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After a record year in 2015, BNEF says "worryingly low" clean energy investment in Q3 2016 somewhere between a 'flash crash' blip, and 'new normal'.

Australia's car industry got left behind on emissions standards. Exhaust image from www.shutterstock.com

Ford’s closure of its Geelong manufacturing plant on Friday is part of a broader story about Australia’s manufacturing sector. But one side of this story has so far been overlooked: the role of Australia’s lax attitude to vehicle emissions.

Globally, car manufacturers are taking climate action seriously by significantly improving fuel economy, in turn reducing a car’s CO₂ emissions.

Repeated policy failure and a marked reluctance by the Australian car industry to shift from manufacturing mostly high CO₂-emitting vehicles contributed to Ford ending operations. The Australian car industry ignored the elephant in the room.

This effectively contradicts former-Treasurer Joe Hockey’s assertion that climate change has no impediment on economic growth, as Australia gets left behind in a world embracing action on climate change.

Warning signs

In 2008, the international community launched the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) to facilitate and promote large reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by establishing a global target to improve fuel efficiencies. The target included a 50% improvement in vehicle fuel economy in new light duty vehicles by 2030. The GFEI offered to assist successive Australian governments in the development of better fuel policy.

European car manufacturers made slow progress and continued manufacturing larger high-performance vehicles. But in 2009, the European Parliament introduced CO₂ emission standards of 130 grams of CO₂ per km by 2015 and long-term target of 95g CO₂ per km by 2021.

By 2013, 80% of global passenger vehicle sales were subject to CO₂ standards. Complementary economic measures were introduced to support the standards by influencing consumers into choosing low CO₂-emitting vehicles.

Australia left behind

In 2005, the Australian car industry adopted voluntary targets of 222g CO₂ per km by 2010. This wasn’t in line with international standards and masked the poor fuel efficiency of locally manufactured vehicles as shown in the chart below.

With voluntary standards, the local car industry was under no pressure from the government to improve its fleet’s fuel efficiency. The Australian car industry failed to meet the target. Average emissions from cars manufactured in Australia in 2010 were 247g per km – 11% higher than the voluntary target.

In April 2012, the Australian government mandated that 100% of all Commonwealth vehicles would be Australian made. This explicitly excluded acquiring vehicles on the grounds of “environmental considerations, such as fuel efficiency”.

In 2013, the government announced a Productivity Commission review of the industry that would examine international competitiveness, exports, trade barriers and long-term sustainability. At this point the local car industry announced its decision to abandon manufacturing in Australia. As a result, the commission didn’t examine the impact of climate policy measures on the local car industry, although it did suggest that environmental policies could serve as a barrier to international trade.

Industry actors also criticised other measures such as vehicle or excise taxes that it said would impede Australian exports.

For example, Ireland’s 36% vehicle tax on new light passenger vehicles with emission greater than 225g per km would apply to most Australian-made vehicles. Such measures support emission standards, and are imposed on all vehicles sold (whether imported or manufactured domestically) for the protection of the environment. They have been effective in shifting consumer demand to fuel-efficient vehicles.

Under the rules of the World Trade Organization national governments can ban imports that do not comply with product standards, if they do not constitute non-tariff barriers. To meet this exception, the policy must be measurable (such as an excise tax based on CO₂ emissions), apply to all goods sold (domestic and imports), and contribute to the fight against climate change.

The adoption of regulatory standards and supporting economic instruments, meant car manufacturers/importers will not be able to sell as many larger high CO₂-emitting vehicles. To sustain economic production runs, manufacturers will seek to sell these vehicles to countries with lenient or no standards, such as Australia, which then become “dumping grounds”.

Government and industry caught off guard

In 2014, the Abbott government supported the G20 Energy Efficiency Action Plan, which included “improving vehicle energy efficiency and emissions performance” by strengthening domestic standards in vehicle emissions and vehicle fuel efficiency. Despite the plan, there was no recommendation to introduce emissions standards in the government’s 2015 Energy White Paper.

Successive Australian governments, trade unions, and industry actors have all failed to appreciate the impact of climate action on the economic interest of the local car industry. The Australian government is now examining fuel efficiency standards and complementary measures, but will only report next year. It’s a little too late to save the industry.

Forcing the local car industry to meet similar standards would have been to its benefit and would have outweighed the costs of being shut out from the market. As more global car manufacturers began adopting emissions standards more pressure was placed on car manufacturers to remain competitive.

Car manufacturers were known to lobby their governments to adopt European emission standards to increase their competitiveness and restrict importation of high CO₂-emitting vehicles. The former Vice-Chairman on General Motors, Bob Lutz, said the fall of GM in the United States was largely a result of a terrible government policy on fuel economy, which gave its competitors, the Japanese automakers, a free pass.

The European Commission stated that if a car industry fails to embrace a shift towards more fuel-efficient vehicles, it will continue to be structurally unprepared for the future.

To compete globally, the Australian car industry had to decide whether to embrace cleaner technology to meet the standards of its importers, or abandon the export market. Unfortunately for the workers, Ford chose to close its operations on October 7, and GM Holden and Toyota will close by the end of 2017.

Anna Mortimore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

For the first time, researchers from the Queensland University of Technology studying bleaching have captured footage of coral from the Great Barrier Reef spewing out the algae that lives within it in response to heat stress. Using a microscope and digital camera to record time-lapse videos, the researchers demonstrate precisely how coral reacts to rising water temperatures

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Another setback for the “nuclear renaissance”: Switzerland voted on Friday to focus on renewables and efficiency, and to ban new nuclear plants.

Trudeau has decided to leave climate policy to the provinces, while forcing them to act. Is this state-based approach a model for Australia?

Hundreds of thousands of householders in flood risk areas have failed to install basic protection against rising waters, insurers say.

Caroline Lucas and dozens of campaigners and scientists call on museum to drop Statoil backing of children’s gallery

More than 50 prominent scientists, campaigners and politicians have signed a letter calling on the Science Museum to drop its oil sponsorship.

Despite choosing not to renew its previous sponsorship deal with Shell following criticism and campaigning, the Science Museum decided to accept sponsorship from Statoil, a Norwegian multinational oil and gas company, for its revamped children’s gallery, which the letter’s signatories describe as an “unconscionable” decision.

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On Tuesday, the Science Museum will launch its new interactive gallery for children – Wonderlab: The Statoil Gallery. Despite securing sponsorship from an oil and gas company that is recklessly planning to drill seven new wells in the fragile Arctic, the London museum has also introduced an entry charge, restricting access to those visitors able to pay.

It is unconscionable that in 2016 a museum of science is handing a fossil fuel company legitimacy by allowing it to sponsor a gallery designed to inspire the next generation. Statoil is pursuing new sources of oil that must stay in the ground if there is to be any hope of leaving a safe climate for the children that are to visit this gallery. And from the Norwegian Arctic to the Great Australian Bight, Statoil’s plans are opposed by local communities and indigenous peoples who want the company off their lands and out of their waters.

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Windsor and Maidenhead council looks to increase budget for fighting expected government go-ahead for third runway

Theresa May’s local authority is prepared to spend £50,000 on a judicial review if her government approves the expansion of Heathrow next week, documents released on Monday reveal.

The papers underline the scale of resistance that the prime minister will face from residents in her Maidenhead constituency, which she has represented since 1997, if she agrees to allow the third runway to go ahead.

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau showed Australia a thing or two when he announced a new climate change plan last week – and not just because it was delivered impeccably in two languages. Trudeau has decided to leave climate policy to the provinces, while forcing them to act.

Is this state-based approach a model for Australia?

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t seem keen. He recently blasted state-based renewable energy schemes, linking them to South Australia’s power outage and saying national approaches were best.

But here’s the thing: if Turnbull doesn’t boost his climate policies soon, a state-based system of climate policies is exactly what Australia will have. And unlike Canada, no one will be in charge of it.

What is Canada doing?

Australia and Canada make for a neat comparison – they have similar Westminster political systems, plenty of fossil fuels, and a messy history on climate policy.

In Canada a lack of federal action under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government prompted some states to go it alone. British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec have carbon prices in place or coming. These are mostly not compatible. Some are carbon taxes, some are Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS). They have different prices rising at different rates, they cover different things. Plus there’s a range of state schemes on renewables and low-emission cars.

Enter the moderate Trudeau who took office last year. He’d talked the talk on climate change but faced with some states out in front and some recalcitrants, not to mention his own party’s disastrous 2008 push to bring in a national carbon tax, Trudeau trod carefully. He has decided not to bring in a national carbon price.

Rather, in a speech to Parliament last Monday which took many by surprise – and was delivered in both French and English, which is what Trudeau does – he announced every state must bring in its own carbon price by 2018.

Key points:

• The price should be at least C$10 (A$10) per tonne of emissions in 2018 – that’s the “floor price” – and rise to at least C$50 (A$50) by 2022

• States can choose a carbon tax or an ETS; the latter “will need to decrease emissions in line to Canada’s [emissions] target”

• If any state does not implement a carbon price by 2018, the federal government will implement a scheme for them

• The states keep any revenue.

This approach is not one recommended in Economics 101. It’s messy and complex. It won’t be easy comparing different schemes to see if they meet the floor price.

Trudeau has landed in a fight with some states, which could end up in the courts – the case of the PM vs Saskatchewan has already provided high theatre. (Crucially, it happens to be the smaller states which are most outraged, so that’s not necessarily fatal).

Environmentalists are complaining Trudeau didn’t boost Canada’s emissions target under the Paris climate deal, which enters into force next month. Behind the scenes business does not like this approach. They prefer national consistency.

But given where Canada’s at, Trudeau’s approach is seen as pragmatic and stronger than some had expected. A C$50 per tonne carbon price is substantial.

This a signalling exercise; Canada is serious about climate change, and carbon pricing is coming. Trudeau is letting some states take the lead – in Canada’s case it’s those who rely less on fossil fuels and have more progressive governments – while forcing laggard states to tag along.

And both the US and China are, to some degree, relying on provinces and cities to implement climate policies. Are all those countries wrong?

As an aside, Trudeau may be lifting the ambition on carbon pricing in exchange for authorising new fossil fuel infrastructure (pipelines, LNG plants), a cunning plan which could leave everyone unhappy.

So should Australia follow Canada’s lead?

We already are.

Critics accuse the Turnbull government of having no credible path to meet Australia’s Paris pledge to reduce emissions by 26-28% by 2030. Some states – particularly South Australia, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory – have gone it alone with state-based emissions targets and renewable energy schemes (hence the furore over the SA blackout). No state currently has a carbon price. It’s possible this will change. It’s been done before – New South Wales used to have the well-regarded Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme.

In general this state-based trend will become more pronounced, especially if the Turnbull government does not boost its climate policies. A review is due next year and that’s Turnbull’s chance to, for example, ramp up the existing Direct Action scheme into a more effective baseline-and-credit emissions trading scheme. But the biggest hurdle to doing more is Turnbull’s own backbench.

And the biggest potential catalyst for more action is business. More and more senior business figures seriously want – as in, not just some nice words in the annual report – bipartisan, national climate change policy. Business does not want to comply with a messy patchwork of state climate programs.

And with the Paris deal coming into force, countries such as Australia have to have a credible plan to meet their emissions targets. That’s why Trudeau stood up in Parliament and ordered the provinces to bring in carbon pricing.

There’s little chance of an Australian government going the “full Trudeau” and mandating a carbon price floor for the states in the near future. But we may be shambling towards a similar outcome.

Australia’s states have their own health systems, their own education systems, their own road rules. Perhaps they should have their own climate change policies as well.

Cathy Alexander recently returned from four months researching climate change policies in Canada, on an Endeavour Fellowship.

Cathy Alexander received funding in the form of an Endeavour Research Fellowship from the federal Department of Education and Training.

It's not quite time for international airlines to fly off into the sunset Aviation image www.shutterstock.com

Emissions fron international flights - a bugbear of efforts to combat climate change - will finally be regulated under a scheme agreed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) on Thursday last week.

It’s a problem that had remained largely unaddressed by states – and airlines – since 1997, the year when essentially all nations, through the Kyoto Protocol, determined that ICAO – a United Nations agency – should deal with it.

Governments all took the view that, given jurisdictional and aircraft ownership and control issues, and the nature of the problem, ICAO was the appropriate forum to address the emissions problem. It was also a reflection of how difficult the problem was – and still is – to solve.

At the last ICAO Assembly, in 2013, states agreed that a market mechanism for international aviation was best, and that its form would be approved by the assembly this year. This 2013 agreement came just shy of 20 years since ICAO was tasked with addressing the problem. The 2016 meeting was the organisation’s 38th.

What did the assembly agree?

ICAO member states chose a global carbon offset scheme before the start of the assembly to deal with international aviation emissions. The scheme is called the CORSIA , or the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation. 

Other market-based options (more effective ones, according to general consensus) include an emissions trading scheme (ETS) – either a cap-and-trade or a baseline-and-credit scheme – or a carbon tax.

For some time it has been clear that offsetting was ICAO’s preferred mechanism. In part, it was chosen because it is less transparent and less onerous than either a carbon tax or an ETS. A tax would have been more straightforward and easier to implement.

An ETS would have made sense given that the European Union already has one in place for EU carriers. Moreover, an attempt to include non-EU carriers in the EU ETS failed a few years ago. ICAO could have used blueprints for the attempt in the lead-up to the 2016 assembly and, arguably, a better, more effective result might have ensued.

Relatively few changes were made between the final draft text and the final version that resulted from the assembly’s deliberations and private discussions between the parties.

As a result, an ICAO press conference to announce the details – unusually for such conferences, held the day before the assembly concluded – was attended by fewer than 15 journalists, and questions lasted less than 15 minutes.

How does the scheme work?

As outlined in our previous Conversation article, there are three phases to the offset scheme: a pilot phase would operate from 2021 to 2023 for states that volunteer to participate in the scheme. Much about this phase remains unclear.

An initial phase from 2024 to 2026 would then operate for states that (as with the pilot phase) voluntarily participate, and would offset using options in the assembly resolution text.

Finally, a subsequent mandatory phase would operate from 2027 – fully a decade away to 2035 – and would exempt a fair number of states on various bases. And there are further exemptions.

None of this was changed in the final resolution text.

Many weaknesses

While an advanced previous draft of the resolution asked the aviation sector to assess its share of the global carbon budget for holding warming to 1.5-2℃, such assessment was deleted from the final draft.

Now the text simply requests that ICAO:

…continue to explore the feasibility of a long term global aspirational goal for international aviation, through conducting detailed studies.

What’s more, the CORSIA only applies to international flights, which make up about 60% of aviation emissions.

Participation is also an issue. At this stage, for the first, voluntary period of the agreement, just 65 states will join. It appears that Russia and India, two of the world’s largest emitters, will not participate. Brazil’s participation is unclear.

The director general of IATA, the organisation of the world’s airlines, said:

This agreement ensures that the aviation industry’s economic and social contributions are matched with cutting-edge efforts on sustainability.

We’re not sure this is the case. Perhaps more correct is a statement from Bill Hemmings, a director at campaign group Transport & Environment:

Airline claims that flying will now be green are a myth … This deal won’t reduce demand for jet fuel one drop. Instead offsetting aims to cut emissions in other industries… Today is not mission accomplished for ICAO, Europe or industry. The world needs more than voluntary agreements.

The world also needs more than carbon offsets to address the aviation emissions problem both domestically and internationally.

The authors attended the 39th ICAO Assembly held in Montreal from 27 September to 7 October. Read their previous article here.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Ecologist and one of the co-creators of permaculture

Bill Mollison, who has died aged 88, was one of the co-creators of permaculture, an agricultural system that works with, rather than against, nature, on the basis that the natural world holds the key to stable and productive systems. Having developed the concept, he then travelled from his native Tasmania for 30 years to embed his approach worldwide. His ideas have spread widely – permaculture is practised in more than 140 countries and by more than 3 million people – even though in the 1970s the idea was considered, in Mollison’s words, “the highest form of sedition”.

Much of what he espoused was based on his great respect for the wisdom of subsistence farmers around the world, who have long used sustainable methods to grow their crops. In agricultural terms, this means planting diverse sets of crops, using perennial species to form productive stable systems, and ensuring the conditions for soils to be regenerated.

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Meeting in Rwanda seeks amendment to Montreal protocol to eliminate manufacture of the chemicals used in fridges, air conditioners and inhalers

Governments will address the law of unintended consequences when they meet this week to revise a global treaty and try to eliminate the use of a group of greenhouse gases used in fridges, inhalers and air conditioners.

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) were hailed as the answer to the hole in the ozone layer which appeared over Antarctica in the 1980s because they replaced hundreds of chemical substances widely used in aerosols which depleted the thin layer of ozone which protects the Earth from harmful rays of the sun.

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Black, African and Caribbean people are exposed to higher illegal nitrogen dioxide levels than the percentage of the population they account for

Black communities in London are disproportionately more likely to breathe illegal levels of air pollution than white and Asian ones, new research seen exclusively by the Guardian shows.

The study for the mayor of London shows black, African and Caribbean people account for 15.3% of all Londoners exposed to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels that breach EU limits, but they account for just 13.3% of the city’s population.

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Russian social media site launches platform for pets.

The European Schiaparelli probe will make its landing attempt on Mars prepared even to handle dust storms if that is what the planet throws up, the mission team says.

A huge drop in the number of butterflies in the UK is causing confusion among wildlife experts.

A new book Plant: Exploring The Botanical World celebrates the beauty and diversity of plants from around the world across all media - from murals in ancient Greece to a Napoleonic-era rose print and cutting-edge scans

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The new book by Mitch Hescox and Paul Douglas is a marriage of science and faith

Most of you are aware of a growing movement amongst persons of faith to bring more action on dealing with climate change. The argument is powerful for the faithful – the Earth is God’s gift to humanity. We should care for it accordingly.

From within this movement, there are huge voices, widely respected by both the scientific and faith communities. Perhaps the best known is Dr. Katherine Hayhoe, a top climate scientist who is also an evangelist Christian. There are other persons and organizations who work similarly to connect these two world viewpoints in a powerful yet common-sense way.

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More than 100 scientists from 28 countries have called for global action to protect seagrass meadows, which provide food and shelter for fish, marine mammals and birds.