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If you despair of Australia’s lacklustre climate policies, you might take heart from the Greens’ stated goal of limiting global warming to 1.5℃. But are the party’s own policies up to the job?

Shortly after announcing this target late last year, the Greens launched an ambitious renewables policy, promising to achieve 90% renewable electricity by 2030 and save money in the process.

But as wonderful as it sounds, even this plan is insufficient to meet a 1.5℃ target.

The arithmetic is simple. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to preserve a two-thirds chance of avoiding 1.5℃ warming, future carbon dioxide emissions must not exceed 200 billion tonnes. As annual global emissions are now around 40 billion tonnes, we will blow the budget within five years.

Now let’s suppose that the entire world achieves the Greens’ emissions reduction targets of 60-80% by 2030 (relative to 2000 levels), and 100% by 2040. Assuming a steady trajectory to 70% in 2030 and another steady move to full decarbonisation a decade later, that puts global CO₂ emissions by 2040 at more than 400 billion tonnes – far beyond the budget described above.

Idealism vs realism

Does it matter if the numbers don’t add up? After all, the rest of the world has exactly the same problem. If we want to avoid losing hope of averting dangerous climate change, surely wishful thinking and calls to action are better than no target at all?

But there is a growing group of energy experts, environmentalists and conservation scientists who are worried by the environmental movement’s failure to process the full implications of the climate challenge.

Take the Greens’ promise to achieve 90% renewable electricity by 2030. There are several major economies – Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France – that already have near-zero-emission electricity. But all of them use large amounts of hydroelectricity, nuclear power, or both.

Rather than follow the only proven path to clean electricity, the Greens propose that Australia should emulate Germany’s Energiewende policy.

While Energiewende has expanded renewable energy, it has failed to cut emissions. True, the emissions intensity of German electricity is about 40% lower than Australia’s. But both Germany’s total greenhouse emissions and the carbon intensity of its electricity have plateaued, despite record investments in renewable energy. German emissions intensity remains an order of magnitude higher than those of the nuclear/hydro countries such as Switzerland and France.

Germany’s problem is that it has had to back up its intermittent wind and solar generation with fossil fuels. The Greens promise that canny Australian engineers will succeed where Germans have failed, by using “pumped hydro” power storage power storage and concentrated solar thermal energy.

However, the jury is still out on these technologies – and even ClimateWorks, whose modelling the Greens uses, acknowledges that “large investments in Research and Design are needed to improve the performance of existing low-carbon technologies to required levels”.

Spain’s 20-megawatt Gemasolar power plant shows that solar thermal and storage can supply baseload power. But it would take around 100 Gemasolars to replace a typical major coal-fired power station, and bigger solar thermal plants, such as Ivanpah, the world’s largest, have not produced the expected output. While it would be foolhardy to write off solar thermal, it’s also mightily brave to bet the climate on it.

Making up the shortfall

Is an all-renewables future possible in Australia? Of course. But it won’t come fast, cheaply or without significant environmental impacts. The most authoritative “100% renewables study” so far was released in 2013 by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). Although the Greens requested this report, they didn’t like its conclusions: that an all-renewable grid would need baseload power from geothermal (not yet a scalable technology) and bioenergy (which has a range of knock-on environmental impacts).

Part of the problem with the Greens' approach is that it made many of its energy choices long before climate change was a major issue. The party emerged as a political force through campaigns against nuclear technologies and the Franklin River dam. It has always backed wind and solar (which now provide around 2% of global energy), but has opposed the world’s two largest sources of low-carbon energy: hydroelectrcity (6.8%) and nuclear (now 4.4%).

Am I suggesting that the Greens embrace nuclear power? While that is unlikely given their deeply held political commitments, it is not unreasonable to ask for an end to the anti-nuclear fearmongering. The Greens’ national policy platform demands the closure of the OPAL reactor south of Sydney, which produces radioisotopes for cancer detection and treatment. Without such reactors, life-saving nuclear medicine would become impossible.

The Greens are right that nuclear cannot compete on cost with coal, and if we only wanted to halve our emissions then gas and renewables would be the logical choice. But if our goal is zero-carbon electricity, and given the uncertainty about the pace of innovation in other low-carbon technologies, it is worth heeding the advice of South Australia’s nuclear Royal Commission that “action is taken now to plan for [nuclear’s] potential implementation”.

Of course the Greens are right that wind and solar must make a much larger contribution to our future energy mix. But to hope that we can avoid dangerous warming without drawing on every available tool is to put ideology before arithmetic.

Truly radical climate action means we shouldn’t unconditionally rule out any promising technology – from carbon capture and storage to low-methane genetically modified crops.

Rather than accept the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) findings about carbon budget overshoot and the consequent need for “negative emissions” technologies such as carbon capture and storage, Green politicians promote alternative research outlining all-renewable paths to global decarbonisation. Such studies assume both unprecedented technological progress, and extreme global inequality in energy use (for example by assuming that Indians will be content to use 84% less energy than Australians).

Embracing science

Of course, this is not to say that the two major Australian parties, with their underwhelming climate ambitions, are any better. Yet so successfully have the Greens cast themselves as the party of climate science that it’s easy to forget how radically they dissent from a scientific worldview in their responses to climate change.

Former NASA climatologist James Hansen, often dubbed the father of climate awareness, has branded green opposition to nuclear power as a major obstacle to solving the climate problem. In response, he was pilloried and branded a “denier”.

The idea that greedy polluters are the only barrier to an all-renewable future presents climate action as a simple moral choice. Unfortunately, caring for the planet is not so easy. Effective mitigation requires tough choices among imperfect options.

To be effective, we environmentalists must examine our own biases as carefully as we do those of our opponents. And we must do more than accept climate science; we must also use science in our search for solutions.

Jonathan Symons is a former Greens campaign manager in the federal division of Melbourne. He will be a participant in the Breakthrough Institute's 2016 annual dialogue.

Exclusive: Solar Citizens says since the 2012-13 financial year, rooftop solar owners have saved about $1bn on their household bills each year

Australian households and small businesses have invested more than $1bn a year in rooftop solar over the past five years, spending a total of almost $8bn since 2007, new calculations show.

In its latest State of Solar report, Solar Citizens – which campaigns for, and represents the interests of, solar owners – has for the first time estimated Australian’s out-of-pocket investment in rooftop solar, how much money it has saved consumers, and how much carbon it has abated.

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Galaxy polling finds only 17% of voters think the Coalition has a credible climate plan and only 20% think Labor does

Support for strong action on climate change is at its highest level since 2008, with much sought after uncommitted voters showing the strongest support, according to Galaxy polling commissioned by the Climate Institute.

Despite that, voters were dissatisfied with both Labor and Coalition policies, with only 17% saying the Coalition had a credible climate plan and only 20% saying Labor did.

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‘Historic’ agreement between the state’s largest utility company and environmental groups follows safety debates over proximity to seismic faults

California’s last nuclear power plant will close by 2025 under an accord announced Tuesday, ending three decades of safety debates that helped fuel the national anti-nuclear power movement.

The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co (PG&E), and environmental groups reached an agreement to replace production at Diablo Canyon nuclear plant with solar power and other energy sources that do not produce climate-changing greenhouse gases.

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Justin Schmidt sampled the stinging power of ants, bees and wasps. His reviews – from ‘blinding, fierce’ to ‘hot and smoky’ – have now been published in their entirety

Ever wondered what it’s like to be stung by an artistic wasp? (This being an actual insect species of the order Hymenoptera, as opposed to a Turner-nominated waspish type with a vendetta.) “Pure, then messy, then corrosive,” according to entomologist Justin Schmidt, otherwise known as the King of Sting. “Love and marriage followed by divorce.” Or what about something with a little more bite? Like the sting of the fierce black polybia wasp, which apparently feels like “a ritual gone wrong, Satanic. The gas lamp in the old church explodes in your face when you light it.”

Now that summer is sort of here, and wasps are blithely buzzing around the nation’s Coke cans (or San Pellegrino, if you want to be posh about your pop), check out the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, the exquisite life’s work (and pain) of a biologist at Southwest Biological Institute and the University of Arizona who appears to be a cross between Steve Irwin and Jilly Goolden. As in he likes to stick his hand into a hornet’s nest and then sample the venom as though as it were a glass of classic vintage barolo.

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London mayor has told TfL to develop system of alerts and signs to increase awareness of air quality blackspots, BusinessGreen reports

Roadside signposts and online alerts could be used to inform Londoners of air pollution hotspots and periods of poor air quality, under proposals announced today by the capital’s new Mayor Sadiq Kahn.

Londoners should be much better informed when air pollution reaches dangerous levels in the UK capital, Kahn said, announcing he has directed Transport for London (TfL) to “urgently” develop a package of public alerts and signs aimed at increasing awareness of poor air quality in the city.

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Total greenhouse gas emissions fell by 24% between 1990 and 2014 but road transport emissions rose by 17%, European Environment Agency data shows

Road transport has bucked a downward trend in European greenhouse gas emissions, growing by 17% between 1990 and 2014, at the same time that emissions from other sectors fell by almost a quarter.

Cars, vans and lorries reported the biggest absolute increase of any sector in CO2 emissions over the last 25 years, growing by 124 megatonnes (Mt), European Environment Agency (EEA) data published on Tuesday shows.

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Environment and energy minister of small island state, one of the countries most at risk of global warming impacts, says ‘no time to waste’ on Paris deal

Rich countries must ratify the climate change agreement reached in Paris last December, one of the world’s most at-risk nations has warned.

Thoriq Ibrahim, environment and energy minister of the Maldives, told the Guardian that there was “no time to waste”, in ratifying the agreement that was reached more than six months ago, and that it should be a matter of urgency for industrialised countries.

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British astronaut Tim Peake describes his dramatic journey home to Earth from the International Space Station.

Tim Peake says he would go back into space "in a heartbeat" after his six-month mission to the space station.

Iceland's fishing minister says the country would "never join the European Union" because the industry is thriving outside the bloc.

Residents in the Ukip stronghold of Clacton-on-Sea are rightly proud of their clean beaches, fresh air and wildlife. Would they still vote leave if they knew the things they love about their town are thanks to EU membership?

Audrey James and and Mary Chivers, skirts hitched and shoes off, are paddling with their grandchildren by the pier at Clacton-on-Sea. A huge offshore windfarm spins in the distance and all around them are clean beaches, clear water and protected nature reserves.

But Groyne 41, the name of the beach on the “Essex sunshine coast” where they are picnicking, is the exception, having failed to meet tough new EU water quality tests last year possibly because of the many seagulls living below the pier.

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Off-grid communities such as those in sub-Saharan Africa can pay thousands of times as much as the rest of us for their energy. Designer Jim Reeves has developed a simple, low-cost gear-train and generator that uses a descending weight to power a perpetual light source. Children can do their homework and study, families and friends can eat together and interact after dark adding new dimensions and possibilities to their lives

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The Great Barrier Reef has become a major issue in the federal election campaign, with the stakes raised by the most severe bleaching ever documented and suggestions that the next few years will be our last chance to avert major damage to this World Heritage-listed icon.

Last week, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and federal environment minister Greg Hunt announced a further commitment of up to A$1 billion over ten years, from an existing A$10 billion “special account” administered by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

Turnbull said that this new Reef Fund will provide loans to finance more energy- and water-efficient irrigation systems on farms, as well as improved pesticide and fertiliser application systems. He also raised the possibility of the fund being used to finance solar panels on farms, saying:

The Reef Fund will support clean energy projects in the Reef catchment. It will finance solar panels and other renewable energy substitutes on farms as well as more energy efficient equipment in agriculture, local government and tourism.

The government says that this financing will be on top of A$461 million already pledged for the Great Barrier Reef, currently planned to be spent on incentive programs to help farmers move to more “water quality friendly” management practices as has been happening over the past seven years.

Labor, for its part, has pledged A$500 million over five years – including A$123 million as a continuation of an existing Coalition pledge – to be split between scientific research, pollution reduction and restoration projects, and reef management.

Is this enough money?

We already have relatively robust estimates of the funds needed to bring the reef’s water quality into line with the government’s official water quality guidelines set by Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in 2010. Unfortunately, we also know it will cost much more than either major party has pledged so far.

One estimate (on which I worked) puts the cost at between A$5 billion and A$10 billion over ten years. These amounts are far in excess of the current spending trajectory, based on what has already been spent: just under half a billion dollars on farming and water-quality management, as outlined above.

This funding has achieved some limited success in reducing pollution on the Great Barrier Reef. But it is now clear that much more funding and regulation will be needed to meet the required water quality guidelines.

How much money have the parties pledged?

Financial commitments, both in government budgets and election pledges, are difficult to assess accurately. Funding can be committed across several budgets, and it is important to distinguish between no-strings funding and loan financing.

Here is a breakdown of what the three leading parties are promising to deliver.

The Coalition will spend A$450 million over 6 years (from various programs including Reef Trust and Reef Plan) or about A$350 million over 5 years (from this July) plus the new A$1 billion loan facility, which will be portioned out over 10 years.

Labor has made a A$500-million, five-year commitment, albeit contingent on maintaining A$123 million of funding previously pledged by the Coalition, with A$377 million representing newly pledged funds.

Labor’s half-billion-dollar total can be broken down into A$377 million of direct, on-ground spending plus other current ongoing budget funding. The other roughly A$130 million is designated for research and organisational management.

The Greens have pledged A$500 million in new funding, to be spent on improved farming practices and other land restoration projects, plus a A$1.2-billion loan facility to help farmers transition to low-pollution farming methods. Both schemes would be administered over five years.

The Greens have also promised to retain A$370 in existing funding for water-quality projects, which it says brings its total financial plan for the reef to more than A$2 billion.

The Greens have also promised to use the law to protect the reef, by using the powers of the GBR Marine Park Act of 1975 to regulate polluting activities in the reef’s nearby river catchments. Tightening these regulations could help to reduce pollution faster, potentially reducing the amount of money needed to hit the reef’s pollution targets.

The Queensland government has also allocated A$90 million to spend on direct water quality improvement measures over the next few years. It will also use its regulatory powers under the state’s Great Barrier Reef Protection Amendment Act of 2009 to improve the region’s farming practices.

Loans and profits

One large question hanging over the the Coalition and Greens' loan pledges is whether farmers will be keen to accept this financing, even at “low” interest rates. As many farmers are currently unwilling even to accept grant money to improve practices which provide them with little financial benefit, it is difficult to foresee a wide takeup of a loan facility.

Many environmentally beneficial changes to farm practice bring no net profit for the farmers themselves. Farming lobby group Canegrowers has questioned whether this is the best approach, arguing that the industry would rather receive dollar-matching grants than loans.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is currently providing loans via the major banks to allow farmers to invest in energy-efficient equipment, with interest rates discounted by up to 70 basis points relative to commercial rates. This would be the model that would most likely be followed for the new proposal.

Future loans doled out under the Coalition’s A$1 billion fund would need to remain within the CEFC’s broad investment mandate of funding projects and technologies that reduce greenhouse emissions. Thus, more efficient fertiliser use, higher-efficiency irrigation pumps, and low-till cropping would all fit the bill.

It is unclear, however, whether other farming improvements that could benefit the reef – such as gully stabilisation or repair – would be judged to come under the mandate of the CEFC loans, or whether they might be excluded.

Regardless, the proposed loan program will still not put nearly enough funds into what is a pressing issue, and a parallel system of focused grants for individual pollution-reduction projects would seem to us to be a sensible approach.

Without stronger regulation (which only the Greens are suggesting) and considerably more funding than any of the main parties is yet willing to provide – not to mention stronger action on emissions reductions throughout the economy – none of these policies promises a particularly rosy future for the Great Barrier Reef.

This article was co-written by David Rickards, Managing Director of Social Enterprise Finance Australia.

Jon Brodie receives research funding from the Australian and Queensland Governments, the UN, Bancroft Station Wines, Queensland NRM bodies such as the NQ Dry Tropics NRM Group.

Aigas, Highlands The pine marten undulated through the trees in such soft eel-like loops that one could imagine it was an animal lacking in bone

For all their recent spread – they now skirt the edges of several Scottish cities and pop up occasionally even in England as far south as Shropshire – pine martens are still rare and hard to see. Aigas field study centre, with its dedicated hides and long-established feeding programme, must be one of the best places in the country to see them.

The closest I’d come in the previous 40 years were glimpses of a close relative, the beech marten, dead at the sides of Greek roads. So when one came bounding through the shadow towards us, it was a wonderful moment.

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Fossil fuel industry-funded organisations have played a big role in climate denial. Coal power image from www.shutterstock.com

The fossil fuel industry has spent many millions of dollars on confusing the public about climate change. But the role of vested interests in climate science denial is only half the picture.

Interest in this topic has spiked with the latest revelation regarding coalmining company Peabody Energy. After Peabody filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, documentation became available revealing the scope of Peabody’s funding to third parties. The list of funding recipients includes trade associations, lobby groups and climate-contrarian scientists.

This latest revelation is significant because in recent years, fossil fuel companies have become more careful to cover their tracks. An analysis by Robert Brulle found that from 2003 to 2010, organisations promoting climate misinformation received more than US$900 million of corporate funding per year.

However, Brulle found that from 2008, open funding dropped while funding through untraceable donor networks such as Donors Trust (otherwise known as the “dark money ATM”) increased. This allowed corporations to fund climate science denial while hiding their support.

The decrease in open funding of climate misinformation coincided with efforts to draw public attention to the corporate funding of climate science denial. A prominent example is Bob Ward, formerly of the UK Royal Society, who in 2006 challenged Exxon-Mobil to stop funding denialist organisations.

John Cook interviews Bob Ward at COP21, Paris.

The veils of secrecy have been temporarily lifted by the Peabody bankruptcy proceedings, revealing the extent of the company’s third-party payments, some of which went to fund climate misinformation. However, this is not the first revelation of fossil fuel funding of climate misinformation – nor is it the first case involving Peabody.

In 2015, Ben Stewart of Greenpeace posed as a consultant to fossil fuel companies and approached prominent climate denialists, offering to pay for reports promoting the benefits of fossil fuels. The denialists readily agreed to write fossil-fuel-friendly reports while hiding the funding source. One disclosed that he had been paid by Peabody to write contrarian research. He had also appeared as an expert witness and written newspaper op-eds.

John Cook interviews Ben Stewart, Greenpeace at COP21, Paris. The bigger picture of fossil-fuelled denial

Peabody’s funding of climate change information and misinformation is one episode in a much larger history of fossil-fuel-funded misinformation. An analysis of more than 40,000 texts by contrarian sources found that organisations who received corporate funding published more climate misinformation, a trend that increased over time.

The following figure shows the use of the claim that “CO₂ is good” (a favourite argument of Peabody Energy) has increased dramatically among corporate-funded sources compared with unfunded ones.

Prevalence of denialist claim from corporate funded and non-funded sources. Farrell (2015)

In 1991, Western Fuels Association combined with other groups representing fossil fuel interests to produce a series of misinformation campaigns. This included a video promoting the positive benefits of carbon dioxide, with hundreds of free copies sent to journalists and university libraries. The goal of the campaign was to “reposition global warming as theory (not fact)”, attempting to portray the impression of an active scientific debate about human-caused global warming.

ExxonSecrets.org has been tracking fossil-fuel-funded misinformation campaigns for more than two decades – documenting more than A$30 million of funding from Exxon alone to denialist think tanks from 1998 to 2014.

Exxon’s funding of climate science denial over this period is particularly egregious considering that it knew full well the risks from human-caused climate change. David Sassoon, founder of Pulitzer Prize-winning news organisation Inside Climate News led an investigation into Exxon’s internal research, discovering that its own scientists had warned the company of the harmful impacts of fossil fuel burning as long ago as the 1970s.

John Cook interviews David Sassoon from Inside Climate News.

Even Inside Climate News’s revelation of industry’s knowledge of the harmful effects of climate change before engaging in misinformation campaigns has precedence. In 2009, an internal report for the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing fossil fuel industry interests, was leaked to the press.

It showed that the coalition’s own scientific experts had advised it in 1995 that “[t]he scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ on climate is well established and cannot be denied”. Nevertheless, the organisation proceeded to deny climate science and promote the benefits of fossil fuel emissions.

Ideology: the other half of an “unholy alliance”

However, to focus solely on industry’s role in climate science denial misses half the picture. The other significant player is political ideology. At an individual level, numerous surveys (such as here, here and and here) have found that political ideology is the biggest predictor of climate science denial.

People who fear the solutions to climate change, such as increased regulation of industry, are more likely to deny that there is a problem in the first place – what psychologists call “motivated disbelief”.

Consequently, groups promoting political ideology that opposes market regulation have been prolific sources of misinformation about climate change. This productivity has been enabled by the many millions of dollars flowing from the fossil fuel industry. Naomi Oreskes, co-author of Merchants of Doubt, refers to this partnership between vested interests and ideological groups as an “unholy alliance”.

Reducing the influence

To reduce the influence of climate science denial, we need to understand it. This requires awareness of both the role of political ideology and the support that ideological groups have received from vested interests.

Without this understanding, it’s possible to make potentially inaccurate accusations such as climate denial being purely motivated by money, or that it is intentionally deceptive. Psychological research tells us that ideologically driven confirmation bias (misinformation) is almost indistinguishable from intentional deception (disinformation).

Video from free online course Making Sense of Climate Science Denial (launches August 9).

The fossil fuel industry has played a hugely damaging role in promoting misinformation about climate change. But without the broader picture including the role of political ideology, one can build an incomplete picture of climate science denial, leading to potentially counterproductive responses.

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

Voracious predator with sting that has been known to kill humans is spotted in waters off Turkey and Cyprus

The lionfish – a tropical creature with poisonous barbs and a painful sting that can kill humans in rare cases – may be spreading through the Mediterranean, a conservation group has warned.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (UICN) said the fish had been spotted in waters around Turkey and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean.

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GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: The worth of all currencies from stone coins to Bitcoins is based on people trusting the transaction system. Just ask the people of Yap, writes Dr Karl.

Temperatures around the world are rising faster than scientists can develop varieties that can cope with a warmer world, according to a new study.

STICKY TONGUE: A tongue coated in mucus as sticky as honey is the key to a chameleon's ability to catch their prey.