously since 1996. The UCS report is a plea to keep the nuclear industry on life support by states providing subsidies to nuclear power plants that are not profitable, provided the operators of the nuclear plants and the states play by some rules. Regardless of these subsidies, it remains the case that over the next few decades, the reactor fleet will have to be retired. Some of these reactors are nearly half a century old, and some have a checkered past.

Many others have demanded that states subsidize nuclear plants, and there is even a tool kit to help plant owners to continue profiting at public expense. It is the imposition of various requirements that distinguishes the UCS report from the rest of the chorus—and unfortunately the media has by and large highlighted the call for subsidies without the conditions. The conditions are: “Require plant owners to open their financial books and demonstrate need”; “make financial support for distressed plants temporary [and] periodically assess whether continued support is necessary and cost effective”; “Ensure that qualifying plants maintain strong safety performance”; “Strengthen renewable energy and efficiency standards”; “Develop transition plans for affected workers and communities”; and state “requirements [on resources subject to state jurisdiction, such as the use of local water supplies for cooling and the impact of cooling-water discharges] need to be vigorously enforced”.

These requirements are not easy to meet, and other proponents of nuclear subsidies are, in some cases, undermining them. The Nuclear Energy Institute “has proposed merging the highest and second-highest safety ratings”—measures of plant safety produced by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—which “would effectively render the rating meaningless” (p. 24). In Connecticut, the Millstone nuclear plant’s “owner refused to make a disclosure” when seeking subsidies (p. 41).

These subsidies are being offered to an industry that has profited enormously in the past from direct and indirect subsidies. As the Illinois attorney general explained, current subsidy demands “amount to a third round of subsidies for these plants.”

Let us return to the most basic assumption needed for the argument for subsidies to stick, namely that utilities would replace shut down nuclear plants with fossil fueled plants. This is possible but by no means necessary, especially with continued falling costs for renewable energy and storage technologies. The energy industry is changing so rapidly that what the UCS report attempts, to forecast costs and plan over multi-decadal periods, is all but impossible to do with any degree of certainty.

Further, the report’s inputs to the electricity planning model are already outdated. For example, the central cost figures it uses for nuclear reactor costs are significantly lower than the costs of the two reactors currently being constructed in the state of Georgia. In contrast, costs of solar PV plants and wind turbines are significantly higher than the most recent numbers. Renewables are not just getting cheaper, they are also quick to construct.

All these factors undermine the report’s central assumption that nuclear plants will be replaced by fossil fueled plants. To be fair, the UCS report does call for periodically assessing whether continued support is necessary and cost effective. But such support might already not be cost effective. All told, the economic basis for subsidies is uncertain at best; more likely, it is flawed. Either way, it may be best to get onward with the transition from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewables.

December 4, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

U.N Climate Conference – but the climate future is grim

Portrait of a planet on the verge of climate catastrophe  As the UN sits down for its annual climate conference this week, many experts believe we have passed the point of no return, Guardian, by Robin McKie, 2 Dec 18

On Sunday morning hundreds of politicians, government officials and scientists will gather in the grandeur of the International Congress Centre in Katowice, Poland. It will be a familiar experience for many. For 24 years the annual UN climate conference has served up a reliable diet of rhetoric, backroom talks and dramatic last-minute deals aimed at halting global warming.

But this year’s will be a grimmer affair – by far. As recent reports have made clear, the world may no longer be hovering at the edge of destruction but has probably staggered beyond a crucial point of no return. Climate catastrophe is now looking inevitable. We have simply left it too late to hold rising global temperatures to under 1.5C and so prevent a future of drowned coasts, ruined coral reefs, spreading deserts and melted glaciers.

One example was provided last week by a UN report that revealed attempts to ensure fossil fuel emissions peak by 2020 will fail. Indeed the target will not even be reached by 2030. Another, by the World Meteorological Organization, said the past four years had been the warmest on record and warned that global temperatures could easily rise by 3-5C by 2100, well above that sought-after goal of 1.5C. The UK will not be exempt either. The Met Office said summer temperatures could now be 5.4C hotter by 2070.

At the same time, prospects of reaching global deals to halt emissions have been weakened by the spread of rightwing populism. Not much to smile about in Katowice.

Nor will the planet’s woes end in 2100. Although most discussions use the year as a convenient cut-off point for describing Earth’s likely fate, the changes we have already triggered will last well beyond that date, Continue reading →

December 3, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Reference | 1 Comment

Why nuclear power is a hindrance, not a help, to climate change action

nuclear emits twice as much carbon as solar PV and six times as much as onshore wind.

Beyond Nuclear, 2 Dec 18 Nuclear power has no constructive role to play in climate change solutions. In fact, it is a hindrance.

Nuclear power does have a carbon footprint When nuclear power is said to have “zero emissions,” this refers only to the electricity generation phase and only to greenhouse gas emissions. There are emissions at this stage, especially heat and radioactivity. Certain emissions during reactor operations, such as carbon-14 in CO2 form and methane, are greenhouse gases.

However, there are plenty of carbon emissions involved in making a nuclear power plant a reality. Therefore, when discussing the carbon footprint of nuclear energy compared to other energy forms, the entire uranium fuel chain needs to be taken into account. In doing so, nuclear energy compares poorly to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Lifecycle emissions along the nuclear fuel chain occur through uranium mining and milling, transportation, plant construction, operation, reactor site decommissioning, and nuclear waste management.1

Life-cycle carbon emissions of a nuclear power plant When taking into account planning, permitting, construction, operation, refurbishing and decommissioning, a nuclear power plant emits at least 6-24 times more carbon-dioxide equivalent emissions than wind per unit energy produced over the same 100-year period.2

 Life-cycle carbon emissions from the entire nuclear fuel chain How do we calculate this? Evaluating the total carbon output of the nuclear industry involves calculating emissions from every carbon-emitting phase of the uranium fuel chain, then dividing them by the electricity produced over the entire lifetime of the plant.3 Some of the most reliable analysis on this has been done by Dr. Benjamin Sovacool whose data we use here (see footnote 1).

Let’s take a look at the mean carbon emissions of each phase:

The entire uranium fuel chain. This includes every phase from uranium mining to decommissioning and waste management. 66 gCO2e/kWh. (StormSmith has 80-130 gram CO2/kWh.)4

» Uranium mining, milling, processing, refining and fuel fabrication. Calculations can vary depending on factors such as grade of uranium ore, energy source used to mine etc. 25.09g/kWh

» Construction of a nuclear power plant. This includes fabrication, transportation and use of materials. 8.20 g/kWh » Reactor operation and maintenance. 11.58g/kWh

» Radioactive Waste Management and storage. 9.20 g/KWh » Decommissioning. 12.01 g/KWh

Carbon emissions broken down by percentage Percentage of total carbon emissions released by each stage of the uranium fuel chain.

Uranium mining, milling, and enrichment: 38%

Construction: 13%

 Operation (inc. backup diesel generators): 17%

Fuel processing and waste management: 14% Decommissioning: 18%

Life-cycle carbon emissions of the nuclear fuel chain compared to other resources

Scrubbed coal-fired plants: 960 gCO2e/kWh

 Natural gas-fired plants: 443 gCO2e/kWh

Nuclear power plants: 66 gCO2e/kWh

Solar photovoltaic: 32 gCO2e/kWh

 Onshore wind farms: 10 gCO2e/kWh

So nuclear emits twice as much carbon as solar PV and six times as much as onshore wind.

Here’s one way Sovacool sums it up:

“Every dollar you spend on nuclear, you could have saved five or six times as much carbon with efficiency, or wind farms.”

“Every dollar you spend on nuclear, you could have saved five or six times as much carbon with efficiency, or wind farms.”

1 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508001997

2 https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/15-12-30-ResponseHansen.pdf

………….. https://beyondnuclearinternational.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/climate-change-and-why-nuclear-power-cant-fix-it.pdf

December 3, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Reference | Leave a comment

Australia: Bushfires, Climate Change, and Nuclear Sites

Bushfires in Queensland have ushered in the “new normal”  of superfires in Australia. California has already experienced this new normal. It means that these fires are now catastrophic. They encroach on human habitation. Fire behaviour has changed.  Their intensity is greater. Their severity is greater: their flames are higher. Fires last longer, and come with increasing frequency. They spread at higher rates, and jump gaps such as roads, rivers and fire breaks. .

These fires now do long -term damage to the ecosystem. The earth underneath is affected, habitat destroyed, killing all the normal bacteria and inhabitants of the soil. Many are fires that are impossible to put out.

The background to these new superfires is climate change. Climate change has brought higher temperatures and  drought – resulting in drier trees and other vegetation – meaning that tinder-dry fuel is ready for ignition.

Australia is uniquely vulnerable, as the driest continent, with its prevailing eucalypt forests.

In California, the authorities are trying hard to cover up the reality that the wildfires started at an abandoned and still radioactively contaminated, nuclear facility . The fire would undoubtedly have caused radioactive ash to be blown about. (The fact that it’s not measured doesn’t mean that it is non existent) 

Australia is vulnerable to a similar radioactive threat. Last year, bushfires went uncomfortably close to the  Lucas Heights nuclear reactor. Plans to transport Lucas Height nuclear waste 1700 km across Australia to Flinders Ranges area mean that this radioactive trash would be at risk of accident, and one of the worst risks would be bushfires.

Australia must face up to the climate change threats – floods (as more water vapour, due to heat, will come down as flooding) , sea level rise, and super bushfires. Lucas Heights nuclear reactor should be closed, and ANSTO’s nuclear dream prevented from becoming Australia’s climate-nuclear nightmare.

The Age of Super Fires

December 3, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, climate change | Leave a comment

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – its plight pretty much ignored by government

Portrait of a planet on the verge of climate catastrophe  As the UN sits down for its annual climate conference this week, many experts believe we have passed the point of no return, Guardian, by Robin McKie, 2 Dec 18 “…………Great Barrier Reef  Coral reefs cover a mere 0.1% of the world’s ocean floor but they support about 25% of all marine species. They also provide nature with some of its most beautiful vistas. For good measure, coral reefs protect shorelines from storms, support the livelihoods of 500 million people and help generate almost £25bn of income. Permitting their destruction would put the planet in trouble – which is precisely what humanity is doing.

Rising sea temperatures are already causing irreparable bleaching of reefs, while rising sea levels threaten to engulf reefs at a faster rate than they can grow upwards. Few scientists believe coral reefs – which are made of simple invertebrates related to sea anemones – can survive for more than a few decades.

Yet those who have sounded clear warnings about our reefs have received little reward. Professor Terry Hughes, a coral expert at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, recently studied the impact of El Niño warmings in 2016 and 2017 on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef and its largest living entity – and wept when he saw the damage.

“The 2016 event killed 30% of corals, the one a year later killed another 20%. Very close to half the corals have died in the past three years,” he said recently.

For his pains, Hughes has faced demands from tourist firms for his funding to be halted because he was ruining their business. “The Australian government is still promoting new developments of coal mines and fracking for gas,” Hughes said, after being named joint recipient of the John Maddox prize, given to those who champion science in the face of hostility and legal threats. “If we want to save the Great Barrier Reef, these outdated ambitions need to be abandoned. Yet Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising, not falling. It’s a national disgrace.”

This grim picture is summed up by the ethnographer Irus Braverman in her book Coral Whisperers: “The Barrier Reef has changed for ever. The largest living structure in the world has become the largest dying structure in the world.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/02/world-verge-climate-catastophe

December 3, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, climate change, oceans | 1 Comment

UN Climate Conference faces the daunting need for the world to quit coal

The World Needs to Quit Coal. Why Is It So Hard?, NYT, By Somini SenguptaNov. 24, 2018
   “……..Scientists have repeatedly warned of its looming dangers, most recently on Friday, when a major scientific report issued by 13 United States government agencies warned that the damage from climate change could knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end if significant steps aren’t taken to rein in warming.

An October report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on global warming found that avoiding the worst devastation would require a radical transformation of the world economy in just a few years.

Central to that transformation: Getting out of coal, and fast………

Vietnam says it is on track to meet its emissions reductions targets under the Paris accord. So, too, China and India, with far bigger carbon footprints. But those targets were set by the countries themselves, and they will not be enough to keep global temperatures from rising to calamitous levels. The United States has said it will exit the Paris climate pact.

Those sobering facts loom over the next round of international climate negotiations, starting Dec. 3 in the heart of Poland’s coal country. The American delegation plans to promote coal at the event, just as it did at last year’s talks in Bonn, Germany. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/climate/coal-global-warming.html

December 3, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, politics international | Leave a comment

 World Meteorological Organization warns: world running out of time to combat climate change

Past four years hottest on record, data shows https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/29/four-years-hottest-record-climate-change Fiona HarveyEnvironment correspondent 29 Nov 2018 

World running out of time to combat climate change, warns meteorological organisation Global temperatures have continued to rise in the past 10 months, with 2018 expected to be the fourth warmest year on record.

Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C (1.8F) above pre-industrial levels. Extreme weather has affected all continents, while the melting of sea ice and glaciers and rises in sea levels continue. The past four years have been the hottest on record, and the 20 warmest have occurred in the past 22 years.

The warming trend is unmistakeable and shows we are running out of time to tackle climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which on Thursday published its provisional statement on the State of the Climate in 2018. The WMO warned that, on current trends, warming could reach 3C to 5C by the end of this century.

“These are more than just numbers,” said Elena Manaenkova, the WMO deputy secretary general. “Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life.”

The world has committed to keeping warming to no more than 2C above such levels, with an aspiration to limit rises to 1.5C, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said will cause the dieback of coral reefs, sea-level rises and extreme weather in many regions.

Greenhouse gas levels were also recently found to be at record levels, and a UN report this week said the world must triple its emissions reduction efforts to stay within 2C – and to stay within 1.5C, those efforts needed to be five times greater.

The IPCC found that continued rises in greenhouse gas emissions over the next 12 years could result in a breaching of the 1.5C limit.

On Monday, the Met Office said summer temperatures in the UK could be 5C hotter by 2070, making this year’s heatwave the norm for the future, while winters could get much wetter. London could become increasingly vulnerable to storms and flooding owing to sea-level rises, with the water level in the capital likely to rise by 1.15 metres by the end of the century.

The WMO found the extent of Arctic sea ice in 2018 was much lower than normal, with the maximum in March the third lowest on record and the September minimum the sixth lowest.

The oceans have been absorbing record or near-record amounts of heat at certain periods. The year started with a weak La Niña event but by October there were signs of a return to El Niño conditions, which can raise global temperatures further.

There were a greater number of violent storms than usual, including 70 tropical cyclones in the northern hemisphere, compared with the long-term average of 53. Storms brought devastation to the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Vietnam, the Korean peninsula and Tonga, while hurricanes Florence and Michael caused substantial damage in the US.

Wildfires raged in Greece, Canada, California and other areas, while floods devastated Kerala in India and displaced more than 1.4 million people. Japan also experienced serious flooding, as did east Africa.

Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the WMO, a leading authority on climate change, said: “We are not on track to meet climate targets and rein in temperature increases. If we exploit all known fossil fuel resources, the temperature rise will be considerably higher.

“We are the first generation to fully understand climate change and the last generation to be able to do something about it.”

Manaenkova added that every effort to reduce greenhouse gases and the impacts of climate change was worthwhile. “Every bit matters,” she said, citing the harm done by temperature rises to every aspect of life, including economic productivity, food security, glacier melt and water supplies, and the future of low-lying islands and coastal communities.

Jens Mattias Clausen, Greenpeace’s head of delegation at the UN climate change conference (COP24) in Poland, said: “The evidence, if we needed any more, continues to stack up. The record-high heatwaves, record-low Arctic sea ice, above average tropical cyclones and deadly wildfires are an alarm bell impossible to ignore. We’re in the midst of a climate crisis and this meteorological report spells out the worsening threat in startling clarity. It’s no longer our future that is in peril; our today is at risk.

“The recent IPCC report also showed that we still have hope. We have 12 years to move the needle and any leader who comes to COP24 unprepared to step up and take action needs to read the WMO report and understand it’s time to stop talking and start acting on climate – while we still have the chance.”

December 1, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

Australian schoolchildren on strike for action on climate change

Kids across Australia walk out of school to protest climate inaction

Climate change is the biggest threat to our futures, not striking from school https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/climate-change-is-the-biggest-threat-to-our-futures-not-striking-from-school Milou Albrecht, Harriet O’Shea Carre and Jean Hinchcliffe, 29 Nov 2018

We are walking out for a day to send the Australian government a message: you can no longer pretend we are not here. his month, hundreds of children are going on strike from school to demand urgent action on climate change. From rural Victoria to Townsville, we are walking out of school for a day or more to tell our politicians to listen to us and protect our futures.

We are Milou, Jean and Harriet and we are 14 years old.

Two of us – Milou and Harriet – live in rural Victoria. Throughout our lives, we’ve witnessed the impacts that drought, bushfires and extreme weather have on a community. We have been forced to evacuate when a bushfire came through our town. It was scary. But it is something that will happen more and more as climate change gets worse.

We feel frustrated and let down when we think about the climate crisis and our future. There is so much our politicians could be doing that they aren’t. It seems they are in denial. Our government is supposed to protect us, not destroy our chances of a safe future. Continue reading →

December 1, 2018 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, climate change, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

World’s Worst Public Health Crisis  – Climate Change

A New Report Finds That Climate Change is the World’s Worst Public Health Crisis https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/climate-change-public-health-report/

Researchers forecast more disease and disaster as the planet warms.

ROWAN WALRATH AND REBECCA LEBER, NOVEMBER 28, 2018 A report released Wednesday by the Lancet Countdown calls climate change “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century,” and warns that if it is not addressed, disease, poor air quality, and food insecurity will threaten millions of people.

The report, written by a team of international researchers, focuses on several climate-related impacts, including extreme heat and its effect on labor productivity and the spread of disease. In 2017, 153 billion hours of labor were lost due to heat—an increase of more than 62 billion hours since 2000. This correlates with a rise in exposure to heat waves and extreme weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires that have already made thousands of climate refugees and are expected to create millions more.

Many of those refugees, one of the report’s author notes, are American. In a press call on Tuesday, Renee Salas, a doctor of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and lead author of the Lancet Countdown US Brief, described a recent experience close to home. “I had a patient who came from Puerto Rico, came with bag of luggage, bag of medication she hasn’t taken in days. She was truly a climate refugee who was in my emergency department,” Salas said. “I can’t think of a population more at risk of health effects than a displaced individual.”

Even small changes in temperature and precipitation can result in large changes in the transmission of vector-borne and water-borne diseases, the report notes. In 2016, there were significant increases in the the capacity for insect-borne bacteria and viruses—especially those that cause dengue fever, cholera, and malaria—to be transmitted. (This finding was echoed in last week’s federal climate assessment, which found that climate change would “alter the geographic range and distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests” in the United States.)

Meanwhile, the world’s capacity to grow food also appears to be under threat. An examination of agricultural yields shows declines in every region; 30 countries produced less food in recent years.

The Lancet Countdown’s report does include cause for hope. More electric vehicles were on the road in a 2017 than ever before, and investment in renewable energy has significantly increased, while coal consumption continues to decline. China is responsible for many of these changes. It claims more than 40 percent of all electric cars sold, and it is leading in the installation of renewable energy sources.

Yet spending on climate change adaptation remains well below the amount outlined by the 2015 Paris Agreement, which President Donald Trump has announced the United States will not abide by. And only 3.8 percent of that spending is dedicated to human health. Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, now the director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University, says it is crucial to recognize the impacts of climate change on health. She describes visiting California in the midst of the recent wildfire that spread smoke across the state. “It was so clear to see people with masks on literally walking on the streets of San Francisco and downtown Palo Alto,” McCarthy says. “This didn’t look like the United States of America.”

Fine particulate matter—what the masks McCarthy saw Californians wearing are designed to filter out—accounted for nearly 3 million premature deaths in 2015, according to the report. Pollution has actually worsened in nearly three-quarters of the world’s cities since 2010. Road fuel use increased by 2 percent from 2013 to 2015, and cycling—a main alternative to driving in cities—made up less than 10 percent of commutes.

The report, which is aimed at health professionals, argues that they must do more to educate the public about climate change. The impacts of inaction, the report’s authors write, cannot be overstated. As McCarthy notes, “I don’t think people question a diagnosis from their physicians just because a president decides he might not believe in something. This is not about a belief system. This is about science and facts.”

December 1, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, health | Leave a comment

The over-looked solution to climate change – equality for women

Gender equity is the most overlooked solution for climate change https://www.fastcompany.com/90274155/gender-equity-is-the-most-overlooked-solution-for-climate-change

“Gender and climate are inextricably linked.” BY ADELE PETERS, 30 Nov 18

The list of solutions to climate change usually focuses on technology: solar power, electric cars, devices that suck carbon out of the atmosphere. But one impactful solution is often overlooked.

At TEDWomen, TED’s conference focused on women and girls, environmentalist Katharine Wilkinson explained why gender equity is a critical piece of addressing climate change. “Gender and climate are inextricably linked,” said Wilkinson, one of the authors of Project Drawdown, a book that takes a deep dive into the most effective ways to fight global warming, and found that empowering women and girls was one of the top solutions.

Women and girls face more risks as the climate changes, from higher odds of being killed during a natural disaster to a greater risk of being forced into an early marriage or prostitution if prolonged drought or floods destroy a family’s finances. But improving gender equity can also directly impact emissions.

In lower-income countries, female farmers grow most of the food on small farms. But women don’t have the same access to resources as men who farm–from credit to training and tools. “They farm as capably and efficiently as men, but this well-documented disparity in resources and rights means women produce less food on the same amount of land,” said Wilkinson. When farms are less productive, that leads to deforestation, as farmers clear more land to grow the same amount of food. If women had the same tools as male farmers, Project Drawdown calculates that they could grow 20-30% more food on the same amount of land. That translates into 2 billion tons of emissions that could be avoided between now and 2050.

Gender equity in education also matters for the climate. One-hundred-thirty million girls still don’t have the right to attend school. When girls go to school, it changes many things–their health, their financial security, and their agency. But it also means that they’re more likely to marry later and choose to have fewer children. Family size is also obviously impacted by access to contraception; hundreds of millions of women say that they want to decide when to have children, but aren’t using contraception. If women have the right to choose to have smaller families, it could lead to one billion fewer people inhabiting Earth by midcentury, and dramatically reduced demand for food, electricity, and other basic services. That could mean avoiding 120 billion tons of emissions.

“If we gain ground on gender equity, we also gain ground on addressing global warming,” Wilkinson said.

December 1, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change, Women | Leave a comment

In a warming world, nuclear power is extremely vulnerable to water shortages and problems

For nuclear plants, that warning is particularly grave.  Reactors require 720 gallons of water per megawatt-hour of electricity they produce……Solar plants, by contrast, use approximately 20 gallons per megawatt-hour, mostly for cleaning equipment

Trump Administration’s Climate Report Raises New Questions About Nuclear Energy’s Future
The thirstiest source of electricity is already struggling, and greater risk of droughts will only add to those woes. Huffington Post.By Alexander C. Kaufman, 28 Nov 18, 

Call it the nuclear power industry’s thirst trap.

The United States’ aging fleet of nuclear reactors ― responsible for one-fifth of the country’s electricity and most of its low-carbon power ― has never been more necessary as policymakers scramble to shrink planet-warming emissions. Yet the plants are struggling to stay afloat, with six stations shut down in the last five years and an additional 16 reactors scheduled to close over the next decade. So far, new coal- and gas-burning facilities are replacing them.

The nuclear industry blames high maintenance costs, competition from cheaper alternatives and hostile regulators concerned about radiation disasters like the 2012 Fukushima meltdown in Japan. But the country’s most water-intensive source of electricity faces what could be an even bigger problem as climate change increases the risk of drought and taxes already crumbling water infrastructure.

That finding, highlighted in the landmark climate change report that the Trump administration released with apparent reluctance last Friday, illustrates the complex and at times paradoxical realities of anthropogenic, or human-caused, warming. It also stokes an already hot debate over the role nuclear energy should play in fighting global warming, a month after United Nations scientists warned that carbon dioxide emissions must be halved in the next 12 years to avoid cataclysmic climate change leading to at least $54 trillion in damage.

The report ― the second installment of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated update on the causes and effects of anthropogenic warming from 13 federal agencies ― devoted its entire third chapter to water contamination and depletion. Aging, deteriorating infrastructure means “water systems face considerable risk even without anticipated future climate changes,” the report states. But warming-linked droughts and drastic changes in seasonal precipitation “will add to the stress on water supplies and adversely impact water supply.”

Nearly every sector of the economy is susceptible to water system changes. And utilities are particularly at risk. In the fourth chapter, the report’s roughly 300 authors conclude, “Most U.S. power plants … rely on a steady supply of water for cooling, and operations are expected to be affected by changes in water availability and temperature increases.”

For nuclear plants, that warning is particularly grave.  Reactors require 720 gallons of water per megawatt-hour of electricity they produce, according to data from the National Energy Technology Laboratory in West Virginia cited in 2012 by the magazine New Scientist. That compares with the roughly 500 gallons coal requires and 190 gallons natural gas needs to produce the same amount of electricity. Solar plants, by contrast, use approximately 20 gallons per megawatt-hour, mostly for cleaning equipment, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group.

Nuclear plants are already vulnerable to drought. Federal regulations require plants to shut down if water in the river or lake that feeds its cooling drops below a certain level. By the end of the 2012 North American heat wave, nuclear generation fell to its lowest point in a decade, with plants operating at only 93 percent of capacity.

The availability of water is one problem, particularly for the majority of U.S. nuclear plants located far from the coasts and dependent on freshwater. Another is the temperature of the water that’s available.

Nearly half the nuclear plants in the U.S. use once-through cooling systems, meaning they draw water from a local source, cool their reactors, then discharge the warmed water into another part of the river, lake, aquifer or ocean. Environmental regulations bar plants from releasing used water back into nature above certain temperatures. In recent years, regulators in states like New York and California rejected plant operators’ requests to pull more water from local rivers, essentially mandating the installation of costly closed-loop systems that cool and reuse cooling water.

In 2012, Connecticut’s lone nuclear power plant shut down one of its two units because the seawater used to cool the plant was too warm. The heat wave that struck Europe this summer forced utilities to scale back electricity production at nuclear plants in Finland, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. In France the utility EDF shut down four reactors in one day.

“Already they’re having trouble competing against natural gas and renewable energy,” said John Rogers, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Add onto that high water temperatures, high air temperatures and drought. It’s just another challenge.”

……..  the heart of the biggest question looming over the nuclear industry: Is it, given the radioactive waste it produces, clean energy?

……… For the Sierra Club, the environmental giant making a huge push to get cities and states to go all renewable, nuclear power is “a uniquely dangerous energy technology for humanity” and “no solution to climate change.”

“There’s no reason to keep throwing good money after bad on nuclear energy,” Lauren Lantry, a Sierra Club spokeswoman, said by email. “It’s clear that every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on truly safe, affordable, and renewable energy sources like wind, solar, energy efficiency, battery storage, and smart grid technology.”  https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/nuclear-energy-climate-change-report_us_5bfdb9cae4b0a46950dce58f

November 29, 2018 Posted by | climate change, USA, water | Leave a comment

Donald Trump can’t believe in climate change, because of his ‘VERY HIGH LEVELS OF INTELLIGENCE’

November 29, 2018 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

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