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NZ Super having heeded the Mercer climate risk study's recommendations, what action have the Australian participants taken?

SA Waterloo Wind Farm generation boosted by 18% after addition of six new turbines successfully completed.

A $600m specialised renewable energy fund targeting brownfield and late-stage wind and solar has been launched by Palisade Investments.

BHP Billiton has backed and co-developed a world-first Forests Bond, in effort to address climate change and enhance global response.

South Australia opens path for existing and peaking gas plants after substantially weakening the emission limits for its "low carbon" energy tender - to the point where it now invites applications from facilities that would increase the state's emissions profile.

Despite the government’s protests, it’s not possible to save the Great Barrier Reef without tackling global warming first

At the core of the Australian government’s failure to protect our Great Barrier Reef is the big lie.

Through its actions and inaction, rhetoric, funding priorities and policy decisions, the Australian government has implicitly pursued the line that it is possible to turn things around for the reef without tackling global warming.

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Carnegie Wave Energy Limiteds pleased to announce that it intends to change its name to Carnegie Clean Energy Limited.

In the shadow of a fading lignite industry, a newer one - battery storage manufacturing - grows.

Fossil fuel giant SOCAR abandoned coal power project in Aliağa, İzmir.

Archaeological remains at wetland sites across the world could be at risk of being degraded and lost to environmental change, say scientists.

Next year the Ross Sea will be home to the world's largest marine reserve. Andrew Mandemaker/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Conservationists have been celebrating the creation of the world’s largest marine park, covering 1.55 million square kilometres of the Ross Sea off Antarctica.

The agreement, brokered at last week’s annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in Hobart, will enter into force on December 1, 2017 – thanks in large part to China ending its resistance to the proposal.

For the next 35 years, fishing will be totally banned in a “no-take zone” covering 1.12 million square kilometres (72%) of the marine park, with exceptions for krill and toothfish in specially designated research zones.

The marine park’s creation follows years of often frustrating negotiations. The United States and New Zealand brought the idea to the 2012 CCAMLR meeting, but were met with concerns, particularly from Russia and China.

At the 2014 meeting, China set out the reasons for its opposition. Its delegates argued that the term “conservation” should balance protection and rational use of marine living resources; that marine parks should not be set up in the Southern Ocean without convincing data showing they will work; and that the CCAMLR has already adopted a wide range of successful conservation measures in the seas around Antarctica.

A year later, China once again looked set to block the issue, posing a series of questions about the proposed marine park. How could marine parks allow rational use of marine living resources? How could they facilitate scientific research? How would they be monitored and regulated, and how long would the protections last?

Nevertheless, China surprisingly supported the Ross Sea proposal at the end of the 2015 CCAMLR meeting, paving the way for this month’s decision.

Why the turnaround from China’s previous opposition? And what does this mean for its growing and changing influence on Antarctic diplomacy?

Global influence

There are three key reasons that explain China’s shifting position. First, China is a latecomer to the current global ocean governance regime. When the Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959, China was still relatively isolated from the international community. It was not until 1978 that it opened its doors to the world and engaged with the current international legal system, and as such it had little influence on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

It has taken time for China to develop the necessary diplomatic and scientific expertise to become comfortable in this space. As a historic rule-taker rather than rule-maker, its government may need to overcome a natural mistrust of many existing regimes.

This issue is not unique to marine parks. Such hesitation was also evident when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 and when it started engaging with UN climate change negotiations in 1994. But China now uses the WTO dispute settlement body as frequently as other members, and ratified the Paris climate agreement at September’s G20 summit which it hosted for the first time – another sign of its increasing diplomatic engagement.

Second, China became a party of the CCAMLR in 2007. As the world’s second-largest economy and largest fishing nation, China has global fishing interests, including off Antarctica. Chinese Krill fishing in Antarctica has grown significantly since 2009, reaching 54,300 tonnes in 2014. This partly explains China’s concerns over proposed no-take zones.

There is, however, a deeper philosophical concern, which might be described as “anxiousness for commons”. While China’s Antarctic fishing interests account for only a very small share of its global catch, they are highly symbolic because Antarctic fishing showcases China’s quest for freedom in the “global commons”.

Third, the international community is currently developing a new global ocean governance regime. By coincidence, negotiations on the regulation of fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean and other international areas of the high seas have been going on at the same time as the discussions about the Ross Sea. In the Northeast Atlantic, the OSPAR has already established a network of high sea marine parks.

As a rising power, China would not be happy to face constraints or bans on its activities at a time when its rising status gives it access to places like the high seas, the ocean floor, the poles, and outer space. It would be a shame if China were to remain silent on those issues, and it probably won’t – China’s 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20) clearly says the nation would like to take a more active role in global ocean governance.

In the foreseeable future, we could possibly see China become more comfortable and active within the CCAMLR as well as the Antarctic Treaty System. Although generally being supportive, China would not keep silent. Rather, it would speak up more openly for its Antarctic interests, and have more intensive engagement with the Antarctic Treaty System.

One challenge for China would be how to enhance its capacity and expertise so as to provide high-quality proposals, which could not only pursue its own interests, but as an important global player, also help to make a concrete contribution to achieving sustainability in the Southern Ocean.

Nengye Liu receives funding from the EU Centre for Global Affairs, University of Adelaide, Australia and is working on a Project "The European Union and Conservation of Marine Living Resources in Antarctica".

Scientists have transformed the humble spinach plant into a bomb detector.

The last weekend of October sees ladybirds swarm public spaces, people's homes and ex-footballers.

Three hundred million children live in areas with extreme air pollution, Unicef research shows. A new photo collection shows the scale of the problem in highly polluted countries in Africa and Asia

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Therese Coffey claims 5p charge is not warranted as industry and chains are already doing enough voluntarily to reduce waste

Ministers have rejected calls for a charge on the 2.5bn disposable coffee cups thrown away each year because they believe coffee shop chains are already taking enough action to cut down waste.

Therese Coffey told the Liberal Democrats, who have urged the government to impose a 5p charge similar to that levied on plastic bags, that industry and chains were already doing enough voluntarily.

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The 'Prof of Goth' Nick Groom on the origin of the vampire

After years of battling psychological demons, Jake Dorothy took the radical decision to go and work in an elephant sanctuary

One of the most significant moments in my life came one afternoon about five months ago, when I was volunteering in an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. I was tidying the park as part of my duties when I came across a beautiful, solitary elephant with a badly deformed front leg. Concerned as to why she was alone and curious about her physical health, I asked a guide.

Kabu was 26 years old, like me. She had been rescued about a year before but sadly never settled with a herd. She had been used for the illegal logging trade since infancy, pulling huge weights up and down steep mountain ravines. During one of these tortuous journeys, a log came loose, rolled into her and badly broke her leg. Forced to continue working, her injury never healed. When Kabu was finally rescued she was weak and traumatised. When she arrived at the park she had tears rolling from her eyes – from relief, said the guide.

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The organisation’s stance puts it at odds with its members and conservationists and misses the opportunity to be the decisive voice in the debate

MPs will on Monday debate a ban on driven grouse shooting following a petition signed by more than 120,000 people. But there will be one missing signature that could have swayed the argument decisively behind a ban: that of the RSPB.

As a former employee and lifelong member I have become increasingly frustrated with the society’s desire to protect hen harriers by arguing for new laws to licence moors but not supporting a ban. It is a position which I strongly believe many of its 1 million-plus members now also find untenable.

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Climate denial often centers around myths about the importance of coal in alleviating poverty

A dozen international poverty and development organizations published a report last week on the impact of building new coal power plants in countries where a large percentage of the population lacks access to electricity. The report’s conclusions are strikingly counter-intuitive: on the whole, building coal power plants does little to help the poor, and often it can actually make them poorer.

Delivering electricity to those in energy poverty is certainly important. For example, household air pollution killed 4.3 million people globally in 2012; many of those lives could be saved and health improved with the use of electric stoves to replace burning wood or charcoal. However, the question remains whether coal is the best way to deliver that electricity.

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Planting trees is a cost-effective way to tackle urban air pollution, which is a growing problem for many cities, a study suggests.