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Australia's universities are great at green innovation, but not so good at going low-carbon themselves. PrinceArutha/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Australian universities have a proud tradition in researching, teaching and advocating the science of climate change. The famous statistic that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are altering the climate is courtesy of researchers at the University of Queensland. Nine of the nation’s 43 universities have been ranked “well above world standard” in environmental science, and many of the leading public voices on climate policy – such as Ross Garnaut, Will Steffen and Tim Flannery – are university professors.

The science these universities (and many others around the world) have produced is very clear. Keeping average global temperatures within 2℃ of pre-industrial levels, as per the Paris climate agreement, will require a reduction in carbon (and other long-lived greenhouse gases) of 40-70% from 2010 levels by 2050, and near-zero emissions by 2100 (see section 3.4 here).

What’s less clear is what Australian universities are actually doing about it in practical terms. Universities exist to do three things: teach, research and engage. Climate change permeates all three endeavours, and these days many academics have lost any previous reticence about expressing forthright views on political questions such as the government’s emissions targets or renewable energy policies.

Anyone who followed Australian politics during Tony Abbott’s years as opposition leader and then prime minister will recall the fierce debates over the carbon tax, direct action, and the axing of the Climate Commission. Those with good memories will remember the furious argument that erupted around the Australian National University’s decision to divest from seven resources companies.

Universities clearly know what the science says and what society needs to do about it. But it is evidently easier to say what needs to be done than to do something about it. This contrast between words and actions is shown clearly by Australian universities’ collective response to climate change.

Promises, promises

Of the 43 Australian universities, three (RMIT, UTS and CSU, of which the latter remains Australia’s only carbon-neutral university) have committed to absolute reductions in carbon emissions. A further 12 have pledged to reduce carbon emissions but have sprinkled their commitments with riders, such as reducing emissions per “gross floor area”, which would allow emissions to grow as the university expands and is inconsistent with the need to cut carbon in absolute terms.

To compile these data, I looked at all Australian universities’ 2015 annual reports, forward-looking corporate strategies, and historic mission-based compacts (performance agreements with the Commonwealth). Clearly, it is possible for universities to have a carbon target that is not mentioned in these reports, but my logic is that these documents give a clear picture of the organisation’s priorities and spending.

Worryingly, 11 universities make no mention at all of carbon-reduction policies anywhere in these documents.

The picture is no rosier for those nine universities (ANU, Griffith, JCU, Macquarie, Canberra, Melbourne, Queensland, UTS and UWA) whose environmental science has received the highest rating. Only Melbourne and Queensland mention carbon in their corporate strategies; the other seven are silent.

The same is true for 10 of the 12 universities whose researchers were involved in compiling the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s landmark Fifth Assessment Report. And if it’s not in the strategy it seems unlikely to be a priority for the university.

There are ten Australian universities that consume enough energy to be required to publish their emissions data, under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act (2007). Data from the Clean Energy Regulator show that their emissions increased by 4.6% between 2010-11 and 2014-15.

Lead by example

This poses two tricky questions for universities. First, why don’t universities act more decisively on the implications of their own climate research, while they are urging society to do so? Second, in a networked economy where knowledge is king, how will universities manage to partner with businesses to drive down greenhouse emissions, if they can’t even successfully do it themselves?

Universities are not short of funds to demonstrate how to build a low-carbon future, but they are short of partners. Currently Australian universities are at the bottom of the OECD’s rankings for fostering business partnerships and innovation. Yet the opportunities are there.

My analysis of universities’ 2015 reports shows that universities have committed to spending more than A$1.5 billion in property, plant and equipment capital works during 2016 alone (2016 annual reports have not yet been released). For comparison, the Australian Research Council awarded less than A$100 million between 2011 and 2013 for universities to research the built environment and design, meaning that it would take the ARC 50 years to match what universities spent on their own property in 2016.

Yet in spite of this huge outlay, only eight universities have committed to using their campuses as “living labs” to apply their research or to help deliver teaching and research in this field.

All universities talk of the need to forge external partnerships with government, communities and business. Yet looking at the detail, there are just 17 universities – fewer than half – that have committed themselves to trying to work across the university internally. It should be no surprise that universities are so poor at partnering with external organisations if they can’t manage it within their own organisations.

Evidence-based spending?

All of this suggests that most Australian universities are failing to take proper account of their own climate science in choosing how to run themselves. Remarkably, 25% of universities do not mention greenhouse emissions anywhere in their public reports, corporate strategies or mission-based compacts.

Less than 20% of Australian universities are using their campus development to deliver teaching and research outcomes or as a living lab to innovate. Only one university is committed to doing this in the future.

Yet meanwhile, universities have spent more than A$1.5 billion during 2016 (according to their 2015 annual reports) on their built environments. If this infrastructure spend is not used also to drive teaching and research outcomes, or to showcase how to adopt research, then it is being spent inefficiently.

If this money is being spent in a way that doesn’t help Australia hit its climate targets, and the world to live up to the Paris Agreement, then this spending is not evidenced-based. And if spending and research are not evidence-based, we really do need to worry about what tomorrow brings.

This article is based on a presentation given at the World Renewable Energy Congress in Perth on February 6.

Universities Australia deputy chief executive Catriona Jackson responds:

Australia’s universities have a wide range of energy savings and lower-carbon initiatives.

Actually there are a significant number of projects and programs in place across the Australian university sector towards greater sustainability. Many of those initiatives have also been recognised through programs such as the Green Gowns awards.

But one of the challenges for universities in modernising facilities to meet higher environmental standards is having an ongoing source of infrastructure funding.

That’s yet another reason why we’re strongly against the closure of the $3.7 billion Education Investment Fund, which has funded major building works on Australia’s university campuses.

If we want smarter buildings and cleaner technology – let alone cutting-edge research and teaching facilities – an infrastructure fund is vital.

Mike Burbridge receives a PHD scholarship from Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living and is currently a PHD student at Curtin University.

We were saddened, though not surprised, to hear that fewer gardeners are spotting hedgehogs (Report, 6 February). We have long known hedgehog numbers are in decline. Since the turn of the century numbers have dropped by about a third in urban areas and a half in rural ones. A major factor in their decline is loss and fragmentation of habitat. We have joined forces with People’s Trust for Endangered Species on a project called Hedgehog Street, designed to help tackle the habitat crisis. We ask people to create 13cm square gaps in the bottom of their boundary fences and walls to join up usable habitat, and to ask their neighbours, and their neighbours’ neighbours, to do the same, until the whole street is accessible to hedgehogs. To date we have had over 42,000 people sign up as “hedgehog champions”. There are lots of simple things we can all do to help hedgehogs that could make a big difference. To find out more (or to sign up as a champion) see hedgehogstreet.org
Fay Vass
Chief executive, British Hedgehog Preservation Society

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拥有超乎人类理解范围的敏锐感官、清晰的“自我”意识、严格的母系社会……大象的世界看起来比人类的精彩得多！《化身为兽》的作者写道。(翻译：金艳/chinadialogue)

如果你一觉醒来，发现自己变成了一头大象，那会是什么画风？

首先，你会发现自己的脸上多出了一只甩来甩去的，仅有两根指头的手。这条手像生殖器一样敏感，却能推倒一堵墙或捡起一颗樱桃。你会发现，好友们纷纷用它们的“手”在你的嘴里探来探去，只是为了增进友谊。你也可以用这只手“闻”到数英里外的水源和脚下的野花。这只手可以带给你五种讯息：一，迫在眉睫的危险；二，潜在的威胁；三，食物和水；四，短期及长期的天气预报；五，愉快。

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A herd of plains bison have been successfully reintroduced to Canada's oldest national park, more than 100 years after they were nearly hunted out of existence.

With ambitious emissions-reduction targets, support from government and the car industry, electromobility is on the verge of major expansion in Europe, reports Yale Environment 360

Oslo, Norway’s capital, like most of the Scandinavian country’s cities and towns, boasts bus-lane access for electric vehicles (EVs), recharging stations aplenty, privileged parking, and toll-free travel for electric cars. The initiative began in the 1990s as an effort to cut pollution, congestion, and noise in urban centres; now its primary rationale is combating climate change. Today, Norway has the highest per capita number of all-electric [battery only] cars in the world: more than 100,000 in a country of 5.2 million people. Last year, EVs constituted nearly 40% of the nation’s newly registered passenger cars.

And the Norwegian experiment shows every sign of accelerating. Earlier this year, Norway opened the world’s largest fast-charging station, which can charge up to 28 vehicles in about half an hour. The country, joined by Europe’s No 2 in electromobility, the Netherlands, intends to phase out all fossil fuel-powered automobiles by 2025. Elon Musk, CEO of the US electric car company Tesla Motors, responded to Norway’s goal by tweeting: “What an amazingly awesome country. You guys rock!”

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The dorado catfish travels 11,600km from the Andes to the mouth of the Amazon and back, but is threatened by dams and mining

A giant silvery-gold catfish undertakes the longest freshwater migration of any fish, according to new research, travelling 11,600km from the Andes to the mouth of the Amazon and back.

The dorado catfish, which can grow up to 2 metres long, is an important source of food for people along the world’s longest river. It was suspected of making a spectacular journey, but a careful new analysis of the distribution of larvae and juvenile and mature adults has confirmed the mammoth migration.

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A newly discovered species of gecko has tearaway skin that leaves predators with nothing but a mouthful of scales when attacked.

Trial stemming from a 2014 standoff could be derailed by a ploy to pose as a ‘fake film company’ and an ethics scandal involving a BLM officer and Burning Man

FBI agents posed as journalists and tricked the Bundy ranching family and their supporters into giving on-camera interviews that prosecutors may use in upcoming trials, according to defense attorneys and court records.

The FBI’s “fake film production company” and “wide-reaching deceptive undercover operation”, as lawyers described it in a court filing, is one of multiple controversies that some say could derail the government’s prosecution of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his four sons and a dozen of their followers. A recent Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ethics scandal involving tickets for the popular Burning Man festival could further hinder prosecutors in the high-profile trial, which began this week in Las Vegas federal court.

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From Wordsworth’s gardens to the south’s white cliffs and salmon rivers in Wales, climate change is wrecking historic sites, finds report

Climate change is already wrecking some of Britain’s most significant sites, from Wordsworth’s gardens in Cumbria to the white cliffs on England’s south coast, according to a new report.

Floods and erosion are damaging historic places, while warmer temperatures are seeing salmon vanishing from famous rivers and birds no longer visiting important wetlands.

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Claxton, Norfolk Most of spring is here but hidden somewhere in all this quiescence

It is not dense enough to call mist, let alone fog, but February’s invisible damp gives milkiness to the air and weight to the morning’s mood. The ivy leaves in our hedge seem to droop as if they have all been licked downwards, and our garden robin hugs their shadow with its brown back to me. As I walk to the river I notice that the oak leaves by the track, which were frosted copper last month, are in mid journey from leaf mulch to soil.

Across the marsh there is no division between the grey of the sky and land, and no horizon, and the dark of the woods is burred with softness. The north-westerly is mild and lifts only the lightest vegetation – the reed tops by the sides of the path – and the moisture adds to each intake of breath the cold savour of bare earth and dead leaves.

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Climate science denial group the Heartland Institute helped inspire Cory Bernardi and Malcolm Roberts to push back against policies to cut emissions

If the dissident conservative senator Cory Bernardi’s new political party shares the views of its founder, then we can chalk up it up as another fringe party firmly in the climate science denial camp.

Ignoring mountains of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry carried out over many decades, Bernardi has for a long time chosen to listen instead to fake experts pushing talking points that walk like zombies through barbecue conversations across Australia.

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Article claims world leaders "duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data”. Proves nothing.

Australian battery maker Redflow shifts its attention back to commercial-scale applications, with a focus on Asian telco market.

Wholesale prices for so-called "cheap" coal and gas power in Queensland have average more than $220/MWh this year. It is insane. But you won't hear the Coalition complaining about this, because it does not fit the alternative facts being pushed to support their absurd energy policy.

A detailed review of Australia's National Electricity Market in 2016 - with focus on solar, large scale renewables, energy efficiency, fossil fuel generation, emissions, and prices.

Innovative solution integrates renewables and improves reliability of power supply to Anchorage.

Australian solar monitoring start-ups Solar Analytics and WattWatchers approved for installation in US and Canada.

A late 2016 recovery in Australia’s large-scale renewable market has been followed by yet another series of troubling events.

Solar thermal (CST) is a mature and available technology that possesses precisely the attributes that people are arguing need to be added or retained in our electricity system.

Weird. Strange. Extreme. Unprecedented. These are some of the words that describe what’s been happening in the Arctic over the past year.