Labour hits out at PM’s ‘recklessly expensive habits’ after latest flight to event in Lancashire
Rishi Sunak has been criticised for taking a domestic flight in an RAF jet for the third time in 10 days.
The prime minister flew on a 14-seat aircraft to an event in Lancashire to hold the first of what is due to be a series of events where he will take questions from the public.
Continue reading...The state’s EPA is unveiling what it calls Australia’s ‘most comprehensive plan’ to cut carbon emissions
New South Wales’s environmental watchdog has released what it calls Australia’s “most comprehensive plan” to regulate carbon emissions, requiring firms to show how they will hit net zero by 2050 and nudging them to improve resilience in a warming world.
The Climate Change Policy and Action Plan 2023-26, released on Friday by the Environment Protection Authority, will identify what progress is already under way by companies now covered by pollution licences and encourage them to improve.
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Continue reading...Travel without the combustion-engine fumes and noise is increasingly popular in the country with some of the world’s worst air pollution
Thailand’s iconic, gas-guzzling tuk-tuks are being replaced by a greener, more energy efficient model, offering travellers a more environmentally friendly way of getting around what is one of the world’s worst countries when it comes to air pollution.
“The benefits are quite clear in terms of the environment”, says Krisada Kritayakirana, co-founder and CEO of start-up Urban Mobility Tech. “When you use traditional tuk-tuks, you can smell the gas and it sometimes could be unpleasant. With the electric tuk-tuks, basically you don’t have any noise and you don’t have any emission from tailpipes.”
Continue reading...George Eustice says adapted kerosene boilers can run on ‘hydro-treated vegetable oil’ and cut emissions by 88%
A proposal to incentivise households in rural areas to run their heating systems on vegetable oil is to be put to parliament.
The former environment secretary George Eustice will introduce a bill proposing the removal of duties on renewable liquid heating fuels and incentives to replace kerosene in existing boilers.
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Australian involvement in construction of Aukus submarines important, acting defence minister says
More on submarines. In an interview with ABC Radio, the veterans affairs and acting defence minister, Matt Keogh, has reaffirmed the government’s confidence it can reach its deadline of acquiring nuclear submarines by the end of the next decade.
We’re certainly alive to the concerns that were raised in that letter that those congressmen wrote, but we’ve been engaging with the Biden administration, very positively … The American government and the UK Government are as committed as the Australian government to this project and see that there is a pathway forward on how we will go about procuring these submarines.
The industrial base for all of the three countries – Australia included - is critical to achieving those outcomes and making sure that we’re able to grow the pie by bringing the Australian industrial base into those existing industrial bases is very important.
Continue reading...Plan that is key to Albanese government’s 2030 target will focus on emissions intensity to encourage cleaner practices rather than cutting production
Australia’s big polluting sites will have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 5% a year but will face no limits on the use of carbon offsets under the Albanese government’s plan to deal with industrial emitters.
The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, on Tuesday released the government’s plan to revamp the safeguard mechanism, a Coalition policy that was promised to limit emissions from more than 200 industrial facilities, but in practice has failed.
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More than 80% of council areas declared disasters in the past four years, Watt says
Murray Watt was hesitant to attribute the individual disaster in the Kimberley to climate change, unlike his colleague Chris Bowen. But he said the overall pattern of increasing disasters was “undoubtedly climate change”:
I don’t think that you can point to one particular event and say it’s due to climate change, but there is no doubt that we are seeing before our eyes is climate change happening. We know from all the scientists that we’re going to be facing more of these intense events more frequently.
I was actually advised yesterday by our agency that just in the last 12 months we’ve seen 316 of Australia’s 537 council areas disaster-declared: that’s about 60% of the council areas in the country. And if you go back four years to the black summer, 438 council areas in Australia have been disaster-declared, which is over 80%.
A lot of people aren’t aware but the wet season in northern Western Australia … generally doesn’t begin until later this month. So their wettest months actually tend to be February and March rather than starting as early as January. So to have this amount of water come through the system this early in the wet season is a concern.
Continue reading...Declining soil organic carbon could undermine state’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050
Forests in New South Wales could become net carbon emitters in coming decades, undermining state government efforts to reach net zero emissions, according to a report by one of its own agencies.
The Natural Resources Commission has warned the Perrottet government the carbon benefits the state’s forests provide are degrading and will continue to degrade without “major intervention”.
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Continue reading...Jim Chalmers will say global investors increasingly see ‘a new harmony between profit and planet’
Banks and other big businesses will be forced to come clean with the public about what they are doing to cut emissions under plans put forward by the Albanese government.
The government is also looking for ways to crack down on “greenwashing” – or when businesses try to win over consumers by overhyping their environmental practices.
Continue reading...Increase for fourth consecutive month, with almost 143,000 new vehicles registered in November
Sales of new cars in the UK have risen for the fourth month running, with purely electric vehicles accounting for a fifth of the total.
In the best November for the industry since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, almost 143,000 new vehicles were registered.
Continue reading...Climate change minister tells parliament official projection of 40% cut does not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments
Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has declared the country on track to reach a 40% cut in climate pollution by 2030 – just short of the national target of 43% – but the government has been told a “big upward shift in momentum” is needed to tackle the problem.
Giving the country’s first climate statement to parliament, which is now required annually under legislation passed earlier this year, Bowen said the official projection of a 40% cut did not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments, and that those measures would “lift our result to at least 43%”.
The statement did not shed light on what the government would do to make deeper cuts in line with its goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, an expectation raised by a UN-backed report if the Great Barrier Reef is to avoid being nominated as a world heritage site “in danger”. It also did not mention the country’s vast coal and gas export industries.
State attempts to push through plans to shut hundreds of farms to cut nitrogen oxide emissions
The Dutch government is offering to buy out up to 3,000 “peak polluter” farms and major industrial polluters in an attempt to reduce ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law.
The nitrogen minister, Christianne van der Wal, said farmers would be offered more than 100% of the value of their farms to quit. For the first time, the government has said that forced buyouts will follow next year if the voluntary measures fail.
Continue reading...The censure motion against Scott Morrison over multiple ministries scandal will be debated in House of Representatives tomorrow. Follow the day’s news live
Bipartisanship cedes to brinkmanship in battle over integrity commission
Meanwhile, Mark Dreyfus is preparing to stare down the Liberals and the Greens over an amendment to the national anti-corruption commission legislation which Dreyfus says risks establishing the commission and the Liberals and Greens say will ensure it won’t be political.
Continue reading...Lachlan River is at major flood level and SES predicts a record peak of 7.8 metres on Monday. This blog is now closed
Poppy seed tea warning
Australians are being warned not to drink poppy seed tea, promoted on popular social media platforms, after a spate of poisoning cases across Australia linked to the home-brewed sedative.
Continue reading...As Cop27 discusses climate finance, report says continent’s GDP growth could fall by two-thirds this century
African countries, which are the least responsible for the global climate crisis, face seeing their GDP growth rate fall by up to 64% by the end of the century, according to research – even if the world succeeds in limiting global heating to 1.5C.
As world leaders hustle over climate action at the UN summit in Egypt, a study commissioned by Christian Aid has found that burning fossil fuels at the current rate will have a huge impact on the finances of African countries. The average hit to GDP per capita could be as much as 34%, finds the report, while the effect on GDP growth will lead to an average 20% reduction in rates by 2050 and a huge 64% on average by 2100.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president says Russia’s invasion has forced dozens of countries to resume coal-fired power to alleviate energy costs
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told world leaders they will not be able to tackle the climate crisis unless Russia’s invasion of his country ends.
“There can be no effective climate policy without the peace,” he said in a video address at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday. “The Russian war has brought about an energy crisis that has forced dozens of countries to resume coal-fired power generation in order to lower energy prices for their people, to lower prices that are shockingly rising due to deliberate Russian actions.”
Continue reading...President not expected to attend summit but critics cast doubt on veracity of pledges the country could make
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Mexico, one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, is expected to announce a hotchpot of old, inadequate and undeliverable climate pledges that will leave its Paris pledges in tatters, experts have warned.
Climate action has nosedived under the leadership of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had to be blocked from rolling back Mexico’s modest Paris greenhouse gas targets by the country’s supreme court, and emissions are rising.
A reduction in methane emissions from the state-owned oil company, Pemex – an important but existing target for which Pemex has been fined for non-compliance.
A 1,000MW state-opened solar plant – construction is already under way for a 180MW project, and the government had previously already ruled out further investment to expand the energy potential.
A lithium commitment. Mexico has the ninth-largest identified deposits of lithium – a crucial mineral for electric vehicles and other green technologies – but there has been no government investment so far in advancing extraction, and none is currently being mined. Experts say the country is years away from producing its first gram of lithium.
Continue reading...As the UN’s Cop27 summit begins in Egypt, there are warnings more must be done to avert climate breakdown
Last year’s UN Cop26 climate talks in Scotland were framed by John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy on the climate crisis, as the “last best hope for the world to get its act together” and avert climate breakdown. As world leaders gather in Egypt for Cop27, evidence suggests they have yet to fully do so.
The Glasgow conference drew collective promises by governments to “phase down” coal use, curb deforestation, advance remedial payments to developing countries hit hardest by floods, heatwaves and droughts, and to come back the following year with more ambitious emissions reduction targets.
Continue reading...António Guterres tells leaders ‘global climate fight will be won or lost in this crucial decade – on our watch’
Humanity is on a “highway to climate hell”, the UN secretary general has warned, saying the fight for a liveable planet will be won or lost in this decade.
António Guterres told world leaders at the opening of the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Monday: “We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing … And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Claim by academics, including former integrity chair of Australia’s carbon credit scheme, raises further doubts about system
Projects meant to regenerate Australia’s outback forests to store carbon dioxide have been awarded millions of carbon credits – worth hundreds of millions of dollars – despite total tree and shrub cover in those areas having declined, a new analysis has found.
It is the latest claim that raises doubts about the integrity of Australia’s carbon credit system, which the federal government and polluting businesses rely on to meet targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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