Feed aggregator

If you are near Byron Shire and you want to know what’s going on with renewable energy in the region, then Renew Fest is the place for you!

Community organisations across Australia are invited to apply for funding under the Government’s Threatened Species Recovery Fund to help fight extinction.

In another we-wish-it-were-baffling appointment, Donald Trump has put renewables critic Daniel Simmons in charge of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

CEFC taps Australia's $2-3.3bn waste to fuel market, with $30m loan to ResourceCo to build two new Processed Engineered Fuel plants.

BNEF says grid-based battery storage already very much in the many in Australia. It is a stunning cost fall that has caused AGL to reassess the future and join the CSIRO and the network owners in talking about 100 per cent renewable energy scenarios by 2030.

South Australia enjoyed a bumper harvest from its wind and solar plants last week. Such days will become more common as more projects are built.

AEMO report says there are major network constraints for its 40 per cent renewable energy plan, which explains government's big push into battery storage.

As WA's new Labor government announces closure of Muja AB coal-fired power station the state will have no choice but to turn to wind and solar.

If gas is the transition fuel to a low carbon economy, then why on earth does Santos base its business plan on a catastrophic 4°C pathway?

We continue to plan for the future as if climate scientists don’t exist. The greatest tragedy, Clive Hamilton writes, is the absence of a sense of tragedy

After 200,000 years of modern humans on a 4.5 billion-year-old Earth, we have arrived at new point in history: the Anthropocene. The change has come upon us with disorienting speed. It is the kind of shift that typically takes two or three or four generations to sink in.

Our best scientists tell us insistently that a calamity is unfolding, that the life-support systems of the Earth are being damaged in ways that threaten our survival. Yet in the face of these facts we carry on as usual.

Continue reading...

Tesla says installations of its Powerwall 2 home battery systems have begun in Australia, and will ramp up this month.

Qld solar and storage trial goes into third phase, with new retail product – Tariff 14 – designed to help guide customer energy consumption.

Chairman Peter Coates says company’s plan is ‘consistent with good value’, but experts call it ‘a breathtaking failure to come to grips with a world in transition’

The oil and gas company Santos has admitted its business plans are based on a climate change scenario of a 4C rise n global temperatures, at odds with internationally agreed efforts.

Its chairman, Peter Coates, made the comments at an AGM in Adelaide on Thursday, telling shareholders it was “sensible” and “consistent with good value”.

Continue reading...

As CO2 levels rise, controversial techniques including carbon capture and storage, enhanced weathering and reforestation may be solutions

In the 2015 Paris climate agreement, 195 nations committed to limit global warming to two degrees above pre-industrial levels. But some, like Eelco Rohling, professor of ocean and climate change at the Australian National University’s research school of earth sciences, now argue that this target cannot be achieved unless ways to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are found, and emissions are slashed.

This is where negative emissions technologies come in. The term covers everything from reforestation projects to seeding the stratosphere with sulphates or fertilising the ocean with iron fillings.

Continue reading...

After a protracted legal battle, ministers are forced to reveal anti-pollution proposals.

The consultation period for the discussion paper, Better fuel for cleaner air, is now complete. Over 70 submissions were received. Unless confidentiality was requested, all submissions received are now available on the Department’s website.

Challenged by climate change, our most secretive butterfly could soon be getting a helping hand if a new campaign takes off

Recent very butterfly-unfriendly icy winds remind me of an insect that endures horrendous weather every summer. The mountain ringlet is our only montane butterfly, meaning that you have to climb a mountain – or at least 400 metres up a Lake District fell – to see it.

Some mountain ringlet caterpillars may live for two years so slowly do they grow, chewing grass in the most capricious British conditions, while the butterfly itself only survives for a few days in June and July.

Continue reading...

Watch the moment a young ape is freed after two years locked away in a wooden cage in Indonesia.

Survey shows 41% of people support bank’s decision to rule out funding Adani’s Queensland mine, with only 14% against, as the resources minister vows to switch banks

Almost three times as many people support Westpac’s decision to rule out funding Adani’s Queensland mine than disapprove of it, a survey has found.

But at least one Westpac customer is set to dump the bank over its new climate policy, which precludes helping open up a new coal region with Australia’s largest proposed coalmine.

Continue reading...

With so many choices for coffee, it's hard to know which is the environmentally healthy option. Shutterstock

Shopping can be confusing at the best of times, and trying to find environmentally friendly options makes it even more difficult. Welcome to the first instalment of our Sustainable Shopping series, in which we ask experts to provide easy, eco-friendly guides to purchases big and small.

The morning coffee ritual is serious business; Australians drink roughly 16.3 million coffees a day. Plenty of news coverage has been devoted to its health benefits and cultural significance, but how much do you know about the environmental cost of your daily latte?

Coffee is grown in some of the most biologically diverse regions of the world, sometimes causing significant damage. But there are choices you can make to reduce the ecological impact of your caffeine fix.

The issue

Coffee mostly affects tropical forests, as they are cleared to make way for coffee farms. But with certain cultivation practices, these coffee farms can support an impressive range of forest biodiversity.

The world’s most popular coffee type, Coffea arabica, grows under the rainforest canopies of Ethiopia. A natural requirement for shade means coffee is often cultivated under shading plants, from a single tree species to a diverse range of plant life.

However, to improve productivity, traditional coffee farms have been increasingly replaced with sun-tolerant coffee varieties that produce higher yields. Compared with shaded coffee, these simplified plantations support fewer native species, store less carbon, experience higher levels of erosion, and leach more nutrients. They also require more resources such as water and fertilisers.

Coffee grows in the shade on a farm in Jinotega, Nicaragua. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas How can we increase sustainability?

The most important choice when it comes to sustainable coffee is the actual coffee and its cultivation. Cultivation can contribute as little as 1% or as much as 70% of the total environmental footprint of a cup of coffee. How the coffee is consumed (instant, fresh grounds or pods, for instance) has less influence.

The lowest-impact coffee is grown using traditional cultivation methods with minimal mechanisation. At the other extreme are large farms that are highly mechanised and require more fertiliser and pesticides.

A combination of traditional cultivation methods, maintaining shading plants, protecting local forests and buffering waterways (filtering farmland runoff with vegetation before it enters waterways), has the lowest environmental impact.

What can you do?

While searching for your daily dose of caffeine, you have probably come across several different sustainability certification logos. They are the easiest way to find out about how your coffee is cultivated, and have proved effective in protecting coffee landscapes from degradation.

The two most prominent certification programs are The Rainforest Alliance and Australian Certified Organic.

Coffee bean bag with Rainforest Alliance logo. Karen Christine Hibbard/Flickr, CC BY-NC

The Rainforest Alliance requires a level of native vegetation to be maintained within each coffee farm. There is some criticism that the alliance has watered down its criteria in recent years, at least in terms of maintaining diverse shading vegetation. However, their certification leads to positive outcomes such as protection of waterways and native vegetation.

Australian Certified Organic certifies coffee roasters such as Coffex, Coffico and Rio Coffee. Australian Certified Organic

Australian Certified Organic is focused on protecting natural habitats and biodiversity, efficient water use, and minimising the use of chemicals in fertilisers and pest and disease management. These practices are strongly aligned with traditional coffee cultivation.

While certification programs are not perfect, logos can certainly act as a guide to sustainable products.

That said, products without logos aren’t necessarily unsustainable. Some small landholders with highly sustainable, shade-grown coffee can’t afford the expense of certification.

In this situation you can talk to your local roaster (or a distant one via the internet). Roasters may have direct relationships with their coffee growers and can tell you about their cultivation practices. Good questions to ask are whether the cooperative has any certification, whether the cultivation is organic or shade-grown, and whether the cooperative has any associated environmental programs.

Ultimately, a little knowledge of coffee cultivation and its impacts can go a long way in making wise and environmentally sound purchases. There is a huge range of coffee choices available, and good evidence that the choices you make can influence significant and positive environmental outcomes.

Aaron is employed by Astron Environmental Services, an environmental consulting company based in Western Australia.