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Exclusive: Lawyers, scientists and NGOs urge the UN to force Australia to do more to protect the world heritage site

The Great Barrier Reef could be considered again for an “in danger” listing by the United Nations World Heritage Committee following the devastating bleaching this year, the Guardian can reveal.

The news came as a group of prominent lawyers, scientists and NGOs wrote to the committee, urging it to ask Australia to do more to protect the reef.

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To reach zero emissions by 2050, we need to invest in zero emissions technology now. Coal power image from www.shutterstock.com

The Paris climate agreement saw countries pledge to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and to aim to keep it within 1.5℃. The problem is that countries' current emissions targets are not enough to meet these goals.

In a paper published today in Nature, I and my colleagues from Austria, Brazil, China, South Africa, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland take a closer look at those pledges, and the studies that have so far evaluated them. The bottom line is that under the existing Paris pledges the world would be facing 2.3-3.5℃ of warming by 2100.

The pledges, known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs, would result in emissions 14 billion tonnes higher than they should be in 2030 under the cheapest pathway to limit warming.

While this path is well below the “business as usual” scenario, it is not yet in the range of the 1.5-2℃ objectives we have set ourselves. So it’s a first step, but bigger steps are needed.

The less effort we make before 2030, the harder it will be to reduce emissions afterwards. However, my colleagues and I have found there are several ways to close the gap.

Why do the current targets make it harder after 2030?

To limit global warming to any level, we ultimately have to completely stop CO₂ emissions and ramp down other greenhouse gas emissions. For any given warming threshold, we have to limit total emissions to a certain amount, known as the “carbon budget”.

It is likely that to keep warming well below 2℃ we have a remaining carbon budget of between 750 billion and 1.2 trillion tonnes. For context, global emissions in 2010 were around 50 billion tonnes.

Remaining on the current path, as laid out by the INDCs, would mean the world would have to make very drastic cuts in emissions after 2030 to keep warming below 2℃ (and would likely make the 1.5℃ limit completely unachievable).

This dramatic cut would mean a lot of stranded investments, as emissions will have continued to rise up to 2030, suggesting continued investment in infrastructure that won’t deliver our long-term target. The same potentially goes for any investments in “transition” fuels, such as gas. If current investments cannot be part of a 2050 world that is close to zero emissions, then they would probably have to be retired before their usual use-by date.

If in 2030 there is a sudden realisation that we have to do more, the world would have to cut emissions by 3-4% each year. Countries like Australia would have to cut them by 10% each year. It’s like walking slowly up to a cliff and then jumping off it.

This is not the cheapest way to keep warming below 2℃. The least-cost option is to start investing now in the right technology. The International Energy Agency has argued that if we want a zero-carbon economy in 2050, or at least one that is close to zero-carbon, we need to make zero-emission investments today, because it takes a long time to turn over the existing investment stock.

The other problem is carbon capture and storage (CCS). The Paris Agreement pledges net zero greenhouse gas emissions after 2050. There is no pathway to this that doesn’t involve “net-negative” emissions, because there will still be some greenhouse gas emissions we can’t reduce, and we will have already overshot the carbon budget for keeping warming below 2℃, let alone 1.5℃. So we are going to have to come up with a way to pull CO₂ from the atmosphere.

How can we do that? The main option is thought to be bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). This process involves growing biomass fuel, such as trees, then using the woodchips to produce electricity, then capturing the CO₂ produced, and finally sequestering and storing it underground.

In the past, CCS has been mostly combined with fossil fuels. But the dramatic fall of wind and solar costs will make it easier to decarbonise the electricity sector.

CCS would also likely require a carbon price, to incentivise the necessary investment in CCS by 2030. Retrofitting existing fossil fuel power plants with CCS or keeping coal demand high by supporting new coal power plants with CCS in India and China is hence likely an uphill battle that is lost on economic grounds. However, we would still need CCS and specifically BECCS to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.

So how can we close the gap?

Our study has found several ways to reduce emissions further before 2030.

The first is to ratchet up the INDCs by using the review mechanism built into the Paris Agreement. This is thought by many to be the single most important element of the agreement, and would see INDCs revised and increased every five years. Of course these increases would have to be underpinned by domestic policies.

Some countries will overachieve their INDCs. China, for instance, has pledged to peak its emissions by 2030, but seems to have the domestic policy in place to get there before 2020 given the concern about clean air.

Other countries have pledged emission levels that are so generously high that they would have to spend serious amounts of money to increase their emissions up to those levels. Turkey, Ukraine, Russia are examples. There are likely a billion tonnes of projected emissions that we will hence never get to see. Fortunately.

The INDCs could also be expanded to cover other greenhouse gases (which aren’t included by some countries), such as nitrous oxide and methane in China.

International shipping and aviation could also play a huge role. Aviation is one of the hardest nuts to crack because of the difficulties of producing sustainable, carbon-neutral jet fuel. So while the near-term emissions reductions options aren’t as big as many people think, these high-value sectors are hugely important because they can help to raise resources for mitigation action elsewhere.

For instance, the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s pledge of no-carbon growth after 2020 would require large offsets. This could unleash a lot of action, and transfer finance to other sectors.

However, both aviation and maritime transport need to part of the whole framework - and given that the Paris Agreement mentions all global emissions in its Art. 4.1, they are already included to some extent.

We found other initiatives – in the business sector and at regional and municipal levels – that could reduce emissions by a further 1 billion tonnes each year by 2030. However, more recent research suggests this could be as high as 6-11 billion tonnes each year, if all those additional initiatives in the solar energy, wind energy, forestry and methane sectors were implemented.

For instance, Europe’s solar and wind initiatives, if both implemented, could increase Europe’s target of 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 to 60%.

And the United States' Sunshot and wind programs could overshoot its current emissions target, from 26-28% below 2005 levels to a staggering 60%.

These initiatives would put us well on the path to keeping warming below 2℃. Now we just have to get serious about it.

In Australia, we have neither an ambitious enough 2020 or 2030 target, nor the policies to get there. Current emissions are likely to overshoot the -5% target by 2020 (although accounting options to use previously banked credits will likely keep Australia compliant with its Kyoto Protocol targets).

There are good signs – such as state renewable energy targets, which now add up to more than the national target. And there is an immense opportunity for Australia in a zero carbon world: no other developed country is so blessed with solar and wind resources.

If Australia plays its cards right, it could become the energy superpower in a zero carbon world. But there’s still a way to go.

Malte Meinshausen receives funding from the Australian Research Council, advises the German Ministry of Environment and other national and international bodies on climate policy and science. He is affiliated with The University of Melbourne and the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research. He is Director of the Australian-German Climate & Energy College at the University of Melbourne.

Human disturbances are making the Amazon rainforest 'more flammable' say researchers.

Global warming is causing breeding and migration cycles of related plants and animals to fall out of sync with potential impacts on entire ecosystems, research shows

Climate change is disrupting the seasonal behaviour of Britain’s plants and animals, with rising temperatures having an impact on species at different levels of the food chain, new research shows.

The result could be widespread “desynchronisation” between species and their phenological events – seasonal biological cycles such as breeding and migration – that could affect the functioning of entire ecosystems, according to the large-scale study published this week in the journal Nature.

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Environmental scientist who worked on lake restoration globally as well as in the UK, most notably on the Norfolk Broads

Lakes are the jewels in the landscape of Britain, yet have also been the dumping grounds for wastes and pollutants. The environmental scientist Brian Moss, who has died aged 72, knew this well and spent his life achieving the ecological understanding that has underpinned the management and restoration of freshwater environments in the UK and around the world. But it was his passionate and successful communication of this science to land managers and policymakers that made him stand out. Most notable was his work with the Broads Authority to return the Norfolk Broads, a much-valued system of inter-connected lakes and rivers, to a cleaner, more naturally functioning landscape for future generations to enjoy.

When Brian started working at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich in 1972, he was deeply disappointed with the Broads’ murky greenish-brown water, lack of plants, and their eroded, featureless banks. He realised that, rather than the mecca for wildlife he had thought the Broads would be, they had borne the brunt of what he called “environmental abuse”. Over the following 17 years at UEA he built a solid understanding of the functioning of these shallow lakes and, through careful experimentation, he proposed innovative solutions for their restoration.

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June 2016

James Hayter - Oxigen.

James Hayter is the director of Oxigen, having established the studio in 1996 working as a sole practitioner in collaboration with clients and urban designers. James initially studied architecture and then landscape architecture in the United Kingdom and urban design at Harvard University.

Through his private practice, he has been honoured with many professional awards for excellence for projects including the Canberra Central Parklands, the new public realm at Kingston Foreshores, and Riverbank in Adelaide. His focus on improving the health and productivity of our cities is echoed in his practice approach and mirrors a global movement in new landscape architecture that will positively change the way our cities are planned and inhabited.

James also teaches landscape architecture and urban design and is a professor at the University of Adelaide within the School of Architecture + the Built Environment.

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Tags: sustainable design and water sensitive urban design

Defra and the Welsh government are likely to have to pay European commission’s legal costs for breaching air pollution rules at Aberthaw power station, reports ENDS

The UK breached EU law by allowing a coal-fired power station to emit too much air pollution, the court of justice (CJEU) has said.

In a reasoned opinion, published on 28 June, the CJEU said the UK’s defence of how it regulated Aberthaw power station did not stack up and it should be forced to pay legal costs.

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Prime Minister David Cameron is being urged to ratify the Paris climate agreement before leaving office.

Scientists in Switzerland have created a robotic salamander that mimics the gait of the ancient amphibian in great detail.

Recycling plastic costs councils – and us – millions every year. It’s time refilling old bottles hit the mainstream

While Boris Johnson is busy reducing the size of Europe, his father, Stanley, is appealing to Europe to help us reduce the amount of rubbish we create.

This month, Environmentalists for Europe, the cross-party group co-chaired by Johnson senior, called on the EU to ban non-returnable bottles. Instead, the group said, consumers should be charged a 20p deposit, refundable when they take back the bottle. Or we should make all plastic bottles refillable.

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June 2016

Mellissa Bradley - Water Sensitive SA

Mellissa Bradley is the Program Manager with Water Sensitive SA and is an experienced Adelaide water sensitive urban design practitioner. Mellissa is a strong advocate for the creation of more liveable cities and towns through the delivery of urban growth and infill development that delivers best practice water sensitive urban design. Mellissa has a unique combination of experience in engineering and planning, together with a history of developing and implementing capacity building programs for local government in catchment and urban water management. With more than 20 years experience working in the fields of engineering design, development assessment, policy development, environmental management and construction management, Mellissa understands the support that industry needs to ensure water sensitive urban design is commonplace within our urban landscape.

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EU departure offers a chance to banish past overfishing and incoherent regulation, says head of industry group, despite warnings exit could hurt fisheries

Scottish fishermen’s representatives were adamant on Tuesday that Brexit would be good news for the 5,000 strong fleet, despite warnings that the uncertainty surrounding the UK’s departure from the EU could hurt fisheries.

Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said that leaving the EU would give fleets “the ability to recover proper, sustainable, rational stewardship through our own exclusive economic zone for fisheries”, comparing the situation with Norway and Iceland, which share many key North Sea fishing grounds and are not members of the EU, though they are in the European Economic Area (EEA).

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Off Portugal’s Algrave coast are the islands of Armona, Deserta and Culatra and the waterways of Rio Formosa natural park. The islands’ inhabitants have been in a court battle for the right not to demolish their houses there, which the authorities say are damaging the environment
• Photographs by John Gallo, winner of the RPS Joan Wakelin Bursary 2015

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Whoever leads negotiations on leaving the EU faces big choices - any new food policies must have health, the environment and justice at their heart

Food barely featured in the referendum, but years of jibes about Eurocrats controlling our food standards, and myths about bent bananas, left their mark. Food politics will now come to the fore in ways most consumers might not like.

This was predicted by the few studies which bothered to look at this vital area of UK life. The academic reports on Brexit unanimously anticipated not liberation but a period of turmoil and dislocation in the food system.

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Climate and energy secretary says while decision to leave will make UK’s role harder, the government’s commitment remains the same

Brexit will make it harder for Britain to play its role in tackling climate change, the UK energy and climate secretary has said.

But Amber Rudd said that the UK remained committed to action on global warming and Whitehall sources have told the Guardian that on Thursday she will approve a world-leading carbon target for 2032.

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Despite pressure from students and staff, Harvard leaders have refused to divest

One morning in the summer of 2014, I found myself in the city of Tacloban in the Philippines. The city and surrounding area had been devastated less than a year earlier by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Thousands had been killed; bodies were found for months afterwards.

As part of an international research collaboration, I was interviewing government officials and others throughout the Philippines to assess how to improve preparedness for and response to climate-related disasters. I had already interviewed survivors in cities and villages across the country about the impacts of extreme weather. (And, incidentally, a few weeks later, I would contract dengue and chikungunya—two mosquito-borne diseases aided by climate change in their ongoing spread.) With my prior experience, I thought I was prepared for what I would hear that morning, but I wasn’t.

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Australian conservationists spent five months obtaining permissions and planning for a captive breeding programme for the Bramble Cay melomys. But when they arrived on the rodent’s tiny, low-lying island, they discovered they were too late.

The Bramble Cay melomys has become more famous in extinction than it ever was in life. A mouse-like rodent, the melomys amazingly survived on a 3.6 hectare grass-covered cay (a low-lying island in a coral reef) in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef like a ratty Robinson Crusoe for thousands of years. There, it thrived off just a few plant species until human-caused climate change—in the form of rising sea levels and increasing inundations of sea water on the low-lying island—wiped it off the planet.

But, while the extinction has been reported widely, articles have missed an important point: the scientists who uncovered the rodent’s fate had planned to capture individuals and bring them back to the Australian mainland to start a captive breeding programme. They were just too late.

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Environment and climate groups publish final scorecards rating main political parties as Australians prepare to vote

If ever there was going to be a climate change election, surely this was going to be it.

As May came and the election date was announced, the implications of the global Paris agreement between more than 190 countries just months earlier were still resonating – the world was moving away from fossil fuels and the challenge to keep global warming well below 2C was agreed.

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Report is the first to examine the impact of artificial night-lighting on the seasonal behaviour of plants on a national scale

Light pollution is causing spring to come at least a week earlier in the UK, a new study has revealed.

The report, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that budburst in trees occurs up to 7.5 days earlier in brighter areas, with later-budding species being more affected.

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St Dominic, Tamar Valley A handsome South Devon bull has now joined them, so the cycle will continue

A herd of South Devon cattle again graces the fields opposite home. For 30 years the land, with distinctive beech trees on a hedge and an old, freestanding oak, was used mainly for a succession of cereal crops, with annual and ever dearer costs of ploughing, sowing, spraying to control weeds and moulds, and harvesting by combine and straw baler. Marauding pigeons from nearby woods were shot and once there was a mysterious double corn circle that caused consternation and wonder.

Over the past few years the new tenant has resown the former arable fields with grasses that have thickened up with regular topping (cutting) and sheep grazing. This year, strong post-and-wire fences have been reinstated against the hedge-banks, and a cattle crush or pen has been installed for sorting the animals and for the obligatory TB tests.

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