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What should the priorities for the next Commonwealth Government be?

Trade group condemns failure to show UK is open for business after Brexit as government defers decision on whether to expand Heathrow or Gatwick

The government has been accused of indulging in “internal party politics” at the expense of the national interest, after David Cameron delayed a decision on whether to expand Heathrow or Gatwick airport.

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Amber Rudd allays fears that target would be casualty of EU referendum and adopts fifth carbon budget to reduce emissions 57% by 2030 on 1990 levels

The UK has announced an ambitious new carbon target for the early 2030s, allaying fears that the climate goal would be a casualty of the EU referendum.

Amber Rudd accepted the advice of the government’s statutory climate advisers, setting a target on Thursday of reducing carbon emissions 57% by 2030 on 1990 levels.

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The Rosetta probe will be crash-landed on Comet 67P on Friday 30 September, the European Space Agency has confirmed.

Britain has been a consistently progressive driver of climate policy in the European Union. Given the EU’s significance in international climate change negotiations, Britain’s vote to leave the union has implications both for EU policy and for the global Paris climate agreement struck last year.

The UK has been crucial to EU climate change policy in ways that have evolved over time. Britain’s strong domestic emissions reductions have made more ambitious EU burden-sharing targets possible. This in turn gave credibility to the idea of Europe as a global leader on climate ambition – something that has become a cherished part of many European citizens' self-identity. Britain has also been a crucial bridge between the United States and Europe in the United Nations' climate negotiation process.

Yet the EU’s climate policy ambition has arguably already declined over the past decade as it has struggled with a rising tide of resistance from more recalcitrant member states, chiefly Poland but also including, at various times, Italy, Hungary and Romania. Assuming that the EU manages to stave off any further disintegration, these voices will likely grow louder.

Poland’s recalcitrance on climate change policy has already challenged the EU’s leadership credentials, particularly since last year’s Polish elections, which installed a new conservative, Eurosceptic government.

While it has not always succeeded, British leadership has been an important balancing voice against these reluctant climate actors. Brexit has worrying consequences not just for EU climate policy but also for global progress on climate change.

Consistent vision

One of the reasons for Britain’s strong influence is its consistency across government on climate policy. This stands in contrast with other countries such as Germany and France, and even the European Commission itself, where internal divisions have sometimes meant that different ministries have pursued conflicting goals. The clarity of the UK position has been strategically important for achieving progressive EU climate policy.

Examples of British contributions to EU climate leadership abound. The UK helped broker a crucial compromise with the United States on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. In 2005, then prime minister Tony Blair made climate change the priority of the UK’s presidency of the EU and G8, lending clout to the EU’s claims of leadership. The UK helped shape the EU’s diplomatic efforts in Paris last year, and there were high hopes for the impact of its EU presidency in 2017 on climate policy.

In practical terms, the UK is the EU’s second-largest economy and its second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, after Germany in both cases. Climate change policy is an area of “shared competence” between the EU and member states, and UK climate policy is deeply embedded within broader EU frameworks such as its Emissions Trading System.

Domestic UK emissions reductions have historically been crucial to the EU’s achievement of its targets. This is due to Britain’s relatively large share of total emissions and to the UK’s pursuit of ambitious domestic targets. The UK has legislated for steeper emissions targets than required of it under EU agreements and is aiming for an 80% reduction on 1990 levels by mid-century. Along with Sweden and Denmark, it has consistently pushed for more ambitious EU-level targets.

Britain’s contribution to EU climate targets

The European Union’s official pledge to the Paris climate negotiations promised a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, relative to 1990 levels, by 2030. The UK was a key player in the internal negotiations that decided on this target. In fact, it pushed hard for a higher target of 50%.

A Brexit would also make it harder for the EU to meet its target, as the UK’s own significant emission cuts are factored into the overall target. The Paris Agreement does not allow countries to change their submitted climate pledge, except to increase it.

The EU may therefore have to work out how to distribute its 2030 reductions among its 27 remaining members without the UK’s contributions. This will be particularly challenging given the relative size of the UK contribution. Even without this complication, the EU will face the need to re-assert its capacity for leadership on climate change without one of its most ambitious members.

The future of Europe’s Emissions Trading System could also be steered by Poland after the resignation of Britain’s Ian Duncan as head of the committee overseeing the ETS review in the wake of last Friday’s referendum result.

This is not to say that Britain’s impact on EU climate change policy has always been advantageous. The UK’s close ties with the previously recalcitrant United States and its pro-market approach have frustrated the EU’s attempts to find a unified voice on climate change in the past. However, these characteristics have also enabled Britain to play a crucial bridging role between Eastern and Western Europe in internal EU negotiations. And this loss will worry those hoping that EU leadership on climate change will continue.

What does this mean for the Paris Agreement?

The EU has struggled to demonstrate the ambition required to hold the mantle of climate leader in recent years, even with the UK’s full support. The US and China’s increased engagement in global climate negotiations has meant fewer opportunities for the EU to make good on its leadership rhetoric, while the economic crisis and internal divisions have created extra hurdles.

Climate laggards within the EU can now draw out the ratification of the Paris Agreement and the renewed negotiations over how to divide the 2030 emission targets between members. Poland has long argued that the internal burden-sharing arrangements must be worked out before it will ratify the Paris Agreement.

The United Nations' outgoing lead climate negotiator, Christina Figueres, has attempted to calm fears of EU climate policy derailment by urging Britain and the EU to continue working together even after Britain leaves the union.

It is indeed likely that Britain will remain somewhat embedded in the complex architecture of EU climate policy. Iceland, a non-EU member included in much of Europe’s climate policy framework, provides a potential model for how this might work in practice.

But whatever arrangements are made, losing one of its most progressive voices on climate change will be a blow to Europe’s leadership credentials.

Natalie Latter attended the 2015 Paris climate summit with accreditation from Climate Action Network Australia.

By mapping glaciers and mountains in ultra-fine detail, Dan Holdsworth’s digital images remind us of the majesty – and fragility – of a thawing Earth

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Big utilities and conservatives tipped to push for another review of the renewable energy target if Coalition returned to power, and has support in Senate.

The electorate is concerned about global warming and strongly backs the phase-out of coal-fired power stations, so why are we hearing so little about the difference between the two major parties?

Never have so many false promises made to so many people been retracted so quickly in the face of such an unexpected victory. But Brexit has broader implications in the fight against climate change and the push for clean energy.

Egleton, Rutland The lightest night of the year couldn’t be any lighter, the tree-line stark against a fading stripe in the sky

The weather report said clear skies and a 9.30 sunset, so I drove to the lake. The western sky was wild, the sun brilliantly diffuse behind flings of cloud and fat vapour trails.

If the lake were calm the water might mirror the light and make the solstice’s half-night brighter still. In December, I was in north Scotland near the opposite pitch of this seasonal tilt: 17 hours of black night, no moon. Tonight, reversed. But this night wasn’t really about seasonal parallels. The last time there was a full moon on the summer solstice, in 1967, this lake wasn’t here.

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Here are three ways you can evaluate how the plight of the various major parties in this forthcoming election could impact on the clean energy sector.

NASA's Juno mission is almost at Jupiter. Here's why you should care.

A world-leading climate change target up to the early 2030s is set to be confirmed by the British government, cutting emissions by 57%.

Sir Paul Nurse says UK science will suffer unless any post-Brexit agreement allows the free movement of people.

Human disturbances are putting the Amazon rainforest at greater risk of fire, say researchers.

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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