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AEMO chief Audrey Zibelman says politics needs to deal with falling cost of wind, solar and batteries, and customer preference around rooftop solar.

Our new ClimateWorks Australia report, released today, shows that the electricity sector needs to deliver a much greater cut than the 28% emissions reduction modelled in the Finkel Review if Australia is to meet its overall climate target for 2030.

When Australia’s energy ministers meet this Friday to discuss (among other things) the Finkel Review released last month, they will hopefully consider its recommendations for the electricity sector in the broader context of developing a long-term national climate policy.

According to our analysis, the electricity sector should cut emissions by at least 45% by 2030, as part of a move towards net zero emissions by 2050. This is well beyond current government policies, but is crucial if Australia is to meet its climate obligations in an economically responsible way.

Climate commitments

The federal government has agreed to cut emissions by 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030. As a signatory to the Paris climate agreement, Australia has also committed to global action to limit global warming to well below 2℃ – and as a developed nation, that means reaching net zero emissions across the whole economy by about 2050.

Our analysis suggests that the electricity sector will need do a larger share than other sectors of the economy, because it has more technical potential to do so and can support emissions reductions in other sectors. In practice, reaching net zero emissions means shifting from coal and other fossil fuels to zero- or near-zero-carbon energy sources such as renewable electricity and bioenergy. Coal or gas will only be feasible if fitted with carbon capture and storage. Achieving near zero-emissions electricity is a key step in the transition to a net zero-emissions economy, not least because of the future importance of electrically powered transport.

The good news is that our previous research has shown that this is achievable with existing technologies, thanks to Australia’s rich renewable resources.

CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia have also shown that the electricity sector can reach zero emissions by 2050 while still maintaining security and reliability, and that this will actually save households an estimated A$414 a year compared with business as usual.

The 2030 target matters

Cutting emissions faster now will make it easier and less economically disruptive to reach net zero by 2050. Yet the latest government emissions projections forecast that Australia’s emissions will grow by 9% by the end of the next decade, from 543 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) in 2016 to 592Mt CO2e in 2030.

If the impact of existing policies (such as the National Energy Productivity Plan, the phase-down of hydroflurocarbon emissions, and state renewable energy targets) are taken into account in the projections, emissions could drop to 531Mt CO2e in 2030. This still leaves an 82-megatonne gap to reach even the minimum emissions reduction target of 26% percent below 2005 levels.

Time to do more

Our report, Power Up: Australia’s electricity sector can and should do more to deliver on our climate commitments shows that Australia’s electricity sector can cut emissions by up to 60% below 2005 levels by 2030. This is nearly six times more carbon reduction than is expected to be delivered by current policies, and could by itself fill the whole emissions reduction gap.

However, should the electricity sector only make a 28% reduction in its emissions, in line with the Finkel analysis, then it would only reduce emissions by 6Mt CO2e beyond current policies, leaving most of the effort of reducing emissions to other sectors such as buildings, transport, industry, waste and land management, where cutting carbon is likely to be significantly more expensive.

To reach this level of emissions reductions in the land sector, for instance, we would need to increase forest planting by more than three times the amount estimated to be delivered by the federal government’s Emission Reduction Fund in 2018, its peak year.

In its defence, the Finkel Review focused exclusively on the electricity sector and its analysis did not look at the impact that limited change in this sector would have on the required effort from other parts of the economy.

We therefore modelled various other scenarios, including one in which the share of renewables increases from 40% to 50% by 2030. This could enable the electricity sector to achieve double the carbon reductions delivered by efforts in line with the Finkel review.

Our third and fourth scenarios are aimed at meeting the more ambitious emissions target range recommended by the Climate Change Authority, corresponding to a more progressive and therefore economically responsible trajectory towards net zero emissions. This requires Australia achieving a 45-60% reduction in emissions from the electricity sector by 2030.

Expected emissions reductions by 2030 (in megatonnes CO₂ equivalent) in four different policy areas under four different electricity scenarios. ClimateWorks Australia, Author provided The long view

Like the Finkel Review, our report recommends that the federal government defines a specific emissions-reduction policy for the electricity sector, which in Finkel’s case was the Clean Energy Target. This will help to ensure a smooth shift to reliable, affordable, low-carbon energy.

Our report outlines the key principles that Australian governments need to consider in order to make effective decisions on climate change policy, with a view to achieving net zero emissions by mid-century.

These include providing clear long-term direction to support the industry’s investment decisions, and ensuring that decision-making to 2030 is compatible with reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Climate policy should also be flexible so that it can be scaled up to meet future targets and allow a range of solutions, including the uptake of emerging technologies to make the transition faster and cheaper.

Given that net zero emissions is the ultimate goal, we need to move faster and achieve greater emissions reductions by 2030 to help deliver a fully decarbonised electricity system, on time and on budget.

Amandine Denis-Ryan receives funding from federal and state government, as well as businesses, for specific analysis conducted for them. ClimateWorks Australia is an independent organisation, funded in majority through philanthropy.

Two of biggest energy companies in the world join forces to dominate global battery storage market, at least at grid scale. Australia is high on their list of targets, with a series of projects that could dwarf Tesla's newly announced project.

Next best actions are selling your car, avoiding flights and going vegetarian, according to study into true impacts of different green lifestyle choices

The greatest impact individuals can have in fighting climate change is to have one fewer child, according to a new study that identifies the most effective ways people can cut their carbon emissions.

The next best actions are selling your car, avoiding long flights, and eating a vegetarian diet. These reduce emissions many times more than common green activities, such as recycling, using low energy light bulbs or drying washing on a line. However, the high impact actions are rarely mentioned in government advice and school textbooks, researchers found.

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Solar PV and pumped hydro project proposed for abandoned gold mine in north Queensland shortlisted for funding by Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

Wenlock Edge: Shropshire It’s easy to see how the comma butterfly got its English name, but devilishly hard to work out where the French one came from

I crept up on the butterfly as its wings flexed, pumping like delicate bellows, as it took in salts from dried dog urine. For a moment I thought it might be a fritillary – the upper sides of the wings were a rich orangey-brown with complex dark markings, the kind of colour unique to the old slide transparencies of Agfa film.

Then it detected my presence and flew up powerfully, manoeuvred in a seemingly random pattern, and settled on a leaf of yellow flag iris. I could see by the shape of its wings, like holes clipped from the edges of a bus ticket, that it wasn’t a fritillary but a comma butterfly.

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Federal energy minister says AEMO is best placed to assess what storage levels are needed to stabilise Australia's grid.

Securing Queensland’s future energy supply was the number one agenda item when the newly commissioned Queensland Energy Security Taskforce met for the first time today.

A conservative billionaire is building the country’s largest wind farm. Republican lawmakers want to raise the tax on wind.

Global spending on energy fall by 12% overall in 2016 but clean energy spending is on the up.

Australian Automobile Association argues government plan will cost consumers more but government says petrol savings will offset any rise

The Australian car industry has tried to kill any government move to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars, arguing it would increase the cost to consumers and contradicting comprehensive government modelling.

The government plans to introduce emissions standards for new cars, releasing a series of proposed targets in discussion papers and seeking input from industry and other stakeholders.

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These rules replace those under section 2.2.4. of the Carbon Neutral Program Guidelines (version 4.0).

These rules replace those under section 2.2.4. of the Carbon Neutral Program Guidelines (version 4.0).

These rules replace those under section 2.2.4. of the Carbon Neutral Program Guidelines (version 4.0).

New rules are urgently needed to protect the open seas, scientists warn.

The invasive lionfish poses a number of threats in the Atlantic Ocean – can it be stopped by a robot?

Our ancestors could be to blame for the wide variety of human sleeping habits, from larks to night owls.

Scientists use smartphones to track and rank activity levels around the world.

The UK government formally announces a more-than-£100m investment in new satellite and rocket test facilities.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has issued its strongest decision yet about climate change, acknowledging the worldwide threat posed to many World Heritage properties.

The decision (see pages 26-27 here), set to be adopted today at the completion of the Committee’s annual meeting in Krakow, Poland, “expresses its utmost concern regarding the reported serious impacts from coral bleaching that have affected World Heritage properties in 2016-17 and that the majority of World Heritage coral reefs are expected to be seriously impacted by climate change”.

It also urges the 193 signatory nations to the World Heritage Convention to undertake actions to address climate change under the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature increase to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial temperatures.

This decision marks an important shift in the level of recognition by the Committee tasked with protecting World Heritage properties, apparently jolted by the devastating bleaching suffered by the majority of World Heritage coral reefs around the world.

In the past, the Committee has restricted its decisions to addressing localised threats such as water pollution and overfishing, choosing to leave the responsibility to address global climate change to other parts of the United Nations.

In the preamble to its latest decision, the Committee has recognised that local efforts alone are “no longer sufficient” to save the world’s threatened coral reefs.

But while this is an encouraging progression, some members of the Committee are still struggling to come to terms with addressing the global impacts of climate change. This is despite the impacts becoming more pronounced on other World Heritage properties, including glaciers, rainforests, oceanic islands, and sites showing the loss of key species.

The World Heritage-listed glacial landscape around Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps. Steinmann/Wikimedia Commons The ‘jewels’ of marine world heritage

Last month, UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre released the first global scientific assessment of the impact of climate change on all 29 World Heritage-listed coral reefs that are “the jewels in the World Heritage crown”.

The report paints a dire picture, with all but three World Heritage coral reefs exhibiting bleaching over the past three years. Iconic sites like the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), the Northwest Hawaiian islands (United States), the Lagoons of New Caledonia (France), and Aldabra Atoll (Seychelles) have all suffered their worst bleaching on record.

The most widely reported damage was the unprecedented bleaching suffered by the Great Barrier Reef in 2016-17, which killed around 50% of its corals.

The scientific report predicts that without large reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, all 29 reefs will “cease to exist as functioning coral reef ecosystems by the end of this century”.

Reefs can take 10-20 years to recover from bleaching. If our current emissions trajectory continues, within the next two decades, 25 out of the 29 World Heritage reefs will suffer severe heat stress twice a decade. This effectively means they will be unable to recover.

It should also be noted that the majority of World Heritage coral reefs are far better managed than other reefs around the world, so the implications of climate change for coral reefs globally are much worse.

All coral reefs are important

Almost one-third of the world’s marine fish species rely on coral reefs for some part of their life cycle. There are also 6 million people who fish on reefs in 99 countries and territories worldwide. This equates to about a quarter of the world’s small-scale fishers relying directly on coral reefs.

Half of all coral reef fishers globally are in Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific Island nations also have high proportions of reef fishers within their populations. In total, more than 400 million people in the poorest developing countries worldwide live within 100km of coral reefs. The majority of them depend directly on reefs for their food and livelihoods.

Coral reefs provide more value than any other ecosystem on Earth. They protect coastal communities from flooding and erosion, sustain fishing and tourism businesses, and host a stunning array of marine life. Their social, cultural and economic value has been estimated at US$1 trillion globally.

Recent projections indicate that climate-related loss of reef ecosystem services will total more than US$500 billion per year by 2100. The greatest impacts will be felt by the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on reefs.

Where else?

Recognising that the majority of the World Heritage coral reefs are expected to be seriously impacted by climate change is a good start. However, the Committee cannot afford to wait until similar levels of adverse impacts are evident at other natural and cultural heritage sites across the world.

The World Heritage Committee and other influential bodies must continue to acknowledge that climate change has already affected a wide range of World Heritage values through climate-related impacts such as species migrations, loss of biodiversity, glacial melting, sea-level rise, increases in extreme weather events, greater frequency of wildfires, and increased coastal erosion. To help understand the magnitude of the problem, the Committee has asked the World Heritage Centre and the international advisory bodies “to further study the current and potential impacts of climate change on World Heritage properties”, and report back in 2018.

Two of the key foundations of the World Heritage Convention are to protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage, and to pass that heritage on to future generations. For our sake, and the sake of future generations, let’s hope we can do both.

Jon C. Day previously represented Australia as a delegate to the World Heritage Committee between 2007-2011. He worked for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority between 1986 and 2014, and was one of its directors from 1998 to 2014.