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A single, national market that supplies all of Australia's electricty is looking dangerously outdated – and politically impossible. Shutterstock

The Finkel Review was a valiant attempt to find a path towards a 21st century energy market model for Australia. But political infighting and powerful interests have blocked one of its core proposals, a Clean Energy Target (CET). Despite the creation of a new Energy Security Board to try to hold regulators and policy makers to account, the ability of the present structure to deliver is uncertain.

State energy ministers, who have gathered today for the COAG Energy Council meeting, are now threatening to go it alone if the Commonwealth government does not commit to a CET. But the problem and opportunity is much broader. It’s time to step back and rethink energy policy.

The national model is failing

The National Electricity Market (NEM) was established in a context of an energy system comprised of large generators and large energy utilities, with energy flowing in one direction: from power station to consumer. Things have moved on. Most of the activity now is behind the meter, local, or within regions, although interstate energy flows are still very important.

State governments now recognise that their voters will blame or reward them for “keeping the lights on”, and are not prepared to suffer to help supply other states. Forward-thinking politicians also know they will win votes, and create jobs, by driving clean energy solutions.

The NEM has failed. Its very narrow economic objective was to provide low prices, reliable and safe energy, and to act in the long term interests of consumers. Many would score it zero out of three.

Despite the government’s acceptance of 49 recommendations of the Finkel Review that aim to fix many of the problems, few observers are confident that the deep cultural problems and powerful vested interests can be overcome – let alone the impact of a small number of conservative politicians within the Commonwealth government, who are holding energy policy hostage.

The COAG Energy Council is unworkable. It requires consensus to act, but differing state-level agendas block this on key issues. Indeed, the government has just proposed to go over the heads of the Council, and COAG, to remove the right of energy businesses to appeal against regulatory decisions after years of internal disagreement. Overriding the COAG Energy Council is an extreme tactic that cannot work for many other problematic issues.

The “top-down” nature of the NEM is out of date. Repeated criticisms of the lack of discipline of state governments by federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg merely confirm that this model won’t work.

Importantly, a large proportion of the real energy industry is not acknowledged as a formal part of the NEM structure. The NEM framework defines the electricity industry as licensed generators, network operators and retailers. While NEM reports talk about consumer choice and rights, they ignore the emerging industries such as renewable energy, storage, demand management, energy efficiency, businesses with new financial models, and so on. These businesses simply do not have a seat at the table.

The scale of change needed to make the present NEM model work is simply beyond our political system. In any case, there is an emerging alternative that can evolve in parallel with the NEM.

A real 21st century energy model

In practice, the NEM has functioned in parallel with several other mechanisms for years.

The Renewable Energy Target has operated since 2001. It was introduced to address the failure of the NEM to support renewable energy development. This market is quite separate, and operates on an annual basis, using trading of certificates and obligations on energy retailers.

Several states and the ACT now operate energy efficiency obligation schemes. These also operate through obligations on energy retailers, and most use tradable certificates. These schemes drive the installation of a range of energy efficiency measures.

At the industrial level, increasing numbers of businesses are investing in large renewable energy systems “behind the meter”, so they can insulate themselves from the chaos of the NEM. They need the price stability and reliability the NEM can’t deliver.

Several states and the ACT now have aggressive renewable energy targets – which have repeatedly been criticised by Frydenberg. The ACT has demonstrated that these schemes can work very well. They can reduce electricity prices, create local jobs, reinvigorate rural and regional economies – and win votes.

Because they involve long term contracts, their output is predictable. Other states (and consortia of councils, businesses, universities and others) are copying this model. State governments also still have significant powers to regulate network operators and retailers.

The future is distributed

If we look to the future, we see enormous growth in a diverse range of distributed energy solutions. These have many advantages over centralised solutions. Further, we see astounding diversity emerging in the energy system.

These trends cannot be managed by “command and control”, top-down mechanisms. Although national standards and coordination can be useful, they are not essential, and can easily block innovation.

Slide from ‘Our efficient, smart, flexible, distributed and diverse energy future’ presentation to APEC energy ministers conference. Author provided, Author provided

A practical energy model involves states and territories working with businesses, councils and communities. They would use existing powers over network operators and energy retailers, and would implement their own strategies for security and emissions reduction.

In this scenario, AEMO would monitor their policies and rates of implementation of demand-side and supply side energy services, and use its modelling capabilities to identify emerging imbalances. It would warn states where issues such as gaps between supply and demand and grid instability were emerging. Where states failed to act, AEMO would have power to intervene.

The NEM would continue to operate as a wholesale market for the “big guys” – large generators, industrial sites and transmission line operators. It would also provide performance information and advice to AEMO to inform its modelling and analysis.

The national RET effectively finishes in 2020: it can easily be replaced by state level strategies.

Thanks Dr Finkel. The reactions to your Review have demonstrated conclusively that we need a real 21st century energy system, and that a national approach based on the existing NEM simply won’t work.

Disclosure

Alan Pears has worked for government, business, industry associations public interest groups and at universities on energy efficiency, climate response and sustainability issues since the late 1970s. He is now an honorary Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University and a consultant, as well as an adviser to a range of industry associations and public interest groups. His investments in managed funds include firms that benefit from growth in clean energy. He has shares in Hepburn Wind.

Germany's election campaign shows we still have to get our heads around how fundamentally different electric vehicles will be.

Australia's public debate around clean energy plumbs new depths, with rebooted attacks on wind and solar, new attacks on battery storage and vehicle emission standards, and targeted attacks on key individuals. How did Australia get this stupid? And this ugly?

Al Gore has been visiting Australia this week – partly because he has a new film to promote, but also because he and Australian climate policy have had a surprisingly long entanglement. Given that this year is likely to be a bloody one as far as climate policy goes, don’t be surprised if he’s back again before 2017 is out.

Gore has a long and honourable record on climate change, although ironically his weakest period on climate coincided with the peak of his political power, as US Vice President.

As he says in his 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, he was first alerted to climate change by Roger Revelle, who can justly be called the (American) father of climate science. On becoming a Congressman, Gore was part of the move by Democrats to sustain momentum on climate policy that had stalled with the arrival of Ronald Reagan as President.

Gore organised Congressional hearings in 1981, and 1982 (NASA climatologist James Hansen’s first congressional testimony).

Even back then, the familiar political narrative around climate change had already formed, as journalism academic David Sachsman recalls:

The CBS Evening News for March 25, 1982, included a two minute and 50 second story by David Culhane on the greenhouse effect. Chemist Melvin Calvin raised the threat of global warming, Representative Al Gore called for further research, and James Kane of the Energy Department said there was no need for haste.

This report from the following year tells a similar tale, noting the political difficulty of solving the climate problem:

A youthful Gore in 1983.

By the time of the seminal Villach conference of October 1985, Gore was a Senator, and helped to organise the first Senate hearings since 1979. Gore’s colleague, Republican Senator David Durenberger remarked that “grappling with this problem [of climate change] is going to be just about as easy as nailing Jello to the wall”.

The following year, as Joshua Howe notes in his excellent book on the politics and science of climate change, Behind the Curve (2014), the then Senator Joe Biden introduced an initiative mandating that the president commission an executive-level task force to devise a strategy for responding to global warming – a strategy the president was meant to deliver to Congress within one year.

Gore scored another political victory on May 8, 1989, when Hansen testified that George H. W. Bush’s administration had ordered him to change the conclusions in written testimony regarding the seriousness of global warming

From Vice President to movie star

However, as Vice President to Bill Clinton, Gore disappointed environmentalists. An energy tax was defeated by industry lobbyists in 1993, and the Clinton administration (perhaps wisely) opted not to try and pass the Kyoto Protocol through a defiant Senate.

After leaving the West Wing he embraced Hollywood, where his budding movie career attracted derision in some quarters, despite the hefty policy achievements earlier in Gore’s career.

Besides an Inconvenient Truth (see here for an account of its impact in Australia), Gore “starred” in another movie, the 1990 philosophy-based talkie Mindwalk, starring Sam Waterston as Senator Jack Edwards, a thinly veiled version of Gore.

Former Australian industry minister Ian Macfarlane certainly considered Gore more entertainer than policymaker when speculating on his reasons for visiting in 2006:

Well, Al Gore’s here to sell tickets to a movie, and no one can begrudge him that. It’s just entertainment, and really that’s all it is.

Gore and Australia

Gore has been on these shores many times. During his May 2003 visit Gore urged the then Prime Minister John Howard to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He met with the then New South Wales Premier Bob Carr, and also with former Liberal leader and current climate hawk John Hewson. He spoke at an event co-hosted by the Business Council of Australia to advocate sustainable development.

After a controversial visit in 2005, Gore visited twice in 2006. As Joan Staples notes in her PhD, he teamed up with the Australian Conservation Foundation to launch his Climate Project:

Having reached out to the wider NGO sector, to doctors, unions, and the corporate sector, this initiative then moved ACF’s efforts towards influencing individual citizens. Gore’s organisation aimed to harness the power of mass mobilisation by expanding the message of his film An Inconvenient Truth.

Gore returned in 2007 and spoke at a A$1,000-a-plate event on the Sustainability and Cleantech Investment Market, with Carr introducing him while clutching a copy of Gore’s 1992 book Earth in the Balance.

He had his share of Australian critics too. On a frosty morning in July 2009 Gore’s launch speech of the Safe Climate Australia initiative attracted around 30 members of the newly formed Climate Sceptics Party, who handed out leaflets and wore t-shirts bearing their slogan: “Carbon Really Ain’t Pollution – CRAP”.

Gore also offered an opinion on Kevin Rudd’s proposed climate legislation:

It’s not what I would have written, I would have written it as a stronger bill, but I’m realistic about what can be accomplished in the political system as it is.

Gore seems to have (wisely) eschewed direct involvement during the tumultuous Julia Gillard years, but pitched in in October 2013 when the new Prime Minister Tony Abbott refused to link bushfires with climate change.

The Palmer moment

Perhaps the most bizarre, rub-my-eyes-did-that-just-happen moment came in June 2014, when Gore stood alongside Clive Palmer in a deal to save some of Gillard’s carbon policy package from Tony Abbott’s axe.

In July 2015, with the Paris climate conference approaching, Gore visited on a whistlestop tour that included meetings with senior business figures (BHP, National Australia Bank, Qantas, and Victorian state government ministers) to try and build momentum ahead of the crucial summit.

Looking into the crystal ball

Despite his Nobel Prize shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, not everyone is a fan, with Canadian journalism academic Chris Russill arguing that Gore’s approach “narrows our understanding of climate change discourse”.

And just because some climate sceptics think he’s a very naughty boy – and can change the weather by his mere presence – that doesn’t mean he’s the messiah.

Ultimately, we all need to find new and better ways of exerting more sustained pressure, not only on policymakers but also other institutions and norm-makers in our society, to change the trajectory we’re currently on.

Gore will keep banging on about climate change. He will turn up to give speeches, and will be both praised and derided. What matters is not what he does the same, but what we all do differently.

One of Australia’s largest independent residential solar installers announces the appointment of former Conergy executive David McCallum as managing director.

Federal, state and territory energy ministers are gathering today in Brisbane for the tenth meeting of the COAG Energy Council. In the wake of the Finkel Review, and against a backdrop of rising electricity and gas prices, they have much to discuss.

Some of the focus will certainly be on gas policy and prices. Earlier this week, the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, argued that state governments should develop their onshore gas reserves to relieve pressure on the gas market.

Victoria and the Northern Territory both have bans on onshore gas development, introduced partly to protect prime farming land.

Controversially, federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly suggested on Thursday that pressure from renewable resources on energy prices meant that “people will die” this winter if they’re afraid to turn on their heating.

Yet it is gas generation, not renewables, that typically sets the price in the electricity market. As Fairfax reported yesterday, electricity prices move up and down with the gas price, almost exactly in tandem.

What’s more, the reality is that Australia has enough existing gas reserves to keep producing at current rates, including exports to the international LNG market, for at least the next 25 years. Developing extra onshore gas potentially risks harming valuable agricultural land for little gain – and certainly won’t bring energy prices down by the end of this winter.

How much gas does Australia have?

In March this year, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) published its Gas Statement of Opportunities. This reports forecasts, among other things, maximum demand and annual consumption over a 20-year period, and the ability of the eastern Australian gas market to supply this demand.

The report also highlights locations where new infrastructure or developments may be needed. Gas resources are categorised into levels, according to how difficult and expensive it will be to access and process.

It’s worth taking a moment to define what’s meant by reserves and resources, as this makes a big difference to the cost and feasibility of development.

• Reserves. These are volumes of gas that are expected to be commercially viable. The category of proved and probable reserves is considered the best estimate of commercially recoverable reserves. These are often used as the basis for economic assessments, or in reports to the share market.

• Resources. These are broken down into “contingent” and “prospective” resources, depending on how much is known about them. Contingent resources are one step down from proved and probable reserves, and are upgraded once any uncertainty about their development has been resolved. Prospective resources are estimates of gas volumes from reservoirs that have not been drilled. These estimates are based on much less direct evidence than the other categories and, as the name suggests, are more dubious.

So how much gas reserves and resources did this year’s Gas Statement of Opportunities report? A lot.

Gas extraction is forecast to be about 2,000 petajoules (PJ) per year for the next 20 years, to meet both domestic and export demand. The table below, which shows the reserves and resources as published in the latest Gas Statement of Opportunity, shows we are in no danger of running short any time soon.

The proved and probable reserves alone are large enough to support another two-and-a-half decades of gas production. Notably, those reserves do not include gas from the Northern Territory, onshore gas from Victoria, or the controversial Narrabri onshore gas project in New South Wales.

Prices

Developing new sources of gas in eastern Australian is not cheap, particularly when compared to historical prices of A$3-4 per gigajoule (GJ). The Gas Statement of Opportunities includes the development costs of proved and probable reserves and contingent resources. (Prospective resources are not published, but are assumed to be above A$10 per GJ.)

The figure below, derived from the report, shows the cost curve of development. It indicates that at the low-cost end, some proved and probable coal seam gas and conventional gas reserves have development costs around A$2 per GJ.

Gas development cost curve for reserves and resources. There are currenly no onshore reserves or contingent resources in Victoria. AEMO, Gas Statement of Opportunities.

It also shows that about 40,000 petajoules (40 billion GJ) of gas – enough to supply 20 years of domestic and LNG export demand – is available at production costs of less than A$5.50 per GJ.

That gas prices are currently well above this points to the impact of the LNG export industry and internationally linked pricing in a sellers’ market.

As can be seen in the cost curve, Narrabri is the only onshore resource in NSW and Victoria that scores above the somewhat dubious prospective category. The Narrabri coal seam gas project is listed as a contingent resource, and is estimated by AEMO to cost A$7.25 per GJ to produce.

To put it another way, this gas is estimated to be more expensive to produce than 58,000PJ of other gas reserves and resources in eastern Australia.

Lifting the ban?

Given the volume of cheaper gas available offshore and in states without bans, it is unclear how lifting bans or placing additional pressure on states to develop onshore resources will have a material effect on gas prices.

This sentiment was reflected by the NSW energy minister, Don Harwin, who recently pointed out that “the idea that NSW’s gas sector was supposed to save the nation from the way the LNG sector grew is curious”.

Given the availability of other reserves, the potential impacts on agricultural land and the need to dramatically reduce our emissions, the expansion of the onshore gas sector is indeed a curious idea.

Dylan McConnell has received funding from the AEMC's Consumer Advocacy Panel and Energy Consumers Australia.

CEFC backs landmark NSW project to slash freight transport emissions by shifting containers from road to rail, and powering operations with renewable energy.

Victoria and South Australia have suggested a states-led initiative if the federal government continues to stall on a clean energy target. Could it work?

Australian states exasperated by federal government inaction on the key Finkel review recommendation of a clean energy target have indicated they might band together and go it alone if the federal Coalition does not provide the required leadership.

Before Friday’s meeting of energy ministers, for which the federal government refused to put a CET on the agenda, Labor-led Victoria and South Australia called for consideration of a linked-up state-based scheme, and urged Coalition-led NSW to join up. Given recent comments by the NSW energy minister, Don Harwin, who indicated support for the CET, such a move seems plausible.

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TV broadcaster Sir David Attenborough says species have suffered "significant declines" recently.

How reducing the methane from cows is helping to fight climate change

The UK should focus on making fuel from chip fat, whiskey dregs and forest waste and not from crops like wheat

A gannet bonanza is confirmed on the towering cliffs of Yorkshire by research from the RSPB.

Royal Academy of Engineering report backs increased use of biofuels but warns that some have been as polluting as fossil fuels

Biofuel use needs to increase to help fight climate change as liquid fuels will be needed by aircraft and ships for many decades to come, finds a new report requested by the UK government.

The Royal Academy of Engineering report says, however, that some biofuels, such as diesel made from food crops, have led to more emissions than those produced by the fossil fuels they were meant to replace. Instead, the report says, rising biofuel production should make more use of waste, such as used cooking oil and timber.

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For people in the Torres Strait, rising sea levels have long been a significant issue.

Energy debate gets nasty as Broadcaster Alan Jones says AEMO boss Audrey Zibelman is a "global warming hoax alarmist", a "promoter of wind turbines" and should be "run out of town."

Swedish experiment shows the notoriously brilliant bird has capacity to think ahead, an ability previously documented only in humans and great apes

Scientists from Sweden say ravens are able to think about the future, showing a general planning ability previously documented only in people and great apes.

Researchers Can Kabadayi and Mathias Osvath, of Lund University, tested five captive ravens in two tasks they do not do in the wild: using tools and bartering with humans. The results were published on Thursday by the journal Science.

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With the Coalition divided and distracted over energy policy, the States say they'll push ahead with a Clean Energy Target.

Birdwatchers are keeping the location of the newly rediscovered night parrot a closely guarded secret. Adventure Australia, Author provided

Highly collectable species, especially those that are rare and threatened, can potentially be put at risk from poaching if information describing where they can be found is published. But rather than withholding this information, as has been recently recommended, scientists should publish such information through secure data repositories so that this knowledge can continue to be used to help conserve and manage the world’s most threatened species.

Scientists are encouraged to publish data so their discoveries can be shared and scrutinised. However, a recent article has identified the risks of publishing the locations of rare, endangered or newly described species.

The example of the Chinese cave gecko shows that these concerns may be warranted. The species went extinct at the location where it was discovered, potentially at the hands of scientifically literate poachers.

But instead of withholding such information, we suggest (in a letter published today in Science) that scientists can publish sensitive data securely, while minimising the risk of misuse, by using one of a range of currently available tools.

A little knowledge

Typically, the problem for threatened species is not that too much information is available on their population and location, but rather quite the opposite. For example, in New South Wales more than 150 species have missed out on conservation funding because of a lack of such information.

On the flip side, there is little evidence that encouraging researchers to withhold this information will thwart people who are determined to find specific species. Collectors who specialise in highly collectable species can get location information from a variety of sources such as wildlife trade websites, pet and naturalist clubs, social media, and the popular press. This is despite the range of laws, regulations (such as scientific and collecting permits) and community reporting aimed at restricting the collection and trade of endangered species.

Grove of Wollemi pine, the location of which has been kept secret for more than 25 years. Jaimie Plaza How to publish sensitive data

Many governments have implemented sensitive data policies to protect ecological and species data, based on their own lists of sensitive species. Many of these policies have been in place for almost a decade and have kept secure the locations of hundreds of highly collectable species such as Australia’s Wollemi pine.

These policies are practised by numerous data portals worldwide, including DataONE, South Africa’s National Biodiversity Institute, Australia’s Virtual Herbarium, Australia’s Department of Environment, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, and the Atlas for Living Australia.

A wealth of advice is also available to researchers and data managers on how to manage sensitive species information, such as the guidance provided by Science International and the Australian National Data Service. Science journals also work closely with open data repositories to ensure that sensitive species information is securely published – see, for example, the policies of leading journals Science and Nature.

Information entropy - why it’s a good idea to publish data before they are lost in the mists of time. Michener (2006) Ecol. Informatics

One example of good data management is the AEKOS data portal run by Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). AEKOS contains data from different government monitoring surveys covering almost 100,000 sites across the country. Its default position is to make ecological data and information freely available for land-management or wildlife research.

However, sensitive data are flagged during the early stages of the publishing process. The data are then secured in one of three ways:

• masking sensitive information by giving only approximate locations or non-specific species names

• making data available only after approval by the legal owners

• embargoing the data for a maximum of two years.

To ensure data trustworthiness, TERN’s data reviewers further check for any data sensitivities that may have been overlooked during submission.

What’s the alternative?

We recognise the importance of keeping the locations of highly collectable species secure, and the need for caution in publishing precise site locations. But despite recent concerns, the examples given above show how online scientific data publishing practices have sufficiently matured to minimise misuses such as illegal or excessive collection, disturbance risk, and landholder privacy issues.

The alternative is not to deposit these valuable data at all. But this risks the loss of vital knowledge in the quest to protect wildlife.

In tackling poaching, we should perhaps seek to motivate poachers to help protect our most endangered wildlife. Such tactics are thought by some to have contributed to the discovery of several endangered bird species populations, and potentially the recent rediscovery of the night parrot, after a century of elusiveness in Australia. If poachers are willing to turn gamekeeper, getting them to share their rare species knowledge securely would certainly improve conservation outcomes.

The authors acknowledge their co-signatories of the letter published in Science: Ken Atkins (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Ron Avery (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage), Lee Belbin (Atlas of Living Australia), Noleen Brown (Qld Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation), Amber E. Budden (DataONE, University of New Mexico), Paul Gioia (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Siddeswara Guru (TERN, University of Queensland), Mel Hardie (Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning), Tim Hirsch (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), Donald Hobern (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), John La Salle (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Scott R. Loarie (California Academy of Sciences), Matt Miles (SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources), Damian Milne (NT Department of Environment and Natural Resources), Miles Nicholls (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Maurizio Rossetto (National Herbarium of NSW), Jennifer Smits (ACT Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate), Gregston Terrill (ACT Department of Environment and Energy), and David Turner (University of Adelaide).

Andrew Lowe receives funding from the Australian Government, and has previously received funding through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), for which he was Associate Science Director until 2016, and is currently serving on the TERN advisory board.

Anita Smyth receives funding from Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) which is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. She is a member of The Ecological Society of Australia and coordinates the Ecosystem Science Council's Data Resources working Group.

Ben Sparrow receives funding from the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) where he directs the AusPlots and Eco-informatics programs.

Glenda Wardle receives funding from from the Australian Research Council, the Long Term Ecological Research Network, and The University of Sydney. She is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, the Rangeland Society, the American and British Ecological Societies, American Geophysical Union, Society for Conservation Biology, INTECOL, ILTER, and is Chair of the Ecosystem Science Council. 

‘I’ll still be doing this on a mobility scooter,’ says one of 100 volunteers who survey national park’s 1,628 miles of paths

One of the many reasons Sally Williams loves the Yorkshire dales national park is because its dramatic landscape has been marked by centuries of human activity. “It’s not like you get in America – a huge area of undiscovered land that nobody has ever trodden on,” she says, standing near the entrance to an old limestone quarry. “It’s an area where people have lived and worked for centuries, and you can see the evidence of that all over the countryside.”

The 67-year-old former librarian is one of an army of nearly 100 volunteers who, every summer, undertake a survey of the park’s 1,628 miles (2,620km) of public rights of way. The volunteers, mainly local retirees, walk every single path and bridleway, ensuring that the park’s “infrastructure” – including its 5,665 gates, 4,862 stiles, 4,399 signposts and 1,054 bridges – is accessible, undamaged and safe.

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EU asks court to protect one of Europe’s last primeval woodlands after the Polish government tripled logging operations at the Unesco world heritage site last year

Europe’s last major parcel of primeval woodland could be set for a reprieve after the EU asked the European court to authorise an immediate ban on logging in Poland’s Białowieża forest.

Around 80,000 cubic metres of forest have been cleared since the Polish government tripled logging operations around the Unesco world heritage site last year.

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