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Tasmanian devil milk fights superbugs
Treasury blocked moves to charge diesel cars to enter polluted UK cities
High court hears evidence in air pollution case against the government that environment and transport department plans were overruled
The Treasury blocked other government departments from charging diesel cars to enter towns and cities blighted by air pollution, documents revealed during a high court hearing on Tuesday.
Legal NGO ClientEarth is challenging the government’s pollution plan, which by law should cut illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide in the “shortest possible time”. Air pollution causes 50,000 early deaths and £27.5bn in costs every year, according to the government’s own estimates, and was called a “public health emergency” by MPs in April.
Continue reading...Norway faces climate lawsuit over Arctic oil exploration plans
Campaigners say decision to open up the Barents Sea violates the nation’s constitution and threatens the Paris climate agreement
A lawsuit has been filed against the Norwegian government over a decision to open up the Barents Sea for oil exploration which campaigners say violates the country’s constitution and threatens the Paris climate agreement.
The case is being brought by an alliance including Greenpeace, indigenous activists, youth groups, and the former director of Nasa’s Goddard institute for space studies, James Hansen.
Continue reading...UN: Farming needs to harvest chance to cut emissions
Exxon asks court to throw out New York state's climate change case
Subpoena would force oil company to hand over decades of documents that would establish whether it misled investors about climate risks
Exxon Mobil Corp asked a federal court on Monday to throw out a subpoena from New York state that would force the oil company to hand over decades of documents as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into whether it misled investors about climate change risks.
The filing means Exxon has now requested the US district court in Fort Worth, Texas for injunctions against two major climate subpoenas: one issued by New York and another from Massachusetts that the company challenged in June.
Continue reading...Eco-tourism: Green or greenwash?
Eco-tourism: Green or greenwash?
US Senate could block landmark HFC climate treaty, legal experts warn
A new deal to reduce the use of powerful climate-changing chemicals will require Senate approval in the US, reports Climate Central
The jubilation and relief that flowed from United Nations climate talks in Rwanda over the weekend may be short-lived in the U.S., where legal experts say the agreement risks being blocked by Republican senators.
Weary U.N. diplomats finalized a deal Saturday to phase out the use of most HFCs, which are chemicals used in refrigerators and air conditioners and by other industries. The agreement was designed to accelerate a shift to safer substitutes for some of the world’s fastest growing and worst greenhouse gases.
Continue reading...Tasmanian devil milk could kill golden staph and other antibiotic-resistant bugs
Research shows milk from devils could kill superbugs and combat the facial tumour that has killed 80% of their population
Milk from Tasmanian devils could kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria like golden staph and potentially combat the deadly facial tumour disease that has killed 80% of the wild devil population in the past 20 years.
According to research led by Sydney University PhD student Emma Peel, milk produced by the marsupials contains antimicrobial peptides called cathelicidins which had been tested as being effective against a number of pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or golden staph.
Continue reading...We can save elephants. But can we save wild elephants?
Elephants will certainly survive. But it may only be in ‘fortress’ conservation parks. Is there any way to allow elephants to stay wild?
I have just returned from Kenya’s North Eastern Province where one night, camped out in a dry riverbed with just a mosquito net for cover, a herd of elephants emerged out of the dark – a great and almost silent mass of shapes.
They passed through our makeshift camp, looming over us, their tusks white against the night. I was close enough to hear them breathe, to hear the sound of their feet in the sand. Another minute and they were gone, leaving me awestruck in the truest sense of the word.
Continue reading...Green subsidies to push UK energy bills higher than planned
National Audit Office says household bills will be £17 higher annually than planned by 2020 due to the installation rate of windfarms and solar panels
Household energy bills in four years’ time will be £17 higher annually than planned because of the number of windfarms and solar panels installed in recent years, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
The amount of money levied on bills each year to pay for renewable energy subsidies is capped under a system called the levy control framework, to limit costs for consumers and businesses. The cap was set at £7.1bn for 2020/21, but government officials warned last year it was on track to hit £9.1bn because so much green energy was being deployed.
Continue reading...Abbott all over again? Coalition ramps up attack on renewables
A bird of beauty laid to rest in the lingering fragrance of summer
Claxton, Norfolk I laid my song thrush down in the earth where all those life scenes and memories and scents arose
Even in death it looked perfect, spots on his chest as bold as a summer’s morning. It was a dead song thrush. The tiny yellow tips to the coverts and the faintest crease of like colour at the corners of the beak suggested a bird of the year, inexperienced in the ways of cats or windows. Yet what to do with something so beautiful?
First I had work. Our garden is split in three – vegetables down one side; a middle lawn running all the way to autumn’s only colour, a cyclamen patch in the shadows under the hollies; and on the other side, by the hedge, a meadow area that has been left entirely to steer its own course for the past eight years.
Continue reading...Apple Car dies after deciding it can’t compete with Tesla
How a saviour of the ozone hole became a climate change villain – and how we're going to fix it
![](https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/142103/width496/image-20161018-12443-1vs1xny.jpg)
Over the weekend, international leaders meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, agreed to a remarkable deal to phase-out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), used as refrigerants and propellants. HFCs are potent greenhouse gases.
The agreement ended a decade of negotiations under the Montreal Protocol, established in 1987 to protect the ozone layer. Under the new agreement, developed nations will reduce HFCs 85% below current levels by 2036.
So how will the deal work?
Fixing the ozone holeThe Montreal Protocol was established under the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer. It followed evidence that chlorine atoms were damaging the stratospheric ozone, which protects the Earth from the most energetic ultraviolet radiation coming from the sun.
These chlorine atoms came from refrigerant and propellant gases, the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), that we were releasing into the atmosphere.
By 1990, nations had agreed to restrict production and consumption of CFCs and a timetable for their eventual phase-out over the next two decades. More time was allowed for developing countries and a multilateral fund was established to help them meet their targets.
With just a few exceptions, complete phase-out has been achieved. As well as ozone protection, there was a climate benefit from phasing-out the CFCs because they are much stronger greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.
Related gases that were less damaging to the ozone layer, the hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), were next targeted and they will have been phased out by about 2020.
In developed countries such as Australia they have largely disappeared already, although there is still a lot of one HCFC, R-22, in older air-conditioners. Other ozone-depleting substances such as the fumigant methyl bromide and a number of solvents were also targeted for elimination under the Montreal Protocol.
New villainMajor replacements for the CFCs were the hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Their molecules contain no chlorine so they are “ozone friendly” but like the CFCs these substances are serious global warmers.
HFCs are not manufactured in Australia but we import several thousand tonnes each year, which is a small proportion of world production. Our imports will be capped from 2018 following a recent government decision.
Nations under the Montreal Protocol realised that by using HFCs to replace ozone-depleting substances they had contributed to another environmental problem – global warming and climate change.
Despairing of any action under the climate change-centred Kyoto Protocol, the representatives of developed countries began to push for addition of HFCs to the Montreal Protocol where production and consumption data could be monitored and there was potential for an agreement to phase them out.
The process was fractious. Some parties argued that the Montreal Protocol could not be extended to cover substances that were not ozone-depleting. Others pointed to a clause in the preamble to the protocol that would allow HFCs to be covered.
This was a practical view, but perhaps it also contained an element of guilt: “we created the problem so it’s up to us to fix it”.
Resistance came from developing countries that were struggling financially to achieve the phase-out of HCFCs and did not want the expense of retooling for whatever would replace the HFCs.
In the corridors one could hear cynical voices saying that the phase-outs of CFCs and HCFCs would leave delegates and officers with nothing to do, so an extension to HFCs was needed to keep the “Montreal Club” alive.
Send in the replacementsSensing that change was likely, the chemical industry in the US had already produced HFC replacements that are neither ozone-depleting nor global warming - the hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs).
These substances are designed to rapidly degrade in the lower atmosphere so that releases would not contribute to environmental problems. Other industrial players, strongly backed by environment groups, opted for natural refrigerants such as ammonia (already coming into widespread use in Australia), carbon dioxide (yes, the villain in new clothes!), and low-boiling hydrocarbons such as isobutane that can be “dropped in” to air-conditioners to replace the HFC R-134a.
Last week in Kigali, countries agreed to a phase-out schedule they could live with. Reductions will occur in steps: developed countries have until 2036 to reduce HFC consumption to 85% of current levels, while developing countries have until the mid-2040s. This is too slow for some observers but the experience of the last decade’s negotiations showed that measured pace would be important in securing the agreement.
Australian delegates had been involved all along in the group pushing for the extension of the Montreal Protocol to cover the HFCs. More than that, our lead delegate, Patrick McInerney (Department of the Environment) was co-chair of the working group that fashioned the Kigali consensus and enabled the 197 parties to bring the matter to conclusion.
Even the most pedantic observer, while questioning the validity of extending the Montreal Protocol, would have to agree that it was the right thing to do.
![The Conversation](https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/67145/count.gif)
Ian Rae is was co-chair of the Chemicals Technical Options Committee and a member of the Technology and Economic Advisory Panel for the Montreal Protocol 2005-2013.