This is the final version of a post first published on Thursday 26 September. This version contains additional material, and a considerable amount of the earlier version has been pruned.
I hope to do a specific post on the UN Climate Action Summit in New York. Meanwhile we have a closing media release from the summit. While it tells us that “77 countries committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, [and] while 70 countries announced they will either boost their national action plans by 2020 or have started the process of doing so”, none of the large emitters were included. Matt McDonald, Associate Professor of International Relations at the The University of Queensland, gives a neat summary with lots of links in Highly touted UN climate summit failed to deliver – and Scott Morrison failed to show up.
One success of the Summit was Greta Thunberg’s amazing speech:
They say self funding is basically impossible, because Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) does not have the capacity to fund it. Adani Mining is already carrying $1.8 billion of debt in Australia. The project would require the coal market to stay robust for decades. Tim Buckley:
“In IEEFA’s view, Adani’s Carmichael thermal coal proposal is unviable and unbankable on any normal commercial evaluation, absent massive government subsidy support in both India and Australia,” says Buckley.
“Adani’s suggestion it will self-fund this proposal is a clear acknowledgement of this.”
“The substance of the report is that there is still time to save the world’s peoples from the catastrophic consequence of pollution, but time is running out.”
The speaker was concerned that by the year 2000 the heat balance would be so modified as to possibly cause marked changes in the climate. Continue reading Climate clippings 231→
I believe that by the middle of next decade people denying significant human agency in causing climate change will constitute a crank fringe and will basically be ignored.
The Climate of the Nation 2018 report, now produced by The Australia Institute (pdf here), found that more Australians accept the reality of climate change than at almost any time since Climate of the Nation began in 2007.
Three quarters (76%, up from 71% 2017) of Australians accept that climate change is occurring, 11% do not think that climate change is occurring and 13% are unsure.
Acceptance of climate change closely follows voting intentions, but interestingly while One Nation (22%) and Nationals (15%) voters are the most likely to say they do not think that climate change is occurring, this declined significantly for both groups since 2017.
The effects of heat are the driving concern about the impact of climate change, and people were most concerned about more droughts and flooding affecting crop production and food supply (78%), destruction of the Great Barrier Reef (77%) and more bushfires (76%).
In breaking news out of the nation’s capital, a rich white dude from Sydney has replaced another rich white dude from Sydney as the Prime Minister.
And:
in even more sensational news, a rich white woman has been replaced by a rich white man for the Deputy Prime Ministership, with Josh Frydenberg taking over from Julie Bishop.
Scott Morrison, the new rich dude, is selling himself as a generational change and it’s all about you, the voter. A 64 year-old and a 62 year-old have been replaced by a 50 year-old and a 47 year-old.
James Cook University has sacked academic Professor Peter Ridd, he claims because he “dared to fight the university and speak the truth about science and the Great Barrier Reef”. He rejects the scientific evidence linking human activity to degradation of the Great Barrier Reef, and takes the view that the Reef is doing fine.
“We defend Peter’s right to make statements in his area of academic expertise and would continue to do that until we are blue in the face,” Gordon says.
“The issue has never been about Peter’s right to make statements – it’s about how he has continually broken a code of conduct that we would expect all our staff to stick to, to create a safe, respectful and professional workplace.”
Not well at all, according to the scientists. Actually it is a travesty of language to call Abbott’s position “science”. In this piece I’ll highlight the kind of thinking that unfortunately cannot be dismissed as an Abbott aberration, but has the Turnbull government in it’s thrall. Let’s start with David Rowe’s amazing cartoon from the AFR:
Parkinson highlights the difference between promise and performance. Back in December, when the interim report came out, Finkel’s future looked exciting: Continue reading Finkel fail at Inside Story→
I’m reminded of my school days when our German teacher on the last day of term used to read us tales of Baron Münchhausen, who on one occasion jumped on his horse and rode off madly in all directions. There is so much going on, fully covered at RenewEconomy, so it is difficult to select the most significant. I’ll try a couple of themes, and include some AFR coverage, which is trying to keep business informed.
Bloomberg is warning that the multi-trillion-dollar ‘big crash’ in oil investments could start as soon as 2023. However, the smart money is bound to move earlier. Here’s the progress of electric car sales:
In what is called ‘attribution science’ climate scientists are getting better at analysing how much climate change has influenced particular extreme weather events.
In short, it is no longer a question of weather there is an influence, rather how much.
Pauline Hanson’s running mate, Malcolm Roberts, is a climate denialist of some fame, but in joining the Senate he is merely a noisy addition to the climate denialists already there, raising the question of how we deal with the phenomenon in the political sphere. We know that scientific information doesn’t work.
Two of the best articles on the Finkel Review are at Inside Story – Giles Parkinson’s 
Pauline Hanson’s running mate, Malcolm Roberts, is a climate denialist of some fame, but in