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The Australian Heritage Council is assessing Quinkan Country for potential inclusion in the National Heritage List. Comments close 13 January 2017.

Caper whites descend on state’s south-east – only to be replaced by plague of flies as temperatures climb to 38 degrees

From butterflies to plain old flies, south-east Queensland is experiencing a two-phase swarm of insects amid weather conditions that allow both species to thrive.

Last Friday residents began reporting a sudden surge of butterflies, an influx of tens of millions of caper whites in what experts said was a phenomenon that occurred about once a decade.

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The journal Climatic Change has published a special edition of review papers discussing major natural hazards in Australia. This article part of a series looking at those threats in detail.

Australia is no stranger to heatwaves. Each summer, large areas of the continent fry under intense heat for days on end, causing power outages, public transport delays, and severe impacts to human health. The estimated impact on our workforce alone is US$6.2 billon per year. Heatwaves are also Australia’s deadliest natural hazard, accounting for well over half of all natural disaster-related deaths.

Along with our colleagues, we have taken a close look at what we know and don’t know about heatwaves in Australia, as part of a series of reviews produced by the Australian Energy and Waster Exchange initiative.

Let’s start with the stuff we know. First, we are very clear on the weather systems that drive heatwaves in Australia’s densely populated coastal areas. Typically, a persistent high-pressure system sits next to the region experiencing the heatwave, pushing hot air from the centre of Australia towards that region. The location of the high depends on the region experiencing the heatwave, but there is always one there.

These high-pressure systems are created and sustained by other weather influences farther afield, for instance. We know for instance that heatwaves in Melbourne are coupled with tropical cyclones to the northwest of Australia.

Other, longer-term variables can affect not just individual heatwaves but their patterns, timing and severity too. So heatwaves are likely to be much longer and more frequent during El Niño than La Niña phases over much of northern and eastern Australia. However, this does not influence heatwaves over Australia’s far southeast – here, the most important driver is changes to wind patterns over the Southern Ocean.

We also know that heatwave trends have increased in the observational record, and, unfortunately, that they will continue to do so. By far the strongest trend is in the number of heatwave days experienced each season. Over much of eastern Australia, this trend is as large as two extra days per season, per decade.

Looking into the future, heatwaves are projected to become more frequent, with increases of between 20 and 40 extra days per season in the north and 5-10 extra days in the south likely by the end of this century, under a “business as usual” scenario. The intensity of heatwaves over southern Australia is also increasing faster than the average temperature. This is not good news for our ageing population, our fragile ecosystems and our outdated infrastructure.

The Australian research community has been successful in leading the development of a comprehensive way to measure marine heatwaves. Just like the atmosphere, areas of the ocean can experience prolonged periods of abnormally warm temperatures. These marine heatwaves can be every bit as damaging as atmospheric ones, decimating marine habitats and killing coral.

What we don’t yet know

Perhaps surprisingly, given the amount of research and public attention that heatwaves attract, they still do not have an official definition. The Bureau of Meteorology uses a concept called excess heat factor, which looks at maximum temperatures and ensuing minimum temperatures over a three-day period, incorporating the key characteristic of heatwaves of heat tending to persist overnight. However, we still do not have a universal definition that fits all situations.

We are also unclear on how the physical mechanisms that drive heatwaves will change under ongoing greenhouse warming. Recent research suggests that background warming will predominantly drive future increases in heatwaves, with some heatwave-inducing systems moving further south. But we don’t really know how future changes to patterns such as El Niño will continue to influence our heatwaves.

We also don’t really understand the extent to which the land surface drives Australian heatwaves. European studies have shown that dry conditions leading up to heatwave season, resulting in more parched soils, are a recipe for more intense and longer events, particularly when coupled with a persistent high-pressure system.

For Australia, we know that dry soil contributed to the deadly heatwave that preceded the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. But more extensive studies are needed to understand this complex relationship over Australian soil (pun intended).

We also need a more comprehensive understanding of marine heatwaves. So far there has been only a handful of studies describing individual events. We still don’t know how much marine heatwaves have increased over recent decades, or how their causes and severity will change in the future. Given how vulnerable we are to marine heatwaves here in Australia, this topic should be a national research priority.

Finally, we need to develop more practical predictions of how heatwaves are likely to affect people in the future. We know how bad the impacts of heatwaves can be, and we know in general terms how heatwaves will change in the future. Yet the vast majority of our projections come from global climate models. Forecasting the exact impacts calls for finer spatial detail, using regional climate models. But these models are far more computationally expensive to run, and more investment into this area is necessary.

There is no doubt that heatwaves have been, and will continue to be, an integral feature of Australia’s climate, and recent research has taught us a lot about them. But there is more work to be done if we want to safeguard Australians properly from their deadly impacts in the future.

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Christopher J. White receives funding from various Tasmanian State Government research funding programs, Wine Australia and the Bushfire and Natural Hazard CRC.

Replanting trees is one of the better ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere. CIFOR/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

This week international leaders are meeting in Marrakech to thrash out how to achieve the Paris climate agreement, which came into force on Friday. The Marrakech meeting is the 22nd Congress of Parties (or COP22) to the United Nation’s climate convention. One of the key goals of the agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and aim to limit warming to 1.5℃.

With global greenhouse gas emissions still rising, this is a daunting task. Numerous models, including recent research, suggest we will not be able to achieve this without removing large amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere later this century (known as “negative emissions”).

But scientists are becoming increasingly sceptical of the concept, as it may create more problems than it solves, or fail to deliver. Instead, we need to ramp up action before 2020, before even the earliest targets of the Paris Agreement.

Going negative

Some models suggest that up to 1 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide needs to be removed from the atmosphere to meet the 1.5℃ goal.

This idea is increasingly being called out as a risky and “highly speculative” strategy to limit warming to 1.5℃, as it puts food security and biodiversity at risk, and may not even be possible to deliver. The Convention on Biodiversity has also now weighed in on the issue, declaring that carbon removal techniques are highly uncertain.

A recent report from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), summarised here, argues that the scale of negative emissions assumed by many climate models is improbably high.

The key components of negative emissions are reducing deforestation, planting trees, and an untested technology called “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” or BECCS. The involves burning plant matter to produce energy, capturing the waste CO₂, and then storing it underground. The result is less CO₂ in the atmosphere.

But there are several problems with these strategies. For one, the scale of land required for the expected level of negative emissions suggests serious social and ecological risks, since land plays a crucial role in food security, livelihoods and biodiversity conversation.

Indeed, the scale of bioenergy supply in many cases is equivalent to the current global harvest of all biomass – for food, feed, and fibre - assuming a doubling of human harvest of biomass by 2050.

The SEI paper argues that the risks and uncertainties associated with negative emissions could lock us into much higher levels of warming than intended, substantially undermining society’s overall mitigation efforts.

Better ways to remove carbon

So does all of this mean the 1.5℃ goal is out of reach? Some may think so.

However, the SEI analysis finds that if emissions were cut sufficiently quickly and ambitiously, we wouldn’t need to rely so much on negative emissions. We could also choose negative emissions methods with lower impacts on biodiversity, resource demands, and livelihoods.

The SEI analysis optimistically suggests that a maximum of 370 billion to 480 billion tonnes of CO₂ could be removed without exceeding biophysical, technological and social constraints. This would be done through protecting forests and allowing degraded forests to regenerate, along with some reforestation.

Even that would be extremely challenging to achieve, but done right, for example through community forestry and agro-ecological farming,, climate mitigation and sustainable development could go together.

In fact, securing land rights of indigenous peoples and local communities who protect and preserve the carbon stocks in forests is one of the most cost-effective forms of climate mitigation we have, with obvious social co-benefits.

Scaling up

The real threat of negative emissions is the potential to delay emissions reduction into the future. Many modelled pathways for 1.5℃ that include substantial negative emissions suggest that emissions do not begin to decline until the late 2020s.

But limiting negative emissions to lower levels would require immediate global mitigation on a scale greatly exceeding that which has so far been pledged by nations under the Paris Agreement.

We cannot wait until 2020 to speed up global action on climate change - less action now will mean more work later.

Key for strengthening pre-2020 action in Marrakech will be a facilitative dialogue on enhancing ambition and support and a high level ministerial meeting on increased ambition of 2020 commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

Many countries, including Australia, still have completely inadequate targets for 2020, making arguments about whether they are on track to meet them or not moot.

The Moroccan government has dubbed Marrakech the “action COP”. Action here must focus on the urgent need for global emissions to begin declining before 2020, and on the finance needed to deliver it. This includes scaling up the rollout of renewable energy, halting and reversing the loss of the world’s forests, and tackling rich world consumption patterns to ensure equitable mitigation pathways.

Limiting global warming to 1.5℃ is not only possible, it is the only chance of survival for the most vulnerable communities around the world, who are increasingly exposed to rising sea levels, drought and food shortages.

As Erik Solheim, head of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), and Jacqueline McGlade, UNEP’s chief scientist, wrote in a recent report, those most vulnerable “take little comfort from agreements to adopt mitigation measures and finance adaptation in the future. They need action today”.

Kate Dooley receives funding from the Australian government through an Australian Post-graduate Award.

Algae on drifting plastic waste gives off a sulfur compound which smells similar to the krill many marine birds feed on, researchers have discovered

Seabirds are enticed into eating plastic debris because it smells like their food, according to scientists.

The study found that drifting plastic waste accumulates algae and gives off a smell very similar to the krill that many marine birds feed on. The findings could explain why certain birds - including albatrosses and shearwaters - which rely on their sense of smell for hunting, are particularly vulnerable to swallowing plastic.

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Countries say they are prepared to move ahead on climate change without the US if Donald Trump pulls out of the Paris agreement.

William Beaton took his first egg at the age of five in 1948 and had illegally collected hundreds more since, court told

A retired solicitor from Devon who amassed a collection of hundreds of eggs over nearly 70 years has been fined almost £5,000 and had his haul confiscated.

William Beaton, 73, told Plymouth magistrates he took his first egg – from a blackbird’s nest – on a “fine April evening” when he was five.

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Cristal Pigment Ltd has been sentenced for two serious incidents at its titanium dioxide plant that arose from poor operational practices, reports ENDS UK

A global chemical company has been fined for poor operational practices that killed one of its employees and seriously hurt another when they were overcome by a toxic vapour cloud.

Cristal Pigment UK Ltd was sentenced at Hull Crown Court on 8 November for two incidents that occurred within less than two years at Europe’s largest titanium dioxide plant at Stallingborough in north-east Lincolnshire.

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Voters across one Florida county have signalled their approval for releasing genetically modified mosquitoes in a bid to fight Zika.

Many fear Donald Trump will reverse the ambitious course set by Barack Obama, withdraw the US from the accord and increase fossil-fuel spending

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Just days after the historic Paris agreement officially came into force, climate denier Donald Trump’s victory has thrown the global deal into uncertainty and raised fears that the US will reverse the ambitious environmental course charted under Barack Obama.

International environmental groups meeting at the UN climate talks in Morocco said it would be a catastrophe if Trump acted on his pledge to withdraw the US from the deal, which took 20 years to negotiate, and to increase federal spending on oil, gas and coal.

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A final sum of €1.7bn (£1.5bn) is released to Airbus Safran Launchers to enable it to develop Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket.

Investment fund would help wave and tidal power to provide a tenth of the bloc’s power by 2050

The EU is proposing to spend hundreds of millions of euros to help the budding ocean energy industry to provide a tenth of the bloc’s power by 2050.

The boost would take the form of a €250m investment fund, with an additional €70m set aside for insurance, loans and guarantees, according to the roadmap for channelling the potential of wave and tidal energy.

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From rapid genetic analysis to spectrography, high-tech advances in forensics are being used to track down and prosecute perpetrators of the illegal wildlife trade, reports Environment 360

Feisal Mohammed Ali, a prominent member of the Kenyan business community, was convicted last July of trafficking two tons of elephant ivory found in a Fuji Motors parking lot in Mombasa. The landmark ruling came after two years of drama: Feisal’s flight to Tanzania, his capture and repatriation, the disappearance of nine vehicles that were major evidence in the case, and accusations of evidence tampering.

The landmark wildlife crime verdict – and 20-year sentence for Feisal – in part came down to political will, courtroom monitoring by NGOs, and police work. Also key, experts say, was the ability to use genetic tests to tie the illegally trafficked elephant tusks from different shipments to the cartel headed by Feisal.

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Government to phase out the most polluting fossil and replace it with cleaner sources, such as gas, to meet climate commitments

The last coal power station in Britain will be forced to close in 2025, the government has said as it laid out the detail of its plan to phase-out the polluting fossil fuel.

Ministers promised last year that the UK would close coal power within a decade and replace it with gas and other sources to meet its climate change commitments.

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‘Equivalent of a Hazelwood a year’ will need to close by early 2030s to meet Paris targets, witnesses tell Senate inquiry

Coal-fired power stations in Australia will need to shut at the rate of about one a year between now and the mid-2030s for the country to meet the commitments made in Paris, a Senate hearing has been told.

Witnesses also told the hearing that since Australia’s coal-fired power stations are now very old – mostly built in the 1970s and 80s – they would be shutting in the coming decades regardless of climate policy, further highlighting the need for a transition plan.

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Wenlock Edge I listen for owls and smell the wet leaves that awaken some wordless feeling like a very misty memory

This has been one of the most vivid autumns I can remember. Days of clear skies and bright sunlight have been plenty this year, and apart from some fog there have yet to be many washouts or frosts. This warm, sunny, weather has been wonderful in the trees, and the furnace colours of oak, birch and beech, the buttery sycamores and field maples, lemony ash and golden syrup limes, have been spectacular. But surely this happens every year, more or less?

Every year the deciduous trees change colour before falling. Every year before winter there is a burst of transition that looks beautiful, and our feelings for it have something to do with an increase in wild food mammals need to bulk up for the winter. The absence of chlorophyll to mask leaf pigments before the tree jettisons them hardly captures the significance of autumn colour or that sense of wonder in seeing the woods shine brightly like a bedtime story before the long sleep.

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Marek Kubik – who oversees European tenders at global power project developer AES – shares his insights into the utility-scale battery market and explains why Australian regulators just don't get it.

New data shows that in South Australia, battery storage is already offering significant savings – as much as 25% on annual electricity bill costs – to households with solar. Retailers will need to turn to Plan B.

America's first offshore wind farm has been completed, and the pioneering project’s implications stretch far beyond its megawatts and electrons.

The Marrakech talks seem a world away for those already seeing the effects of environmental stress and climate change.