The Conversation

As scientists become more gloomy about keeping global warming below the allegedly “safe” limit of 2℃, the issue is disappearing from the US presidential debates. There was a brief mention in the second debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debate, with climate change treated as an “afterthought”.

Trump has previously (in 2012) suggested that climate change “was created by and for the Chinese”. Clinton has put forward a detailed climate and energy plan.

Even former Vice President Al Gore joining Clinton on at a campaign rally in Florida didn’t particularly help.

So why has climate change gone AWOL?

Early days

It’s an odd phenomenon, because awareness of the threat of climate change goes back more than half a century, well before its sudden arrival on public policy agendas in 1988.

While John F. Kennedy (president 1961-63) had been aware of environmental problems generally (he’d read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring), it was his successor Lyndon Johnson (1963-69) who made the first presidential statement about climate change. The words were written for him by pioneering climate scientist Roger Revelle.

“Tricky” Dick Nixon (1969-74) received a warning on the topic from Democratic senator Daniel Moynihan in September 1969.

A Nixon bureaucrat replied:

The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between… One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean level due to the temperature rise.

Nixon created the US Environmental Protection Authority in an age when conservatism meant conserving things, or at least paying lip service to the concept, but climate change was still a very niche concern.

Ronald Reagan’s (1981-89) hostility to all matters environmental is infamous, with attempts to abolish both the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, but with the credibility of atmospheric scientists high thanks to their discovery of the ozone hole, moves towards a climate agreement could not be completely resisted.

1988 and beyond

A combination of growing scientific alarm about the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a long hot summer in 1988 made climate change an election issue. On the campaign trail, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush announced in his presidential compaign:

Those who think we’re powerless to do anything about the “greenhouse effect” are forgetting about the “White House effect”. As President, I intend to do something about it… In my first year in office, I will convene a global conference on the environment at the White House… We will talk about global warming… And we will act.

They didn’t get on with it, of course, with Bush, then president (1989-93), insisting that targets and timetables for emissions reductions were removed from the proposed climate treaty to be agreed at the Rio Earth Summit, before he would agree to attend. The targets were replaced, and with the younger Bill Clinton making climate an issue, Bush felt it sensible to go to the summit.

It was 2000 before presidential candidates debated the issue. George W. Bush (2000-09) said:

I think it’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. But I don’t think we know the solution to global warming yet. And I don’t think we’ve got all the facts before we make decisions. I tell you one thing I’m not going to do is I’m not going to let the United States carry the burden for cleaning up the world’s air. Like the Kyoto Treaty would have done. China and India were exempted from that treaty. I think we need to be more even-handed.

In 2004 Democrat candidate John Kerry landed a blow on Bush at a debate:

The Clear Skies bill that he just talked about, it’s one of those Orwellian names you pull out of the sky… Here they’re leaving the skies and the environment behind. If they just left the Clean Air Act all alone the way it is today, no change, the air would be cleaner than it is if you pass the Clear Skies act. We’re going backwards.

The peak year for climate concern was 2008, with climate rating a mention in all three presidential debates.

Obama framed climate change as an energy independence issue, arguing that:

…we’ve got to walk the walk and not just talk the talk when it comes to energy independence, because this is probably going to be just as vital for our economy and the pain that people are feeling at the pump – and you know, winter’s coming and home heating oil – as it is our national security and the issue of climate change that’s so important.

Despite a petition with 160,000 signatures, the debate moderators for the 2012 debate did not put the issue on the agenda.

The Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, was accused of recanting early climate change positions arguing:

My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO₂ emissions is not the right course for us.

As Governor of Massachusetts he had “spent considerable time hammering out a sweeping climate change plan to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions”.

Why the silence?

I would argue that there are two reasons for the silence in the debates. One is simply down to the politicisation around the issue. As shown above, as recently as 2008 Republican candidates could admit that climate change was happening.

In 2012 only one contender, Jon Huntsman, was willing to do so, and he soon dropped out, with his views dramatically unpopular among Republican voters.

What happened? In two words: Tea Party. The emergence of the hyper-conservative Tea Party Republican faction was the culmination of a longer-term trend of what two American academics call “anti-reflexivity”.

For example, Marco Rubio, from Florida – a state that is already being hit by climate impacts – cannot take a position on it.

The second reason is more gloomy, because it is more intractable. Those who have denied climate change for so very long will find it very costly – both politically and psychologically – to reverse their position and admit that they have been wrong. Climate change denial has become a cultural position, as academics like Andrew Hoffman have noted.

Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide accumulates, and the impacts pile up.

Marc Hudson 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.

Many of the iconic coastal villages of Australia have a close association with professional fishing. In New South Wales, towns up and down the coast historically supported fishing fleets which supplied the seafood needs of locals, Sydney and the broader state community.

But the NSW fishing industry has changed significantly in the past 30 years, in response to a range of environmental and community concerns. People are more worried about the number of fish, habitat impacts, and how access to fish should be allocated.

There have been changes and restrictions on licences and fishing gear, quotas for some species and fisheries, and a substantial reduction in fishing areas through the expansion of marine parks and the creation of recreational fishing havens (where all professional fishing is banned). The number of current fishing licences in NSW is just a quarter of what it was during the industry’s peak in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Estimated NSW fishing licence holders 1881-2016 Wilkinson, 2013, Wilkinson, 1997 and NSW Department of Primary Industries

The industry is currently going through more management changes and an expansion of existing marine reserves into Commonwealth waters.

There will be more challenges in the future. As populations grow, there will be more competition for resources, and pressure from recreational fishers to close more of the ocean to professional fishing. Similar campaigns in Queensland and Victoria have prompted changes to the professional fishing industry, with unknown impacts on local communities. This has led to serious concerns about the ongoing viability of the industry in some regional centres.

How much is fishing worth?

We recently carried out a two-year assessment of the ways professional fishing contributes to the social and economic lives of NSW coastal communities. We assessed how the industry contributes to seven key dimensions of community well-being.

We traversed the NSW coast speaking to the breadth of the community, through interviews and surveys. We found that the industry remains a vital ingredient for maintaining the economic, social and cultural richness of coastal communities.

In particular our approach highlighted the importance of considering both social and economic factors, and the interdependence between sectors, when judging the value of professional fishing to communities.

The economic assessment revealed that the industry contributes more than A$436 million in revenue annually to the NSW economy and accounts for about 3,290 full-time jobs. This includes the fishers, service industries, sales and marketing.

This is a significant increase over previous estimates of the industry’s value, which did not include the “flow on” economic impacts to other businesses that rely on the fishing industry. These contributions are especially valued in smaller, regional communities where fishing still plays a central role in local economies.

For instance, Kari Esplin, secretary of the Eden Chamber of Commerce and a local business owner, told us:

Economically I see the fishing industry as a baseline in our community … it’s something that’s been there for a hundred years providing a steady economic benefit to the town and the region … It also has the benefit of being a sustainable fishery, not only from the point of view of its fishing practices, but also from a family point of view. So it’s the type of business that can be handed down through families if they choose, which builds a sense of tradition in the town, and also gives those families a feeling of self-worth that they’re a second, third or even fifth generation family business.

Looking beyond economic data gave us an insight into role the industry plays in other areas of community life. Professional fishers, for example, regularly participate in search and rescue.

Seafood is central to many cultural celebrations such as Christmas and the Lunar New Year. And fishing and long standing fishing families are part of the cultural heritage of many communities.

Seafood tourism

The research also revealed sometimes hidden or unrecognised relationships between different sectors. In particular, professional fishing and tourism support and sustain each other in NSW coastal communities.

We found that 89% of NSW residents expect to eat local seafood when they visit the coast and 64% indicated they would be interested in watching professional fishers at work while on holidays.

Grahame Lewis, the Nelson Bay Co-Op manager, told us:

People love watching – they come down and watch the boats unload, they see what sort of fish are coming in, they see it getting wheeled over to the shops and they know there’s stuff going in there from the local fishermen. It’s a drawcard really. People love going to seaside ports and just watching – not only here but everywhere along the coast.

Recreational fishers were much more likely to be interested in both buying fish from local professional fishers and watching professional fishing. This seems at odds with the messages of conflict between recreational and professional fishers commonly seen in public debate. Likewise 78% of recreational fishers across the state prefer bait caught by NSW professional fishers.

Professional fishing is also economically and culturally important in many coastal Indigenous communities. Indigenous fishers have a long history in the industry. Fishing still plays an important role in providing income, employment, a nutritious food source, independence and pride. This extends into the broader Indigenous community with fishers sharing a proportion of the catch and important cultural knowledge with kin.

Efforts to improve the environmental sustainability of the industry have been largely successful, and this is continuing to improve. Studies like ours give us an insight into how we can also ensure the economic and social sustainability of the industry, given its integral role in many coastal communities.

Nearly all (94%) of NSW coastal residents believe the fishing industry should be maintained in NSW. Our research gives us insights into how we can achieve this. And what we stand to lose if we don’t get it right.

This article was also co-authored by Nicole Mazur, visiting fellow in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.

Michelle Voyer has been involved in a number of projects that have received funding from the Commonwealth Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, the NSW Recreational Fishing Trust and the NSW Department of Primary Industries. This project was funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.

Alistair McIlgorm has received funding from The Commonwealth Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and The Department of Primary Industries, NSW for commercial and recreational fishing research. He is Director of Dominion Consulting Pty Ltd.

Kate Barclay receives funding from the Australian Commonwealth Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. She has previously received research funding from a range of organizations including Greenpeace, TRAFFIC, the World Bank, the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries and the United Nations Development Programme. She is affiliated with the International Pole and Line Foundation.

Peak hour making you hot under the collar? It's not just you. Traffic image from www.shutterstock.com

Do you ever feel that the weather is worse on the weekend? Well you might be right!

Our research, published in Environmental Research Letters, shows that in Australia’s biggest cites, the temperature is on average up to 0.3℃ cooler on Sundays compared to Thursdays and Fridays.

Not only are humans affecting the temperature on a global scale, we’re also doing it in our own backyards.

There is nothing in nature that occurs on a weekly cycle. Therefore any weekly pattern seen in weather (such as temperature and rainfall) must result from human activity, such as generating electricity, powering motor vehicles and using air-conditioners.

Most of these activities deposit waste heat and pollution into the atmosphere, and weekly cycles in temperature provide valuable insights into the consequences of such activities on the urban environment.

Our study shows that weekly cycles in daytime temperature occur in almost all Australian major cities. Sundays are often the coolest and Thursday or Friday the hottest due to human activity. This differs according to the time of day, with early mornings showing a much stronger signal than the afternoon.

Rush hour weekly cycle

Early mornings are often associated with cooler air temperatures, which can trap any waste heat near the surface. By contrast, in the afternoon the temperature has warmed and the local surface heat can be carried away to higher levels. So we see less of a strong relationship between human activity and temperature.

Hence the 9am temperature is higher during the week (coinciding with the morning rush hour) and much cooler on the weekend (when the traffic volume is quieter).

Melbourne 1955-2013 average midnight and morning (9am) temperature

Melbourne and other major Australian cities are cooler at the weekend during the day, because they’re less busy. But what about night life?

In western cultures, with Saturdays and Sundays being days off work for a large proportion of the population, Friday and Saturday evenings have become popular with people going to restaurants, pubs, and theatres. This means there is more traffic and human activities in the city centres on these evenings through to the early hours of the following day.

Melbourne’s midnight temperature is warmest on Saturday (Friday night) and Sunday (Saturday night), which is the opposite to what we see for 9am.

Islands of heat

Cities are also generally warmer than their surroundings, a phenomena known as the “urban heat island” effect. Don’t rush off to the beach though – it’s only hotter in the city. We can see this in weekly temperatures by comparing city centres to surrounding suburbs.

When we compare Melbourne city temperature to the airport temperatures at Tullamarine, Laverton and Moorabbin, the city is a lot warmer than the airports, especially at night time. This difference is largest on Saturdays and Sundays, showing that Melbourne’s active night-life is increasing the urban heat island effect.

1972-2013 average difference between Melbourne city temperature airport temperatures at midnight and 9am.

The difference is less in the morning, especially on Saturdays and Sundays. There is even a small urban cool island on Sunday mornings compared to some suburbs.

Temperatures are closely linked to traffic volumes within cities. These can be used as a good indicator of the overall level of human activity.

Traffic volume at a typical Melbourne CBD junction during October 2014.

Consistent with traffic volumes (at a typical busy inner-city intersection), temperatures on Sunday mornings are much less than weekday mornings. It’s this difference in morning traffic that allows us to measure the difference of the city without cars (Sunday) and with cars (Monday to Friday) at the same time of day.

Figures show that traffic congestion costs about A$4.6 billion in Melbourne each year. Reducing this is high on the agenda for Infrastructure Victoria and the state government, putting forward numerous traffic reducing strategies including peak-time penalties for motorists and a London-style congestion charge for central Melbourne.

Beyond Victoria, the Australian government is concerned with the need to create cooler, greener and more liveable cities in the face of climate change.

Reducing traffic has obvious benefits for travel time and sanity, but our study shows that Melbourne is significantly cooler when traffic levels (and general human activity) are low, based on the weekly cycles of urban temperatures.

Nick Earl receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Don't write it off just yet. american_rugbier/Flickr, CC BY-SA

A recently published obituary for the Great Barrier Reef has drawn ire from reef scientists. While obituaries, even satirical ones, are undoubtedly premature, they are part of a long and complicated history of death on the reef.

The obituary comes after this year’s record bleaching event in the northern section of the reef, where more than 50% of coral has died on some reefs.

Since settlement, dead reefs along the Great Barrier Reef have been celebrated as an economic resource, criticised as a scientific misnomer, and now seemingly embraced by conservationists as a shock tactic.

A coral reef flat near Port Denison. William Saville-Kent, The Great Barrier Reef of Australia: Its Products and Potentialities (London: W.H. Allen, 1893). A dead reef is a good reef

In the 19th and 20th centuries, settler Australians did not grieve the abundance of dead coral they found; they celebrated it. Live coral was praised for its aesthetic beauty and natural charms but dead coral could be crushed, burned down, and turned into building materials or fertiliser. Dead coral had a use and potential for economic development.

When the colonial government was considering a site for settlement in Cape York, one of the appeals of Somerset was the abundance of coral lime on nearby Albany Island.

In 1872, the sub-collector of customs and police magistrate at Cardwell, Charles Eden, wrote that Cardwell’s bay was “one mass of dead coral”, lying loose and easily collected in minutes. The use of coral lime as building materials or fertiliser continued into the 20th century.

Historical geographer Ben Daley claims that between 1900 and 1940 licensed coral mining took place at at least 12 different locations, largely between Townsville and Cairns.

Despite the odd protest the reef’s endless supply of dead coral continued to be viewed as an economic asset. In 1951, marine zoologist Frank McNeill wrote that the reef was a “wealth in coral gravel”.

He compared the reef’s coral with “a dead reef” in Moreton Bay, Brisbane. There a company had been milling the dead coral for cement manufacturing but the coral was “not nearly the quality of that from the Great Barrier Reef deposits”. He wondered when the reef’s limitless supply would be “turned to account”.

Frank McNeill’s article on the Reef’s coral debris drew attention to a latent economic resource awaiting mass development. Dead, or just rocky?

In the postwar era, as the impacts of western economic development on the environment became more clear, the idea of exploiting an environment such the Great Barrier Reef for minerals became less socially acceptable.

The issue came to a head in 1967 when a Cairns cane grower, Donald Forbes, lodged an application to mine Ellison Reef (35km northeast of Dunk Island) for limestone. Forbes believed the area he wanted to mine was “dead”.

He told reporter Patricia Clare, author of the 1971 book The Struggle for the Great Barrier Reef, that “the lime he wanted to take was not living coral but coral … that was lying all over the place out there, just waiting to be gathered up”.

Forbes’ application prompted one of longest environmental campaigns in Australian history, which ended with the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The conservationists’ main objection to Forbes’ application was the idea that Ellison Reef was dead. To prove that it was alive, members of the Queensland Littoral Society (the original name for the Australian Marine Conservation Society) completed surveys of the reef.

Their survey constructed an image of Ellison Reef which contrasted sharply with its supposed demise. While to outward appearances it seemed dead, it was in fact a complex living community.

The Innisfail mining warden, who recommended that the lease be rejected, announced that “the term ‘dead reef’ is a misnomer … the reef is in fact not ‘dead’ but very much alive”.

Wanted: alive

In the 1960s the idea of the reef being dead was anathema to conservationists and scientists alike. Conservationists foresaw a future in which dead reefs would be plundered for their remaining useful qualities. Scientists saw a misunderstanding that needed to be rectified.

Today, claims of a dead reef are still criticised by scientists. In contrast, conservationists are more willing to embrace the notion both to draw attention to their cause and to shock the public into activism.

The Great Barrier Reef’s future is clearly uncertain, but we can learn many things from its past. I wonder if conservationists should stay on the message established in 1967: that the Great Barrier Reef is very much alive. That in itself might be enough to shock folks into action.

A living reef offers hope and opportunity for change. As tourist operators lamented earlier this year, dead reefs could deter visitors who have no interest in visiting a coral graveyard. It is unlikely that concerned citizens would organise to save a dead Great Barrier Reef.

Rohan Lloyd is a member of the Australian Labor Party.

The Montreal Protocol has successfully reduced the use of chemicals that destroy the Earth's ozone layer. Atmosphere image from www.shutterstock.com

Over the weekend, international leaders meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, agreed to a remarkable deal to phase-out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), used as refrigerants and propellants. HFCs are potent greenhouse gases.

The agreement ended a decade of negotiations under the Montreal Protocol, established in 1987 to protect the ozone layer. Under the new agreement, developed nations will reduce HFCs 85% below current levels by 2036.

So how will the deal work?

Fixing the ozone hole

The Montreal Protocol was established under the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer. It followed evidence that chlorine atoms were damaging the stratospheric ozone, which protects the Earth from the most energetic ultraviolet radiation coming from the sun.

These chlorine atoms came from refrigerant and propellant gases, the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), that we were releasing into the atmosphere.

By 1990, nations had agreed to restrict production and consumption of CFCs and a timetable for their eventual phase-out over the next two decades. More time was allowed for developing countries and a multilateral fund was established to help them meet their targets.

With just a few exceptions, complete phase-out has been achieved. As well as ozone protection, there was a climate benefit from phasing-out the CFCs because they are much stronger greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.

Related gases that were less damaging to the ozone layer, the hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), were next targeted and they will have been phased out by about 2020.

In developed countries such as Australia they have largely disappeared already, although there is still a lot of one HCFC, R-22, in older air-conditioners. Other ozone-depleting substances such as the fumigant methyl bromide and a number of solvents were also targeted for elimination under the Montreal Protocol.

New villain

Major replacements for the CFCs were the hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Their molecules contain no chlorine so they are “ozone friendly” but like the CFCs these substances are serious global warmers.

HFCs are not manufactured in Australia but we import several thousand tonnes each year, which is a small proportion of world production. Our imports will be capped from 2018 following a recent government decision.

Nations under the Montreal Protocol realised that by using HFCs to replace ozone-depleting substances they had contributed to another environmental problem – global warming and climate change.

Despairing of any action under the climate change-centred Kyoto Protocol, the representatives of developed countries began to push for addition of HFCs to the Montreal Protocol where production and consumption data could be monitored and there was potential for an agreement to phase them out.

The process was fractious. Some parties argued that the Montreal Protocol could not be extended to cover substances that were not ozone-depleting. Others pointed to a clause in the preamble to the protocol that would allow HFCs to be covered.

This was a practical view, but perhaps it also contained an element of guilt: “we created the problem so it’s up to us to fix it”.

Resistance came from developing countries that were struggling financially to achieve the phase-out of HCFCs and did not want the expense of retooling for whatever would replace the HFCs.

In the corridors one could hear cynical voices saying that the phase-outs of CFCs and HCFCs would leave delegates and officers with nothing to do, so an extension to HFCs was needed to keep the “Montreal Club” alive.

Send in the replacements

Sensing that change was likely, the chemical industry in the US had already produced HFC replacements that are neither ozone-depleting nor global warming - the hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs).

These substances are designed to rapidly degrade in the lower atmosphere so that releases would not contribute to environmental problems. Other industrial players, strongly backed by environment groups, opted for natural refrigerants such as ammonia (already coming into widespread use in Australia), carbon dioxide (yes, the villain in new clothes!), and low-boiling hydrocarbons such as isobutane that can be “dropped in” to air-conditioners to replace the HFC R-134a.

Last week in Kigali, countries agreed to a phase-out schedule they could live with. Reductions will occur in steps: developed countries have until 2036 to reduce HFC consumption to 85% of current levels, while developing countries have until the mid-2040s. This is too slow for some observers but the experience of the last decade’s negotiations showed that measured pace would be important in securing the agreement.

Australian delegates had been involved all along in the group pushing for the extension of the Montreal Protocol to cover the HFCs. More than that, our lead delegate, Patrick McInerney (Department of the Environment) was co-chair of the working group that fashioned the Kigali consensus and enabled the 197 parties to bring the matter to conclusion.

Even the most pedantic observer, while questioning the validity of extending the Montreal Protocol, would have to agree that it was the right thing to do.

Ian Rae is was co-chair of the Chemicals Technical Options Committee and a member of the Technology and Economic Advisory Panel for the Montreal Protocol 2005-2013.

Australia has some of the world's best ocean energy resources. Wave image from www.shutterstock.com

Wind and solar may be currently leading the way in Australia’s renewable energy race, but there’s another contender lurking in the nation’s oceans.

Australia arguably possesses the world’s largest wave energy resource, around 1,800 terawatt hours. Most of this is concentrated in the southern half of the continent, between Geraldton and Brisbane. To put this in context, Australia used 248 terawatt hours of electricity in 2013-14.

Waves aren’t the only renewable power source in our oceans. The daily movements of the tides shift vast amounts of water around the Australian coast, and technology for conversion of tidal energy to electricity is more mature than any wave converters.

Ocean renewable energy also spans ocean thermal energy conversion, and energy captured from our large ocean currents (such as the East Australian Current). These represent less mature technologies with less opportunity in Australia.

Australia has abundant energy resources – both renewables and fossil fuels. So what will it take to get ocean energy out of the water, and into our homes?

The task at hand

The Paris Agreement, to which Australia is a signatory, aims to limit global warming to well-below 2℃. This will require almost complete decarbonisation of global electricity systems by 2050.

Of the 248 terawatt hours of electricity used in Australia, around 17 terawatt hours of this came from large scale renewable energy technology, equivalent to about half of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target of 33 terawatt hours by 2020.

To keep us on track to meet our international commitments, members of Australia’s Climate Change Authority recently proposed a target of 65% by 2030. This would require a rapid, large scale transition to alternative emission-free energy systems.

Wind and solar are currently leading the way, but we’ll need other technologies. This is not only to boost low emissions energy supply, but also to overcome the problem of intermittency due to the natural variability of the energy sources (when the sun doesn’t shine, or when the wind doesn’t blow).

Out to sea

Ocean renewable energy technologies (including wave and tidal) are emerging as a future contributor to Australia’s energy mix, and have a number of advantages over other sources.

Both wave and tidal energy devices are deployed offshore (not taking up limited land space) and are typically out of sight (deployed under the surface, or sufficiently offshore and low profile to not be obvious to the casual observer).

Although ocean energy resources also vary day-to-day like wind and solar, wave power has only a third of the variability of wind power. It can also be forecast three-times further ahead than wind. Tidal energy is predictable over very long time-frames.

These attributes provide an advantage in a portfolio of clean energy technologies and have led to notable government and other investments in ocean renewable energy technologies in Australia.

Ocean energy in Australia

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has contributed more than A$44.3 million to at least nine ocean renewable energy projects to date (two closed before completion owing to technical and financial challenges). With other funds, more than A$122 million has been invested in ocean energy in Australia.

These funds have supported demonstration projects, including notable international successes (Carnegie Wave Energy Ltd, and BioPower Systems), and other research. Several other demonstration projects have also been undertaken in recent years by start-up companies with self-funded support, and unique technologies.

The expected installed capacity from approved ocean projects in Australia is around 3.5 megawatts. So far total global installed capacity of wave energy projects is less than 5 megawatts. The EU has also been a major investor in wave energy projects, with approximately €185 million (around A$275 million) invested to date, for a total expected installed capacity of 26 megawatts by 2018.

Although tidal energy converters are the most ready of ocean renewables, a high-quality assessment of Australia’s national tidal energy resource is yet to be done.

Nevertheless several prospective sites in northern Australia and near Tasmania are attracting national and international attention for potential development owing to their attractive resource. Significant projects are in development, particularly in Europe, where tidal installed capacity is set to increase to about 57 megawatts by 2018.

Falling costs

At the moment, the lifetime costs of ocean energy technologies are high. Until there are more than 10 megawatts of wave energy installed globally, costs will remain around A$500-900 per megawatt hour.

By comparison, in 1981, when there were less than 10 megawatts of installed wind energy capacity, wind turbines cost around A$720 per megawatt hour. In 1990 there were 2 gigawatts, and costs fell to around A$190 per megawatt hour. Now there are around 500 gigawatts of installed wind energy, and the cost of onshore wind is around A$110 per megawatt hour, similar to coal.

This experience suggests that costs for wave energy will decrease to A$170-340 per megawatt hour when installed capacity reaches 2 gigawatts. But costs should not be the only performance indicator for ocean renewables.

Options are being explored to combine and integrate design of other infrastructure (such as wave energy capture as a coastal protection mechanism, powering offshore aquaculture, or recreational amenities) which will reduce relative costs.

Support for an emerging industry

To put ocean energy generators in our seas, planners, operators and financiers will increasingly require more knowledge of how much energy is available and where.

These decision-makers also need to understand barriers or constraints to ocean energy (in particular areas such as access to transmission infrastructure, or other uses of the sea such as fishing, aquaculture, tourism, shipping, ports, marine-protected areas).

To help answer these questions, ARENA and CSIRO have developed the Australian Wave Energy Atlas. The atlas provides wave energy resource information together with details of available electricity infrastructure and spatial constraints for deployment. This allows users to identify the most viable sites for future wave energy projects, and ultimately ease the process of attracting capital and negotiating the consenting process.

While ocean renewable energy has many attractive features, there are still many challenges. The advantages of consistency and predictability of ocean energy become diminished if costs don’t fall below those of wind or solar supplemented with storage, which will offer the same advantages.

Other challenges include the technological advances needed to make generation devices ready and reduce costs; policy and regulatory barriers to project development; lack of awareness of ocean renewables and the potential they provide; limited body of knowledge on the environmental effects of large scale deployments; and the finance mechanisms to support the growing industry.

To overcome these challenges we’ll need to bring decision-makers, researchers, manufacturers, and businesses together to unlock the potential of our oceans.

The Australian Ocean Renewable Energy Symposium, running from today until October 20.

Mark Hemer receives funding from the Commonwealth of Australia Australian Renewable Energy Agency, via the Australian Wave Energy Project, and the Department of the Energy and Environment National Environmental Science Program.

Irene Penesis works for the Australian Maritime College, specialist institute of the University of Tasmania. She receives funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency via the 'Australian Wave Energy' project and 'Australian capability in arrays of ocean wave-power machines' project. Irene has also received grant funding from the Australian Research Council Linkage Program..In addition, performs research consulting with Australian wave energy and tidal energy device developers via AMC Search Ltd.

Kathleen McInnes receives funding from the Commonwealth of Australia Australian Renewable Energy Agency, via the Australian Wave Energy Project, and the Department of the Energy and Environment National Environmental Science Program.

Richard Manasseh works for Swinburne University of Technology which leads a project funded by the Commonwealth of Australia's Australian Renewable Energy Agency, 'Towards an Australian capability in arrays of ocean wave-power machines'.

Tracey Pitman receives funding from the Commonwealth of Australia Australian Renewable Energy Agency, via the Australian Wave Energy Project.

Queensland's got a long way to go to meet its renewable target. Solar image from www.shutterstock.com

In the wake of South Australia’s state-wide blackout, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged states to avoid “extremely aggressive and extremely unrealistic” renewable energy targets.

In the midst of this discussion, the Queensland government released a draft report from an expert panel on its renewables target of 50% by 2030. Currently around 7% of the state’s electricity comes from renewable sources.

After South Australia’s misfortunes with its electricity system over the past few months, including price spikes and blackouts, some would say this was an inopportune time to be discussing aspirational renewable energy targets.

But the report provides a welcome discussion about how states can achieve their targets, without the politics and ideology. The panel consulted widely, and commissioned detailed modelling on potential credible pathways for Queensland to meet its target, as well as the economic consequences of those pathways.

Renewables at minimal cost

The cost and impact of any renewable target depends on many factors: the technology mix, how the target is met, the degree of government intervention (or assistance), the regulatory framework, and of course the demand for the electricity produced.

The analysis in the Queensland report attempts to answer a “simple” question: how do you achieve a 50% target at the lowest cost with the least impact on energy security and the maximum benefit to the state bottom line?

The pathways examined by the panel delivered the following outcomes:

• on average, no net impact on household electricity prices

• a private-sector-driven investment of around A$6bn in the state

• a required “subsidy” of around A$1bn over the 14 years of the policies

• no forced retirement of coal-fired generation in Queensland

• around 6,500 full-time equivalent jobs per year

• between 4,000 and 5,500 megawatts of new generation will be required after 2020 to meet a 50% target, based on typical wind and solar capacity factors

• around 14,000 megawatt hours of renewables in the Queensland electricity system by 2030 with system security maintained by coal power stations.

But there are many questions remaining, and these are the questions that many in Canberra are pondering.

How to meet the target

The panel proposed a market mechanism known as a “reverse auction contract for difference” (CFD), similar to that employed recently in the Australian Capital Territory for its renewable target. Reverse auction CFDs are gathering momentum in energy markets around the world.

The basic idea is this: in an open auction, bids are accepted from investors to provide a specific amount of electricity at a pre-defined price (say for instance 100MW at A$80 per MWh for 15 years). The contracting entity (be it government or private) will contract the lowest bid, and then subsidise the winning bid with the “difference” between the bid price and the market value (in this case the National Electricity Market wholesale price).

The investor with the winning bid builds the plant and delivers the electricity. The “difference” may be positive, which ensures that the contracting entity gets paid a subsidy. The subsidy is then passed through to the consumer and the contracting entity underwrites the long term risk.

These mechanisms are a well-accepted tool for pricing and accounting for long-term risk.

The modelling done for the expert panel finds that increased competition and cheap power generation in Queensland’s energy mix will put downward pressure on wholesale prices. With a subsidy counteracted by lower wholesale prices, there is unlikely to be an increase in electricity prices from electricity generation.

Coal power still needed

The modelling found that because the Queensland’s coal power station are relatively efficient and profitable they will remain viable at lower output and continue to provide critical baseload and ancillary services.

A lack of critical baseload and ancillary services contributed to price spikes in South Australia recently.

With a robust transmission grid and interconnection with New South Wales, the Queensland transmission system is also better placed for a high proportion of renewables in the mix.

Joining up the dots

While states are going it alone, nationally Australia is also aiming to increase renewable energy to 33,000 gigawatt hours by 2020 under the Renewable Energy Target.

The Queensland report recommendations include measures to facilitate integration with federal policy, including:

• reverse auctions in 2017-18 to increase the delivery of renewables in Queensland to meet the national Renewable Energy Target by 2020

• engagement in the development of integrated climate and energy policy at the national level

• developing a flexible and adaptable Queensland RET to facilitate integration with the national scheme

• engagement with the Australian Energy Market Operator to assist with policy development.

There is little in the report to suggest any trade-off between federal and state goals.

For the last 15 years, Germany’s mature approach to renewable energy took it from 6% to 31% renewable energy in its electricity generation. In doing so, it created a renewable energy industry that employs 355,000 people. Electricity prices have increased but that is because Germany, as an early adopter, has subsidised the rest of the world’s low-cost solar panels and wind turbines.

PriceWaterhouse Coopers found in 2015 that 92% of Germans continue to support the rollout of renewable energy. This “aggressive” rollout has not impacted the reliability of the German grid. Germans experienced an estimated 12.28 minutes of outage in 2014. This figure has improved since the arrival of renewables, and indicates higher reliability than neighbouring countries.

For coal-dependent Queensland, customers experienced an average of 243.44 minutes of outage in 2014. Comparisons between Queensland and Germany are not meaningful, but Germany’s reliability statistics suggest that claims of reduced reliability as a result of high levels of renewable energy really need to be backed up by facts, not fear.

What is clear though, as pointed out almost laboriously throughout Queensland’s report, is a need for national leadership, co-ordination, and simple joined-up thinking.

The Australian public largely supports the rollout of renewable energy, so it is up to politicians to find a way to deliver.

Lynette Molyneaux 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.

Tropical Cyclone Carlos approaches Western Australia in February 2011. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr, CC BY

Northern Australia is likely to experience an average or above-average number of tropical cyclones this summer, according to the Bureau’s annual Tropical Cyclone Season Outlook, issued last week. Given current climate drivers, that means we’re likely to see 11 or more tropical cyclones in the Australian region, and typically around four of those will cross the coastline.

The season will almost certainly be more active than the last. And that means it’s time to prepare, because the likelihood of damage from a tropical cyclone is high in any season.

Last year was certainly nothing like a normal season, so you don’t want to be caught out. The Australian region saw only three tropical cyclones in total (easily beating the old record minimum of five set in the El Niño years of 1987 and 2006 from our data back to 1969-70), none reached severe status (Category 3 or above; this has never occurred) and only one crossed the coast (the equal lowest number on record).

But why do we expect such a different season this time around?

Tracking cyclones

When a cyclone develops, the Bureau issues short-term weather forecasts on the cyclone’s likely track and strength. But for the tropical cyclone season as a whole, we can only look at the chances of more or less cyclones than average forming in Australian waters because cyclones and their tracks are so sensitive to subtle and fine-scale changes in the atmosphere and ocean.

When considering how many tropical cyclones may form over a season, we currently use a statistical model that considers the long-term relationship between cyclones and the state of El Niño or La Niña (properly known as El Niño–Southern Oscillation or ENSO). This particularly focuses on ocean temperatures and atmospheric circulation over the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The model uses the Southern Hemisphere Best Track Cyclone database. This historical record extends back to 1969 and is jointly-maintained by the Bureau, Météo France (La Reunion), Fiji Meteorological Service and Meteorological Service of New Zealand. These four agencies are assigned by the World Meteorological Organization to issue cyclone forecasts in the southern hemisphere.

What makes a cyclone?

Tropical cyclones form in regions with very warm surface waters — generally greater than 26℃. The location of this warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean and around Australia’s northern coast is affected by ENSO.

During El Niño years the warmest water in the tropics (and associated tropical weather) tends to be located away from Australia, in the eastern tropical South Pacific. In La Niña years, this warm water tends to be located in Coral Sea, between Australia and the Solomon Islands.

Plots of observed cyclone density in the southern hemisphere with ENSO phase. The observed density of cyclones during La Niña years is subtracted from the observed density during El Niño years. Australia Bureau of Meteorology

The image above shows that during El Niño years, cyclones are more likely to occur away from Australia, closer to the dateline and in the eastern south Pacific, as well as in the western Indian Ocean.

This is why 2015 - which was also one of the strongest El Niño events on record, arguably behind only 1982–83 and 1997–98 - resulted in such a quiet tropical cyclone season for Australia. It is also why the eastern Pacific at the same time experienced its second most active (eastern) Pacific Hurricane season on record.

Cyclones for Christmas

Conversely, during La Niña years, cyclones are more likely to form in the western Pacific/Coral Sea, and in the eastern Indian Ocean. As La Niña also tends to bring warmer-than-average waters around Australia’s coastline, the Australian region experiences more cyclones overall. Of course ocean temperatures are just one factor that drives the formation of cyclones. Changes in the atmosphere also encourage tropical cyclones, including higher humidity and more favourable winds.

Because tropical cyclones form closer to the coast during La Niña years, and there tends to be more winds guiding them towards land in some areas, there is a greater chance of more cyclones making landfall. The first crossing also typically comes earlier. History shows that, on average, the first tropical cyclone to make landfall during a La Niña year is around December 10, more than two weeks earlier than the average date across all cyclone seasons; December 25. Typically, Australia’s western coastline sees the first crossing of the year.

The record number of tropical cyclones to cross the coast occurred in the La Niña season of 1970–71, when eight crossed the Australian coastline. The most cyclones on record for an Australian season were in the La Niña summer of 1973–74 and the neutral 1983–84, when 18 tropical cyclones formed. This highlights why a benign season like 2015–16 should not make us complacent.

As this season starts, ENSO is neutral. But a La Niña “watch” is current, meaning a La Niña certainly cannot be ruled out before the end of the year.

The latest observations show the Pacific Ocean has several indicators that have exceeded La Niña thresholds. El Niño and La Niña develop slowly, and likewise their impacts don’t appear suddenly.

With warmer water around Australia’s northern coastline – a classic La Niña-like pattern – the odds rise of an above-average tropical cyclone season.

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.

On any given night, many farmers go to sleep worrying about what they might wake up to in the morning. Few things are more stressful than seeing your livestock, such as sheep, lying dead or seriously injured in the paddock. Sometimes dingoes, free roaming and unowned (“feral”) dogs, and domestic dogs, or their hybrids, are responsible for such a scene. But what’s the best way to deal with this situation?

The Victorian government is set to reinstate a dingo and wild dog bounty scheme as a way to reduce livestock, especially sheep, being attacked and killed, in response to calls from farming and shooting groups.

Just what is a dingo?

One of the problems with managing dingoes is that the boundary between them and “wild dogs” is contentious. Some have even claimed that there are no pure dingoes in Victoria.

Defining what dingoes are is harder than you might think. There is considerable variation in how dingoes look, for example, in terms of their overall size and colour, as is common with many other members of the dog family (canids).

And if a dingo isn’t considered 100% “pure”, containing genes from domestic dogs, should hybrids be managed differently to dingoes?

Dingo colour is highly variable

Research suggests “pure” dingoes do exist in Victoria, albeit in smaller numbers than other regions.

Notably though, genetic samples in Victoria have been collected largely from areas close to towns, where there are likely more hybrid dogs, and less so from deep within Victoria’s more remote natural regions (the mallee, alpine, and Gippsland forests), where dingoes are often sighted.

Two other recent studies are important in the Victorian context. One suggests dingo characteristics prevail even within hybrids and another has found there are two distinct dingo populations. Importantly, the south east dingo population is at increased risk of extinction.

Many ecologists would argue that splitting hairs about dingo genetic “purity” is a moot point, because what really matters is what dingoes and dingo-dog hybrids are doing in the environment. This is because dingoes are known to have important ecological roles, including the suppression of feral species (such as cats, pigs, and goats), red foxes, and kangaroos.

How are wild dogs and dingoes managed in Victoria?

The decision to reinstate a dingo and wild dog bounty in Victoria is vexed. In 2007 the Victorian government established protection of dingoes, due to conservation concerns about the species, with hybridisation between dingoes and domestic dogs identified as a threatening process.

As a result, dingoes in Victoria are listed as a threatened species under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and protected under the Wildlife Act 1975.

In Victoria wild dogs are classed as pest animals and can be legally controlled. However, the Victorian Department of Environment states that “dingoes are visually indistinguishable from wild dogs, making it impossible to ensure they are not inadvertently destroyed in wild dog control programs in any given area where both exist” and “dingoes are protected wildlife and it is an offence under the Wildlife Act 1975 to take or kill protected wildlife without an authorisation to do so”.

Management misfire

Legal and species identification issues aside, do bounties and lethal control of predators actually work?

In short, scientific evidence suggests the answer is largely no (see for instance here, here, here, here, and here).

Data showing bounties don’t work

There are a range of reasons cited for why bounties fail. These include:

• an inability to sufficiently reduce numbers of the the target species and hence their impact, due to rapid breeding and/or immigration from other areas

• corruption by those claiming bounties, whereby animals claimed for bounty payments have not actually been killed in the area where the bounty is intended to benefit

• an inability to access some animals over large and/or remote areas

• a disincentive to completely eradicate animals as this removes the source of income

• disruption of predator social structures causing higher livestock predation.

Investing in predator-friendly farming

So what solutions do we have that might allow productive farms without the need to kill predators? A range of nonlethal solutions exist for protecting livestock, including improved husbandry techniques (such as corralling and herding), and in particular, a growing body of research suggests guardian animals provide a great step forward.

Nonlethal methods to protect livestock are also consistent with a growing social demand that both domestic and wild animals are treated humanely and ethically on farms.

Top left: G. Schuirmann. Bottom left: E. Swegen. Top right: Ian Whalan. Bottom right: L. van Bommel.

Predator-friendly farming is growing across Australia, as you can see in the image above. Large livestock on large landholdings, such as beef cattle on thousands of square kilometre stations, are reducing conflict by enabling dingo packs to stabilize and by supporting healthier cows that are better able to defend their calves (top left).

Smaller farms are also employing protective strategies, including guardian dogs, even if the livestock species is large, such as dairy cows and buffalo, because lethal control on neighboring farms continues to disrupt the dingo’s social structure (bottom left).

Technological innovations in nonlethal methods for protecting livestock from predators have been developed in Australia and used worldwide, such as “Foxlights” (top right). And vulnerable stock, such as chickens, are being successfully protected with guardian dogs and enclosures (bottom right).

There are substantial gains to be made for agriculture, people, wild animals and the environment if decision-makers use scientific evidence and ethical analysis, rather than responding to lobby groups, as the basis for taxpayer-sponsored actions.

Education is also a key aspect of any change, and scientists are being proactive here too, providing guidance on new approaches to rangeland livestock management that are supported by research.

The fact is, bounty schemes don’t work. If instead the substantial funds currently being invested in bounties were invested in supporting farmers to move to more long-term, cost-effective, and more environmentally-friendly solutions, we may all be able to sleep better at night.

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Euan Ritchie is affiliated with the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australian Mammal Society.

Arian Wallach 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.

Upper Coomera is one of those fast-growing fringe suburbs that are hotter because of tightly packed housing with less greenery. Daryl Jones/www.ozaerial.com.au/

Australian cities are getting hotter. The many reasons for this include urban densification policies, climate change and social trends such as bigger houses and apartment living, which leave less space for gardens and trees. But some areas and some residents of cities are more exposed to heat than others.

The concentration of poorer people in hotter places is known as “thermal inequity”. Our recently published research has found this is a real concern on the Gold Coast, one of Australia’s fastest-growing urban regions.

Urban heat is known to increase rates of injury, death and disease. This is why the federal government recently established an urban greening agenda.

The central city tends to be hotter than surrounding suburbs and rural areas – the urban heat island effect. Perhaps because of this, much of the research focus has been on the urban core. But what about heat effects in the suburbs?

What is thermal inequity?

Research from North America and Australia shows people who live in greener, leafier suburbs tend to be wealthier. We know that urban greening can cool ambient air temperatures.

Plentiful street trees, well-designed parks and other types of green space also tend to increase residents’ physical activities and social interactions. This makes greener neighbourhoods healthier and happier.

Unfortunately, the opposite often occurs in poorer suburbs, meaning residents suffer more heat stress. This is a consequence of fewer street trees, less green space and denser urban design. Our research found thermal inequity is a real concern in Upper Coomera, a suburb in the northern growth corridor of Gold Coast city.

The Gold Coast has been coping with explosive rates of growth. The population is expected to double to more than 1 million in the next two decades. Growth-management policies are increasing densities in many suburbs.

On the suburban fringe in places like Upper Coomera, land clearing for development typically removes much of the native vegetation. This in turn increases heat.

The trend in the Gold Coast, like many cities, is for comparatively disadvantaged people to seek more affordable housing in outer suburbs. Less affluent householders become concentrated in suburbs where housing is packed tightly with fewer trees and less greenery.

Hotter houses and neighbourhoods lead to residents paying more for electricity to keep cool. Excessive heat can also increase healthcare expenses and reduce productivity.

Research shows residents are struggling

As we explain in the video abstract for our article, we used a mail-back survey of 1,921 households to examine three questions:

1) Are residents aware of climate change?

2) Are residents concerned about climate change?

3) Do residents understand the potential of green infrastructure to help neighbourhoods adapt to climate change?

Video abstract for Environmental Research Letters article on thermal inequity.

We found more than 90% of residents were aware of climate change and almost 70% were concerned about it. Residents living in townhouses were particularly worried. Paradoxically, those living in dwellings with dark roofs were less worried, as were those with larger families.

We also found that more than 90% of respondents had air conditioning. Using statistical analysis, we determined that renters are especially vulnerable to associated energy costs, as are those with kids.

Interestingly, we found that people living in townhouses were less likely to consider buying energy-efficient devices to lower household energy expenses, as were those with more children. This could be because renters and those with larger families may be struggling financially.

In sum, we found that more disadvantaged households with less disposable income were living in dwellings that were more vulnerable to heat.

Next, we examined the attitudes of residents to urban greening to help combat heat in their neighbourhood. We found almost two-thirds favoured tree planting. More than half felt local streets lacked shade.

Few trees to be seen: residential landscapes in Upper Coomera. Jason Byrne

While 90% of surveyed residents saw that shade was a key benefit of trees, just over half understood that trees can lower air temperatures. Although most residents recognised maintenance costs of trees as a disadvantage, they still favoured more urban greening.

So what can be done?

Our findings have important repercussions for urban policy. As we have previously noted, urban greening has many advantages for climate change adaptation. It is comparatively inexpensive and is politically palatable.

However, higher-density neighbourhoods like Upper Coomera often have less land available for greening. Yards are smaller and verges are typically dominated by on-street parking.

We advocate for education campaigns about the benefits of urban greening and better urban design guidelines to make it easier for developers to increase neighbourhood greenery. Better knowledge about species selection is needed to reduce maintenance issues.

Urban greening initiatives should also use technologies like permeable paving to limit pavement uplift and capture rainfall on-site.

Thermal inequity exists but it can be reduced. After all, if urban greenery can benefit all residents, why should the poor miss out?

The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Chloe Portanger, Information Analytics Specialist with Climate Planning, to the research on which this article is based.

Jason Byrne undertakes research consultancy work for the City of Gold Coast Council. Jason has been funded by the Australian Research Council for research into climate change adaptation, green space and social equity. He contributes to the Australian Conservation Foundation. Jason is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia, Society for Human Ecology and Institute of Australian Geographers.

Tony Matthews undertakes research consultancy work for the City of Gold Coast Council. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council for research which examines the nexus between urban planning and climate adaptation. Tony is affiliated with the Planning Institute Australia and the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Christopher Ambrey undertakes research consultancy work for the City of Gold Coast Council. Christopher's research is situated within the economics of happiness and also reflects a keen interest in the environment and social justice. Christopher is funded by St Vincent de Paul and the Institute for Social Science Research at The University of Queensland for research into homelessness and disrupting disadvantage.

Hammerheads are the species most caught in NSW's shark nets. Shark image from www.shutterstock.com

New South Wales Premier Mike Baird has this week announced a plan for a six-month trial of shark nets off the beaches of northern NSW. This would extend the state’s shark net program from the 51 beaches currently netted between Wollongong and Newcastle.

The announcement was triggered by Wednesday’s shark accident, in which a surfer received minor injuries from a shark bite at Sharpes Beach, Ballina.

The decision marks a turn-around in Premier Baird’s position on sharks. For over a year he has acknowledged the importance of addressing the issue, and has adopted a measured, long-term, non-lethal approach to managing shark hazards. Specifically, the NSW government has, in the last year, allocated funding and resources to non-lethal strategies including surveillance, research and education.

Killing sharks has been highly controversial in Australia in recent years, and in NSW shark nets have been a focus of ongoing, highly polarising debate.

Three common misunderstandings about shark nets

The decision to introduce shark nets in the state’s north invites us to revisit some common misunderstandings about this strategy.

First, there is wide misunderstanding about what shark nets are and what they do. The nets used in the NSW Shark Meshing (Bather Protection) Program do not create an enclosed area within which beach goers are protected from sharks.

They are fishing nets, which function by catching and killing sharks in the area. Nets are 150 m long, 6 m deep, and are suspended in water 10-12 m deep, within 500 m of the shore.

Bondi Beach’s shark net in 2009. NSW Department of Primary Industries, 2009

Second, whether shark nets work is still up for debate. Shark nets have been used in NSW since 1937. Since then, the number of netted beaches, methods for deploying nets, and data collection and record-keeping methods have changed, and data sets are incomplete.

Our use of the beach and ocean has also changed dramatically. There are more people in the water, in new areas, and we’re using the ocean for different activities. At the same time, our observation of sharks and emergency response have improved dramatically.

The suggestion that nets prevent shark accidents is an oversimplification of a complex story, a misrepresentation of both technology and data, and it misinforms the public.

And finally, shark nets cannot be a long-term solution. They are out-dated technology based on outdated thinking, developed 80 years ago.

They go directly against our international responsibility to protect threatened species (under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and our own Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act), and our national priorities for protecting marine environments and species, including several shark species.

We know that shark nets in NSW kill on average at least 275 animals per year (measured between 1950 and 2008), and that the majority of animals killed pose no threat to people. We can do better than this.

Learning from the (very) recent past

Right now we have an opportunity in NSW to learn from recent experiences in Western Australia. In 2012, the WA government, under Premier Colin Barnett, introduced hooked “drumlines” to kill sharks in an attempt to reduce the risk of shark bites. Like this week’s announcement by Premier Baird, that policy change was stimulated by a spike in shark accidents.

The response to the new policy was a highly-polarised debate and extraordinary public outcry, including two public protests at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach attracting 4,000 and 6,000 people, and protests in eleven other cities around the country, including 2,000 at Sydney’s Manly Beach.

The state’s Environmental Protection Authority received a record number of 12,000 submissions from scientific and other experts presenting reasons to cease the cull. The WA government heeded the EPA’s recommendation and cancelled the policy.

Our research with ocean users conducted during this period showed that perspectives are diverse (we surveyed 557 WA-based ocean-users using quantitative and qualitative research methods).

Among people who use the ocean regularly, some strongly oppose killing sharks; others are ambivalent; and a smaller number of people are in favour. People’s views and understandings are nuanced and carefully thought through.

However, within this group, the strategies for managing shark hazards that were most strongly supported were improving public education about sharks, and encouraging ocean users to understand and accept the risks associated with using the ocean. Other widely supported strategies included developing shark deterrents and increasing surveillance and patrols.

The most strongly opposed approaches were those that killed sharks including culling, proactive catch-and-destroy measures, baited drumlines, and shark nets.

In recent years we have been making good progress in Australia on public discussion and investment in more effective and ethical approaches for reducing shark bites. This week’s move to introduce an outmoded technology to the north coast promises to further divide the community.

We should continue to invest in developing new strategies that better reflect our contemporary understanding of marine ecosystems. Perhaps we also need to consider (temporarily) altering the way we use the ocean, avoiding areas of higher-than-usual shark sightings.

Leah Gibbs 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.

This cow has the right idea. Cow image from www.shutterstock.com

When Canadian farmer Joe Dorgan noticed about 11 years ago that cattle in a paddock by the sea were more productive than his other cows, he didn’t just rediscover an Ancient Greek and Icelandic practice.

While the Ancient Greeks didn’t have to contend with global warming, it turns out that this practice could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 21st-century livestock farming.

Cows and sheep produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Despite misconceptions, most cow methane comes from burps (90%) rather than farts (10%). Livestock produce the equivalent of 5% of human-generated greenhouse gases each year, or five times Australia’s total emissions.

From Canada to the world

Dorgan’s cattle were eating storm-tossed seaweed. Canadian researchers Rob Kinley and Alan Fredeen have since found that seaweed not only helped improve the cows’ health and growth, but also reduced their methane production by about 20%.

This and other lines of evidence led Kinley, who by then had moved to CSIRO, to team up with other CSIRO scientists and marine algae specialists at James Cook University to test a wide range of seaweeds.

They tested 20 seaweed species and found that they reduce methane production in test-tube samples from cow stomachs by anything from zero to 50%. But to do this required high amounts of seaweed (20% by weight of the sample) which was likely to present digestion issues for animals.

But when the researchers tested a particular type of seaweed collected from Queensland’s coastal waters, they thought their instruments were broken and ran the tests again. It turns out that Asparagopsis taxiformis reduces methane production by more than 99% in the lab. And unlike other seaweeds where the effect diminishes at low doses, this species works at doses of less than 2%.

Asparagopsis produces a compound called bromoform (CHBr₃), which prevents methane production by reacting with vitamin B12 at the last step. This disrupts the enzymes used by gut microbes that produce methane gas as waste during digestion.

Fighting climate change, feeding people

Globally, 1.3 billion people depend, partially or entirely, on livestock for their livelihoods. Livestock provides protein and micronutrients to many of the world’s 830 million people experiencing food insecurity.

Livestock methane production is not just an environmental problem. All this burped methane is wasted energy that could be going to make animals produce more food. Around 15% of feed expenses are lost in methane emissions. As feed is the primary expense for livestock farmers, this is no small problem.

It’s not just the cost, either. As wealthier consumers become more aware of environmental issues around agriculture, some are choosing to eat less meat.

If farmers could supplement their feed with seaweed, this might just help with two of the biggest challenges of our time: fighting climate change and growing more food with fewer resources.

In Australia, if we could develop a way to include seaweed feed in the Emissions Reduction Fund (as for dairy farmers), farmers might even be able to get carbon credits at the same time.

CSIRO and partners James Cook University, with funding from Meat and Livestock Australia, are currently conducting further experiments to examine how feeding seaweed to cattle affects production. These experiments aim to confirm the effects measured in the lab and in live sheep experiments. Confirmation through these experiments could create a new industry in growing seaweed as a feed supplement for livestock.

Where can we grow all the seaweed?

Seaweed production globally is booming, with more than 25 million tonnes (measured when wet) farmed each year, which is about double the global commercial production of lemons.

Producing enough Asparagopsis to feed 10% of the almost 1 million feedlot and 1.5 million dairy cattle in Australia would require about 300,000 tonnes a year, and millions of tonnes if it were to be scaled up globally.

With selection and breeding of seaweed varieties for higher bioactivity, this figure could come down, but perhaps only by half, and it would still require large areas of land and water. With typical seaweed production rates at 30-50 tonnes of dry matter per hectare, this suggests that to supply 10% of the Australian livestock industry will require at least 6,000 hectares of seaweed farms.

The booming seaweed industry is already aware of the pitfalls experienced in fish farming.

There are likely to be many indirect benefits, including creating alternative livelihoods in many developing countries where fishing may be in decline, and the use of seaweed as a means to filter detrimental nutrients from rivers or effluent from fish farms.

But seaweed farms more generally will be part of our increasing demands on the marine environment and will need to be part of integrated ecosystem wide management and marine spatial planning.

But for now, Joe Dorgan, of Seacow Pond in Prince Edward Island, Canada, will continue to feed seaweed to all of his cattle and reap the rewards of improved health and production.

Michael Battaglia works for CSIRO. CSIRO, MLA and JCU hold a patent of the use of Asparagopsis for methane reduction, and the partners are actively involved in seeking to commercialise the technology Funding to test and develop the use of Asparagopsis for animal feeding has been provided by the Australian Government under the National Livestock Methane Program, of Filling the Research Gaps.

Not your average starling. Nathan Rupert/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Encountering a snake in the wild is many people’s worst nightmare. So imagine walking through the dense tropical forests of north Queensland and stumbling across an aggregation of 15 hungry snakes loitering beneath a giant canopy tree.

You’re probably wondering why the snakes are there? The answer is that the tree above is laden with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of bird nests; a colony of metallic starlings (Aplonis metallica).

And it’s not just snakes. For the past three years I have been studying these colonies as part of a PhD program at the University of Sydney. Our paper describing this remarkable ecological phenomenon has just been published in PLoS ONE.

In a single year, I recorded more than 100,000 animals (representing 42 species) beneath starling colony trees.

Annual bonanza

These aggregations are tiny (with an average of 140 square metres). They therefore represent one of the most dense and species-rich animal groupings on Earth. Many of the species encountered beneath the starling colonies are 1,000 times more abundant there than beneath otherwise similar trees in the surrounding landscape.

The hosts of this annual animal extravaganza are small, glossy-black birds with bright red eyes (the metallic starlings). In reality, we know little about them.

Existing literature suggests they migrate to northern Queensland from New Guinea each year, although it is possible that some stay in Australia year-round. The starlings begin nesting in November, and we think they raise three broods of young before nesting ceases at the beginning of April. Starlings return to the same trees every year (I know of one tree active for at least 15 years), and the trees they use are remarkably unique.

Most trees used by starlings are poison-dart trees (Antiaris toxicaria; the same species Asian peoples used to dip the tips of their poison darts). The significance of the tree’s toxicity to the starlings is unknown, but they are tall (emergent from the surrounding canopy), with smooth bark, and are isolated from nearby vegetation.

Through climbing experiments, we found that starlings likely actively seek out these trees to minimise nest predation by snakes (in most cases, snakes cannot climb the tree trunks).

The area directly beneath the colonies is similarly unique. The ground is covered by seeds and guano dropped by the thousands of starlings above, and the smell is extraordinarily pungent. The massive surge of nutrients dropped at these sites, together with mechanical disturbance by visiting animals, kills the surrounding vegetation such that the colonies form a barren moonscape in stark contrast to the dense forest just metres away.

Rainforest menagerie

I stumbled across my first Cape York starling colony when I was 14 years old. Despite the large number of snakes using the tree, I initially took the system for granted – the snakes are there to eat the birds – that seemed straightforward enough.

It wasn’t until I described the system to Rick Shine at the University of Sydney that we decided to investigate the colonies in more details, as part of my PhD program. To do this, I located 28 trees in the rainforests at the northern tip of Cape York, which I’ve been surveying for the last three years.

Nightly surveys with a head-torch regularly revealed enormous numbers of scrub pythons (Morelia amethistina), brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis), cane toads (Rhinella marina), giant tree frogs (Litoria infrafrenata), small mammals (such as Melomys capensis) and centipedes. Those animals aggregate to feed on fallen starling chicks, massive numbers of invertebrates, and seeds dropped by the starlings.

To survey for day-time visitors, I primarily used infrared camera traps. Sifting through the first set of photos was mind-blowing. Nearly every photograph showed more than 30 feral pigs or scrub turkeys (Alectura lathami), as well as more “exotic” species such as noisy pittas (Pitta versicolour) and palm cockatoos (Probosciger aterrimus). The latter species is meant to be rare, but we sometimes found 10 individuals in a single photograph.

We even recorded three specimens of a giant blue-tailed monitor lizard never previously recorded from the Australian continent (Varanus doreanus).

There is little doubt that these seasonal gatherings of animals are a unique part of Australia’s natural heritage. Animal aggregations captivate people’s imaginations, and there are few places on earth where so many different species come together to utilise such a massive nutrient subsidy.

Remarkably, this system remained undescribed until now, offering yet-another reminder of the scientific importance and sheer awesomeness of the Australian tropics.

Daniel Natusch received funding for this research from the Skyrail Rainforest Foundation, the Holsworth Wildlife Endowment, and the Australian Research Council.

Cheetahs have extraordinarily low genetic diversity, placing them at risk. Copyright Amy Nichole Harris/Shutterstock

In science, it’s rare that a new idea comes along that stops people in their tracks. For ecologists, this has just happened, in a paper that found that species living in wild places have more genetic diversity than the same species living in areas dominated by people.

Why is this big news? For starters, it’s a completely new reason to worry about the decline of wilderness.

My colleagues and I showed recently that wilderness areas have shrunk by a tenth globally in just the past two decades. Large wild areas are now mostly confined to cold, dry or otherwise inhospitable parts of the planet such as the far north and big deserts. Biologically rich rainforests have been destroyed the fastest.

In Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, human activities are expanding while wilderness areas are shrinking. Shown here are changes in the Human Footprint over the past two decades. O. Venter et al. (2016) Scientific Data

The traditional reasons for defending wilderness areas are that they store massive stocks of carbon, produce clean drinking water, limit destructive flooding, harbour countless rare species, generate billions of dollars for local communities via ecotourism, and provide a scientific basis for understanding how nature is supposed to function in a rapidly changing world. These are compelling enough.

But this new finding is a game-changer, because it shows that genetic variation, the raw fuel for evolution, relies on wilderness too.

Environmental armageddon

The history of life on Earth has been a lot like what soldiers experience in a war: long periods of relative stability and even boredom punctuated by sudden periods of stark terror. Right now, we are living in one of the scariest times since life arose at least 3.7 billion years ago.

Life on Earth today is being battered by massive habitat disruption, climate change, invasive species, foreign pathogens, pollution, overhunting, species extinctions and the disruption of entire ecological communities. And it’s all down to humankind, which currently dominates three-quarters of the planet, according to our recent estimate.

Faced with this environmental onslaught, which will surely worsen in the coming century as the Earth struggles to support up to 12 billion people, the options for species are frighteningly limited.

Change or die

As Charles Darwin argued more than a century ago, hidden within most species is a surprisingly large amount of genetic variation. Humans vary in height, weight, body shape, skin colour, physiology and biochemistry.

Wolves, first domesticated around 40,000 years ago, have since been bred into dog varieties ranging from tiny Pekinese to Great Danes.

The world’s hugely varied breeds of domestic dog all arose from a single species of wolf. Shutterstock

For most organisms (except simple bacteria and other organisms that reproduce by cloning), there are two main sources of genetic variation: mutations and sex.

If life were a card game, then mutations create new cards. Most mutations are bad for the individual – such as those that cause the bleeding disease Haemophilia A – or are more or less neutral. But now and then a mutation generates a highly beneficial wild card.

While mutations create new cards, sex shuffles the deck, mixing our genes into new combinations. That’s important too, because by doing so one can discard bad cards. Individuals with bad cards tend to die or fail to reproduce, removing their dud genes from the population. And every once in a while a really good combination of genes pops up, like a Royal Flush, that can then spread rapidly through the population.

The ability of species to change and adapt, or evolve, is vital. We tend to think of evolution as an incremental process, requiring thousands or millions of years, but that’s not always so. When things get rough, species with lots of genetic variation can evolve surprisingly fast.

Evolution in action

Consider what happened when scientists introduced myxomatosis to Australia in 1950 to kill off introduced European rabbits, which were stripping the continent’s vegetation bare. At first, most of the rabbits died. But a few, which by random chance were more resistant to the pathogen, survived and reproduced. Within a few decades rabbits had evolved a far greater capacity to resist the disease.

And just as remarkably, myxomatosis evolved as well. It became less deadly. If you’re a pathogen, you don’t want to kill your host straight away because then you’ll die too.

Instead, you just want to make your host sick, or kill it very slowly. That way, you can spread to lots of other hosts. So while rabbits became more resistant, myxomatosis also became less virulent. And it all happened in just a couple of decades.

Something similar is happening with Tasmanian devils, which are being killed off by a bizarre contagious cancer that spreads when the notoriously scrappy marsupials fight with one another.

Recent studies show that genes which produce greater resistance to the cancer are rapidly increasing in the population. Unfortunately, the devils don’t have a lot of genetic variation but hopefully they’ll have enough variation remaining to get past the killer cancer.

A Tasmanian Devil suffering from facial tumour disease, a contagious cancer. Menna Jones

Things are even scarier for the cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal. While built for speed on the African plains, cheetahs will have a hard time outrunning new environmental challenges. That’s because they have almost zero genetic variation.

Roughly 12,000 years ago, cheetahs went through a severe population bottleneck, eroding most of their genetic variation. The species is paying a price for this today, with reduced sperm quality, kinked tails, and palate deformities among other problems. These maladies arise both from low genetic variation and from inbreeding, which occurs because individual cheetahs are so similar genetically.

Sadly, this could make Cheetahs perilously vulnerable to an “extinction vortex”. The vortex starts with a population crash, perhaps from a newly-introduced disease, habitat loss or climate change. The remaining individuals are already so severely inbred and depleted of genetic variation that they reproduce and survive poorly. Their population dwindles and crashes into oblivion.

We need wilderness

That is why the new study is so significant: it shows that a particular species living in a wild area has more genetic variation than does the same species living in a place where humans abound. The study was based on over 4,500 different species of amphibians and mammals scattered across the planet and was published in one of the world’s best scientific journals. This gives us a lot of confidence in the strength of its conclusions.

The bottom line is that the world’s wilderness areas are under assault. We are not just losing wild places with clean air and water and beautiful vistas. We are losing the raw fuel of evolution and adaptation that has taken life millions of years to accumulate.

Given the breakneck pace at which we are currently changing the planet, eroding the capacity of species to adapt to new challenges is absolutely the last thing we want to be doing.

The sun sets over the wilds of the Western Ghats in southern India. William Laurance

Bill Laurance receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other scientific and philanthropic organisations. He is the director of the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science at James Cook University, and founder and director of ALERT--the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers.

The New South Wales government’s U-turn on its greyhound industry ban says as much about the weak calibre of some politicians holding high office as it does about their subjugation to the media, which has relentlessly pilloried Premier Mike Baird about the ban since it was first announced.

Facing declining popularity, Baird appears to have capitulated to the media to try to win public support, and avoid discontent within the Nationals party in New South Wales. This is unlikely to succeed: according to a recent RSPCA poll, 64% of the public support the ban.

The ban was announced in July to come into effect in 2017, following a review of the state industry led by Special Commissioner Michael McHugh.

So what does the backflip mean for greyhounds?

What will happen to the industry now?

In a media statement, Baird and deputy premier Troy Grant announced a suite of changes that would allow the industry to continue.

These include:

• Life bans and increased jail terms for live baiting

• A new regime to register greyhounds for their entire lives

• A new independent regulator with “strong new powers” to ensure transparency and accountability

• Fresh resources for enforcement and prosecution of wrongdoers and new resources for animal welfare.

Former NSW premier Morris Iemma will chair a Greyhound Industry Reform Panel that will determine the new rules, and will involve the RSPCA, the greyhound industry and government representatives.

The greyhound industry reportedly proposed a number of changes to overturn the ban including a cap on breeding, and reduced numbers of tracks and races.

Limiting the number of bitches breeding in NSW will do nothing to reduce the scale of the industry. Dogs could just be brought in from interstate, and it will be difficult to police this movement.

The sops to the animal advocacy bodies are that they will receive more money to deal with animal cruelty and there will be increased support for rehoming greyhounds in NSW. But as a recent study from my group shows, greyhounds have significant behaviour problems in the home, due no doubt in part to their traumatic upbringing.

Industry on the way out

In an industry already declining, these measures merely reflect the need to curtail its scale in the event of declining attendance and interest. Greyhound racing is now banned in 40 US states. Just 19 tracks remain in six states. Worldwide the industry is only maintained in a handful of countries.

There are a number of reasons why the public has turned away from racing. Like other animal (and human) competitions, these games have been tainted by use of drugs and other uncompetitive practices, such as live baiting in greyhound racing.

Top greyhound trainers earn earn up to A$5 million per year. There is declining public appetite for an industry that generates huge profits for a select few.

Then there are the ethical considerations. At least 50% of dogs are culled because they are too slow. The industry is clearly on the road to self-destruction in terms of its public appeal.

Greyhounds have abnormally large hearts, high blood pressure and a predisposition to gastric torsion and bloating. Like racing horses, the public does not gain any pleasure in seeing such animals win races when it knows that it is simply due to physiological abnormalities on the part of the winner.

Public interest in such sports is changing from “who is the fastest” to a celebration of giving everyone a fair go, to enjoy taking part, in line with the widening circle of compassion that has been increasingly sweeping through human society for at least 200 years.

Out of step

The review of the industry advised that:

Given … the highly entrenched nature of live baiting as a traditional training method, there is a very real risk that, once the harsh spotlight of this Commission is removed from the industry, the practice of live baiting will thrive once more. It is imperative that regulators take all available steps to try to ensure that this does not occur.

For live baiting, the review recommended lifetime bans for any trainer found to be involved in the practice.

Overall, the review recommended the government consider banning the industry, or, if it was to continue, make a number of changes to tighten regulation such as lifetime registration, improved reporting and oversight.

Mike Baird was bold enough to ignore his government’s earlier support for the industry, and was evidently influenced by the widespread evidence of cruelty in the industry.

The evidence of this very detailed investigation now lies in tatters.

This is out of touch with the attitude of the general public, the majority of whom want to see the welfare of animals managed better at a government level.

Australia should be at the forefront of world leadership in celebrating the opportunities through sport for those less advantaged, the aptly named underdogs in society, to be given a fair go.

Instead of racing greyhounds, why aren’t we supporting the public to bring their elderly, overweight, or otherwise less-than-perfect pooches to meet other dogs and have a trot around the track, to the delight of onlookers?

Clive Phillips is on the Scientific Panel for Voiceless and chairs the Queensland government's Animal Welfare Advisory Board

At least 1,000 people were killed when Hurricane Matthew battered the Tiburon peninsula in Haiti last week, destroying houses and displacing tens of thousands.

A humanitarian crisis is now unfolding for the survivors, with the Pan American Health Organization warning of a likely cholera surge in the country due to severely damaged water supply and sanitation systems.

Several other Caribbean island states have been affected, including the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Cuba, as well as the United States.

In 2011, one of us (Jason) led a team to Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince to contribute to the reconstruction effort after the devastating 2010 earthquake. The team worked particularly on the provision of housing.

In all interactions, the team encountered a local community that was honourable, industrious and kind. This perception is confirmed by those who have spent time on the ground after Hurricane Matthew.

But, as is common in the media and institutional narrative following disasters, prejudices and preconceptions abound. Following the earthquake, the Haitians were portrayed as weak, dependent, corrupt and lawless victims. The international community intervened, amid a global outpouring of grief, support and solidarity.

Five years later, destruction and suffering in Haiti is again making headlines. Why is history repeating itself?

Unnatural disasters

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, disaster risk is a function of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. It is normally expressed as the likelihood of deaths, injury or loss of infrastructure for a specific period of time. This suggests that disasters are the product of the human condition.

But other experts describe disasters as “manifestations of unresolved development problems”. Therefore, disasters are not a natural phenomenon. Humans play a central role. As a result, a natural hazard such as Hurricane Matthew impacts each country in its path differently.

Countries, regions, people groups and individuals are distinctly affected by hazards, mostly based on pre-existing vulnerability. While most scholars agree that there are particular vulnerabilities for specific hazards, some argue for “a generalised vulnerability that affects the poorest of the poor and most marginal in all parts of the world”.

In Haiti, many aspects of risk and vulnerability have very deep roots in colonial history. The structural injustice existing in society has been compounded by recent trends in international economics. These have worked to exacerbate widespread vulnerability and exposure.

The status quo has failed Haiti

The earthquake in 2010 resulted in 222,750 deaths, 300,000 injuries, 1.5 million displaced people, and more than 3 million affected in total. Most of the built environment in Port-au-Prince was destroyed, as well as its basic services and infrastructure.

In August 2010 the United Nations tacitly admitted blame for the cholera outbreak that occurred after the earthquake. However, it later invoked absolute immunity.

Cholera has claimed more than 9,000 lives and infected more than 720,000 people in Haiti since 2010. And the failure to contain and eradicate the disease has manifested into the current crisis, with a surge of infections in the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Matthew due to poor water and sanitation.

Little of the US$13.5 billion pledged by the international community after the earthquake ever made it to Haiti’s people or into its economy. Most of it (94%) went to private contractors, donor nations’ own civilian and military entities, international non-government organisations, and UN agencies.

Investigations have revealed that the actors of predatory capitalism rushed to secure quick and easy profits in the wake of calamity. This has helped to prevent any serious effort to address disaster risk by sidelining local stakeholders.

Under the guise of goodwill and solidarity, the United States has officially supported what journalist Antony Loewenstein calls “the latest incarnation of a tired model that failed to deliver long-lasting benefits to locals, but instead delivered cheap labour to multinationals”.

No argument for skills development and employment opportunities can really excuse abusive labour practices. In Haiti, these simply reinforced underlying vulnerability and made a mockery of the commitment to “build back better”. In reality, the United States’ interests have been protected and served in Haiti for a century.

Reducing disaster risk in an age of uncertainty

Put simply, we are creating new risk faster than we are dealing with the existing risk. James Lewis and Ilan Kelman warn that:

…without tackling all vulnerability drivers – that are the roots of [disaster risk creation] – the conditions of [disaster risk creation] will continue to prevail over attempts at [disaster risk reduction].

We continue to demand conformity to orthodox ways of thinking about economics, development, governance and society that have locked us into destructive pathways. Disaster risk is socially-constructed and we must propose solutions that do not ignore root causes. This means providing empowerment and autonomy to communities which live in at-risk areas, including access to resources, education, livelihoods, and health.

Jocelyn McCalla, of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, asserts that:

Hurricane Matthew has disrupted the expected course of events. We should not seek to put Haiti back on course. We need to change course altogether, use disruption to identify another course of action in consultation with Haitians.

We know that development, imposed by external forces that exploit the local labour force is not in the interest of the marginalised. A failure to respect human rights, local needs, the environment and human-environment relations simply creates disaster risk.

A shift towards truly transparent, democratic and participative practices is necessary. We must acknowledge the role of corporations, governments, NGOs and even United Nations agencies both in creating new risk and preventing the reduction of existing risk. Otherwise our well-meaning efforts to help Haiti now and in the future will leave us asking the same questions when disaster next strikes.

Jason von Meding receives funding from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Giuseppe Forino receives funding from University of Newcastle.

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.

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.

Getting your heating upgraded in a rental can be a nightmare. Heating image from www.shutterstock.com

Saving energy is a win-win. You reduce greenhouse emissions and you reduce your energy bills. However, improving energy efficiency is not an option for a significant number of people in Australia – renters.

This is important not only because rental properties account for 29.6% of Australian houses, or 2.3 million homes, but because the high proportion of low-income households in rental properties are particularly vulnerable to rising energy prices.

Those who can, and those who need to but can’t

In Victoria, only 58% of private and 55% of public rented homes have some insulation. In contrast, 95% of owner-occupied homes have insulation.

In 2009 the Victorian government found the use of electric heaters is much higher in rental properties, and that half of all rental households report difficulty heating their homes.

The relationship between low incomes and higher rates of renting is a long-term trend in Australia. More than 20% of long-term renters regularly pay more than half of their income on rent, and 17% of all private renters are on government pensions or allowances. The proportion of people with a disability, a group with higher-than-average energy needs, is also much higher in rental properties.

As energy prices continue to rise, the gap between those who can afford to improve the energy efficiency of their property and those who cannot is growing. Those who are most vulnerable to energy price increases are the people with the least capacity to improve the energy efficiency of their home.

What is getting in the way?

Internationally, split incentives (when two parties engaged in a contract have different goals and levels of information) are recognised as a key barrier to improving energy efficiency in rental properties.

The International Energy Agency estimates that, globally each year, over 3,800 petajoules of energy (roughly 65% of Australia’s total energy use in 2013-14) is not saved due to split incentives.

In Australia, several additional legislative barriers prevent improvements to rental properties.

For example, landlords can offset the entire cost of any repairs made to rental properties against their income in the same financial year. But any repair has to be like-for-like.

So if a gas hot-water system broke down in a rental property and the landlord decided to replace it with a solar hot-water heater it would be classed as an improvement, not repair. The entire cost of improvements cannot be offset in the same financial year, which deters landlords from replacing broken appliances with more efficient versions.

Many state tenancy laws require tenants to return the properties to the same condition as when they rented the property. This means even willing renters are discouraged from improving properties themselves, or engaging in energy efficiency programs offered by external parties.

The majority of leases in Australia are for six to 12 months. In Victoria you cannot get a lease longer than five years.

Therefore, tenants who do have the income and permission to improve the energy efficiency of their properties cannot be sure they will live in the property long enough to pay off the initial investment through energy savings.

Hope for change

In our 2015 study we aimed to identify solutions for the barriers to energy efficiency in rentals. We surveyed 230 tenants and landlords and interviewed five real estate agents.

We found two possible solutions that received a high degree of support from all stakeholders.

The first solution, which received over 90% support from both landlords and tenants (see image below), is to change the classification of energy efficiency improvements to repairs under tax law. This would allow landlords to offset the entire cost of the improvement in the same financial year. Real estate agents were also convinced this solution would work, with no repercussions for tenants.

Landlord and tenant responses to questions about changing the tax classification of energy efficiency improvements.

The second solution that all stakeholders supported was mandatory minimum efficiency standards for rental properties. Over 90% of tenants and 70% of landlords supported this solution (see below).

However, fewer landlords strongly disagreed with a mandatory standard if it was combined with tax offsets for energy efficiency improvements. Real estate agents agreed that the combined solution could be effective.

Landlord and tenant responses to questions about a mandatory minimum energy efficiency standard for rental properties.

Interestingly, if the mandatory minimum energy efficiency standard were enacted, it could allow landlords to claim tax offsets for energy efficiency improvements in the same financial year. This is because spending required to make a property satisfy regulatory requirements falls into the repairs classification.

The results of this study show that despite the different goals of landlords and tenants there are combinations of solutions that could overcome the barriers to improving the energy efficiency of rental properties.

If landlords and tenants can find some common ground, surely politicians across multiple levels of government can work together to find solutions for some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

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