Global Climate Change Science News

[macdoc]

Bit late mate for the welcome ...

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, started out on Earth quite a while ago. Possible fossil examples have been found in rocks that are around 3500 million years old, in Western Australia.

[Svartalf]

I want to be buried in diatomaceous earth

[Brian Peacock]

Australia will co-sponsor Vanuatu’s historic bid for the international court of justice to rule on the climate crisis, including the legal consequences for causing significant environmental harm.

The Pacific island country will soon put a resolution to the UN general assembly seeking an opinion on the international legal obligations that countries have to act on the climate crisis.

The resolution asks the ICJ to pay particular attention to the harm experienced by small island developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... imate-harm

[pErvinalia]

Australia while approving 100 new coal and gas mines.

[macdoc]

Ummm what is a gas mine? ....meaningless rhetoric without a citation.

Coal going to China and no certainty they will ever be built.

If 15 planned coal mining projects in Australia enter operation they would boost the country's methane emissions from the dirtiest fossil fuel by nearly a fifth, according to an analysis from energy think tank Ember.

https://www.mining.com/web/new-australi ... ons-by-19/

The declining cost of renewable energy sources, such as solar power, wind power and battery storage, means it is unlikely a new coal-fired power station will ever be built in Australia. The Liddell Power Station is expected to be decommissioned and replaced by battery storage in 2023.

[JimC]

Most of the proposed new coal mines are either for iron smelting or export. Coal fired electricity generation in Australia is certainly on the decline. A raft of new gas projects are also being planned - it is to be hoped that the Federal government will at least knock back most of them, particularly those involving fracking, coal seam gas or the exploitation of First Nations land.

[pErvinalia]

Ummm what is a gas mine? ....meaningless rhetoric without a citation.

Don't play dumb.

[Brian Peacock]

Australia’s New Oil and Gas Approvals Show ‘Climate Wars’ Aren’t Over

... The new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been working hard to convince the world that Australia will now take climate action seriously, after the nation spent nearly a decade as an international climate pariah under the previous government.

On election night in May, Albanese pledged to end divisive political “climate wars” and make Australia a “renewable energy superpower.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong headed straight to the Pacific promising, “We will act – standing shoulder to shoulder with the Pacific as we address the climate crisis.”

The prime minister himself then joined Pacific Island leaders in Fiji in July declaring a climate emergency and a commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The diplomatic push was followed with concrete action.

Australia’s lower house of parliament passed a bill legislating a 43 percent emissions reduction target by 2030; the government gave strong support to renewable energy projects; and for the first time, an Australian environmental minister said she would reject a new coal mine because of its possible impact on the nearby Great Barrier Reef.

But the Albanese government is still trying to have it both ways. They want kudos for being climate champions but without showing any willingness to rein in Australia’s powerful fossil fuel industry.

The government denies responsibility for emissions created by the vast amounts of coal and gas Australia exports overseas as one of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, and has flatly ruled out any discussion on banning new fossil fuel projects.

And this week, the government approved 10 new ocean sites for oil and gas exploration.

The United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and the world’s leading climate scientists have made it very clear that to protect lives, livelihoods, and the environment from ever-growing risks, there can be no new investments in oil, gas, and coal.

True climate leadership requires tough, courageous decisions. The Albanese government needs to stop approving new fossil fuel projects and deliver on its promise of Australia as a renewable energy superpower. Anything less means the country’s “climate wars” are not over, and this is one fight we cannot afford to lose...

Methane from Australian coal and gas could be 60% higher than estimated

Methane emissions from Australian coalmines and gas production could be more than 60% higher than federal government estimates suggest, according to satellite and ground data released by the International Energy Agency.

The results of the Paris-based energy organisation’s annual methane tracker, released this week, led to renewed calls for the Albanese government to require emissions cuts at existing local and gas mines using existing technology and to block new developments.

Methane is a potent but short-lived greenhouse gas released from coal seams, oil and gas wells and production, leaking pipelines and agricultural livestock. Scientists say it is responsible for about 30% of global heating since the Industrial Revolution, and warned rapid cuts are needed to limit short-term warming.

The IEA has repeatedly found methane pollution was greater than suggested by official data, often compiled by fossil fuel companies and submitted by the government to the UN.

The latest tracker found 2.23m tonnes of methane was released from energy production in Australia last year, 63% more than the federal climate change department estimate of 1.37m tonnes. Other satellite-based studies have reported discrepancies at some Queensland coalmines.

The Greens’ leader, Adam Bandt, said it underlined the need for the government to use a proposed revamp of the safeguard mechanism, a climate policy applied to major industrial sites, to “rein in rising methane by stopping new coal and gas mines”.

It said the difference between the IEA and government methane estimates, when converted to carbon dioxide equivalent, was roughly the same as the annual cut in carbon emissions Labor had promised from the safeguard between now and 2030.

“When the climate pollution from methane is properly counted it is beyond doubt there is no room for new coal and gas mines in Australia,” Bandt said...

[pErvinalia]

Capitalism will fix the situation, hey Mac?

[Svartalf]

Yeah, I mean, if we let capitalists have their way, in a couple centuries the situation will be fixed until the next evolution of a sentient species.

[macdoc]

In part ...

Let's hear your solution oh snide one ?
Stop selling coal to China et al?

China plans to build as many as thirty nuclear power reactors in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative by 2030. By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100.

Plans For New Reactors Worldwide(Updated February 2023)
Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily, with about 60 reactors under construction.
Most reactors on order or planned are in the Asian region, though there are major plans for new units in Russia.
Significant further capacity is being created by plant upgrading.
Plant lifetime extension programmes are maintaining capacity, particularly in the USA.
Today there are about 440 nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries plus Taiwan, with a combined capacity of about 390 GWe. In 2021 these provided 2653 TWh, about 10% of the world's electricity.About 60 power reactors are currently being constructed in 15 countries, notably China, India and Russia. Units where construction is currently suspended, i.e. Ohma 1 and Shimane 3 (Japan), and Khmelnitski 3&4 (Ukraine), are not shown in the Table below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast-neutron_reactor

[Brian Peacock]

In part ...

Let's hear your solution oh snide one ?
Stop selling coal to China et al?

...

Individualising the problem again eh? Show us on the doll where the climate activist touched you.



Reducing export subsidies for fossil fuels would be a good place to start. As would acknowledging and taking responsibility for the contribution to Global Heating made by Australia's fossil exports - and not excluding exports from Australia's Paris Agreement NDCs. Not to mention stopping the fossil fuel sector marking its own homework as far as their carbon impact goes. Then there's relatively easily achievable measures that have already been agreed internationally, like not issuing any more exploration or extraction licences, or just honouring agreed commitments outlined in the 1993 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and its 2012 Doha Amendment, and the 2018 Paris Agreement.

But the first, and most important thing to do is to acknowledge and accept the nature and scale of the problem as outlined in the 2022 IPCC Mitigation Report: We're facing an unprecedented, human-caused environmental and climate catastrophe that presents an existential threat not only to humanity’s ways of living, but to our very existence (that's what 'existential threat' means btw) along with the existence of a huge number of the organisms we share our tiny pocket of the solar system with.

This is not tomorrow's problem - one that can or will be solved with technology that has not yet been developed or refined: this is yesterday's problem and we need to address it today with everything we have to hand at the moment. This is the only possible way we will ever get to the Star Trek high-tech utopia you're so distracted by and so keen to promote in these discussions as the 'solution' to Global Heating.

So what are you going to do about it?

[aufbahrung]

Folks can drown in a teaspoon of water, climate change is much worse than a teaspoon over the coming decades and centuries - best we can do now is construct a orbiting 'tombstone space-monument' to warn other species of what went wrong here should they visit sometime

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64815875

Too late to save environment, says Green Party co-founder

(continued)

[Brian Peacock]

Thank you Crumple.

[JimC]

An issue for Australian Federal governments in putting restrictions on fossil fuel exports is economic. Huge sums of money are generated by these exports, and the feds get their share via taxes. Even relatively progressive governments are reluctant to kill the golden goose...