Feed aggregator

Kickstarting the carbon capture and storage industry with a state-backed company will deliver the clean electricity needed to meet climate targets more cheaply than Hinkley Point C, says government advisory group

The UK must immediately kickstart an industry to capture and bury carbon emissions in order to save consumers billions a year from the cost of meeting climate change targets, according to a high-level advisory group appointed by ministers.

This requires the setting up of a new state-backed company to create the network needed to pipe the emissions into exhausted oil and gas fields under the North Sea, the group said.

Continue reading...

Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales Our loft has become a maternity roost from which the brown long-eared bats emerge at dusk to scour the surrounding area for incautious insects

Nearly a century ago, someone bought part of the pasture at the end of the lane and built the house we’ve lived in for about a quarter of its life. This quiet spot faces east into the Cambrian Mountains and the builder cleverly oriented the house to ensure the best view from the front windows.

Related: Bats at large, unseasonably, on a mild winter afternoon

Continue reading...

Australian climate policy is being framed on the basis that the country should proceed as slowly as it possibly can – a course that is being justified by technology cost estimates heavily tilted against solar. No wonder the CCA is so confused.

The 17yo Pelican Point gas generator, deemed a "new competitor" by SA govt, withdrew its services just over a week before Northern coal plant closed.

关于如何保护濒危物种，世界正站在一个十字路口，9月份两次至关重要的全球性会议就这一紧迫问题展开讨论。翻译：奇芳(中外对话/chinadialogue)

消费者和收藏家们都想得到各种稀罕物：鲟鱼子、蛇皮手袋、鲨鱼肉和鱼翅、野生的雪莲球茎、珍贵的红木家具、质量上乘的沉香油，以及珍稀的鸟类、爬行动物、仙人掌和兰花这些动植物活体。但他们极少会停下来想想这些东西的来源。要知道，如今世界上有70多亿人每天都在通过药物、食品、衣服、家具、香料和奢侈品等各种方式消耗着生物多样性。人们对于取自自然的产品的需求不断增加，野生物种面临的压力也在不断增大。

人类从自然获取资源的能力是无限的，现代交通的范围更是无疆的。世界每年的国际旅客人数多达11亿人次，每天有10万个航班，每年的集装箱数量多达5亿个，合法的和非法的野生动植物产品可以被运到世界任何角落。扩大全球贸易、促进发展与保护野生动植物之间的矛盾愈演愈烈，有时他们的目标看起来甚至是南辕北辙。

Continue reading...

Grant King steps down with his exceptionally high regard diminished by the APLNG adventure, while APA flags a new pipeline, betting on rising gas prices.

Tesla's Elon Musk says suite of updates to Tesla's Autopilot system, including an increased reliance on radar technology, a "threefold improvement in safety."

Australia has no plan for managing disused mines but a company has a novel solution for producing renewable energy

Gold was discovered on the Copperfield river in north-western Queensland in 1907. As men flocked to find their fortune, a small township was established and named for the state’s then premier, William Kidston. For close to 100 years, Kidston was a mining town.

But, in 2001, the largest operation – a Canadian-owned goldmine – shut down. The site became another of the roughly 50,000 “orphaned” mines littered across Australia.

Continue reading...

The Minister for the Environment has published the annual list of classes of products the Minister is proposing to consider, during the next financial year, for some form of accreditation or regulation under the Product Stewardship Act 2011.

Global renewable energy developer DP Energy has appointed Catherine Way Business Development Manager, DP Energy Australia.

Signs are appearing the Moroccan government will introduce regulations that will allow for a tariff to be paid for rooftop solar electricity fed into the grid.

Chevy Bolt is keeping with its "next-gen" status and matches Tesla with the introduction of over-the-air software update feature.

An Olympic-style delivery agency could ensure the costs of implementing carbon capture and storage technology are kept to a minimum, says a parliamentary report

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 16 September 1916

The wood is alive now in the evening, while the moon is still almost at its best. As night comes on and the west yellows among the clouds, brown owls begin to call. Everything else is very still; the cattle move noiselessly in the meadow yonder, the sheep lie together under the green oaks. Then a breeze comes, the boughs rustle, moving clouds obscure the light, and the owls start their call. One begins with “Hoo-hoo,” repeated several times, not a loud noise and yet wonderfully penetrating. Then another in the distance, and yet another, answer; they set the barn-owl screeching, in a shrill cry, across by the farm. The clouds pass, the moon shines out, the trees strike all sorts of shadows. The wood is quiet until another cloud and more wind come.

It is curious how the brown owls seem responsive to this waywardness of harvest evenings. On some still nights you may pass a long time in the wood and catch no sound at all. But nearly always, down by the hedge, the barn owl flits along, dropping now and then into the wide ditch, like a white stone tossed from above. He is so quiet in his flight that you would think there is no motion of his wings.

Continue reading...

Some wear-particles from brakes and tyres are small enough to be inhaled, and the increase in wear-particles can outweigh the benefits of improvements in exhaust emissions

One in six MOT failures is due to brake or tyre problems. These wear as we drive, as does the surface of roads. Most of the wear material ends up as dust at the kerb or gets washed into drains but some wear-particles are small enough to be inhaled, and contribute to our air pollution. These particles are rich in transition metals which add to the toxicity of our urban air.

Increasing amounts of wear-particles have been found in new research from King’s College London. Scientists tracked air pollution alongside 65 roads for ten years. The researchers found some roads where the air pollution benefits from improvements in diesel exhausts were outweighed by increases in particles that come from the wear of tyres, brakes and the road. This was mainly on outer London roads that had increasing numbers of heavy good vehicles.

Continue reading...

No consequences for the company if its mine causes greater environmental damage to threatened habitats than expected, says study

Australia’s environmental laws are too weak, a new report argues, citing the Carmichael coalmine as an example. Even what the environment minister has described as the “strictest” environmental conditions on the development allow the destruction of endangered species habitats, the degradation of ecologically and culturally significant water bodies, as well as the production of fossil fuels for burning, it says.

When the federal environment minister gave the most recent approval for Adani’s huge coalmine in 2014, he said it was done on the basis of “36 of the strictest conditions in Australian history”.

Continue reading...

Fossil fuel divestment is gathering pace around Australia and the world. More and more individuals and organisations are pulling their investment assets out of companies involved with the exploration, extraction, production or financing of fossil fuels.

The underlying reason is the brutal maths of climate change: to keep global warming within 2℃ of pre-industrial levels – as both scientists and the Paris climate agreement say we must – around 80% of declared fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground.

So far, 580 institutions, controlling assets worth about US$3.4 trillion, have divested from fossil fuels. The top four types of divest institutions are faith-based groups, foundations, governments and educational institutions. The pattern in Australia is largely the same.

Local governments have been some of the most active organisations in the Australian divestment scene. Last week Sydney’s city council pledged to divest its A$500 million portfolio, regardless of the outcome of the forthcoming mayoral and council election.

It will join a list of 27 Australian local governments that have divested since 2014. This includes other significant investors such as the City of Melbourne and the ACT government. Sydney is the tenth Australian local government to have made a divestment pledge in 2016 alone.

Australian universities have joined in. In May, La Trobe University pledged to divest its A$40 million portfolio from fossil fuels. Swinburne University, with a portfolio of some A$150 million, agreed to pursue a similar goal last December. And last week Queensland University of Technology (QUT) agreed to pull its A$300 million fund out of fossil fuels.

Many financial institutions have also joined the movement. So far 52 banks and credit unions in Australia have publicly divested and will no longer fund fossil fuels. Among these are comparatively major players such as Bendigo Bank.

Why now?

Beyond an underlying recognition of a need to move to a low-carbon economy, the trends driving the current flurry of divestment are manifold.

Part of the impetus is due to the growing financial case for divestment itself. This means that divestment, far from being a decision made in spite of lower financial returns, can actually lead to better returns.

International events are probably also driving this year’s prominent moves. The negotiation of the Paris Agreement late last year, and its recent ratification by both China and the United States, may make continued investment in fossil fuels seem riskier.

But the strongest force behind divestment seems to be simple public pressure from concerned citizens, investors and students. At every Australian university that has announced plans to divest, the decision has been made after lengthy “fossil-free” campaigns by students and academics. It has been a bottom-up phenomenon, rather than top-down, proactive actions by the administration.

Different approaches

The exact approaches to divestment have varied across institutions. Different organisations have adopted contrasting timelines and extents for their divestments, as well as differing approaches to transparency.

La Trobe University has pledged to divest from the “top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies ranked by the carbon content of their fossil fuel reserves within five years”. This will be coupled with full carbon disclosure and annual reports on the state of divestment.

Similarly, Swinburne’s responsible investment charter says that it will divest from companies that earn significant revenues from fossil fuel extraction or coal power generation. This will be backed by full disclosure of investments and carbon exposure.

Others have been more ambiguous. QUT has directed its external fund manager to ensure that it has “no fossil fuel direct investments” and “no fossil fuel investments of material significance”. Sydney’s council has agreed to put coal, gas and oil extraction on its list of environmentally harmful activities that are to be avoided when investing.

Others have taken even more unconventional approaches. Both Monash University and the Australian National University (ANU) have taken first steps partially divested by targeting coal. The ANU, which blacklisted seven specific resources firms in 2014, has made a point of reducing the “carbon intensity” of its portfolio. This appears to have been done with view to reducing its carbon risk exposure. This is financially prudent, but it is not full divestment, and therefore not real moral leadership.

To draw a parallel with a previous campaign, it’s hard to imagine universities during the apartheid era bragging about reducing their “racism intensity” while stopping short of a full embargo.

It would be intriguing to compare the reductions in carbon intensity from full divestment to that of the ANU’s current approach. For now that is impossible since the ANU has not made details about its externally managed investments publicly available.

Given the diversity of actions there is a need to clarify what exactly constitutes full divestment. At the very least, transparency and carbon disclosure should be considered as necessities for accountability.

Truth to power

The main aim of fossil fuel divestment is not what many people tend to think. It’s not about reducing carbon risk. It’s not even primarily about financially wounding the fossil fuel industry. It’s about taking away its social licence – turning fossil fuel firms into social pariahs, just like big tobacco.

There is also a curious element to the movement: it is not the powerful who are typically taking action.

Among government it is the local branches such as the ACT government and Sydney council that are taking action. No Australian state government has yet joined the ranks, while the federal government seems intent on making its climate policies as friendly as possible to the fossil-fuel industry.

Among universities, too, smaller institutions such as La Trobe, Swinburne and now QUT have led the charge. So far none of the Group of Eight elite universities has fully divested. It is odd, given their cherished status as “thought leaders” and drivers of national policy debate.

Among banks it has generally been the smaller players who have responded to climate science and investor concerns. None of the “big four” banks – Westpac, ANZ, NAB and the Commonwealth Bank – has divested. Instead they funded the fossil fuel industry to the tune of A$5.5 billion last year.

But as divestment gathers pace, powerful institutions will soon have no choice but to jump aboard the juggernaut or be left behind. Once national governments, major banks and superannuation and pension funds divest, the financial bottom line of the fossil fuel industry may actually take a hit.

Destroying a social licence can eventually lead to financial losses. Markets, like movements, often operate by critical mass.

In historical hindsight the first movers of divestment will be viewed fondly. The laggards, meanwhile, will probably be seen by future generations as 21st-century Neros, fiddling with their money while the planet burned.

Luke Kemp has received funding from the Australian and German governments. He is an active member of the Fossil Free ANU campaign.

Ever had a gut feeling that you have something in common with a coral reef? Well, you do. Both humans and corals rely on microorganisms to function normally.

Across all species, microbiomes – the communities of microorganisms that live with us – support ecosystems by cycling nutrients, fixing nitrogen and breaking down detritus.

In the human gut, our microbiome helps extract nutrients from ingested food, as well as influencing the immune system. We are also beginning to understand how this internal ecosystem can affect our physical and mental health.

Corals are also influenced by their microbiome. Like the human gut, the microbiome is thought to contribute to the success of coral and coral reefs through roles in nutrition, nutrient cycling and protection against diseases.

However, in comparison to the human microbiome, the processes by which coral bacterial populations influence the health and functioning of these important ecosystems are not well known. Some of these bacteria could be the source of new human drugs, or help us understand how bleaching affects corals.

A major challenge is the sheer complexity of coral microbiomes. This makes it difficult to identify the bacteria playing these important roles or to decipher how they interact with the coral.

An unexplored underwater microworld

Corals harbour a microbiome comprising hundreds of thousands of microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, archaea and fungi) organised on a microscale imperceptible to the human eye. A coral colony offers many different spaces for microbes to live in. This array of microhabitats helps make corals one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world.

One coral species can host more than 100,000 different bacteria, and a gram of coral can harbour more than 30,000 bacteria of thousands of different types. The number and types of these bacterial communities can vary across coral colonies, species and reefs.

These communities also change when corals are stressed, such as when they experience changes in environmental conditions, become diseased, or face competition from algae for space. But these relationships are complex, so how can we figure out what’s going on?

Microbes for every purpose

As with a human microbiome, the study of coral bacteria first involves collecting samples (though requiring scuba divers rather than swabs) to collect DNA. The bacterial genomes are then sequenced and the DNA sequences compared against databases of sequences from known bacteria. This comparison has allowed us to classify the microbes.

Through these analyses, it has been possible to identify bacteria present at different stages of corals’ lifespan. These include species involved in cycling nitrogen and sulfur, and rare bacteria that could play a role in transporting nutrients from the photosynthetic algae that live within corals (known as zooxanthellae).

We’ve also identified bacterial species that produce antimicrobial and antibacterial compounds, which help prevent disease and overgrowth of the immobile coral.

However, thousands of the bacterial DNA sequences don’t match anything in current databases. These anonymous bacteria have not been reported in any other ecosystem and are likely to be entirely new bacterial species.

New medicines

The diversity of the coral microbiome is not only fascinating but also offers the tantalising prospect of new medicines and new biologically active compounds.

For example, we urgently need new antibiotics to fight the rapid acceleration of resistance. Almost all of our current antibiotics were first isolated from bacteria. Importantly, no clinically useful antibiotic with a completely new mechanism for fighting infection has been discovered since the 1980s.

New bacterial species offer untapped resources for the discovery of new antibiotics, as well as other bioactive products, if they can be cultured successfully. Cultivating coral bacteria is a huge challenge, but is also an opportunity to understand antimicrobial compounds that exist in nature.

Culturing these bacteria could also enrich resources like the Griffith University Nature Bank, which collects biological samples and shares them with researchers looking for new drugs around the world.

Mine canaries and invisible helpers

It is clear that we have only scratched the surface of the complex ecosystem of coral reefs and their unexplored microbiomes. We are continually learning just how diverse coral systems are, and evaluating how unique and unexplored they remain.

Advances in DNA technologies are enabling us to explore ever more dimensions, but a long and exciting path still lies ahead. Continued analysis of coral reefs and coral microbiomes is important to understand the ecology and biology of corals and coral reefs – and crucially how these are changing, particularly in response to external events such as bleaching and coastal pollution.

Preserving untapped and unexplored resources is also vitally important for the future discovery of new and improved antibacterial compounds.

Alejandra Hernandez receives funding from Australian Awards and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Roisin McMahon receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Tracy Ainsworth works for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Jenny Martin is Director of the Eskitis Institute for Drug Discovery at Griffith University and Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Exclusive: MPs and activists want BP’s exploration licences to be suspended over ‘very critical safety issue’ identified by US regulators

Oil rigs poised to begin drilling in the Great Australian Bight could use faulty equipment that US regulators say is very likely to cause a “catastrophic incident” like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

With no assurances the faulty equipment can be avoided in the Bight drilling, and safety plans that probably rely on faulty equipment already approved, parliamentarians and conservationists are calling for any approvals of BP’s pending environmental plans to be halted, and its exploration licences to be suspended, until the problem has been solved.

Continue reading...

• Not legally binding but may stem trade and poaching
• Nearly one third of Africa’s savannah elephants killed between 2007 and 2014
  
• Ban negotiations spurred feud

Nations and environment groups have agreed to shut down the domestic ivory trade, despite the resolution nearly being derailed by objections from countries including Japan and South Africa.

Related: Push for ban on domestic ivory trade spurs feud at international summit

Continue reading...