The Conversation

Australia has a complex relationship with the dingo Angus Emmott, Author provided

Vast, ancient, nutrient-poor, with wild swings between droughts, floods and fires: this describes much of the Australian continent. Livestock grazing and farming in such a land is certainly not without its challenges.

Where we’ve failed to work with the local conditions, we see barren plains, dust storms, the extinction of native species, and the repossession of properties by banks, among many ills.

But such a dire picture is far from universal, and belies the fact that many who live on the land are also among our most innovative land managers. Many projects offer potential benefits for livestock production and the environment alike, but without support progress may be hindered.

Putting dingoes to work

One of the most contentious examples involves encouraging dingoes. Many pastoral areas require land managers to take “all reasonable and practical steps” to manage the risk of dingoes, which are classed as pest animals.

But a growing body of research argues that dingoes can be effective at controlling kangaroo and feral goat populations, especially on cattle stations.

A Western Australian couple, David Pollock and Frances Jones, were recently featured on Australian Story for their decision to regenerate their property, Wooleen, by de-stocking, encouraging local flora and fauna, and investing in ecotourism.

Their neighbours, including sheep graziers whose stock are vulnerable to dingoes, feel this is an irresponsible decision. Graziers have a mandate to control dingoes (“wild dogs”, to many) and dingo-domestic dog hybrids — which can’t be easily and reliably distinguished in the wild.

Dingoes are known to be very effective at controlling kangaroo populations. Angus Emmott

While the impacts and merits of encouraging dingoes in sheep country are hotly debated, their role in the management of cattle stations is much better understood. But restrictive legislation and the stigma attached to dingoes are frustrating for those who see them as having a vital ecological and economic role for their properties.

Queensland grazier Angus Emmott writes that his beef cattle enterprise, Noonbah station, has benefited from leaving dingoes and kangaroos alone:

We run a beef cattle enterprise in the top end of the Queensland channel country, southwest of Longreach. As a part of our management plan, we leave the dingoes and the ’roos alone. We see a range of benefits to our operation.

When the dingoes don’t have their social structure disrupted by poison baiting, trapping and shooting, only the apex bitch breeds, once a year at most. These family groups have strictly defined ranges, and they kill or chase off other wild dogs or dingoes that intrude. They also keep kangaroos down to very low numbers, which is a huge benefit in regards to pasture growth and being able to rest our paddocks. The dingoes also keep down feral pig, cat and fox numbers.

Yes, dingoes do take some of our calves, but the benefits of pasture growth and feral animal control result in a net benefit of better land condition and a greater dollar return. Dingoes also benefit biodiversity conservation and soil condition. We acknowledge this management model does not work in sheep country, including for some of our nearby neighbours, and in these cases we need to look at different forms of management, such as fencing and/or companion and guardian animals.

Research supports the financial benefits of this approach in certain circumstances. Some studies have found that, perversely, taking lethal action against dingoes can increase the incidence of attacks on stock and boost the population of herbivores that compete with cattle for pasture.

Solutions for protecting livestock against attack, such as guardian dogs, are also at hand and may be considerably cheaper than constructing and maintaining extensive predator-proof fences. Livestock guardian dogs have been shown to be effective in numerous locations across Australia, on large and small grazing properties. But investment from state and federal government (and related agencies) aimed at encouraging such innovation has been lacking.

Kangaroos can become very abundant following rain and without control by dingoes. Angus Emmott Working with the land

Regardless of whether graziers take the drastic steps seen at Wooleen, now is the time to reflect on the direction of Australia’s land management.

If we’re to overcome the many challenges we face, including the impacts of climate change on food production, then we need to support the bold new thinking emerging from rural and regional Australia, and our scientific institutions.

Such ideas could include making better use of native animals – better suited to Australian conditions – as sources of meat, and reforming land use legislation to allow new industries.

Seeing some of the worst land degradation first hand it’s easy to think that it’s all too hard and that environmental repair will take decades, if not centuries. This can invite inertia and apathy, the enemies of positive change.

But the stories of Wooleen, Noonbah and other innovators show us what is possible. Science has helped demonstrate ecological repair can happen faster and to a greater extent than many might appreciate.

Big changes certainly carry risks, and these must be managed carefully, but new and sometimes brave ideas will always improve our understanding of the land. Whatever the outcome, such knowledge helps guide better decisions for more sustainable grazing, farming and bio-diverse conservation.

Euan Ritchie would like to acknowledge the contribution of Angus Emmott to this article.

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.

Many of Australia’s most carbon-intensive companies are either not participating in the federal government’s flagship Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF), or are adopting a wait-and-see approach, according to our survey of senior executives.

The ERF, introduced in 2014 after the repeal of the carbon tax, is the central component in the government’s policy to reduce greenhouse emissions. Companies can bid for money from an overall fund of A$2.55 billion, to invest in low-carbon technologies and initiatives. Participation is voluntary.

Five ERF auctions have been held, awarding A$2.23 billion so far. However, participation by high-emitting companies has been persistently low.

Some of the funded projects are likely to deliver useful emissions cuts in areas such as forestry, landfill and waste management. But the scheme is yet to reduce emissions reductions in key sectors of the economy such as industry and electricity generation. Our survey underlines concerns that the scheme is not attracting the biggest emitters.

Asking the questions

Our research, titled the Australian Emission Reduction Fund Survey and produced in collaboration with the Carbon Market Institute, was conducted in two rounds.

First, in 2015, we surveyed executives from high-emitting companies in sectors including mining, manufacturing, energy and transport. Then, in 2016, we surveyed executives from firms that had successfully registered carbon-reduction projects under the ERF. Survey respondents represented a broad range of positions, including managing directors, general managers, senior carbon advisers, heads of environmental markets and strategy, and chief executives.

The first-round survey, which was conducted before the first ERF auction and featured 68 participants, showed that 58% of companies planned to “wait and see” before engaging with the ERF. Another 34% said they did not intend to participate in the scheme at all.

One of the main reasons given for non-participation was the fact that the scheme is run as a reverse auction with no guarantee that bids will be successful. This makes it difficult to invest with certainty in the staffing and administration costs of running carbon-reduction projects. One participant told us:

…administrative costs do not make the ERF cost-effective for the scale of abatement opportunities available.

Respondents also told us that there was a lack of guidance on how to understand and participate in the ERF, and uncertainty over the rules of the safeguard mechanism that is meant to help drive demand for carbon credits.

Another issue that most participants highlighted is the inability to make a business case internally and to secure a relatively high price for emissions reductions. One manager emphasised:

Clearly a high price would assist in driving participation, but at the moment the package is not commercially attractive.

Furthermore, some respondents expressed concern over the perceived lack of a wide range of approved methods for cutting carbon. And almost all participants were concerned by policy uncertainty, with one saying:

…there is currently a lack of business certainty regarding carbon policy in the mid to long term.

ERF participants

The results of our second-round survey in 2016, featuring 33 participants from companies that have registered ERF projects, suggested that the financial risk for investors in ERF projects has reduced, having been awarded secure government contracts for delivering carbon reductions. Nevertheless, respondents highlighted a range of concerns about the scheme’s effectiveness.

All respondents highlighted the uncertainty of further funding after the initial A$2.55 billion allocation is exhausted. One participant suggested that the government’s forthcoming climate policy review, to be released this year, should specify exactly how much money the ERF will make available in the future.

Moreover, many respondents expressed doubts that contracts awarded in the ERF’s first four auctions will be completed. This has arisen partly because of a perceived lack of adequate measures to resolve potential disputes between project proponents and land holders. As one respondent told us:

The extent to which landholders understand the legal risks associated with projects is unclear.

Participants also presume that the policy’s safeguard mechanism lacks tight enough “baselines” – the emissions limits beyond which high emitters are required to buy carbon credits. Tough baselines would generate the necessary certainty of a future market, as one respondent explained:

The extent of uncertainty will also be affected by whether the safeguard mechanism is strengthened by reducing baselines, and therefore increasing the need to purchase offsets.

At the Paris climate summit in 2015, Australia pledged to cut carbon emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030. But if the government’s flagship emissions-reductions policy is failing to involve the highest-emitting companies, that target begins to look very onerous indeed.

With the government’s major climate change policy review now underway, it is time for the government, other political parties and high-emitting companies to work together to design a climate policy that is economically efficient and environmentally effective. There is no time to “wait and see” when it comes to combating carbon emissions.

Nava Subramaniam receives funding from Australian Research Council, linkage grant supported by the institute of internal Auditors Australia and the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA). We received this funding to study risk management strategies in Australian Carbon Intensive Firms in 2011-16.

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

Workers rebuild a temple damaged during the 2015 earthquake, in Bhaktapur. Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

Two years after the devastating earthquakes that struck Nepal, the country is struggling to bounce back. Nearly 70% of the affected people still live in temporary shelters, and it is common to see damaged houses, temples without roofs, and earthquake debris lying around, even in the capital Kathmandu.

The recovery is painfully slow, and many families who lost their loved ones continue to live in traumatic conditions.

Over the past two years, working with CARE Nepal and the Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies, we have talked to local communities in the Gorkha, Kathmandu and Kavre districts, and helped to organise a national workshop involving senior government officials, researchers and civil society actors.

Devastation

The twin earthquakes that struck on April 26 and May 12, 2015 caused around 9,000 deaths, and around half a million families in the central region of the country lost their homes. As well as houses, dozens of Kathmandu’s heritage buildings were destroyed, including the iconic Dharahara tower.

In the quakes’ immediate aftermath, relief and rescue work began swiftly, with local volunteers working with the army and international aid workers. However, over the past two years the recovery effort has slowed to a crawl.

Political bickering, a lack of accountability and poor management of funds have all hampered efforts to rebuild. After two years, Nepali media have branded the situation a “failure”.

What went wrong? Our fieldwork and interviews identified four underlying problems.

1. Partisan squabbling

Immediately after the disaster, the government and opposition parties agreed to create a new public body, the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), to oversee rebuilding.

However, despite pressure from international donors and humanitarian agencies, protracted political wrangling meant it took almost nine months to appoint someone to lead the new body. The chief executive has changed three times in little over a year.

Donors pledged more than US$4 billion to the NRA, but little of the aid money has found its way into the work of rebuilding. As a result, fewer than 10% of the roughly 500,000 damaged homes have been rebuilt with support from the government and donors.

The earthquake hit at a time when Nepal was embroiled in debate over its new constitution, which became a matter of controversy. For about ten years, the disaster response agenda had been neglected by the contentious politics of state restructuring, following the decade-long violent Maoist revolt.

Disaster response has thus been sidelined by protracted political instability, characterised by constitutional transition, ideological and ethnic tension, and frequent changes of government.

2. Absence of local government

Although national parliament elections have been held in Nepal on more or less on a regular basis, there has been no local election or effective local government for 16 years.

Local elections have finally been announced for May 14 and June 14, 2017, but the damage caused by more than a decade of political vacuum is huge. The loss of political accountability to local people is one of the key factors of the failure of disaster recovery in Nepal.

In several locations, we found unaffected local elites included in the lists of victims receiving financial support. Without local democratic leadership, people cannot voice their concerns, mobilise community resources, or scrutinise projects.

Despite this, Nepalese people enjoy strong local social capital, which has helped them in times of distress and difficulty. Community leaders in Gorkha told us: “we work together at the community level to rebuild damaged houses one by one even when there is no support from the government or donors”.

Some local leaders have worked with their communities to build infrastructure, small roads, schools and hospitals. Nevertheless, these individual efforts are no substitute for strong and democratic local government.

3. Ineffective international aid

In the aftermath of the earthquakes, Nepal’s National Planning Commission estimated that the country needed more than US$7 billion for recovery. The billions of dollars committed by international donors was not translated into a clear plan to direct the money, which meant it has had little impact in rebuilding.

The NRA, which should have led the major state response to the disaster, has been hampered by cumbersome administration. A proposal to allow the NRA to bypass the standard procedures failed to eventuate, and a senior official told us their work is slowed by inefficient and lethargic regulations.

The head of the NRA recently publicly criticised the slow pace of rebuilding, blaming overly inflexible procedures and a lack of strong political will.

Donors have therefore preferred to give to international NGOs instead of state options; in Gorkha alone there were 300 different NGOs operating immediately after the earthquake.

The effectiveness of these organisations has been questioned by independent commentators and academic researchers, some even describing the post-disaster aid industry as “disaster capitalism”. However, despite challenges, several NGOs have delivered vital relief in times of need.

Nepal still lacks effective and enforceable mechanisms to monitor the use of humanitarian support. Having the money is not enough; it must reach the projects that truly help people.

4. Regional tensions

Nepal exists in a delicate balance between India and China, and a few months after the earthquakes a blockade between India and Nepal disrupted supplies. Nepal blamed India for the blockade, while India said the disruption of supplies was due to internal political problems in Nepal.

As a landlocked country, Nepal has historically relied on India for its basic supplies. India’s blockade led to almost total paralysis of not only the recovery work, but the entire economy. At the same time, in recent years China’s interest in Nepal has grown.

During the blockade, China provided free oil, but such one-off assistance did not address recovery needs. The competition between China and India for influence in Nepal has not resulted in any substantial benefit for those affected by the disaster.

Given the persistent seismic risks in the Himalayas, there is a need to create a coherent regional structure for disaster recovery. Yet internal tensions appear to have prevented the Nepal government from promoting serious international cooperation.

Since the entire Himalayas is prone to multiple forms of disaster, a region-wide research and recovery initiative, involving both China and India, is crucial.

Nepal is just one case of poor disaster recovery management. The questions we need to ask, two years on, are: how can we improve national and local government responses? How can international aid work with government efforts? And how can we foster regional cooperation?

Hemant Ojha received support from the Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) and CARE Nepal while carrying out this research.

Eileen Baldry receives funding from the ARC

Krishna K. Shrestha received funding from Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) and CARE Nepal while carrying out this research.

A coolabah forest in Western Australia – one of the world's previously unrecognised dryland forests. TERN Ausplots, Author provided

A new global analysis of the distribution of forests and woodlands has “found” 467 million hectares of previously unreported forest – an area equivalent to 60% of the size of Australia.

The discovery increases the known amount of global forest cover by around 9%, and will significantly boost estimates of how much carbon is stored in plants worldwide.

The new forests were found by surveying “drylands” – so called because they receive much less water in precipitation than they lose through evaporation and plant transpiration. As we and our colleagues report today in the journal Science, these drylands contain 45% more forest than has been found in previous surveys.

We found new dryland forest on all inhabited continents, but mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, around the Mediterranean, central India, coastal Australia, western South America, northeastern Brazil, northern Colombia and Venezuela, and northern parts of the boreal forests in Canada and Russia. In Africa, our study has doubled the amount of known dryland forest.

The world’s drylands: forested areas shown in green; non-forested areas in yellow. Bastin et al., Science (2017)

With current satellite imagery and mapping techniques, it might seem amazing that these forests have stayed hidden in plain sight for so long. But this type of forest was previously difficult to measure globally, because of the relatively low density of trees.

What’s more, previous surveys were based on older, low-resolution satellite images that did not include ground validation. In contrast, our study used higher-resolution satellite imagery available through Google Earth Engine – including images of more than 210,000 dryland sites – and used a simple visual interpretation of tree number and density. A sample of these sites were compared with field information to assess accuracy.

Unique opportunity

Given that drylands – which make up about 40% of Earth’s land surface – have more capacity to support trees and forest than we previously realised, we have a unique chance to combat climate change by conserving these previously unappreciated forests.

Drylands contain some of the most threatened, yet disregarded, ecosystems, many of which face pressure from climate change and human activity. Climate change will cause many of these regions to become hotter and even drier, while human expansion could degrade these landscapes yet further. Climate models suggest that dryland biomes could expand by 11-23% by the end of the this century, meaning they could cover more than half of Earth’s land surface.

Considering the potential of dryland forests to stave off desertification and to fight climate change by storing carbon, it will be crucial to keep monitoring the health of these forests, now that we know they are there.

Ground-based observations were a crucial part of the survey. TERN AusPlots, Author provided Climate policy boost

The discovery will dramatically improve the accuracy of models used to calculate how much carbon is stored in Earth’s landscapes. This in turn will help calculate the carbon budgets by which countries can measure their progress towards the targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol and its successor, the Paris Agreement.

Our study increases the estimates of total global forest carbon stocks by anywhere between 15 gigatonnes and 158 gigatonnes of carbon – an increase of between 2% and 20%.

This study provides more accurate baseline information on the current status of carbon sinks, on which future carbon and climate modelling can be based. This will reduce errors for modelling of dryland regions worldwide. Our discovery also highlights the importance of conservation and forest growth in these areas.

The authors acknowledge the input of Jean-François Bastin and Mark Grant in the writing of this article. The research was carried out by researchers from 14 organisations around the world, as part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Forest Survey.

Andrew Lowe receives funding from the Australian Government, and has previously received funding through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). He has served as Associate Science Director for TERN (2009-2016), and is currently the University of Adelaide representative on its Board.

Ben Sparrow receives funding from the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) where he directs the AusPlots and Eco-informatics programs.

The 2017 federal budget has axed funding for the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), an agency that provides information to decision-makers on how best to manage the risks of climate change and sea level rise.

The NCCARF received A$50 million in 2008 to coordinate Australia’s national research effort into climate adaptation measures. That was reduced in 2014 to just under A$9 million. For 2017-18, a mere A$600,000 will be spread between CSIRO and NCCARF to support existing online platforms only. From 2018, funding is axed entirely.

This decision follows on from the 2014 streamlining of CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship, and comes at a time when a national review of Australia’s climate policies is still underway.

Despite a growing global impetus to address the risks of climate change, there is evidence that Australia is being hampered by policy inertia. A review of 79 submissions to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry on Barriers to Effective Climate Change Adaptation, published in 2014, found that:

adaptation first and foremost requires clear governance, and appropriate policy and legislation to implement change.

Earlier this year the World Economic Forum listed “failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation” as one of the top five risks to the world, in terms of its potential impact. Meanwhile, in Australia, local governments, professionals and community groups have consistently called for more national policy guidance on how best to adapt to climate risks.

The government’s decision to slash funding for climate adaptation research is therefore at odds with the growing urgency of the problem. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its most recent major assessment report, pointed out that Australia can benefit significantly from taking adaptation action in highly vulnerable sectors.

These areas of vulnerability include: the risk of more frequent and intense floods; water shortages in southern regions; deaths and infrastructure damage caused by heatwaves; bushfires; and impacts on low-lying coastal communities.

To put it simply, lives and money will be saved by strong climate adaptation measures.

Australia needs a coherent policy approach that goes beyond the current focus on energy policy, although climate adaptation is indeed an important issue for our electricity grid as well as for many other elements of our infrastructure. A coherent, whole-of-government, approach to climate risk is the economical and sensible approach in the long term.

Like it or not, the federal government has to take a leading role in climate adaptation. This includes the ongoing need to address existing knowledge gaps through well-funded research.

The federal government is the major funder of leading research in Australia, delivered through CSIRO, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Cooperative Reserach Centres, the Australian Research Council and universities. This role should not be divested. Without climate adaptation research, Australia can expect significantly higher infrastructure damage and repair costs, more death and disease, and more frequent disruption to services – much of which would be avoidable with the right knowledge and preparation.

The damage bill from the 2010-11 Queensland floods alone exceeded A$6 billion. Since 2009, natural disasters have cost the Australian government more than A$12 billion, and the private sector has begun trying in earnest to reduce its risk exposure.

In response to these known risks, there is demand for robust policy guidance. Effective partnerships between government, industry and the community are crucial. One such example led by the NCCARF is CoastAdapt, an online tool that collates details of climate risks and potential costs in coastal areas.

For projects like this, success hinges on full engagement with all relevant spheres of government, industry, research, and the community. There is more to be done, and it needs leadership at the highest level.

Tayanah O'Donnell receives research funding from the ACT Government and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.

Josephine Mummery was employed by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility in 2015 and 2016.

When we look at the latest car models we want fast cars, all-terrain cars or cars to fit the whole family. What about an environmentally friendly car? REUTERS/Toby Melville

Shopping can be confusing at the best of times, and trying to find environmentally friendly options makes it even more difficult. Welcome to the second instalment of our Sustainable Shopping series, in which we ask experts to provide easy eco-friendly guides to purchases big and small.

Cars are vital to Australians. As of 2016, we have 18.4 million registered motor vehicles, producing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fuels..

The harms of CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel burning have been hammered home time and time again: they are the main driver of global warming and sea level rise, and they harm vulnerable communities. So how can our choice of car minimise these devastating outcomes?

The issue

Without reducing road transport emissions , the Australian Government will find it difficult to meet our climate target of a 26-28% reduction on 2005 emission levels by 2030.

A simple way to reduce transport emissions significantly is to guide consumers towards more fuel-efficient vehicles. Many other countries have minimum national standards for new cars, but no such targets currently exist in Australia.

This means global car manufacturers can dump high-polluting cars, which can’t be sold in countries with stricter regulations, into the Australian market. The most fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicles offered in Australia are on average less efficient than those offered in other countries with fuel efficiency standards. Car manufacturers offer those vehicles that are cost effective to supply and maximise their profit in the Australian market.

Internationally, this makes Australia a laggard when it comes to energy efficiency in the transport sector, ranking last out of 16 major OECD countries.

How can we increase sustainability?

The federal government has proposed a set of fuel-efficiency and CO₂ emission regulations, to be introduced by 2020.

The regulations will encourage car manufacturers to import and promote the most fuel-efficient models. Evidence shows that motorists’ vehicle choices play a key role in decarbonising the transport sector.

The current Australian fuel consumption label is confusing and doesn’t give people enough context. Climate Change Authority

But as it stands, if you want to make an informed choice about your new car, you generally have to rely on the mandatory fuel-efficiency and CO₂ emission labels (displayed on all new cars), and information provided in the Green Vehicle Guide.

Unfortunately, current car labels can be very confusing, presenting numbers with very little context. There is a simple way to make this labelling more effective, which other countries have done very well: rate vehicles against a benchmark.

The Irish fuel label, for instance, includes colour-coded bands to rank CO₂ emissions, and an estimate of the amount of fuel needed to travel 18,000km. Buyers can tell at a glance if a score is good or bad, and thus easily compare models.

Irish fuel consumption labels are well recognised and easily understood by consumers. Ask About Ireland

Irish car labels also tell buyers about the vehicle’s registration tax (stamp duty), which varies based on its CO₂ emissions.

What can Australians do?

The best starting point when buying a new car is the Green Vehicle Guide, which gives you the CO₂ emissions intensity for each model.

Let’s say I really want a fuel efficient medium-sized SUV. Searching in the Green Vehicle Guide will lead me to the Mitsubishi Outlander (petrol-electric) hybrid, which emits 44g of CO₂ per kilometre.

I can see that’s better than the other SUVs detailed in the guide, but I want some more context. My next step is to look at the Carbon Dioxide Emissions Intensity report by the National Transport Commission, which will give me an idea of how the Mitsubishi measures up against other new vehicles in Australia.

That report is a whopping 66 pages long, but the graph below is on page 21. It shows the range and average of CO₂ emissions of 2015 vehicle models, so I can see that the average medium SUV emits 175g per km, and the upper limit is over 250g per km. The Mitsubishi is therefore a pretty sound choice – it’s actually under the average emissions of all classes of new vehicles.

The average and the range of carbon dioxide emissions intensity of car models during 2015. The average emissions are represented by the horizontal lines and the range of emissions are represented by the vertical lines. National Transport Commission

Ideally, finding a less environmentally damaging car would not take this much work.

The Green Vehicle Guide should compare all categories of new vehicles against the “best in class” chart on page 22 of the Carbon Dioxide Emissions Intensity report. Better still, manufacturers should have to provide this information in an easily understood way on each car they sell.

Such rankings would inform people whether the vehicle they are choosing is an eco-friendly brand, and put pressure on manufacturers to improve their Australian offerings.

Making it easy to find greener cars can have a big impact. If all Australians buying a new vehicle in 2015 had picked the “best in class” for their model, the national average for new car CO₂ emissions that year would have been 55% lower.

The government can help the environment and consumers by following the European Union’s example. This would mean imposing better industry standards and raising consumer awareness by providing information on car labels that is easily understood and transparent, such as ranking vehicles against colour coded CO2 emission bands. Until then, a little information and some homework can help you find the most eco-friendly vehicle for your needs.

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.

Gas infrastructure and exploration attracted the lion's share of new energy announcements in the 2017 federal budget Sean Heatley/Shutterstock.com

The budget contains several measures designed to boost energy security, including:

• A$90 million to expand gas supplies, partly through increased unconventional gas exploration

• a potential Commonwealth buyout of an expanded Snowy Hydro scheme

• up to A$110 million for a solar thermal plant at Port Augusta

• monitoring of gas and electricity prices by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Below, our experts react to the measures.

Gas price problem far from solved

Roger Dargaville, Deputy Director, Melbourne Energy Institute, University of Melbourne

The budget contains a broad range of funding in energy-related areas, with a significant focus on gas resources, making A$78 million available for onshore unconventional gas exploration and reform in the gas markets, and A$7 million for studies into new gas pipelines to South Australia, from both Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Interestingly, there is A$110 million in equity available (but not guaranteed) for a solar thermal plant in Port Augusta. And most notably, the government has proposed purchasing the Snowy Hydro Scheme from the New South Wales and Victorian governments, ensuring that the scheme stays in public hands.

The budget also includes A$13 million for CSIRO to improve energy forecasting tools, and A$8 million for the ACCC to investigate consumer energy pricing issues.

Overall, the budget highlights the government’s desire to do something about gas prices, but offers little to make a significant difference to a very difficult problem. Gas market reform and new pipelines are unlikely to reduce the exposure of the domestic market to price rises driven by international exports.

Importantly, there is little new funding in the budget directly relating to reducing carbon emissions and meeting the pledges made in the Paris Agreement (a 26-28% emission reduction relative to 2005 levels by 2030). Also noteworthy is the removal of funding for research into carbon capture and storage.

‘On energy this budget is small fry’

Tony Wood, Energy Program Director, Grattan Institute

The budget does little more on energy than endorse the government’s deal with Senator Nick Xenophon on corporate tax cuts, complemented by modest commitments to energy security, more gas and better regulation.

Government facilitation of gas development and beefing up the energy capability of the Australian Energy Regulator and the ACCC are simple logic, and the one- off payment to pensioners to help with electricity bills will be welcomed by them.

Major public funding for further feasibility studies is a little more questionable. If the gas crisis can’t galvanise support from pipeline companies and gas consumers for pipelines, why would governments reach a different conclusion?

And finally, one can only speculate as to why the federal government is contemplating buying out the NSW and Victorian governments’ share of Snowy Hydro. Presumably it is because the feds are concerned about securing support for the proposed expansion.

In summary, on energy this budget is small fry ahead of major policy decisions that rest on the forthcoming Finkel Review of the National Electricity Market next month, and the climate change policy review later in the year.

A step towards radical energy reform?

Hugh Saddler, Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National University

Few announcements in the budget speech are more emblematic of complete policy reversal than the announcement that the Commonwealth would buy the shareholdings in Snowy Hydro Limited of the governments of NSW (58%) and Victoria (29%), to add to the 13% currently owned by the Commonwealth. This comes almost exactly 11 years after Prime Minister John Howard, responding to vociferous public opposition, pulled the plug on plans by all three governments for a public float of their entire shareholdings. What is more, Treasurer Scott Morrison has now announced that, once owned by the Commonwealth, Snowy Hydro would remain in public ownership.

This announcement of course accompanies the government’s Snowy 2.0 proposal, for a fivefold increase in the Snowy scheme’s current 500 megawatt pumped storage capacity (at Talbingo). This was used, after commissioning in 1974, to allow inflexible coal fired power stations to operate with constant output levels day and night, but is now almost never used. This presumably reflects commercial decisions by Snowy Hydro, as it trades in the National Electricity Market.

The rationale for Snowy Hydro 2.0 is to facilitate operation of a grid with a high share of renewable generation, by smoothing out variations in wind and solar supply. Does this announcement mean that the government envisages moving away from a strictly commercial approach to using the assets of the Snowy scheme? Is this a first step towards radical restructuring, or even dismantling, of the National Electricity Market?

Stronger legislation needed

Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University

The detailed A$265 million energy package includes a number of useful measures to strengthen the weak regulatory culture of the energy sector that has allowed our energy crisis to evolve. But it is still limited: strong legislative reform and active support of emerging competitors will also be needed. It is a modest investment compared with recent multibillion-dollar energy cost increases. If it is successful, it will deliver vary large net benefits to the economy by limiting energy price increases. Unfortunately, past efforts to fix the energy situation have largely failed to deliver real outcomes: we need clear objectives for outcomes, and a mechanism to implement contingency strategies if they are not achieved.

In a context of increasing urgency for stronger action on climate, and the reality that the global “burnable carbon” budget is very limited, investment to encourage more gas development seems misplaced. More emphasis on energy efficiency, renewables and smart energy systems would make much more sense. Energy efficiency already saves billions on energy costs and could save much more, while renewable energy is becoming cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. They also help to achieve our climate targets. And fossil fuels are responsible for almost three-quarters of Australian emissions, so we need strong action to meet our international obligations.

The extension of the A$20,000 tax write-off for small business spending on equipment is a measure that, at least for small businesses, offsets a significant barrier to investment in energy efficiency. Firms will also be able to continue to claim the write-off to improve the economics of investments in on-site renewable energy and storage. Of course, the problem still remains for spending over A$20,000 by small businesses, and for larger businesses.

The energy security plan, which includes funding for ACCC to police energy industry behaviour is only a small step towards fixing the disastrous failures of energy policy and a transition to a 21st century energy policy framework. Much more will need to be done.

Hugh Saddler is a member of the board of the Climate Institute

Alan Pears has worked for government, business, industry associations public interest groups and at universities on energy efficiency, climate response and sustainability issues since the late 1970s. He is now an honorary Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University and a consultant, as well as an adviser to a range of industry associations and public interest groups. His investments in managed funds include firms that benefit from growth in clean energy. .

Roger Dargaville works with the consortium of EnergyAustralia and Arup that have been funded by ARENA to conduct the PHES feasibility study. He has previously received funding from ARENA to undertake energy system modelling studies.

Tony Wood holds shares in energy and resources companies through his superannuation fund.

The tropical Pacific has a large say in how fast the world warms. GTS Productions/Shutterstock.com

Global warming is rapidly approaching 1.5℃, but according to our new research, conditions in the Pacific Ocean over the coming decades will determine how fast we get there.

In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, we use climate model simulations to quantify how fast global average temperatures will reach 1.5℃ above the pre-industrial average – one of the crucial benchmarks of the Paris Climate Agreement.

The Paris deal calls for governments to pursue the aim of keeping global warming below 1.5℃. But our results suggest that we could hit that level before the end of the next decade if the Pacific Ocean moves into a state we have nicknamed the “cranky uncle” for its effects on global temperatures.

Faster warming

Global temperature records have tumbled in recent years: 2016 was the world’s hottest year on record, the third record-breaking year in a row.

Although human emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary driver of these rising temperatures, there are other factors at play. The climate system is an unwieldy beast, containing a variety of erratic feedbacks and complex mechanisms.

One mechanism with which many people are familiar is El Niño and La Niña, a see-sawing of warm waters across the tropical Pacific every two to seven years. Climate scientists were not at all surprised to see record global temperatures in 2015 and 2016, because of the large El Niño that ended last year.

Another, lesser-known cycle in the Pacific Ocean is the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). Since El Niño and La Niña are Spanish for the “the boy” and “the girl”, we have nicknamed their slower-moving relatives the “cranky uncle”, El Tío, and the “kind auntie”, La Tía.

Like El Niño, warm phases of the IPO provoke a temporary acceleration in global temperature, but over much longer periods, lasting between 10 and 30 years.

The cool La Tía phase of the IPO since around 2000, and its associated slowdown in the rate of global warming, may have lulled us into a false sense of security.

Scientists are now concerned that the next El Tío phase could be on its way, which might sustain the relatively rapid global warming seen over the past few years.

Our research

With this in mind, we decided to investigate how soon we are likely to surpass the 1.5℃ level, both with and without the influence of the IPO.

We used climate model simulations to project global temperatures. The models show temperatures varying significantly from year-to-year and decade-to-decade, as we see in the real world. The centre point of the model projections indicates that the 1.5℃ level would be reached just before 2030, with 75% of the model projections crossing 1.5℃ before 2032.

With the recent slowdown period in mind, we wondered how the next IPO phase, El Tío or La Tía, would influence global temperature. We found that the rate at which global average temperature approaches the 1.5℃ level is influenced significantly by the IPO.

The influence of the IPO on global temperatures towards 1.5°C. Author supplied

El Tío phases are responsible for an acceleration in global temperature. The centre point of the El Tío projections passes the 1.5℃ level in around 2027, and a quarter of our projections pass 1.5℃ as early as 2024.

For La Tía, the projected rate of warming is reduced, and the centre year is 2031 – the kind auntie gives us a little more breathing space.

So, is the Paris agreement a failure?

No. The Paris agreement is a critically important step in the right direction.

Although we will soon surpass the 1.5℃ warming benchmark, we still have a chance to turn around and head back down the hill. But to reduce global temperatures, we need not only to reduce our net emissions to zero, but to move swiftly into net negative carbon emissions territory. That means that overall we will need to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, not add more.

But we are a very long way from that point. There is a lot of work to do.

The implications of swiftly rising global temperature are many and varied. Our group and other scientists have quantified the changing likelihood of extreme events such as heatwaves, coral bleaching, droughts and floods.

For the next few decades we have to accept that we are likely to see more extreme events as the effect of continued rising global temperatures takes its toll.

We can’t hide from our cranky uncle, but we can limit climate change and its impacts. Although the political will for evidence-based climate policy seems to be waning in some quarters, the message from climate scientists has not changed:

We need swift global cooperation to dramatically reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

Ben Henley receives funding from an ARC Linkage Project and is an associate investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Malte Meinshausen receives funding from an ARC Future Fellowship.

Bees have been living with the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder for a decade. Simon Klein, Author provided

Ten years ago, beekeepers in the United States raised the alarm that thousands of their hives were mysteriously empty of bees. What followed was global concern over a new phenomenon: Colony Collapse Disorder.

Since then we have realised that it was not just the US that was losing its honey bees; similar problems have manifested all over the world. To make things worse, we are also losing many of our populations of wild bees too.

Losing bees can have tragic consequences, for us as well as them. Bees are pollinators for about one-third of the plants we eat, a service that has been valued at €153 billion (US$168 billion) per year worldwide.

Ten years after the initial alarm, what is the current status of the world’s bee populations, and how far have we come towards understanding what has happened?

The current status of bees worldwide

Since the alarm was first raised, many countries have created new monitoring methods to judge the status of their bee stocks. As a result we have much more data on bee populations, although coverage is still patchy and differences in survey methods make it hard to compare between continents.

It is clear that bees in the United States are still struggling. Beekeepers can tolerate up to 15% losses of colonies over winter, but the US is massively above this threshold, having lost 28.1% of colonies over the 2015-16 winter.

Canada, by contrast, reported 16.8% losses. This is better, but still above the level of losses at which beekeepers can easily restock.

Only recently have we had data from central Europe. There, honey bees seem to be doing better: 11.9% losses in 2015-16. Meanwhile, in New Zealand surveys only began in the last year and have reported winter loss of 10.7%. Australia does not yet have a countrywide survey of the state of bee colonies.

Fortunes are mixed for bees around the world. Simon Klein, Author provided

Honey bees are not the only bees that we should care about: wild bees are vital pollinators too. Some plants are pollinated by only one wild bee species, such as the macropis bees that forage on the loosetrife plant.

Unsurprisingly, we have much less data on wild bees than honey bees, and those data we do have point to bigger concerns. For our wild bees we only really have good data for populations that are endangered or that have completely disappeared. Between 2008 and 2013, wild bee diversity in the US dropped by 23%, and a previously common bumblebee species was recently listed as endangered.

Do we understand why?

The good news is that the past decade has seen plenty of progress in understanding the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder. The bad news is that we now recognise it as a complex problem with many causes, although that doesn’t mean it is unsolvable.

For all bees, foraging on flowers is a hard life. It is energetically and cognitively demanding; bees have to travel large distances to collect pollen and nectar from sometimes hard-to-find flowers, and return it all to the nest. To do this they need finely tuned senses, spatial awareness, learning and memory.

Anything that damages such skills can make bees struggle to find food, or even get lost while trying to forage. A bee that cannot find food and make it home again is as good as dead.

Because of this, bee populations are very vulnerable to what we call “sublethal stressors” – factors that don’t kill the bees directly but can hamper their behaviour.

For solitary species such as the blue-banded bee, native to New South Wales, difficulty foraging can be a very serious problem. Simon Klein, Author provided

In a recently published review, we argue that modern agriculture and industry have created a host of sublethal stressors that damage bees’ cognition. For example, diesel fumes and neonicotinoid pesticides both reduce bees’ foraging efficiency by disturbing chemical communications in their brains. Modern intensive agriculture disturbs bee nutrition, which impairs their brain. Climate change interferes with the relationship between bees and the plants on which they feed.

In addition, managed honey bees are afflicted by a range of pests, viruses and predators that have been spread around the world as a side-effect of international trade. The worst is the ominously named Varroa destructor mite, which causes brain development disorders.

What can we do?

At the global level, to preserve our bees we have to improve the environments in which they collect food. Every small action can make a difference. Planting flower borders with bee-friendly flowers in your garden can provide food for both wild and domestic bees. You can reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides or pesticides when gardening. Even mowing the lawn less often can help bees out.

You could install a native bee hive or insect hotel. Another tempting option is to buy local honey, which often has a more distinctive flavour than mass-produced versions.

In Australia, we are fortunate in that our bees seem to be doing better than many other parts of the world. The Varroa mite has not yet invaded our shores, and in many areas bees can access pesticide-free bushland (although unlike Europe, Australia has not yet banned use of neonicotinoids in agriculture).

Australia also has an incredibly rich diversity of wild native bees: up to 1,600 different species, including our emblematic stingless bees. Even so, to protect this diversity we need better surveys of how these species are doing.

Ten years on from the alarm over disappearing bees, it is fair to say we now know the nature of the problem and what can be done to fix it. It’s up to us to take the steps needed to sustain these precious pollinators of our food for the future.

Andrew Barron receives funding from a Special Cooperative Agreement with the US Department of Agriculture.

Simon Klein 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.

With so many choices for coffee, it's hard to know which is the environmentally healthy option. Shutterstock

Shopping can be confusing at the best of times, and trying to find environmentally friendly options makes it even more difficult. Welcome to the first instalment of our Sustainable Shopping series, in which we ask experts to provide easy, eco-friendly guides to purchases big and small.

The morning coffee ritual is serious business; Australians drink roughly 16.3 million coffees a day. Plenty of news coverage has been devoted to its health benefits and cultural significance, but how much do you know about the environmental cost of your daily latte?

Coffee is grown in some of the most biologically diverse regions of the world, sometimes causing significant damage. But there are choices you can make to reduce the ecological impact of your caffeine fix.

The issue

Coffee mostly affects tropical forests, as they are cleared to make way for coffee farms. But with certain cultivation practices, these coffee farms can support an impressive range of forest biodiversity.

The world’s most popular coffee type, Coffea arabica, grows under the rainforest canopies of Ethiopia. A natural requirement for shade means coffee is often cultivated under shading plants, from a single tree species to a diverse range of plant life.

However, to improve productivity, traditional coffee farms have been increasingly replaced with sun-tolerant coffee varieties that produce higher yields. Compared with shaded coffee, these simplified plantations support fewer native species, store less carbon, experience higher levels of erosion, and leach more nutrients. They also require more resources such as water and fertilisers.

Coffee grows in the shade on a farm in Jinotega, Nicaragua. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas How can we increase sustainability?

The most important choice when it comes to sustainable coffee is the actual coffee and its cultivation. Cultivation can contribute as little as 1% or as much as 70% of the total environmental footprint of a cup of coffee. How the coffee is consumed (instant, fresh grounds or pods, for instance) has less influence.

The lowest-impact coffee is grown using traditional cultivation methods with minimal mechanisation. At the other extreme are large farms that are highly mechanised and require more fertiliser and pesticides.

A combination of traditional cultivation methods, maintaining shading plants, protecting local forests and buffering waterways (filtering farmland runoff with vegetation before it enters waterways), has the lowest environmental impact.

What can you do?

While searching for your daily dose of caffeine, you have probably come across several different sustainability certification logos. They are the easiest way to find out about how your coffee is cultivated, and have proved effective in protecting coffee landscapes from degradation.

The two most prominent certification programs are The Rainforest Alliance and Australian Certified Organic.

Coffee bean bag with Rainforest Alliance logo. Karen Christine Hibbard/Flickr, CC BY-NC

The Rainforest Alliance requires a level of native vegetation to be maintained within each coffee farm. There is some criticism that the alliance has watered down its criteria in recent years, at least in terms of maintaining diverse shading vegetation. However, their certification leads to positive outcomes such as protection of waterways and native vegetation.

Australian Certified Organic certifies coffee roasters such as Coffex, Coffico and Rio Coffee. Australian Certified Organic

Australian Certified Organic is focused on protecting natural habitats and biodiversity, efficient water use, and minimising the use of chemicals in fertilisers and pest and disease management. These practices are strongly aligned with traditional coffee cultivation.

While certification programs are not perfect, logos can certainly act as a guide to sustainable products.

That said, products without logos aren’t necessarily unsustainable. Some small landholders with highly sustainable, shade-grown coffee can’t afford the expense of certification.

In this situation you can talk to your local roaster (or a distant one via the internet). Roasters may have direct relationships with their coffee growers and can tell you about their cultivation practices. Good questions to ask are whether the cooperative has any certification, whether the cultivation is organic or shade-grown, and whether the cooperative has any associated environmental programs.

Ultimately, a little knowledge of coffee cultivation and its impacts can go a long way in making wise and environmentally sound purchases. There is a huge range of coffee choices available, and good evidence that the choices you make can influence significant and positive environmental outcomes.

Aaron is employed by Astron Environmental Services, an environmental consulting company based in Western Australia.

James Gleeson's Delenda est Carthago offers a striking visualisation of a collapsing civilisation.

What does climate change look like in Australia? Are we already seeing our landscapes shift before our eyes without even realising it?

Perhaps thought-provoking art can help us come to terms with our changing world, by finding new ways to engage, inform and hopefully inspire action. For hasn’t art always been the bridge between the head and the heart?

With that aim, the ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2017 festival, organised by CLIMARTE, features 30 specially curated exhibitions running from April 19 to May 14 in galleries across Melbourne and regional Victoria, following on from their previous award-winning festival in 2015.

Changing landscapes

One of the festival’s exhibitions is Land, Rain and Sun, featuring more than 100 landscapes dating from the 19th century to today, curated by gallery owner Charles Nodrum and captioned by us to offer a climate scientist’s perspective on the works. We also collaborated with CLIMARTE directors Guy Abrahams and Bronwyn Johnson to bring the idea to life.

The exhibition, featuring Australian artists including Sidney Nolan, James Gleeson, Eugene Von Guerard, Louis Buvelot, Russell Drysdale, Fred Williams, Michael Shannon and Ray Crooke, is designed to help start a conversation about what climate change might look like in Australia.

Curating an exhibition of artworks as seen through the eyes of a climate scientist poses a challenge: how can we help make the invisible visible, and the unimaginable real?

As we sifted through scores of artistic treasures, there were a few works that confronted us in unexpected ways. The first was Cross Country Skiers, painted in 1939 by renowned South Australian artist John S. Loxton. It depicts the Victorian High Country heavily blanketed in snow, as two skiers make their way through the beautiful wintery landscape.

John S. Loxton, Cross Country Skiers, Victorian High Country, c. 1935. Watercolour on paper. Charles Nodrum Gallery, Author provided

When we saw this image, we realised that in decades to come this work might be considered a historical record, serving as a terrible reminder of a landscape that vanished before our eyes.

Average snow depth and cover in Australia have declined since the 1950s as temperatures have risen rapidly. Under high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, climate models show severe reductions, with snow becoming rare by late in the century except on the highest peaks.

The Australian ski season could shorten by up to 80 days a year by 2050 under worst-case predictions, with the biggest impacts likely to be felt at lower-elevation sites such as Mt Baw Baw and Lake Mountain in Victoria.

As temperatures continue to rise, our alpine plants and animal communities are in real danger of being pushed off mountain tops, having nowhere to migrate to and no way of moving from or between alpine “islands”.

James Gleeson’s surreal apocalyptic painting Delenda est Carthago is a provocative work that got us thinking about a future marred by unmitigated climate change. The title refers to Rome’s annihilation of Carthage in 149 BC. According to the ancient historian Polybius, the conquering Roman general, Scipio Aemilianus, famously wept as he likened the event to the mythical destruction of Troy and to the eventual end he could foresee for Rome.

James Gleeson, Delenda est Carthago, 1983. Oil on linen. Charles Nodrum Gallery, Author provided

As climate scientists, we are disturbingly aware of the threats to society not only here in Australia, but all over the world. Unmitigated human-induced climate change could potentially see the planet warm by more than 4℃ by the end of the century.

In Australia, inland regions of the country could warm by more than 5℃ on average by 2090. In Melbourne, the number of days over 40℃ could quadruple by the end of the century, causing extreme heat stress to humans, wildlife, plants and infrastructure, especially in urban areas.

Warming of this rate and magnitude is a genuine threat to our civilisation. Gleeson’s artwork made us consider that the unimaginable may happen, as it has in the past.

On a more optimistic note, Imants Tillers’ work New Litany highlights the importance of communities taking a stand for environmental protection. Over our history Australians have fought against logging of native forests, nuclear power, whaling, and for the restoration of dammed river systems like the Snowy.

Imants Tillers, New Litany, 1999. Synthetic polymer paint and gouche on canvas. Charles Nodrum Gallery, Author provided

Public concern in Australia about climate change reached a peak in 2006, largely in response to Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth and Tim Flannery’s book The Weather Makers. Yet the decade since then has brought political turmoil, and national greenhouse emissions continue to rise.

The recent March for Science is a reminder that the stakes are now higher than ever before, and that many people really do care about the future.

The science is telling us that our climate is changing, often faster than we imagined. The range of CSIRO’s latest climate change projections reminds us that the future is still in our hands. We can avoid the worst aspects of climate change by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, but we need to act now.

Art has always been a powerful portal to understanding how we feel about our world. Let’s hope it helps safeguard our climatic future.

Joelle Gergis receives funding from the Australian Research Council

While at CSIRO (1989-2014) Penny Whetton's research team received federal government funding for climate projections research.

Australia, like many countries, is grappling with an energy market in transition. It’s a politically fraught topic, but two major policy developments create hope for a better approach.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced last week that he will restrict gas exports and reserve supplies for Australians. This comes on the heels of an ambitious plan to increase hydroelectricity capacity in Tasmania.

Following unproductive talks with gas producers to try to ensure a secure domestic supply, the government has said it will force companies to reserve gas for the local market if a shortage is forecast. This is designed to reduce domestic retail prices for gas and ensure energy security.

Just one week before that, Turnbull presented proposals to invest in pumped hydroelectricity in Tasmania, by redeveloping the old Tarraleah scheme, enhancing the Gordon Power Station and exploring several new schemes. This follows the announcement of a A$2 billion expansion of the Snowy Hydro scheme and a plan to build a pumped hydro plant at Spencer Gulf in South Australia.

Both announcements are a potent reminder that the energy security challenge exists on different scales. The gas plan highlights short-term energy security concerns, with the ability to respond quickly to sudden changes in supply and demand.

On the other hand, the hydro plan zeroes in on the challenge of long-term energy security. Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman is optimistic that, if approved, the plans would set Tasmania up “for the next 100 years”; Turnbull said it would make the state “the renewable energy battery of the nation”.

Plans to develop the Gordon Dam in Tasmania will massively increase hydro power output. david_pointing/Flickr, CC BY-SA Will these plans work?

Investment in long-term development is essential, even when it’s difficult to assess future returns. A feasibility study is evaluating the Tasmanian plans, but it’s clear that with better connection to the mainland, more hydro would boost Australia’s capacity for energy storage. It could also ease export limitations on Australian gas companies.

Of course, it is also tricky to predict the success of short-term initiatives. Economists are split on whether gas export restrictions will lessen concerns about an east coast supply crisis.

Regardless of whether the restrictions work exactly as intended, the government has signalled that it will be a temporary measure. Australia needs sustained policy follow-through.

The only long-term solution is to increase national output, starting with Tasmanian hydro and other cheap, cleaner energy installations.

The Clean Energy Council has said that increasing Tasmanian hydro will be part of the solution to high gas prices:

Renewable energy is now the lowest-cost form of energy it is possible to build in Australia today. A balanced approach, incorporating hydro, renewable energy such as solar and wind and other forms of grid-scale storage, makes a lot of sense.

Consumers on Australia’s east coast could have their energy cheap and clean. Once built, hydro power has attractively low operating costs and, with better regional interconnection, the increased capacity for storage could make for a smarter, more resilient Australian grid. The low greenhouse gas emissions from hydropower are added value.

Australia has decades of hydro power experience under its belt, with 40% of its renewable electricity now generated by hydro. Hydro power contributes about 85% of renewable electricity worldwide. The question, therefore, is not “will it work?”, but “how quickly can we make it happen?”

The plans for gas export restrictions will first undergo consultations, with Turnbull expecting them to take effect as early as July 1. Plans for Tasmanian hydro will likely take longer, as funding has been secured only for the feasibility studies at this stage.

If Turnbull’s plans to restrict gas exports succeed and east coast energy security concerns continue, increasing Tasmanian hydro and other new energy installations could lead to a reduction in gas export restrictions and a gradually more self-reliant Australian market.

Cle-Anne Gabriel 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.

AAP/Paul Miller

The news last week that Australia’s oldest bank, Westpac, has withdrawn from any prospect of financing Adani’s Carmichael coal mine may well be the death knell for the controversial project.

Westpac is the last of the big four Australian banks to have ruled out investing in Adani. ANZ declared its move away from mining in December 2016. The Commonwealth Bank and NAB dissociated themselves from Adani in August and September 2015.

The move means that, even if the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund proceeds with a A$1 billion subsidy for the mine in the form of a dedicated, “private” railroad for Adani to export the coal, the mine is unlikely to proceed. The timing of Westpac’s decision may be a response to the multiple campaigns being launched against Adani, including consumer activism targeting the bank itself.

Westpac may have perceived these campaigns could have an impact on its customer base, and the savings accounts that underwrite its lending revenue stream. It responded with an update to its position statement on climate change. The statement specifies terminating financing mines with coal quality of less than 6,300 calories per kilo – which rules out Adani’s lower-quality coal from funding.

This is significant beyond just ruling out Adani. Westpac is the first of the big four banks to put restrictions on new thermal coal mines. This signals the largest financial players in Australia are accelerating the transition away from coal, and – as the position statement outlines – toward increasing lending to renewables and energy efficiency projects by two-thirds.

Climate solutions finance group Market Forces’ executive director Julien Vincent said Westpac has “raised the bar” on climate change for the other banks. Whereas banks used to watch each other for who was going to pass on interest rate cuts, it seems now they are also mindful of who is doing the most for climate change.

But even without its new position statement, Westpac could not expose itself to the obvious risks of funding a project that will so rapidly devolve from a global climate pariah to a fossilised stranded asset.

According to a report from 2011 on climate-change issues for the Land Court of Queensland’s hearing of objections to the grant of Adani’s mining lease:

The cumulative emissions related to this mine … are amongst the highest in the world for any individual project, and – to the knowledge of the authors – the highest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Given our current atmospheric CO₂ is 407.5ppm, this gives us 43ppm left to keep warming under 1.5℃, according to IPCC trajectories. Even at Adani’s own conservative estimates that it will emit 4.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, which is almost 11% of the remaining global carbon budget.

1.5℃ of committed warming presents an adaptation nightmare for coastal communities around the world. This level is almost approaching the Emian period of 120,000 years ago, when sea levels were six-to-nine metres higher than they are today.

So, while Westpac still has a way to go before it gets off the Market Forces watch-list of fossil-fuel-friendly banks, it has managed to avoid an investment and PR disaster.

Westpac would have studied India’s electricity plan, released in December, which abandoned building any new coal-fired power stations in the next decade in favour of 350 gigawatts of new solar and wind power. Over the weekend, Shadow Environment Minister Mark Butler pointed out that the Modi government has said it intends to phase out thermal coal imports entirely by 2020.

But this did not stop Barnaby Joyce, on Q&A on Monday night, wheeling out the much-discredited argument that Australia has a “moral obligation” to help India keep its lights on. This is actually morally bankrupt when you consider that India is planning to look after itself with renewables.

The turning tide has not stopped The Australian newspaper from doing all it can to support the mine. This has included giving plenty of airtime to Resources Minister Matt Canavan, who last week labelled Westpac “wimps” for abandoning the mine. The Australian reported over the weekend that Canavan met with Guatam Adani in Brisbane, and was “confident the project would get the finance it needed from other lenders”.

But The Australian has been doing the heavy lifting for Adani’s PR campaign for some time now. Post-Cyclone-Debbie articles in April talked up the mine’s declared “huge economic benefits”. One front page headline declared:

Shorten isolated over Adani mine opposition (Unions, mayors, ALP premier unite to back coal project) (April 12)

And there was a blatant editorial promotion of the mine on April 18, entitled:

Adani project offers fresh hope

The April 12 edition even included a front page comment by Simon Benson, that:

Bill Shorten’s repositioning on the Adani coalmine in north Queensland appears to be yet another political retreat into the inner-city streets of leftist fanaticism.

What such a campaign tells us is it seems to be crunch-time for the mine – and the future of the entire Galilee Basin, whose coal deposits will be made to look a little more viable if that railway gets built.

But opposition to the railway subsidy has surfaced in the most unlikely of quarters. Sydney shockjock Alan Jones has weighed in, denouncing the subsidy as a case of taxpayers funding a private venture that is not in the national interest.

Paradoxically, Jones ended his outrage by comparing funding Adani with subsidising windfarms, for which Australians – both present and future – are direct beneficiaries in so many ways. But both The Australian and Jones have ignored the the big story on investment into renewables.

Whereas a giant coal-mining company has taken seven long years to realise no-one is listening – except for major political parties, perhaps eager for political donations they are accustomed to from the mining industry – investors can’t get enough of renewables. Investment opportunities for community projects have been selling out within minutes.

Grassroots solar projects are in high demand for investors. Fifty such projects have been established across Australia and are backed by $24 million. But the ABC reports Australia lags behind Scotland, Denmark and Germany, which all have extensive energy co-operatives that are promoting wind more than solar.

With an average of 7% return on investment, the appetite for such projects in Australia is obviously strong. And it will only take local communities and small businesses to be better organised to take advantage of the renewables investment revolution. At the very least, the remarkable appetite for renewables investment will drive the large banks and lending institutions to service this growing market.

With thanks to Tahnee Burgess for research assistance on this article.

In a landmark case now before the High Court, former Australian Greens leader Bob Brown and fellow forestry protester Jessica Hoyt are arguing that Tasmania’s anti-protest laws unconstitutionally restrict freedom of speech.

The two-day hearing, which concludes today, focuses on Tasmanian legislation. But the case has implications for hardline laws introduced in New South Wales and Western Australia.

Standing outside the High Court, Brown summarised what is at stake:

Had these laws been in place a couple of decades ago the Franklin River would be dammed. The tropical rainforest of Queensland would be largely cut up… We’re here to defend the right of all Australians into the future to be able to show environmental destruction where it takes place.

Critics see these laws in Tasmania as part of a deliberate effort to stifle environmental protest as the government pursues its stated aim of “rebuilding Tasmania’s forestry industry”.

Laws that some scholars say put corporate interests ahead of democratic rights have been legislated internationally. However, the issue now before the High Court is narrow. Does the Tasmanian legislation breach the constitutional implied right to freedom of political communication?

Tasmania’s laws

Under the Act, a protest is defined as any activity that promotes “awareness of or support for … an opinion, or belief, in respect of a political, environmental, social, cultural or economic issue” taking place on business premises. Political expression is thus an explicit focus of the law. It creates numerous protest offences with serious penalties.

Protesters who do not leave a premises when directed by police face penalties of up to A$10,000 each. New offences of causing or threatening damage or risk to the safety of a business carry penalties of up to A$250,000 or 5 years’ imprisonment. The definition of “business premises” is very broad and includes land that may be publicly owned, such as “business access areas” and mining and forestry sites.

Tasmania’s former resources minister Paul Harriss, in a statement made when the bill was passed in 2014, said:

Tasmania will now have the strongest legislation in the country to protect the rights of workers to lawfully earn a living, while ensuring the right to free speech and legitimate protest have been protected… No longer will Tasmania tolerate the extremists; you may have your say but you may not stop workers from earning a living.

Two months earlier, the United Nations urged Tasmania to withdraw the legislation. UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye described the law and its penalties as “disproportionate and unnecessary”. His colleague Maina Kiai argued that the law impedes the basic democratic function of protest: to hold government and corporations accountable.

The High Court

In January 2016, Brown was arrested and charged at an anti-forestry protest in Tasmania’s northwest, for refusing a police order to vacate the Lapoinya Forest exclusion zone, a “business access area”. He faced a maximum fine of A$10,000.

Brown announced in March 2016 that he intended to challenge the laws in the High Court. Two months later the charges were dropped, although a statement by Tasmanian Police Commissioner Darren Hine suggested that this was due to a technical error in the charges rather than an issue with the law’s constitutional validity.

Brown opted to continue his challenge to the laws. To broaden the case and secure legal standing, Hoyt joined as a co-plaintiff. She had been arrested at Lapoinya for returning to the area (rather than refusing to leave), thereby triggering a different section of the legislation.

Crucial question

In the High Court, the key question is whether the Tasmanian legislation is consistent with freedom of political communication. Because Australia lacks a bill of rights, this freedom has been implied from the constitutional principle of representative government. The reasoning is that it would be illogical to empower a citizenry to elect members of parliament but fail to protect public discussion about politics.

The court will be required to decide whether the Tasmanian law burdens communication about government or political matters.

The second, and more interesting, question is whether the Tasmanian law is “reasonably appropriate and adapted” to fulfil its claimed purpose of protecting workers and business while remaining consistent with our system of representative and responsible government.

Peter Gutwein, formerly Tasmanian forestry minister and now Tasmanian treasurer, has expressed confidence that the legislation will stand up to a constitutional challenge. However, this is far from certain.

In late 2016, UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst reported that Tasmania’s laws:

would contravene Australia’s … obligations under international human rights law, including the rights to freedom of expression as well as peaceful assembly.

The Human Rights Law Centre has criticised the law as placing business interests over democratic values. Spokesperson Emily Howie argued:

Governments can’t just sell off our democratic rights in order to appease vested business interests. This Tasmanian law is completely unbalanced; it puts business interests way ahead of our rights as individuals to engage in political communication or indeed protest.

Other governments, both in Australia and internationally, will be watching the outcome of the case with interest. Australian citizens, especially those who feel that successive governments have shown more interest in protecting the fossil fuel industry than in effectively responding to climate change, will be looking for a sign about the values that underpin our Constitution.

Peter Burdon is affiliated with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Mary Heath is affiliated with The Wilderness Society (SA).

A new roadmap for Australia’s electricity networks outlines a national plan to keep the lights on, make sure bills are affordable, and decarbonise our electricity industry by mid-century.

The plan, by CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia, sets out measures that could save households A$414 a year on average, by generating their own electricity through “distributed” technologies such as solar panels and batteries. It envisages that Australia could save a total of A$101 billion by 2050, while also bringing net greenhouse emissions to zero.

As described in an earlier draft report last December, Australia’s electricity networks can be transformed to give millions of customers more choice and control over their energy, while also meeting Australia’s international climate change commitments.

The roadmap calls for a coordinated approach, but how will that play out in practice?

Regional analysis

While it is a national plan, each state and territory will play its own distinct role.

Each faces different circumstances in terms of electricity demand growth, renewable resources, state renewable energy policies, and the age and fuel mix of their existing electricity infrastructure.

The full report outlines what each state and territory can expect.

Regional analysis snapshot. CSIRO/ENA

New South Wales

The renewable electricity generation share in NSW is expected increase steadily to 28% by 2030. Thereafter, new generation capacity building is expected to accelerate to fill the gap left by more rapid coal capacity retirement.

NSW’s rooftop solar panel capacity will increase by more than 400% by 2030, with more than 6,000 megawatt hours in small-scale battery storage. These changes will be driven largely by falling costs, which will encourage wider customer adoption and the use of larger system sizes.

NSW customers will become a significant player in Australia’s overall energy system, with the capacity of the state’s rooftop solar panels projected to exceed 11,000MW by 2030 - more than the state’s coal-fired capacity today.

Queensland

Similarly to NSW, were the lack of coal plant retirement to be the main driver, Queensland’s renewable electricity share would lag other states at only 12% by 2030, with more rapid transformation occurring in the period between 2030 and 2050. However, state government renewable energy schemes could modify this outcome.

Queensland will see a huge increase in rooftop solar panels, of more than 500% by 2030. By then, it is also forecast to have more than 10,000MWh of small-scale battery storage capacity – the equivalent of 760,000 residential battery storage systems. That will rise to the equivalent of more than 2 million household battery systems by 2050.

High levels of rooftop solar and other distributed generation will create challenges for Queensland’s electricity network. There is the potential for “reverse flow” (where local generation exceeds consumption) in many parts of the Queensland power system within 15 years.

Victoria

Victoria is assumed to meet its target of 40% renewable share of generation by 2025 and maintain that share for next 15 years before investment accelerates again in the 2040s.

Victoria is also set for a 500% increase in rooftop solar panels by 2030, and more than 6,000MWh in small-scale battery storage. These batteries would represent the equivalent of 440,000 residential battery storage systems installed by 2030, and more than 1 million by 2050.

South Australia

South Australia has the second highest share of renewables of all states at around 40% and is expected to steadily improve that position until other states accelerate their own building programs in the 2030s.

South Australia’s rooftop solar panels will increase by more than 300% by 2030, with 4,000MWh of small-scale battery storage.

While South Australia already leads the nation in the installation of new large-scale renewable generation and is set to become a leading installer of large-scale battery capacity, small-scale renewables and batteries will also play an important part in its future energy mix, as in other states.

Western Australia

WA’s rooftop solar power capacity will triple by 2030, combined with a forecast 2,000MWh of small-scale battery storage.

More than 40% of the states’s electricity is projected to come from renewable sources by 2030, as is the case in South Australia today.

Tasmania

Tasmania is the leading renewable generation state and its hydro generation and storage capacity could support grid stability in the broader National Energy Market into the future.

Residential battery storage would play a small but significant role in supporting the energy transformation in Tasmania. More than 1,000MWh in onsite battery capacity could be installed in Tasmania by 2030, and more than 2,000MWh by 2050.

Paul Graham has received funding throughout his career from electricity generators, electricity networks, federal and state government departments, non-government non-profit organisations and energy consulting and engineering companies.

A feral dog chasing a wild boar, Banni grasslands, India Chetan Misher/Facebook

Humans and their canine companions share many close bonds. Wolves (Canis lupus) were the first animal domesticated by people, some time between 15,000 and 50,000 years ago.

There are now an estimated 1 billion domestic dogs across their near-global distribution.

Domestic dogs include feral and free-ranging animals (such as village and camp dogs), as well as those that are owned by and completely dependent on humans (pet dogs).

Our latest research reveals that the ecological “pawprint” of domestic dogs is much greater than previously realised.

Using the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, we counted how many species are negatively affected by dogs, assessed the prevalence of different types of impacts, and identified regions with the greatest number of affected species.

A dog with a black-naped hare, Maharashtra, India. Hari Somashekhar/Facebook Dogs are third-most-damaging mammal

We found that dogs are implicated in the extinction of at least 11 species, including the Hawaiian Rail and the Tonga Ground Skink. Dogs are also a known or potential threat to 188 threatened species worldwide: 96 mammal, 78 bird, 22 reptile and three amphibian species. This includes 30 critically endangered species, two of which are classed as “possibly extinct”.

These numbers place dogs in the number three spot after cats and rodents as the world’s most damaging invasive mammalian predators.

Even though dogs have an almost global distribution, the threatened species they are known to affect are concentrated in certain parts of the globe. South-East Asia, South America, Central America and the Caribbean each contain 28 to 30 threatened species impacted by dogs. Other hotspots include Australia, Micro/Mela/Polynesia and the remainder of Asia.

Lethal and non-lethal impacts

Predation was the most commonly reported impact of dogs on wildlife. The typically omnivorous diet of dogs means they have strong potential to affect a diversity of species. For instance, dogs killed at least 19 endangered Kagu (a ground-dwelling bird) in New Caledonia in 14 weeks. Threatened species with small population sizes are particularly vulnerable to such intense bouts of predation.

The frequency of different types of dog impact on threatened species. https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Uxs~1R~e71Xl

Aside from simply killing animals, dogs can harm wildlife in other ways, such as by spreading disease, interbreeding with other canids, competing for resources such as food or shelter, and causing disturbances by chasing or harassment. For example, contact with domestic dogs increases disease risk for endangered African Wild Dogs in Kenya.

Part of the problem is that when wild animals perceive dogs as a threat, they may change their behaviour to avoid them. One study near Sydney found that dog walking in parklands and national parks reduced the abundance and species richness of birds, even when dogs were restrained on leads.

None of the Red List assessments mentioned such indirect risk effects, which suggests that their frequency is likely to be much higher than reported.

Feral dogs chasing Indian wild ass at Little Rann of Kutch, India. Kalyan Varma/Facebook Friend and foe

Despite their widespread and sometimes severe impacts on biodiversity, dogs can also benefit some species and ecosystems.

For example, in Australia, the closely related dingo (Canis dingo) can suppress populations of introduced predators such as red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), and in doing so can benefit smaller native prey. It is possible that domestic dogs could perform similar ecological roles in some situations.

In some regions, dogs and their keen noses have been trained to help scientists find threatened species such as Tiger Quolls. Elsewhere they are helping to flush out and control feral cats.

An emerging and exciting conservation role for dogs is their growing use as “guardian animals” for wildlife, with the remarkable story of Oddball being the most well known.

Managing the problem

Dogs not only interact with wildlife, but can also attack and spread disease to humans, livestock and other domestic animals. As such, managing the problem requires looking at ecological, cultural and social perspectives.

Some of the regions with high numbers of species threatened by dogs are also hotspots for urbanisation and road building, which make it easier for dogs to access the habitats of threatened species. Urban development increases food waste, which feeds higher numbers of dogs. As dogs expand into new areas, the number of species they impact is likely to grow.

Street dogs scavenging food waste in India. Achat1234/wikimedia

We can protect wildlife by integrating human health and animal welfare objectives into dog management. Vaccination and desexing campaigns can reduce disease risk and overpopulation problems. We should also focus on responsible dog ownership, removing dogs without owners, and reducing access to food waste.

Given the close relationship between humans and dogs, community engagement should form the basis of any management program. More research is needed to get a better picture of the scale of the problem, and of how dogs interact with other threats such as habitat loss. Such actions are critically important for ensuring the conservation of wildlife threatened by dogs around the world.

This article was co-authored by Dr Al Glen from Landcare Research, New Zealand and Dr Abi Vanak from the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, India. These institutions had no role in the design or funding of this research.

Tim Doherty receives funding from the Australian Academy of Sciences, Ecological Society of Australia and Deakin University. Tim is on the board of the Society for Conservation Biology (Oceania) and is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, and the Australian and American Mammal Societies.

Chris Dickman receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Long Term Ecological Research Network, the Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the National Environmental Science Programme, and The University of Sydney. He is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, the Australian and American Mammal Societies, the Royal Zoological Society of NSW, and a Director of WWF-Australia.

Dale Nimmo is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Hermon Slade Foundation, the Australian Academy of Science, and the Department of Land, Water and Planning, the Department of Parks and Wildlife.

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.

Thomas Newsome receives funding from Deakin University, The University of Sydney, the National Geographic Society for Research and Exploration, Seattle City Lights, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Newmont Tanami Operations. He is Treasurer of the Australasian Wildlife Management Society and a member of the Australian Mammal Society and the Ecological Society of Australia.

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

Coastal marine food webs could be in danger of collapse as a result of rising carbon dioxide levels, according to our new research. The study shows that although species such as algae will receive a boost, the positive effects are likely to be cancelled out by the increased stress to species further up the food chain such as predatory fish.

Food webs are essentially networks of species that interact with each other. The connection between them can stabilise systems, for instance by preventing particular species from becoming too common, thereby encouraging the presence of a wide range of species.

These pathways can be quite stable, but they are vulnerable to ocean warming and acidification. Such food webs are therefore sensitive to changing climates, through potential changes both to plant growth (bottom-up effects) and to predator abundance and behaviour (top-down effects).

Because of the sheer complexity of species interactions within these food webs, we struggle to understand what future food webs might look like and how humans will be affected through changes in the services provided by the ocean, such as food, materials and energy.

Test tank

We used a self-contained ecosystem in a 2,000-litre tank to study the effects of warming and ocean acidification on a coastal food web. This approach can give us a good idea of what might happen to genuine coastal food webs, because the tank (called a “mesocosm”) contains natural habitats and a range of species that interact with one another, just as they do in the wild.

Our food web had three levels: primary producers (algae), herbivores (invertebrates), and predators (fish).

The results show that carbon dioxide enrichment can actually boost food webs from the bottom up through increased algal growth. This benefited herbivores because of the higher abundance of food, and in turn boosted the very top of the food web, where fish grew faster.

But while this effect of ocean acidification may be seen as positive for marine ecosystems, it mainly benefits “weedy” species – a definition that can be applied to some species of algae, invertebrates, and even fish.

In contrast, habitat-forming species such as kelp forests and coral reefs are more likely to disappear with rising CO₂ emissions, and with them many associated species that are deprived of their habitats and food.

Detrimental effect

Our results therefore showed that warming had a detrimental overall effect on the coastal food web we studied. Although higher temperatures boosted algal growth, herbivorous populations did not expand. Because herbivore abundances remained similar and elevated temperatures result in a higher metabolic demand, predatory fish consumed more herbivorous prey, resulting in a collapse of these prey populations.

These results show how the benefits of one human-induced effect (increased ocean CO₂) are cancelled out by the negative effects of a co-occuring stressor (ocean warming). More importantly, it also shows how interactions between species (predator and prey, in this case) can alter the outcome of climate stressors on individual species.

Such indirect effects within the web of life have remained largely unstudied, despite the fact that they may in many cases be more important than direct effects in terms of their future impacts.

For example, habitat loss and loss of predator species are key indirect effects that can alter species populations within food webs. However, these effects also offer the opportunity for some conservation wins.

First, humans are altering marine ecosystems in many other ways than just climate change, such as through pollution, habitat destruction, and eutrophication (an excess of nutrients, often caused by runoff from land). By reducing these effects we could reduce the overall burden on marine species, potentially buying them time to adapt to climate change across generations.

Second, by reducing habitat loss from other human impacts – by implementing well-designed sanctuary zones – we can also maintain the habitats, prey and other organisms on which species depend for their growth and survival.

Finally, studies suggest that the top of food webs will be disproportionately affected by climate change, and research has shown that predators play important roles in maintaining diversity and general ecosystem health. By reducing the ongoing global overfishing of predatory species worldwide, we might relieve some of the direct effects of climate change on food webs and ecosystems.

Ivan Nagelkerken receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sean Connell receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Silvan Goldenberg 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.

The federal government has pledged to bring in legislation that would allow it to restrict gas exports and force Australian producers to reserve supplies for domestic consumers, amid continuing fears of an east coast supply crisis.

The move comes after the apparent failure of crisis talks earlier this month, aimed at easing the forecast price squeeze.

But experts are split on whether domestic gas reservations are a wise move. In a survey of 32 economists by Monash Business School and the Economic Society of Australia, 38% agreed with the following statement, whereas 47% disagreed.

In response to energy shortages around Australia, government policies requiring gas producers to reserve some production for domestic consumption are a good way to ensure that Australian consumers have access to sufficient gas supplies while still allowing for gas exports.

Weighting the scores by confidence pushed the balance even further towards a negative verdict, as shown below.

David Prentice, principal economic adviser at Infrastructure Victoria, who summarised the results, said the forthcoming gas supply problems had “raised a lot of concern” as Australia heads into winter.

Lucrative export contracts have sent huge amounts of Australian gas overseas, meaning it is now cheaper to buy Australian gas in Japan than in Australia.

Western Australia already has a domestic gas reservation policy aimed at holding local prices in check amid a boom in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. But Prentice said many of the economists arguing against a similar policy for the eastern states feared that it would distort the market, pushing gas prices artificially low.

“A common theme in many of the arguments of those that disagree with the policy is that the appropriate response to rising gas prices overseas is to let the domestic price rise and firms and households work out the best way to adjust to higher prices – that is, let the ‘invisible hand’ work,” he said.

In contrast, several of those who favoured the policy argued that higher prices could pose a risk for many consumers, such as businesses that may struggle to compete internationally if their gas bills are too high.

Read the panel’s full responses below.

The ESA Monash Forum is a joint initiative between Monash Business School and the Economic Society of Australia.

Still from the French documentary Tomorrow. MOVE MOVIE, FRANCE 2 CINÉMA, MARS FILMS, MELY PRODUCTIONS

The Conversation and the Australian French Embassy presented a panel between French and Australian experts at the University of New South Wales in March, opened by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Development Jean-Marc Ayrault.

In his opening remarks, Ayrault celebrated the signing and coming into force of the 2015 Paris Agreement, under which countries agreed to limit warming to well-below 2℃, however he highlighted that more action needs to be taken around the world.

“Some are tempted to slow it down, or worse, to take a step backwards. We can currently see this in the United States.

"Tackling climate change is a democratic fight. Individual actions are like votes: on their own, they seem powerless, but together, they give new meaning to our societies,” he said.

The panel discussion included screenings of clips from the French documentary Tomorrow. View the complete discussion below.

The Conversation asked French and Australian experts what they consider to be the major challenges to overcome in transitioning to a more sustainable world.

Better valuing sustainable development in transport

François Raulin, Researcher, The Territory Development Institute, Normandy Business School

Since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, sustainable development has gradually become a key issue for public policy in many countries. Despite many global efforts - for example - to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, most small initiatives are being taken at the local level.

Take the example of sustainable mobility in cities. The majority of urban agglomerations have been designed or redeveloped for cars. In order to limit the use of cars, various devices have been put in place, such as the introduction of urban road tolls (for example in Singapore, London and Stockholm), the removal of parking lots in inner city centres, or more recently the installation of eco stickers (road tax) for polluting vehicles in Paris.

In parallel, many French cities have seen a reduction in car use in favour of more sustainable forms of transport. As well as public transport such as trains, buses or trams, bikes and walking are alternative solutions to cars. However, depending on the urban environment, bicycling or walking is not always possible, or is dangerous.

How can these modes of active transport be promoted? Here are three possible solutions:

• First, by promoting their health benefits, including the fight against obesity, the decline in cardiovascular diseases or the preservation of mental health.

• Second, by encouraging their intermodality with other transport system, which would reduce the use of cars over short distances. The development of bike-sharing systems or improved walkability are various solutions proposed to encourage their use in the city.

• Third, by increasing the ground area dedicated to cycling (bike paths) and walking (footpaths) while decreasing that of cars.

Beyond environmental issues, the development of sustainable mobility in cities also improves the quality of life of the inhabitants (less pollution, less noise, and so on) and make it more attractive, especially among young people.

Overcoming inertia in the energy system

Dani Alexander, Research principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Overcoming inertia, both culturally and technologically, will be the key to unlocking our clean energy transition.

Power has been shifting to the energy consumers with the rapid rise of rooftop solar and falling costs of battery storage. However, with this has come discontent with the large electricity businesses that were built in the traditional model of “big energy” to “small consumer”.

As Belgian historian David Van Reybrouck argues in the film Tomorrow, there is an “increasing sense of theft” among consumers, which can drive action against the system such as “going off-grid”. The majority of Australians are ready to move to a renewable energy system despite the political inertia.

Our researchers at the Institute for Sustainable Futures have investigated the risk of a “death spiral” where, as more people leave the grid, the shared cost of our electricity infrastructure becomes more concentrated among fewer people, leading in turn to yet more people leaving the grid.

Unfortunately, it is often those who are more vulnerable (such as those who cannot afford a personal energy system) that pay the highest price. There are options to improve the way that our energy market works to provide a fairer deal for everyone, but regulatory inertia seems to be strong as well.

But what about technically? Can we move to a renewable energy system without risking the system or soaring electricity bills? Or is a rapid transition irresponsible, as some in our federal government would have us believe? Can renewables provide the same reliable services?

Moving towards more local generation, such as more rooftop solar, does make managing electricity more complex, for example in keeping network voltage in check. Luckily, renewable technologies have already advanced and have the capability to provide the network support services we need. Solar panels with storage will be able to moderate voltage at the source of the problem. Wind turbines already have the ability to provide the “synthetic” inertia to keep the grid stable – if the market allows and promotes it.

So what we need now is a new momentum. Strong enough to overcome the inertia and fast enough to divert our path away from irreversible climate change.

Working from the ground up

Joachim Claudet, Researcher, CNRS/PSL University

Global change is a major challenge for human societies. It is modifying ecosystems all over the world, hence threatening our wellbeing through alterations to the flow of ecosystem services. However, global change is not affecting societies everywhere in the same way. Global drivers interact with local drivers.

They can combine with local stresses, such as overfishing or land clearing, creating additive or even multiplicative impacts. Understanding and predicting global change impacts thus requires strong knowledge of local social-ecological systems, of human-nature interactions (such as human use of the environment, natural disturbance history).

Global drivers also emerge from local processes. Hence, attempts to minimise the magnitude of global drivers or strategies to mitigate their impacts require local interventions. These can include incentives to modify human uses or adaptive management to foster resilience of social-ecological systems.

The latter requires a deep understanding of local world views as effective strategies in a place can be culturally inappropriate in another. This is particularly true in some Pacific Island countries – those countries being some of the most vulnerable to climate change – where wellbeing is strongly tied to the connectedness of people and places and where there is no distinction between nature and culture.

Dani Alexander is a member of the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF), which undertakes paid sustainability research for a wide range of government, NGO and corporate clients, including energy businesses.

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

It’s an interesting time to be involved in energy policy. Thanks to the east coast energy crisis, the closure of Hazelwood power station and South Australia’s blackouts, the broadsheet-reading public suddenly finds itself conversant with all sorts of esoteric concepts, from gas peaking to five-minute price settlements.

Amid all the disruption, it’s perhaps not surprising that a long-term, coherent national energy policy remains as elusive as ever. Instead we see piecemeal announcements like pumped hydro and battery storage, none of which is itself a panacea. Some innovations can hinge on a single tweet which, while exciting, hardly gives the impression of joined-up policymaking.

Despite its name, the much-maligned National Electricity Market doesn’t extend to Western Australia, which means that federal energy policy discussions don’t always reach across the Nullarbor.

But we suggest looking west for inspiration. In our view, WA is well placed to research, develop and deploy the energy solutions that the whole country could ultimately use. Here are five reasons why.

1. An appetite for change

WA electricity customers have long recognised the advantages that energy innovations provide. More than 200,000 homes have solar panels (rapidly closing in on the penetration levels of Queensland and South Australia), and the appetite for residential battery storage is steadily growing.

This is due to a combination of factors. First, there’s the consistently sunny weather. Then there’s the fact that WA customers cannot yet choose their electricity retailer, meaning that households are more motivated to shop for solar panels to gain independence from government owned monopoly utilities, and can’t simply rely on the innovative price deals of the more nimble retailers found over east.

The vast distance and separation from the rest of Australia’s network means the WA grid won’t be joined to the NEM any time soon, meaning it will need to address the issues for itself, hopefully aided by a newly elected state government with the political capital to reform energy markets.

2. Micro grids, maximum resilience

To move successfully away from the traditional, centralised model of electricity generation, you need to maintain one of its cornerstone qualities: resilience. Being so far from literally everywhere else on the planet has embedded these traits into WA’s energy network, but has also reinforced the need to incorporate “microgrids” into network planning.

Microgrids are best thought of as small electricity sub-grids, able to function in concert with the main grid or in isolation if necessary. This increases the entire network’s resilience – you can’t have a state-wide blackout if you have plenty of microgrids.

WA currently has over 30 isolated microgrids, and is in prime position to be a test bed for more complex systems of network control, which will become necessary as these grids attempt to incorporate ever higher levels of distributed renewable energy from solar panels and other sources.

3. Trials and tests beat reviews and reports

The forthcoming Finkel Review of the National Electricity Market is clearly necessary and welcome. But while the media and political circus focuses on it, the utilities in WA are already out there testing the solutions.

The government-owned retailer Synergy and network operators Western Powerhave helped to investigate a range of innovations, such as strata peer-to-peer electricity trading, microgrids, utility-scale battery storage, demand-management, and standalone power systems for fringe-of-grid areas.

Meanwhile, the state-owned regional provider Horizon Power provides several valuable test case opportunities to understand how future grids and networks will need to operate in more remote areas. For example, it has successfully installed advanced metering infrastructure (‘smart meters’) for every one of its 47,000 customers, spread over 2.3 million square kilometres, no less.

4. Skilled labour is plentiful

During WA’s decade-long mining boom, technical skills were in high demand and short supply. It’s fair to say the opposite is now the case. Meanwhile, the state government has committed to removing 380 megawatts of fossil-fuel generation capacity from the WA energy market, most of which is situated around Collie, south of Perth.

If this pledge leads to greater opportunities for new renewable energy infrastructure it would provide welcome relief for a job market awash with underemployed technical experts, still reeling from the mining downturn.

WA’s world-leading reserves of lithium ore also offer a significance chance to join in the burgeoning battery storage industry.

With the recent closure of Hazelwood’s ancient coal-fired power station, Victoria’s Latrobe valley will no doubt be investigating similar opportunities, and the coal regions of Queensland and New South Wales should not be too far behind.

5. Strong links between government and experts

For WA, the disruptive transition in the energy sector is more acute, partly because its market is dominated by government-owned monopoly utilities that rely heavily on subsidies to ensure consistent power prices. But mostly because in WA there is a very direct link between power prices and politics, and electricity is always a hot topic at state elections.

Because of its physical isolation, WA’s energy policies are also largely independent from the rest of the COAG Energy Council.

As described in point 3 above, utilities will need to be prepared to spend significantly on research and development if they want to survive. WA’s utilities already rely heavily on state government support for technology innovation, but also have strong networks of local experts that are able to bridge the silos across academia, industry and government and keep the momentum going in WA’s smaller markets and grids.

So that was five reasons, among many more, why we think WA has a chance for not just Australian, but global leadership in the renewable power transition. As the rest of the country grapples with its energy headaches, it should consider looking west once in a while.

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.