The Conversation

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

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

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

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

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

What did the assembly agree?

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does the scheme work?

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

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

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

None of this was changed in the final resolution text.

Many weaknesses

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

Now the text simply requests that ICAO:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is getting in the way?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope for change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australa's electricity network is going through a period of major transformation. Indigo Skies Photography/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

On Friday, Australia’s federal and state energy ministers met for an extraordinary meeting following the complete loss of power in South Australia on September 28. The COAG Energy Council announced a wide-ranging independent review to provide advice to governments on a coordinated, national reform blueprint. The review will be chaired by Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel.

Dr Finkel has been challenged with steering Australia’s energy system around some big potholes while keeping his eye on the horizon. And all in about six months.

The review will consider work already being done around maintaining the security, reliability and affordability of electricity as delivered by the National Electricity market (NEM) (which covers all states except Western Australia and the Northern Territory).

The state-wide blackout became a political opportunity for Australia’s politicians. Yet it is certainly too early and hopefully wrong to say if this is just a reactive response.

What’s in the review?

The review has three timeframes. The immediate priority will be to systematically assemble existing processes and work programs initiated over the last year by the energy council and identify any major gaps in the context of energy security and reliability in the NEM. Some of these processes, such as a review of market governance arrangements, have been completed but not fully actioned.

Others have only recently been announced. These include analysis of the impact of federal, state and territory carbon policies on energy markets and the reviews of the South Australian blackout. They will not all be complete by the December council meeting.

The review is expected to deliver a blueprint via a final report early in the new year. It is likely to include specific actions, both physical and financial, that respond to recent events such as South Australia’s price shock in July and blackout in September. These two issues should not be conflated. To do so, would risk solving neither.

The council has highlighted the significant transition underway in the Australian electricity market. The drivers include “rapid technological change, the increasing penetration of renewable energy, a more decentralised generation system, withdrawal of traditional baseload generation and changing consumer demand”. The blueprint will address all of these issues in a comprehensive and coordinated way not previously a feature of the council’s output.

There is much uncertainty to how some of these drivers will evolve over the next two decades. To be really effective, the blueprint will need to consider a range of plausible long-term scenarios but focus on near-term options that can be adapted to evolving developments on all fronts.

The Chief Scientist will, amongst other things, bring to the review his knowledge of current and likely future developments in energy technologies. This will be important in considering policy, legislative and rule changes that favour the adoption of technologies that could address both low-emissions and reliability but are otherwise technology-neutral.

The federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and his state and territory counterparts are to be applauded for the speed and cohesiveness they have shown in instigating the review. This follows a similar approach that permeated their August meeting where considerable progress was made on key energy market reforms across several fronts.

Get climate policy right

There are two critical areas of concern. The fundamental driver behind the issues listed in the review’s terms of reference is climate change and the policy response to it.

The federal government is committed to a 2017 review of its domestic climate change policies against its 2030 emissions reduction target.

State and territory governments have announced or implemented their own climate change and renewable energy policies. It is not surprising that states such as Victoria remain committed to these policies even though they are open to criticism for being uncoordinated at a national level, or failing to consider implications for system reliability and security.

Primary responsibility must rest with the federal government to deliver a credible scalable climate policy. Much can then flow from there, including agreement from states and territories to truly act in the spirit of national coordination to which they committed.

Greenhouse gas reduction is best achieved by putting a price on emissions through one of several options that have been canvassed in 2016 and in a form that acts with the electricity market and not outside it. The review’s terms of reference are silent on this issue, and yet recognise that the nature and structure of climate change policy have critical implications for the NEM.

Wind and solar power are intermittent. Their integration into the generation mix while maintaining reliability is best achieved by valuing flexibility either through the NEM or via complementary policies or regulations. The review is oddly silent on this issue. It is to be hoped that this is unintended and will be picked up in the course of the review.

There were high expectations for Friday’s council meeting. A state-wide blackout does that. These expectations have been delegated to the review which the council must support and drive to outcomes.

Minister Frydenberg has strongly and repeatedly emphasised that the government will not compromise energy reliability and security in the transition to a low emissions future. Failure on this front will not be forgiven.

Tony Wood has shares in a number of energy and resources companies via his superannuation fund

Australia’s energy ministers are meeting today in an emergency gathering following South Australia’s recent state-wide blackout.

The blackout, following wild weather across the state, has seen an extraordinary response from politicians and media, implicating the state’s wind energy in the fault.

On Wednesday the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) published a preliminary overview of the blackout (known in the jargon as a “black system” event). This document reported first observations based on data available to up to Monday this week.

Importantly, the report concluded that the “root cause is subject to further analysis being conducted”, as further information becomes available. As the chief operating operator Mike Cleary made clear, “at this stage we cannot apportion blame”.

What does the report say?

The report provides a detailed chronology of the events that occurred in South Australia and led up to the state-wide blackout, and the restart process. This includes details on the three transmission lines lost and changes in generation output.

Here’s a shortened summary of the timeline:

1. Fault on first transmission line: one high-voltage line out of service

2. Fault on second transmission line: two high-voltage lines out of service

3. Loss of 123 megawatts of wind power

4. Fault on third transmission line: three high-voltage lines out of service

5. Loss of a further 192 megawatts of wind power

6. Flow on the Heywood interconnector (which links South Australia with Victoria) increases above limit

7. Heywood interconnector trips off

8. Torrens Island and other power stations trip off

9. Supply lost to South Australia.

The time between the second transmission being out of service and the loss of supply to South Australia was approximately eight seconds. A total of 315 megawatts of wind generation disconnected during the this period.

Frequency and Voltage

A unique characteristic of electricity systems is that supply and demand must match instantaneously in real time. If they do not match, the frequency and voltage of the system can deviate from an ideal value. In Australia, AEMO maintains the frequency at 50 hertz (Hz).

Deviations from this value (from sudden changes in supply or demand) can substantially damage equipment. Automatic protection equipment activates to “trip” generators offline.

As the report noted:

generating units are unable to operate (and are not required to do so) where frequency is below 47 Hz. With the frequency below 47 Hz, generating units subsequently tripped off line.

This is likely to be how Torrens Island gas plants and other plants were disconnected from the system, after South Australia was disconnected from Victoria.

Is this why the wind stopped generation?

The report also suggests that:

The magnitude of transmission faults due to weather in a short period of time, resulting in significant voltage dips and loss of load, resulted in system instability. This caused some generators to reduce output, increasing flow on remaining power system equipment, causing power system protection to operate to remove risk of damage.

However, the report makes it very clear that “insufficient analysis has presently been undertaken to determine if everything operated as designed during the event.” Crucially, additional analysis is required to determine the reasons for the reduction in generation and observed voltage levels before any conclusions can be drawn.

At this stage, it is unclear if the wind farms tripped off because of voltage dips or other reasons. Other reasons could be related to the extreme storm events, such as a lightning strike. The answer at this stage is we don’t know.

What we do know is that the loss of supply from the transmission line faults and the decrease in wind output caused the flow on the Heywood interconnector to increase to approximately 850–900 megawatt – above the interconnector’s design limits. The system protection kicked in (in less than a second) to trip the Heywood interconnector, and the rest followed.

Is this scenario unique to wind?

A very similar situation in South Australia in 2005 saw a massive blackout when a lightning strike caused a dramatic decrease in brown coal-fired in Port Augusta, with the Northern power station reducing output to 0 megawatt.

This created a similar surge in interconnector flows from Victoria, which ultimately resulted in disconnection from Victoria. Several other generators in South Australia also tripped off as result of this incident, and wide-spread blackout occurred.

The recent storm was was particularly extreme, with reports of 130,000 lightning strikes hitting the state in a matter of hours. The reality is that all parts of the power system are vulnerable to such extreme weather and lightning storms.

Indeed as noted in the AEMO report, one of gas turbines contracted to provide system restart service in South Australia was also affected by the recent storm.

What can the energy ministers do?

The federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg called an urgent meeting of Australia’s energy ministers in light of the recent blackout.

The role of interconnectors to provide better links across the National Electricity Market as well as battery storage have been reported to be on the agenda of Friday’s meeting.

Increasing transmission was also the focus of a recent energy council meeting, where energy ministers agreed to review of the regulatory test for investment for new transmission assets.

A formal review into the National Electricity Market will also be up for discussion. This may include a review of the National Electricity Objective, which forms the basis of energy policy decisions, and does not include environmental considerations, such as the need to reduce emissions.

Given the increase in moisture and heat expected from climate change, one way that the state and federal governments can help ensure there is not a repeat of blackout is by agreeing to significant emission reductions.

Dylan McConnell has received funding from the AEMC's Consumer Advocacy Panel and Energy Consumers Australia.

The Paris climate agreement is set to enter into force next month after the European Union and Canada ratified the agreement overnight. The agreement, reached last December, required ratification by at least 55 countries accounting for 55% of global emissions to become operational.

US President Barack Obama hailed the news as perhaps “a turning point for our planet”, but also noted that it “will not solve the climate crisis” alone.

So far, 73 countries accounting for 56% of emissions have ratified the agreement. This includes the world’s two largest emitters: China and the US.

This week the European Parliament approved ratification of the agreement for the EU. The European Council has formally adopted this decision and finalised ratification.

This has put the agreement over the 55% threshold and triggered entry into force. However, by the rules of the agreement, 30 days must now elapse before the agreement becomes operational. The agreement will enter into force on November 4.

This will mean that, from that date, the agreement will be active and legally binding on those who have ratified it.

A sign of ambition?

The Paris Agreement has entered into force unexpectedly quickly. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol had identical entry-into-force conditions. Yet it took eight years for the protocol to move from adoption to entry into force. By comparison Paris looks like a ratification landslide: it will take less than one year.

Why has ratification been so quick?

The optimists would point to this as evidence of mounting international momentum. A truly global agreement and joint ratification by China and the US have reinvigorated international efforts.

India, Canada and the EU have followed shortly after the US and China. Canada also recently announced a domestic carbon tax of C$10.

Ratification is not action per se, though, and it’s difficult to directly link the domestic actions of Canada and others to Paris. The more realistic explanation for the ratification landslide is less inspiring. The Paris Agreement is so weak in terms of legal obligations that countries have little reason not to ratify it.

The legal obligations of the Paris Agreement are sparse and procedural. Countries are bound to submit increasingly stringent pledges every five years. Yet they are not obliged to achieve them.

Countries are bound to provide information about their domestic efforts and keep domestic greenhouse gas accounts. Yet most countries, including Australia, already do so.

Ratifying Paris imposes few additional actions on countries, aside from making a pledge every few years. Not ratifying would make the dissenting country a climate pariah internationally. There is little for parliaments and leaders to debate.

The speed of entry into force may simply betray how little is expected of parties to the pact. It could be a sign of weakness, rather than strength and momentum.

What about Australian ratification?

Australia has yet to ratify the Paris Agreement, but will likely do so soon.

Australian ratification of international treaties is done through the executive, not the parliament. Prime Minister Turnbull makes the final decision as to whether Australia will ratify the Paris Agreement.

Turnbull will not act alone; his decision will be advised by cabinet and the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT). This is a cross-party committee made up of members from the Senate and the House of Representatives.

JSCOT is considering the Paris Agreement and will hold its final public briefing in Melbourne today. Shortly thereafter it will report back to parliament.

Given that Paris implies few obligations, Australia will likely ratify the agreement before the end of the year. Not doing so would unnecessarily risk Australia’s already tattered reputation on climate change.

Yet there are also fears that Australia risks embarrassment by ratifying and then missing its first pledge.

Target troubles

Currently, Australia has made an intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) to reduce emissions by 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030. If Australia joins the Paris Agreement this would likely become our first pledge under the deal.

But existing modelling suggests we will significantly overshoot this target.

Climate Action Tracker estimates that Australia is instead on track to increase emissions above 27% on 2005 levels by 2030 (this equates to 61% above 1990 levels). They note: “Australia stands out as having the largest relative gap between current policy projections for 2030 and the INDC target.”

Modelling done by Reputex this year supports this. Reputex concludes that existing policy settings will be inadequate for meeting the 2030 targets. More aggressive measures, such as tripling the funding of the Emissions Reduction Fund, would be needed.

There is also evidence that the centrepiece of Australian climate policy – the Direct Action abatement scheme – is not effective. Recent research from Paul Burke of the Australian National University suggests that many of the projects funded by Direct Action are “anyway projects”. These are reductions that would have occurred anyway without government assistance.

Advice provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade suggested that Australia already has the necessary “legislation, policies and measures” in place to meet its 2030 target. But during a public briefing on the Paris Agreement last week department officials conceded that there was no government modelling to show that Australia will meet its 2030 target.

If Australia were to ratify the Paris Agreement and miss its first target then there would be few ramifications. Technically, parties to Paris are not required to meet their pledges. They only need to pursue domestic measures that aim to achieve submitted pledges.

Even Australia would clear such a low bar.

However, missing the first target would provide ammunition for both domestic and international critics. Mounting pressure from citizens and other world leaders could force the Australian government to change its climate policies. This is the logic of the pledge and review system of the Paris Agreement.

We cannot be certain of how effective this approach would be given recent Australian history. Criticism and public pressure did little to dissuade the federal government under Tony Abbott from abolishing the carbon-pricing system in 2014.

The Paris Agreement entering into force is historic, but how it will be viewed historically is unclear. Does it mark a new era of multilateral action and hope? Or will it mark the finalisation of a diplomatic smokescreen, a legal ribbon around business-as-usual climate policy?

Luke Kemp has received funding from the Australian and German governments.

The digital revolution is great, until it's time to upgrade. E-waste image from www.shutterstock.com

A ringing phone on the peak hour train ride home may be an annoyance to be ignored, and hopefully turned to silent, but these familiar chimes are signs of a digital revolution all around us. These are the personal electronic products we engage with to help organise, connect, entertain, and inform us in an ever faster cycle.

Now they’re ubiquitous. But where do they come from, who makes them, and where do they end up when discarded? Death by Design, a documentary directed by Sue Williams screening at Environmental Film Festival Australia in Melbourne, confronts these questions.

The human cost of the digital revolution

The film begins with the development of the semiconductor industry in California, exploring the human and ecological impacts in those formative Silicon Valley years. The film shows the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and its successful activism to drive remediation of contamination; and the personal stories of material toxicity, and associated devastation.

Throughout the film toxicity is revisited, and the film paints a fairly bleak picture of labour rights in China. We turn to Ma Jun, the 2015 Skoll Award winner (an award for social entrepreneurship) for creating a national picture of water pollution with data that is now publicly available.

Jun laments the potential human costs across China’s water infrastructure, which begs the question: why haven’t organisations expanding to these new manufacturing regions learnt the lesson from the US industry , or applied Europe’s hazardous waste standards?

What is equally troubling are issues with even stringent auditing processes. Linda Greer, a toxicologist from the Natural Resources Defence Council put it simply: “it’s all about the questions you ask”. A firm’s audit checklist may be thorough in some respects, yet miss key points in others. As such, manufacturing may be considered adequate, yet not address the pertinent problems. Jun’s work has already resulted in supply chain actions in this regard.

Who’s to blame? All of us

The film directs us to the main driver of the large industrial expansions Jun monitors, our daily consumption habits in the west. As Lancaster University professor Elizabeth Shove has portrayed so vividly, the devices of convenience and the rituals they connect to drive consumption, both conspicuous (such as a phone) and inconspicuous (such as the energy it uses).

Consumption implicates us all, and the figures the film lists are breathtaking: from 376,000 Apple Ipod sales in 2002 to 51.6 million in 2007, and 10 million Apple Iphone 5s made in a week.

Purchases are only exacerbated by constant upgrading, and consumer inability to repair or refurbish their devices as the US firm recycling firm Ifixit explains. They’ve built a business that enables consumers to circumvent “prescribed obsolescence”, to fix their own electronic products by using their own parts, tools and how-to guides.

Irish firm iameco take this even further, challenging the notion of updatable, upgradable, and reusable computers. Both business models require the breaking down of secrecy shrouding internal access to such products.

Batteries are harder to replace now and screens harder to repair, as repairs become part of manufacturer’s business models.

As Ifixit look to disrupt that disposable model for consumers, the film follows the company to China as they source their own electronic parts, and come full circle.

With such throughput of electronics, e-waste is accepted as a major and growing issue. Darrin Magee, Environment Geographer from Hobart and Williams Smith Colleges estimates that the US generates 3 million tonnes of e-waste alone, with a much smaller amount actually repurposed and recycled. Chinese volumes of e-waste and the human cost of handling are also major problems to address.

Where to from here?

Death by Design suggests that the digital revolution has rewarded us with so many benefits, something that is reasonably clear.

Certainly with all of that success, manufacturers of electronic goods must take responsibility for how products are designed for longevity by extending life cycles, and in managing the toxic issues throughout the entire supply chain.

Part of the solution could include models that build recycling into the design such as the circular economy and cradle-to-cradle models, coupled with an increase in stewardship schemes, some of which are emerging at present.

The final sequence in the film suggests that we, the people, could use our buying power or behaviour to change the system in demands for labour safety, human health and ecological preservation. This is an interesting perspective, and could be linked to new patterns of “enlightened” consumer purchasing.

I wonder though, could it be a sharing economy opportunity? What about maker culture with new democratised technologies to help build what we need to retrofit upgrades?

Others have gone further in calling for moral outrage and collective action on related issues, such as pollution leading to climate change.

In any case, Death by Design is a thought-provoking look at an industry that we interact with every time we swipe, tap or lol. As innocuous as those actions are, substantial sustainability issues remain that we need to face as a society.

Death by Design is screening at the Environmental Film Festival Australia in Melbourne on October 6.

Simon Lockrey 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 is considering changes to Australia’s marine reserves to implement a national system. This week The Conversation is looking at the science behind marine reserves and how to protect our oceans.

Off Australia’s northeastern coastline, extending eastwards from the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, is a vast extent of ocean known as the Coral Sea.

Almost a million square kilometres of the Coral Sea is within Australian waters, making up one of six regions used for planning national networks of marine reserves. Unlike the other regions, virtually all of the Coral Sea is within a single reserve.

On the face of it, this should encourage people who are concerned with conservation of marine biodiversity. But, as often happens, the devil is in the detail.

The effectiveness of the reserve hinges on its internal zones – subdivisions that vary in the uses and activities they allow. So “protected” is a slippery concept. Just how protected the Coral Sea is depends on where and how large the different zones are.

The review of Commonwealth marine reserves, released earlier this month, recommended changes to the zoning arrangements put in place when the network was declared in 2012, but not for the better.

A world-class sea

The Coral Sea is almost entirely open ocean, reaching depths of more than 4,000m. Scattered through this expanse of deep blue are important patches of coral and rock: cays and islets, 30 atoll systems with shallow-water and low-light coral reefs, and seamounts and pinnacles supporting deep-sea, cold-water ecosystems.

The global significance of the Coral Sea for marine biodiversity – including corals, fish, turtles, seabirds, and whales - has been reviewed recently, but new discoveries continue.

Recent exploration of the deep slopes of Coral Sea atolls has found unique and previously undocumented biodiversity, such as precious corals and glass sponges. Many of these species are “living fossils”, now restricted to the deep, dark waters of the Coral Sea.

The southern Coral Sea is also a global hotspot for predators. The protection of large predatory species such as sharks and marlin is particularly important, given their key roles in open ocean ecosystems and the massive worldwide decline of these animals at the hands of industrialised fishing.

The Coral Sea’s remoteness does not make it immune from human impacts. Some fishing methods alter the structure and composition of seabed ecosystems. Globally and in eastern Australia, pelagic long-lining takes a large toll in bycatch (non-target fish that are discarded, often dead, including shark species listed as vulnerable).

Many reefs in the Coral Sea are open to line fishing, which is known to deplete target populations and adversely affect corals in the neighbouring Great Barrier Reef.

The 2016 coral bleaching event that affected 93% of the Great Barrier Reef also caused significant death on reefs in the northern and central Coral Sea.

The importance and vulnerability of the Coral Sea call for well-planned protection. That protection should also be precautionary - where impacts are unknown or uncertain we should increase protection, or at least not put marine ecosystems at risk. This is one of the explicit principles of marine planning in Australia.

Commercial and recreational fishing present ecological risks that need to be managed carefully. Precaution is also called for because most parts of the Coral Sea, even those in relatively shallow water, are still largely unexplored, with the discovery of new species likely.

The Coral Sea reserve

In November 2012, the Labor federal government announced massive increases to Australia’s marine reserves, including large additions to existing smaller reserves in the Coral Sea. The zoning of the Coral Sea Marine Reserve that resulted was typical of the larger picture.

Zones that prohibited fishing (“no-take” zones, shown in green in the left-hand map below) were mostly far offshore in very deep waters where little or no fishing occurred.

Zones that protected the marine environment from open ocean long-lining were placed in areas where little or no long-lining occurred. Most reefs, cays and seamounts remained open to fishing. So did the world’s only known black marlin spawning aggregation.

Overall, the no-take zones were strongly “residual” – placed in areas left over from commercial and recreational uses, and least in need of protection – rather than designed to mitigate known threats.

The approach could be described as “business as usual”, with priority given to existing uses and conservation coming a poor second.

The Coral Sea reserve, take two

Following a backlash against the new marine reserves by commercial and recreational fishing interests the then opposition leader Tony Abbott fished for votes by promising to review the reserves.

Just over a year after they were established, the new reserves were “re-proclaimed” by the Coalition government, effectively rendering them empty outlines on the map. The strength of the pushback against the reserves was perplexing, given that they were obviously designed to have minimal effect on fishing and no effect on extraction of oil and gas.

Before the release of the review, a cynic might have predicted, given statements when the review began, that the process was intended to convert a largely residual reserve system into a completely residual one. As it happens, that is close to what has been recommended for the Coral Sea.

A major feature of the recommended zoning is a reduction of no-take by more than 93,000km², or 9.3% of the Coral Sea Marine Reserve (no-take zones, or national park, now cover 40% of the reserve). No-take zoning is now even more strongly concentrated in remote, deep water where it will make even less difference to fishing than before.

The panel recommended new no-take zones in areas next to those in the central and southern Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, but large parts of the same region in the Coral Sea are proposed to be reopened to demersal trawling.

Some reefs have less protection than before, and some have more. Notably, two of the most important reefs in the Coral Sea – Osprey and Marion – are partly open to fishing and partly no-take. Split zones are known to pose problems for compliance and are typically avoided in conservation planning. Fishing on Osprey could also compromise its value as a globally significant dive destination, specifically for its sharks and pelagic fish.

There are net increases in areas open to gear types known to pose ecological risks: sea floor longlines (2,400km² of the reserve, including the Fraser Seamount), sea floor trawl (26,300km²), and open sea long-lining (269,000km²). These changes appear inconsistent with advice on ecological risks.

The Bioregional Advisory Panel for the Coral Sea found that seafloor long-lining is incompatible with the conservation values of the Coral Sea Marine Reserve, particularly on seamounts.

Two target species for open sea long-lining are either overfished or at risk of overfishing, and this fishery poses a high risk for whales, sharks, and turtles.

When evidence was limiting, it appears that the Expert Scientific Panel placed the burden of proof on the environment, not on commercial and recreational users.

Protecting the Coral Sea from what?

Protected areas are meant to protect biodiversity from threats to its survival. Why bother saying that?

Because the 2012 marine reserves made almost no difference to activities threatening marine biodiversity. There is a key difference between protection, which stops threats from affecting species and ecosystems, and re-badging large tracts of ocean in ways that make no difference.

At least for the Coral Sea, the proposed new zones involve further re-badging but less overall protection. A similar mentality appears to underlie both the 2012 and recommended zonings: marine protected areas are good things to have, providing they don’t get in the way of socioeconomic interests.

While the new zones largely failed to protect the Coral Sea’s biodiversity, the review’s Expert Scientific Panel favourably assessed the “performance” of the Coral Sea Marine Reserve in ways that are simply uninformative and distracting.

For instance, one of the measures used by the review is the number of conservation features (such as seafloor types) in reserves. This measure is misleading in two ways: many of the represented features don’t need protection, and others are affected to varying, but unstated, degrees by fishing.

At the core of systematic conservation planning, which is widely accepted as the most effective way of designing reserve systems, are quantitative objectives for features, preferably reflecting ecosystem structure and function, scaled to reflect levels of threat. But these objectives were notably absent from the assessment of performance of the Coral Sea Marine Reserve, and from the review process that recommended the new zones.

How to do things better

Better planning for the Coral Sea would move beyond the qualitative goals and principles advocated by the Expert Scientific Panel, which can be readily interpreted to favour economic considerations over conservation.

Because of the global significance of the Coral Sea and uncertainty around the actual risks posed by fishing, effective planning would be truly precautionary, prioritising the persistence of biodiversity where there is doubt. It would also engage with managers and governments in adjacent marine regions to limit cross-boundary threats.

The amount of protection needed for species and other conservation features, including types of open sea and other significant habitats, would be identified quantitatively by experts on marine biodiversity, considering distinctiveness, threats, and reliance on Australian waters for their persistence.

Those conservation objectives would be achieved by a mix of zones that varied levels of protection from place to place and perhaps seasonally to limit the adverse effects of fishing and other extractive activities. The relative contributions of those zones to each objective would be assessed and put into the mix.

Such an explicit approach was a major reason for the lasting, worldwide recognition of the Great Barrier Reef rezoning in 2004, but has been avoided elsewhere in Commonwealth waters to maximise flexibility for extractive interests.

And finally, effective planning would acknowledge that no-take zones in areas with no fishing make no contribution to conservation.

Bob Pressey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is a member of WWF Australia's Eminent Scientists Group.

tjward@bigpond.net.au is affiliated with Seafood Watch, USA.

Alana Grech 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.

It is important to clean bird baths regularly. Glenn Pure

As the weather warms and days lengthen, your attention may be turning to that forgotten patch of your backyard. We’ve asked our experts to share the science behind gardening. So grab a trowel and your green thumbs, and dig in.

Bird baths are a familiar sight in Australian gardens but surprisingly little is known about the precise role they play in the lives of birds.

In a dry continent such as Australia, bird baths may be vital to supporting an otherwise stressed bird population. We wanted to find out more, so we enlisted the help of thousands of citizen scientists across Australia to gather as much data as we could on how birds use bird baths.

And so the Bathing Birds Study was born. Started by researchers at Deakin University and Griffith University in 2014, this study involved collecting data online from 2,500 citizen scientists on bathing birds all over Australia.

The study has revealed so far that bird baths are much more than just ornamental splash pools for feathered visitors. They’re also a site where animals socialise and intense rivalries play out. Human choices – such as the design of the bird bath, where it is located and how often it is cleaned – can have a big impact on birds.

Different baths for different birds

The majority of participants in the Bathing Birds Study monitored the traditional pedestal or elevated bath type, as shown in the image below:

Red-browed finches at a pedestal bird bath. Sue

Cats are a big risk to garden birds, so elevated or pedestal baths are a good idea. They help keep birds safe from cats.

Baths should be situated near vegetation such as plants so smaller birds can have refuge if they are disturbed. Stones or rocks in the centre of the bath can give smaller birds a place to perch while bathing.

Birds need to groom their feathers daily, so don’t assume they’re only visiting bird baths on hot summer days. Birds need baths in winter too. We even had reports from some of our citizen scientists of birds trying to break ice in baths to access the water.

It can take time for birds to find a new water source but they will find it. Other types of baths, such as pots or saucers on the ground, can provide water for a range of wildlife species. We had records of koalas, foxes, snakes and even echidnas using baths – so consider having multiple types of water baths in your garden.

A range of animals at bird baths. Koala (Tony) Snake (Rosalie) Echidna (Rosemary) Fox (Lesley) Bath bullies

The Bathing Birds Study found that different bird species dominated bird baths depending on state or region.

In South East Queensland and New South Wales, aggressive noisy miners and rainbow lorikeets were most frequently recorded at baths. Introduced birds and wattlebirds were more common in the cooler states of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

The Bathing Bird Study also found that certain birds can act as bullies at baths and prevent other birds from using it by standing guard.

This type of behaviour can be directed toward smaller and/or less aggressive birds so having a range of bath types (such as a pot or saucer on the ground, hanging bath or multiple elevated baths) in your garden will give all birds a place to drink and bathe.

A clean bath is a good bath

Like all bathrooms, the garden bird bath needs regular cleaning. A dirty bath can spread disease and birds can be susceptible to infection where many species and individuals are congregated at communal watering stations.

For example, infected parrots can spread beak and feather disease to other parrots when they bathe and drink together.

A parrot with beak and feather disease. Maura

Another risk is that birds will, in time, grow too dependent on bird baths or feeding stations. How might they cope if the food and water is withdrawn during certain periods or not adjusted to reflect the prevailing need of birds?

The Bathing Birds Study also showed that many people refilled their bird baths more frequently in summer than in winter and regularly clean the baths.

A Silvereye at a bird bath. Glenn Pure. Is feeding birds good or bad? Let’s find out!

Many people enjoy providing food for birds as well as water. At this stage, we do not know whether this has a positive or negative effect on birds.

It is important to understand the ecological and behavioural effects of feeding in Australia as almost all information from other countries regarding bird feeding simply does not apply here.

Feeding of wild birds is an important activity for large numbers of people. For many, it is a significant way of connecting with nature.

Silvereyes at a trough. Consider providing a range of bath designs in your garden – and clean them regularly. Penny

The Australian Bird Feeding and Watering Study, an extension of the Bathing Birds Study, aims to find out more about how exactly birds interact with feeders and bird baths – and how human choices can either help or hinder these feathered visitors.

We’ve just completed the winter stage of our research, which involved collecting responses online from 3,500 citizen scientist participants. Nearly 7,000 have signed up to take part in the feeding study so far, and we are now recruiting for the summer stage. If you provide food or water for birds and would like to get involved in the summer study, sign up at www.feedingbirds.org.au.

We hope to one day to develop guidelines for people who feed and/or provide water for birds to do so with minimum risk to the birds.

Grainne Cleary receives funding from National Parks Association of NSW for gathering data for the Bathing Birds Study

Crunchy, and sustainable Entomophagy image from www.shutterstock.com

Bugs are on the menu in Canadian filmmaker Ian Toews’ documentary screening at the Environmental Film Festival Australia this month. The film promotes that the view that bugs can provide a more sustainable way of food (particularly protein) production for an expanding human population.

“Entomophagy”, or the human consumption of insects and insect-derived products, has been practised by cultures around the world for centuries, but the film highlights how mainly western eating habits now eat many fewer insects.

The figures presented in the film to support eating more insects are hard to argue with. Bugs are a nutritious food source that can consist of more than 40% protein by dry weight as well as being high in vitamins, iron and calcium.

Crickets and other edible insects are much more efficient at converting grains into protein and fat than some other meat sources; the film claims they are more than twice as efficient as chickens and seven times as efficient as cattle. Although research comparing chickens and insects shows it depends on how the insects are farmed.

They also require minimal water, unlike livestock. The film claims that five- to seven-times more people could be fed on an insect diet when compared to a current western diet, although this comparison presumably depends on a western diet including inefficient energy converters like cattle and sheep, rather than chickens.

The documentary also makes a strong case for insect production being compatible with urbanisation, given that cricket farms can be established in many large buildings.

However, comparisons in the film are limited to other forms of meat production, and not to plant-based human diets that are also far more sustainable than current western consumption patterns.

Shifting tastes

Presenters in the film are individuals who avidly support eating more bugs in North America. These include a celebratory chef, entrepreneurs, an administrator and insect farmers. The author of “The Eat-A-Bug” cook book, David George Gordon, declares on screen that “we are weirdos for not eating them (bugs)”.

The film does reference international efforts to evaluate the potential for entomophagy including a detailed UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report but the film is mainly a promotion piece for eating insects in North America.

Western attitudes to insect consumption are seen as a key stumbling block, although entrepreneurs in the film are upbeat and argue that there has been a remarkable shift in (US) attitudes in the last four years around entomophagy. Although a survey carried out in the Netherlands paints a bleaker picture.

The film highlights approaches that might be used to increase acceptance in western societies. Small start-ups are creating insect-derived food bars, chips (“Chirps”) and other packaged food for consumption in the US.

Some of these are being funded through kick starter projects and have catchy insect related names like Six (legged) Foods. Cricket flour seems to be key ingredient, perhaps because it looks least like an insect-derived product.

For a more traditional approach to entomophagy, the film covers grasshopper collecting in South Africa and ant harvesting in Mexico. But some traditional practices appear to be dying particularly among young people pursuing western lifestyles.

Presenters argue that large scale and innovative production facilities are needed to increase entomophagy, but there are challenges in cultivating insects mentioned briefly in the film.

It appears only a few insect species can currently be grown on a large scale. Established insect growers tell of issues with viruses destroying colonies but the start-ups appear undaunted. Other challenges mentioned in the film include a lack of regulation around safety.

Still, it appears that insects have been part of human diets for much of our evolutionary history. A presenter points out that we have a key enzyme, chitanase, required to break down the exoskeleton of insects, although this enzyme also has other functions.

Overall, while the film is a promotion piece, filled with (too) many shots of pristine streams and forests (presumably to highlight sustainability), it does make a strong case for considering entomophagy as a serious alternative to meat consumption in all cultures.

How to eat insects

In Australia, you can buy edible bugs online and they are occasionally served up as a novelty item in some restaurants. Our Indigenous population has been eating a diversity of bugs for thousands of years including witchetty grubs, honey ants and Bogong moths.

Most Australians are only likely to have encountered crickets, mealworms, larvae and other delicacies in Asian markets and not locally.

As in the US there are major challenges if insect consumption is to increase in Australia, including regulation and production methods that are less labour intensive than currently available.

Insects that eat plants can be highly toxic, accumulating toxins, perhaps to protect against predators. It is therefore critical that appropriate species are produced and consumed. This requires ongoing research into insect biodiversity and production systems.

Still, we live in a country with an increasingly variable climate where agricultural production is becoming more difficult. Perhaps factory-farmed bugs can increase our food security into the future.

The next time a locust plague threatens our environment they should perhaps be seen as an opportunity for developing a new local food source rather than a threat to farming.

Bugs on the Menu will be screening at the Environmental Film Festival Australia in Brisbane (October 14), Canberra (October 15), and Sydney (October 21).

Ary Hoffmann receives funding from the Australian Research Council and from the National Health and Medical Research Council as well as the Grains Research and Development Corporation and Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network.

Bad for you, bad for the environment. Junk food image from www.shutterstock.com

Looking for a new reason to cut down on “junk” food? Besides the obvious health-related benefits, I showed in a recent study that discretionary or junk foods make up a significant proportion of food-related environmental impacts.

For an average Australian household, my research found that discretionary food contribute 33-39% of diet-related water use, energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and land use.

Why is this a problem? In a warming world with a growing population and dwindling resources, we can no longer afford discretionary consumption that harms both our own and the planet’s health.

Although the topic of sustainable diets is becoming more popular, the debate and proposed policies have not sufficiently questioned the proliferation of junk food products that use scarce resources to produce empty calories.

Sustainable and healthy

The global food system accounts for around 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of water use and 38% of land use. We urgently need to meet climate targets and ensure food security. But it is increasingly recognised that making agriculture more efficient (to produce more food while using less resources) will not be enough. More sustainable diets are therefore essential.

National dietary guidelines are designed to help us eat more healthily. Recent iterations in Brazil, Sweden and the Netherlands also stress the importance of health and sustainability.

Animal-derived foods generally have bigger total environmental footprints than plant foods. This is because of the significant amounts of land, water and feed required by livestock and the methane released by ruminants.

Many recommendations to achieve healthy and sustainable diets have therefore justifiably focused on the need to reduce meat and animal-derived product consumption.

Diets such as the Mediterranean, rich in vegetables, fruit, legumes and wholegrains, seem to achieve the right balance between health and sustainability. A key characteristic of the traditional Mediterranean diet is the limited amount of discretionary food.

Enter junk foods

The Australian Dietary Guidelines describe discretionary foods as: “foods and drinks not necessary to provide the nutrients the body needs, but that may add variety. Many of these are high in saturated fats, sugars, salt and/or alcohol.”

By contrast, non-discretionary foods are those belonging to the core food groups: fruit, vegetables, cereals, legumes, nuts and seeds, dairy and unprocessed meat.

We all know that discretionary foods are unhealthy, but how do different products compare in terms of environmental impact?

There is a serious absence of research quantifying the environmental impacts of these foods. We would expect that the more processing our food goes through, the greater its overall impact due to cumulative energy and other input requirements.

However, my research shows that it depends on a number of factors – an issue highlighted in other studies on the general environmental impacts of diets. Junk foods almost always use more energy, but land and water use vary between products. Work in this area is still evolving.

However, this variability should not get junk foods off the hook, especially given their contribution to obesity. The question becomes whether these foods are consumed in excess, or whether they have displaced core foods – as can be the case for poorer socioeconomic groups.

The average energy intake of most Australians is above that recommended for their age and activity levels. That means we have to eliminate excess energy consumption, and we could consider eating junk food as a form of food waste.

If less discretionary food is produced, this means either that more unprocessed ingredients are available in their more nutritious forms, or that less agricultural production is necessary. Both could reduce environmental impacts.

What can we do about it?

Well, it’s complicated. The solution should ultimately tackle the heart of the problem, which is why we overconsume these foods in the first place.

Encouraging dietary shifts away from junk foods is challenging because of their cheapness, taste and convenience. Discretionary foods are also aggressively promoted to consumers due to their high profitability.

This last point epitomises what is fundamentally wrong with our food system, and why it’s not supporting health and sustainability in the way it should. While carefully selected food taxes and subsidies, in addition to better labelling and restrictions on junk food advertising, can help reduce their consumption, these consumer-oriented measures are only part of the solution.

Food producers should ultimately be held responsible for the proliferation of cheap discretionary food. We need to encourage divestment away from unhealthy, unsustainable products through regulation and public pressure, following the example of measures to address climate change.

As the developing world continues to transition towards more “Westernised” diets, food consumption patterns are likely to become even more environmentally intensive.

To feed more people sustainably we need to trim off the excess by not only reducing the consumption of animal products, but also by fighting overconsumption of discretionary foods and the associated waste.

Michalis Hadjikakou receives funding from the Australian Academy of Science through their WH Gladstones Population and Environment Fund.

Last week’s storm and subsequent state-wide blackout in South Australia reminds us how important the electricity grid – and other infrastructure – is for our communities.

Immediate analysis suggests the blackout was caused by the collapse of transmission infrastructure in South Australia. Australian electricity networks, like most transmission networks worldwide, rely on above-ground conducting wires held aloft by large towers. Some of these towers were blown over in the South Australian event.

While the storm hasn’t yet been specifically linked to climate change, it also serves as a reminder of the increasing challenges of delivering essential services in a more variable climate and slowing economy.

Power, water, transport, health, defence and communications infrastructure can be exposed to climate variability and change simply because of their long lifetimes. Therefore, many if not most owners and operators of essential infrastructure have commissioned climate vulnerability and adaptation studies.

There are many good examples of adaptation. For instance, Queensland Urban Utilities, the major water distributor and retailer in south-east Queensland, is implementing a large program to make the water and wastewater delivery network more resilient to flooding.

But there is increasing recognition among climate adaptation researchers that many of the recommendations from climate adaptation studies aren’t being adopted. This is sometimes referred to as the “plan and forget” approach to climate adaptation and it leaves critical infrastructure vulnerable to weather extremes.

Speaking different languages

One of the less obvious reasons for lack of uptake is the difference in language used in the climate science and adaptation community and in the infrastructure community.

All technical disciplines develop their own specialised language and climate science is no exception. But planning for climate change means that infrastructure professionals have to apply climate science to engineering planning and design.

Both disciplines use risk management as a common framework for assessing and managing risks. But the “bible” of climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) process, has invented new definitions of risk.

These differ from the long-standing definitions of risk enshrined by the International Organisation for Standardization and widely used by the engineering and infrastructure community.

Many engineers find they cannot use the IPCC reports and projections because this information cannot be directly integrated into planning and design processes that are often heavily regulated and prescribed.

By necessity, climate projections are based on probabilities that specified environmental conditions may occur.

By contrast, engineering design is often based on a specified extreme number, whether it be a maximum wind strength or flood height, rather than a set of probabilities.

Over time it is expected that engineering design methodologies will be able to assimilate climate projections, but updating these highly prescriptive standards can be a drawn-out process.

Harder, better, faster, stronger

Often the most common recommendations in infrastructure climate adaption studies are to make infrastructure stronger, higher and, by implication, heavier and more expensive. A common example is a recommendation that bridges be elevated and made stronger to account for expected higher flood levels and water flows.

While this is understandable, it is in stark contrast with the way almost all other products are being developed – lighter, faster, cheaper, smarter.

Australia is also consistently either at the top, or near the top, of the infrastructure cost league table. It’s one of the most expensive places to design and construct infrastructure worldwide.

Therefore, climate adaptation recommendations to make infrastructure more resilient through brute strength can be difficult to fund – although, in some cases, this may be the only viable option.

Getting creative

We need to think a little more creatively. A good starting point is to take the approach advocated in the relatively new international asset management standard called the ISO 55000 standard.

A key part of this standard is not to think about infrastructure assets in isolation, but to consider how each asset contributes to an essential service, such as providing electricity to our homes. After all, infrastructure assets are only constructed to deliver a service. It is the service that is key, not just the individual asset.

Importantly, the demand for services, levels of service and the way essential services will be delivered in future decades is all largely unknown. Technology will change how essential services are defined and delivered.

Distributed energy – such as rooftop solar – may reduce the need for extensive transmission networks. Smarter combinations of light rail and autonomous vehicles may change demand for major road infrastructure.

New water-treatment technology, such as within-pipe treatment, may do away with the need for large treatment plants that are often located in low-lying regions exposed to sea-level rise.

Climate adaptation needs to stop recommending that existing infrastructure just be built stronger and higher, and take a broader and smarter perspective of what infrastructure may be required as climate change increasingly makes its presence felt.

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

South Australia's wind energy is providing secure energy to the state. Wind image from www.shutterstock.com

In the wake of South Australia’s wild weather and state-wide blackout, both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg have emphasised the importance of energy security.

Turnbull stated that the blackout was a wake-up call, suggesting that reliance on renewables places very different strains and pressures on a grid than traditional coal-fired power.

The assumption that these politicians and others are working off is that South Australia’s wind industry has reduced the state’s energy security.

But do these politicians really know what energy security means in a modern energy landscape?

The baseload question

Baseload power is an economic term that refers to power sources that consistently generate electrical power, therefore meeting minimum demand. The minimum demand for electrical power from an electrical grid is referred to as the baseload requirement.

The underlying assumption is that the only way of supplying baseload electricity demand is by means of power stations, such as those fired by coal, that operate at full power all day and night. This is a widely held belief in Australia.

A former Australian industry minister, Ian Macfarlane, claimed at a uranium industry conference that the only serious alternative way that baseload power can be produced is by hydro and nuclear.

But this is not entirely true. In 2014 South Australia got 39% of its electricity from renewable energy (33% wind plus 6% solar). Consequently, the state’s coal-fired power stations have become redundant.

To date, despite a couple of teething problems, the system has operated reasonably well given the enormous transitional challenge.

It has strongly demonstrated the ability to achieve energy security via an energy mix that combines renewables, gas and a small amount of imported power from Victoria. The South Australian system also highlights the fact that baseload power is not synonymous with fossil fuels.

Across Australia, many coal-fired power stations have been operating at reduced capacity. For example, the Mount Piper power station near Lithgow, New South Wales, has been operating at only 45% capacity despite the closure of the nearby Wallerawang coal plant.

In this context, diversity of renewable energy sources is key. Wind and solar are dependent on the right weather to generate electricity. But fluctuations in energy generation can be balanced with alternatives that can supply power on demand, such as hydro, concentrated solar thermal power (CST) or bio-fuelled open-cycle gas turbines.

Spreading out wind and solar PV farms also reduces this variation. Wind and solar must also be connected with new transmission lines to achieve wide geographic distribution and ensure diversity is promoted within the grid.

We also need smart energy management. It is possible to shave off peaks during periods of high electricity demand by using smart meters and consumer-controlled switches. These devices allow consumers to turn off power-intensive facilities, such as air conditioning, water or heating, for short periods when demand on the grid is high or supply is low.

Two sides of the same coin

Energy security is not about traditional baseload power production. It is really about the capacity of households, businesses and government to accommodate disruptions in the supply in energy markets. This doesn’t just mean weather, it also means broader changes that are shaking up the energy sector.

The primary global driver changing our approach to energy production is climate change, a direct product of carbon-intensive emissions produced by traditional baseload power generation.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is crucial for human flourishing. Reducing our dependency on fossil fuel power stations and shifting to a renewable energy mix is one way to achieve this.

For example, if and when the Hazelwood power station in Victoria closes, it will be the product of the inevitable shift away from carbon-intensive energy production.

The closure will produce a significant decrease in traditional baseload power. It will inevitably affect supply to other states, including South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania, as Hazelwood (through the eastern Australian transmission network) provides power to each of these states.

In this context, a secure energy future depends on energy diversity. Traditional baseload power needs to be replaced with a mix of renewable energy sources that combined are capable of achieving the equivalent of baseload power.

Dealing with more renewables

Energy security demands speeding up rather than slowing down renewable energy production and diversification.

Improving storage for wind and solar production is a priority, as is improving connectivity between the states, with the aim of increasing the renewable energy traded across borders.

Micro-grid technology will also be crucial. Microgrids are essentially localised grids that have the capacity to disconnect from the traditional grids and operate on their own. This can help reduce grid disturbances and strengthen resilience. Microgrids are important because they serve local energy loads and, in so doing, reduce losses in transmission and distribution.

Some states have already implemented strategic groups to assess the energy security issues they are facing. For example, the Tasmanian Energy Security Taskforce was implemented in 2016 with the specific aim of examining how the state’s energy security can be strengthened and improved.

The consultation paper recently released by the taskforce states that energy security in Tasmania must focus on meeting long-term energy demand to a level of energy reliability that consumers will be prepared to pay for.

The taskforce will examine the potential for reduced Basslink exports at high prices in Victoria, the costs of competing fuel sources for generation, and the costs associated with developing new generation and the associated system reinforcements.

The Tasmanian taskforce seeks to examine a range of inter-related factors that include: progressing an energy mix in renewables; reducing energy security risks from extreme weather events such as storms and bushfires; and examining how much cost consumers are willing to assume to transition energy production to achieve a higher level of energy security for the state.

The one thing these developments reveal is that energy security, both in Australia and globally, is not about going backwards to some outdated reliance upon fossil-fuelled baseload power. Energy security is about new forms of baseload power.

Its success will ultimately depend upon our capacity to transition our energy systems as we head towards our new energy future.

Samantha Hepburn 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.

Closing parts of the ocean to fishing displaces fishers to other areas. Tuna image from www.shutterstock.com

The federal government is considering changes to Australia’s marine reserves to implement a national system. This week The Conversation is looking at the science behind marine reserves and how to protect our oceans.

While academics often focus on biodiversity objectives for marine parks, the public and political debate tends to come down to one thing: fishing.

When former federal MP Rob Oakeshott cast one of the deciding votes in support of the Commonwealth marine parks plan in 2013, he explained that he believed they benefit fisheries. The federal government has also emphasised the benefit of marine parks to fisheries production.

There’s also an academic debate. When a study showed that the Great Barrier Reef marine park had harmed fisheries production, there was a passionate response from other experts. This is despite advocates arguing that reserves are primarily about biodiversity conservation, rather than fishing production.

Clearly, fishing is a hot issue for marine parks. So what does the science say?

How do marine parks protect fish?

The proposed benefits to fisheries from marine parks include: protection or insurance against overfishing; “spillover”, where larvae or juveniles from the parks move out and increase the overall production; habitat protection from damaging fishing gear; and managing the ecosystem effects of fishing such as resilience against climate change.

Marine parks regulate activities, mainly fishing, within a specified area. They come in a variety of categories. Some allow fishing, but the most contentious are “no-take” marine parks.

Fishery managers also sometimes close areas of the ocean to fishing. This is different to how no-take marine parks work in two ways: the legislative authority is different (being through fisheries rather than environmental legislation); and the closures usually target a specific fishery, whereas no-take marine parks usually ban all fishing.

Fishery closures, rather than no-take marine parks, are usually applied to protect special areas for particular fish, such as spawning sites or nursery areas. They are also used to protect habitats, such as in the case of trawl closures, which allow the use of other gear such as longlines in the same location.

Fisheries legislation bans damaging fishing gear outright, while benign gears are allowed. In contrast, no-take marine parks tend to exclude all gear types.

Displacing fishers

Neither marine parks nor fishery closures regulate the amount of catch and fishing effort. They only control the location. Commercial fishers take most fish caught in Commonwealth waters and most of this is limited by catch quotas.

When a no-take marine park closes an area to fishing, fishers and their catch are displaced into other areas of the ocean. This occurs for all types of fishing, including recreational fishing. Recreational fishers displaced by marine parks don’t stop fishing, they just fish somewhere else – and the same number of fishers are squeezed into a smaller space.

Marine parks increase the intensity of fishing impacts across the wider coast, which is an uncomfortable outcome for marine park advocates. Modelling of Victorian marine parks showed that displaced catch would harm lobster stocks and associated ecosystems, and was counterproductive to their fishery management objective of rebuilding stock.

Because ecosystems don’t respond in predictable ways, depletion of fish stocks from the fishing displaced from marine parks could lead to severe ecosystem outcomes.

For this reason, a second and separate management change is often needed after marine parks are declared, which is to reduce the number of fishers and fish caught to prevent risk of impacts from the park.

Controlling how many fish are caught (which is what traditional fisheries management does) has substantially more influence on overall fish abundance than controlling where fish are caught with parks, as shown recently on the Great Barrier Reef.

Public cost

Commonwealth fisheries catch quotas are routinely reduced if a fishery harms the sustainability of the marine environment. There’s no compensation to fishers, so there’s no cost to the public, other than a possible reduced supply of fish.

Catches can also be reduced to manage fishing displaced by marine reserves and the outcome is identical except in terms of the public cost. Creation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park led to over A$200 million in payments to displaced fishers. Another publicly funded package is planned for the Commonwealth marine reserves.

Marine parks also have high recurring public cost because boundaries need to be policed at sea. Catch quotas can be policed at the wharf, with compliance costs fully recovered from industry.

Do marine parks help fish and fishers?

Evidence of a benefit to fisheries from marine parks is scarce. However, there are some clear examples of fishing displacement that is so minor that there has been an overall increase in fish inside and outside the park.

These examples show that marine parks can sometimes benefit fish stocks, the fishery and also the overall marine ecosystem. However, these examples come from situations where traditional fishery management has not been applied to prevent overfishing.

This is consistent with modelling of marine parks that shows they only increase overall fish populations when there has been severe overfishing. This generally means that if there’s already effective traditional fisheries management, marine reserves cannot benefit fish stocks and fisheries, or restock fish outside the reserve (spillover) (see also here).

In jurisdictions where fisheries management is lacking, any regulation, including through marine reserves, is better than nothing. But this isn’t the situation with Australia’s Commonwealth fisheries where harvest strategies are used and overfishing has been eliminated.

The conclusions from modelling of marine reserves mean that the areas of the reserves that limit fishing would be expected to reduce fishery production and harm our ability to contribute to global food security.

The Coral Sea marine reserve, in particular, represents an area with known large stocks of fish, especially tuna, that could be harvested sustainably. Limiting fishing in the Coral Sea eliminates any potential for these resources to help feed Australians or contribute to global food supplies.

The potential sustainable, ecologically acceptable harvest from the Coral Sea is unknown, so we don’t know the full scale of what’s being lost and how much the recent changes reduce this problem, although Papua New Guinea sustainably harvests 150,000-300,000 tonnes of tuna in its part of the sea.

Allowing fishing doesn’t mean the oceans aren’t protected. Existing fisheries management is already obliged to ensure fishing doesn’t affect sustainability of the marine environment.

Caleb Gardner has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, the Australian Seafood CRC, and the Tasmanian Government to assess sustainability of fisheries, conduct research on fishery harvest systems and provide advice on improving fisheries sustainability. This includes research evaluating the effectiveness of fishery closures and marine parks. He is affiliated with the University of Tasmania and has participated or is participating in roles on committees that provide management advice to the Tasmanian, Victorian and Australian Commonwealth Government and fishing industry groups including the Tasmanian Lobster Fishermen's Association as a Director (unpaid research representative) of Southern Rock Lobster Ltd.

Greening Manhattan: bringing nature into the city is one thing, making it part of our culture and everyday lives is another. Alyson Hurt/flickr, CC BY

Australian cities are inherently diverse places, but that diversity can lead to conflict between different values about what cities should and can be. Our series, Conflict in the City, brings together urban researchers to examine some of these tensions and consider how cities are governed and for whom.

Enthusiasm for urban greening is at a high point, and rightly so.

Ecological studies highlight the contribution urban nature makes to the conservation of biodiversity. For example, research shows cities support a greater proportion of threatened species than non-urban areas.

Green space is increasingly recognised as useful for moderating the heat island effect. Hence, this helps cities adapt to, and reduce the consequences of, climate change.

Reducing urban heat stress is the main objective behind the federal government’s plan to set tree canopy targets for Australian cities. Trees are cooler than concrete. Trees take the sting out of heatwaves and reduce heat-related deaths.

The “healthy parks healthy people” agenda emphasises the health benefits of trees, parks and gardens. Urban greenery provides a pleasant place for recreation. By enhancing liveability, green spaces make cities more desirable places to live and work.

The increased interest in urban greening presents exciting opportunities for urban communities long starved of green space.

Unpacking the green city agenda

This enthusiasm for “green cities” stands in stark contrast to traditional views about nature as the antithesis of culture, and so having no place in the city. The traditional view was that the only ecosystems worthy of protection were to be found beyond the city, in national parks and wilderness areas.

We embrace the new agenda wholeheartedly, but also believe it’s important not to focus solely on instrumental measures like canopy cover targets to reduce heat stress. We should not forget about experiential encounters.

The risk with instrumental (and arguably exclusionary) approaches is these fail to challenge the divide between people and nature. This limits people’s connection to the places in which they live and to broader ecological processes that are essential for life.

Instrumental targets in isolation also risk presenting urban greening as an “apolitical” endeavour. But we know this is not the case, as we see with the rise of green gentrification associated with iconic greening projects like New York’s High Line. Wealthy suburbs consistently have the most green space in cities.

Bringing nature into the city is one thing. Bringing it into our culture and everyday lives is another.

Understanding ecology in a lived sense

Urban greening provides an opportunity to recast the relationship between people and environment – one of the critical challenges associated with the Anthropocene.

Urban greening is not just for our benefit, but must surely be for our co-habitants too. Matt Cornock/flickr, CC BY-NC

To break down nature-culture divides in our cities, and in ourselves, we argue for the importance of embracing experiential engagements that develop a more deeply felt connection with the city places in which we live, work and play.

We are advocating a focus that does more than just encourage people to interact tangibly in and with urban nature, by drawing attention to the way humans and non-humans (including plants) are active co-habitants of cities.

Such an approach works by recognising that human understanding of the environment is intricately wrapped up in our experiences of that environment.

Put simply, green cities can’t just be about area, tree cover and proximity (though they are important). We need to foster intimate, active and ongoing encounters that position people “in” ecologies. And we need to understand that those ecologies exist beyond the hard boundaries of urban green space.

Without fostering a more holistic relationship with non-humans in cities, we risk an urban greening agenda that misses the chance to unravel some of the nature-culture separation that contributes to our long-term sustainability challenges as a society.

Active interactions with nature in the spaces of everyday life are vital for advancing a form of environmental stewardship that will persist beyond individual (and sometimes short-lived) policy settings.

Green city citizens need to see themselves as part of, not separate from, the ecologies that exist beyond the hard boundaries of urban green space. PINKE/flickr, CC BY-NC No getting away from the politics

It is important to consider the policy and governance dimensions of urban greening.

If the instrumental orientation prevails, our cities might be “more liveable” (at least for some, at particular locations and points in time), but our societies may not be more socially and environmentally just, or more sustainable.

We therefore emphasise the need to understand and critique the dimensions of the renewed interest in urban ecology. We have to consider whether this interest is associated with existing political economies, which embrace technocratic expertise to the exclusion of other voices, or whether urban greening can foster the emergence of a more transformative form of decision-making.

We also ask how we can enhance the prospects for more deliberative and place-based responses. An experiential turn for urban greening may be one way to make green space planning and practice more democratic.

By questioning who we might be greening for and how, we can open the way for the much-needed acknowledgment of Indigenous histories and participation in the making of urban space.

Giving urban greening an experiential focus might also help open our eyes to the needs of the more-than-human. Rather than simply cultivating green spaces for a narrow set of anthropocentric benefits, we pose the question: who are the participants in urban greening? It’s a way of acknowledging that we inhabit cities with plants and other non-human lifeforms.

An interesting area of policy development that may be productive for urban greening is the idea of the playful commons. This is an example of a governance approach that is more open to affective and experiential interaction – the community participates in negotiating, licensing and designing the use of public space.

Applying this approach to urban greening might encourage more deliberative forms of governance that can deliver more environmentally just and sustainable cities for the long term, for both humans and non-humans.

You can read other Conflict in the City articles here.

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

AAP/David Mariuz

The mid-latitude cyclone with no name that hit South Australia last week, spawning two tornadoes and 80,000 electricity strikes, destroyed 22 massive transmission towers carrying electricity across the state.

The consequences of the superstorm could have been dire – both from the direct effects of the wind and floods but also for the life support systems that depend on electricity. 1.7 million residents lost power as winds reached 120km/hour.

Yet in the midst of South Australia being in a state of emergency, federal Coalition ministers launched what seemed to be a co-ordinated and, for many, outrageous campaign against renewable energy.

It was co-ordinated in that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg all spoke from the same script: that “energy security” is Australia’s number-one priority. Or, as Frydenberg also put it:

We must keep the lights on.

Turnbull spoke of the extremely “aggressive” renewable energy targets the states have put in, which ironically are helping the federal government meet its own targets as part of UN framework agreements. And this in an environment where both major parties have just agreed to cut A$500 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

Along with Turnbull, Frydenberg was able to concede that severe weather was the source of the blackout. But the cyclone became a mere footnote to a full-frontal assault against renewables, which was taken up by mainstream media around the country. It sometimes became a bigger story than the storm itself.

Frydenberg continued the crusade over the weekend. He declared:

We’ve got the states pursuing these ridiculously high and unrealistic state-based renewable energy targets.

Joyce’s appearances on radio put the panic over renewables well ahead of the storm’s potential dangers. He compared the one-day blackout to the dark ages and put it down to bad planning, of which wind power was seen to be public enemy number one.

Joyce pointedly refused to acknowledge the storm as the cause of the blackout, and instead regressed to his well-known anti-wind rhetoric:

Of course in the middle of a storm, there are certain areas where wind power works – it works when wind is at a milder style, it doesn’t work when there’s no wind and it doesn’t work when there’s excessive wind – and it obviously wasn’t working too well last night because they had a blackout.

For these ministers, putting out a message that renewables were to blame because, they argued, they could not deliver a stable power system to South Australia, was an urgent priority that could both kill any climate message while denigrating renewables.

In a way what they did was very clever. As I have argued elsewhere, extreme weather presents the best opportunity for communicating climate stories.

That is, people are looking for an explanation as to why catastrophic weather is affecting them, and pointing to the link with between extreme weather and climate change is very persuasive at these times. But the Coalition’s campaign hijacked such messaging by simply swapping climate change with renewables.

The anti-renewable campaign was also outrageous. It was an affront to those who were confronting the storm’s immediate dangers and discomfort. But far more outrageous than this was the hypocrisy of drawing a link between the outage and renewables, rather than to climate change. The latter connection has been so vehemently rebuked by the Coalition during past extreme weather events.

During the NSW bushfires in October 2013, Abbott government ministers declared that talking about climate change during a “natural”/unnatural disaster to be taboo. This was in response to Greens MP Adam Bandt, who had linked the fires to climate change.

At the time, Environment Minister Greg Hunt declared:

There has been a terrible tragedy in NSW and no-one anywhere should seek to politicise any human tragedy, let alone a bushfire of this scale.

Given how progressive Turnbull himself has been on climate change in the past, this co-ordinated attack on renewables only demonstrates how captive he is to the right wing of the party and to the fossil-fuel industry.

Turnbull’s declaration on the day after the blackout was to “end the ideology” of the states pursuing renewables too aggressively. Ironically, what all of the polls around climate change show in the last five years is that enthusiasm for renewables is consistently high across Australia.

Perhaps Turnbull believes that if something is popular it must be ideological by definition. This departs from the idea that ideology is actually a worldview in the service of power – for example, the corporate power of fossil-fuel companies, which stand to lose much by the aggressive pursuit of renewables.

But the Coalition campaign got a huge lift from the ABC in the form of an opinion piece by political editor Chris Uhlmann. He says:

Renewables are the future but, today, they present serious engineering problems. To deny that is to deny the science.

Those problems can be sorted in time, but rushing to a target to parade green credentials exposes the electricity network to a serious security risk and, in the long run, risks permanent reputational damage to the renewable energy cause.

Uhlmann took his piece to national TV with a PowerPoint presentation during the ABC’s evening bulletin the day after the blackout. He claimed that only coal and gas could provide continuous energy or “synchronous supply”, and that renewables fail to do this.

The story really made it look like renewables were to blame. Yet his story in no way reconciled his teacherly diagrams with a soundbite from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) in an earlier story – that:

Energy generation mix was not a factor in the power blackout.

Uhlmann’s story mentioned that the main interconnector with Victoria had failed, but then focused on renewables as a problem, while claiming the AEMO advised him that the causes of the blackout were yet to be identified. He failed to mention what he had in his online article, which was that AEMO also advised:

Initial investigations have identified the root cause of the event is likely to be the multiple loss of 275 kilovolt (kV) power lines during severe storm activity in the state.

Anyone who saw the images of the toppled and mangled transmission towers could easily figure out that if electricity has no way of being transmitted, it really does not matter where it comes from.

This is the point Labor politicians were trying to make. But they did not get a very good run, because the Coalition’s media blitz had been much more planned.

But neither did Labor politicians, including Bill Shorten, make the alternative link to climate change. South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill was a little more effective, saying:

This was a weather event, not a renewable energy event.

But he also did not go further.

Uhlmann’s report was preceded by a pre-cyclone story posted on the ABC website last week which claimed renewables had caused an astronomical spike in energy prices in South Australia on a July day when the wind was not blowing. But the headline belies the reality that a privatised system of energy supply enables the kind of price gouging that was seen on that day, especially as the interconnector with Victoria was also down.

The interconnectors across Australia are very important, as Australia actually has one of the largest continuous grids in the world. This means that as long as we manage the grid itself, with “better planning” we will be able to avoid blackouts.

The importance of managing grids, and “distributed energy” that may use home storage as well, is the key to continuity. Otherwise, it is very easy to see outages, as was the case in the US in 2003. Then, long before renewables were significant, a single tree branch touching an overloaded power line turned off the lights for 50 million people in the US and Canada.

Managing a reliable grid is important, but it never seems to have occurred to federal Coaltition politicians that “good planning” is to aggressively cut emissions – which is exactly what many states are trying to do. This reduces the amount of energy in the climate system that ends up as increased water vapour and flooding, increased storm intensity, and many other forms of extreme weather.

Shorten, like Turnbull, knows that recent polls are showing climate change is returning a high level of concern, and has missed an opportunity to link the storm to climate – something the Abbott government had always considered must be avoided at all costs.

Turnbull’s team has managed to divert attention away from climate and go one better than the Abbott government by attacking renewables all in one campaign. For the fossil-fuel industry and the Coalition’s climate deniers alike, this was one perfect storm.

The federal government is considering changes to Australia’s marine reserves to implement a national system. This week The Conversation is looking at the science behind marine reserves and how to protect our oceans.

Australia has the third largest marine jurisdiction in the world, a vast ocean territory that contains important natural and biological resources. The oceans separate us from, and connect us to, the rest of the world.

They supply food, play a significant role in determining our climate, and are fundamental to our national identity. Protecting our oceans is of paramount importance and Australia is signatory to several international agreements and conventions to establish a network of marine reserves aimed at looking after marine resources.

In 2012 the Australian government declared a network of marine reserves to conserve our marine environment. In 2014, we were asked to co-chair a review of the reserves, with the results released this September.

We looked at five marine regions (North, North-West, South-West, Temperate East and the Coral Sea) but not the South-East network which had been established in 2007. Of the 40 reserves administered by the commonwealth government, we recommended changes to 26.

Click on the marine reserve regions in the map below to details of the changes proposed.

The review was established to address stakeholder concerns about how the reserves were zoned – and what activities were allowed in each zone – as well as ensuring that zoning decisions were informed by the best available science.

One of the strong messages we received was that people were tired of the process – having been asked about the same concerns when the reserves were declared. But the opportunity to raise concerns and suggest solutions was quickly taken up.

We held more than 260 meetings with more than 650 people between February and August 2015, considered 13,124 written submissions, the vast majority from individuals, and received 1,859 responses to an online survey.

What has changed?

The primary goal of the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA) is to create a system of reserves that is comprehensive (includes the full range of ecosystems within and across each bioregion), adequate (ensures ecological viability and the integrity of populations, species and communities) and representative (reasonably reflects the biodiversity of the marine ecosystem). This will ensure our marine ecosystems stay healthy for generations to come.

Zoning allows us to regulate activities within marine reserves without detracting from their conservation value. These zones range from no-take, which doesn’t allow any resource extraction (such as fishing or mining), through to multiple use and special purpose zones, where certain uses are, or may be, allowed, subject to an assessment of their potential impacts.

We made seven major recommendations:

• Put more conservation features such as seafloor types, canyons, reef, slope and shelf in no-take protection (from 331 to 352 of the 509 primary conservation features recognised in the reserves).

• Increase the area of no-take zones in four regions, but reduce the area of no-take zone to 41% of the Coral Sea. This means the overall proportion of no-take across the 40 reserves drops marginally from 36% to 33% – the same level as the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

• An 81% increase in the area zoned as Habitat Protection Zone (HPZ) – an additional 450,000 square kilometres – rising from 24% to 43% of the estate; and add more conservation features in the HPZ – (from 192 to 272 of the 509 conservation features).

• A 27% increase to just over three quarters (76%) of the overall area of the estate receiving a high level of protection under Sanctuary Zone, Marine National Park Zone or Habitat Protection Zone; all these zones prohibit activities such as seabed mining and fishing that damages the seafloor.

• The total area zoned as Multiple Use Zone is halved, from 36% to 18% of the estate.

• Protection for the coral reefs in the Coral Sea is improved (three additional reefs – Holmes, South Flinders and Wreck – zoned as national park, and all 34 reefs zoned as sanctuary, national park, or habitat protection, and notably improving protection of the reefs of the Marion Plateau).

• Our proposed zoning in the Coral Sea to decrease national park zones and increase habitat protection more strongly reflects zoning in the adjacent Great Barrier Reef, effectively increasing the area of GBR green zones.

Clearly these changes do not support claims that the recommendations will “trigger a devastating loss of threatened marine life”. Nor do they represent “huge cutbacks to marine hotspots”, or “expanded mining”.

On the contrary, they represent a significant improvement to biodiversity included in no-take and other highly protected zones, and better conservation of key features such as southern coral reefs of the Coral Sea.

Who will this affect?

Commonwealth waters, starting at 3 nautical miles (about 5.5 km) from the coast, are generally beyond the safe reach of most recreational fishers and the direct influence of coastal communities.

Nonetheless, there were some areas of particular significance to the recreational fishing, charter fishing and dive tourism sectors such as the Perth Canyon and the Coral Sea, which were adversely affected by the reserves’ proclamation in 2012. The review recommendations accommodated almost all of these concerns through local solutions developed in close consultation with users and their representatives.

The guiding principles of the marine reserves include that zones are based on specific activities, and socioeconomic costs should be minimised.

We were particularly mindful of the socioeconomic importance of fisheries, especially to regional communities. Australia has been globally acknowledged for its management of fisheries. For instance, we recognised Marine Stewardship Certification (MSC) of tuna longlining in the Coral Sea and the Northern Prawn Fishery in our consideration of these two valuable fisheries.

We assessed the risk that certain fishing methods such prawn trawling, longlining and midwater trawling posed to marine habitats using the most up-to-date scientific information and understanding. Along with historical catch records, we used these to develop recommendations on zoning in the marine reserves.

For commercial fisheries that operate in Commonwealth waters, we consulted with users and industry peak bodies and found solutions that reduced impacts on these fisheries while improving the protection of conservation features. The outcome is that displacement of commercial fishing, and therefore adjustment cost to taxpayers (if any) is lower.

Due to the importance of energy security, the original reserve network design was constrained by largely avoiding areas of oil and gas prospects and leases. Where marine reserves and prospects co-exist the zoning is generally multiple use.

The review recommended several departures from this constraint. Much of the Bremer reserve in WA, an area where large fish, mammals and seabirds are known to aggregate, is proposed as a no-take national park, despite high petroleum prospects. Similarly, we recommended that mining and exploration activities be excluded from Geographe Bay.

In the North we proposed more protection in several reserves by extending areas under habitat protection and national park where prospects are low. We also recommended a significant extension of national park at the head of the Great Australian Bight, a well-known site where whales gather.

By-and-large the ports and shipping sectors are not affected by marine reserves. Safe passage of ships is guaranteed under the law of the sea. However, we proposed changes to the Dampier marine reserve to include a Special Purpose Zone for an area where there is existing high intensity port and shipping activity.

Finally, Indigenous groups and representatives also participated in the review. We recommended that Indigenous communities should be encouraged to explore future socioeconomic opportunities from activities in reserves in or near traditional sea country. These activities could include Indigenous rangers monitoring and managing marine reserves.

Where to from here?

We believe the review struck a considered, science-based and robust balance of marine user interests, while improving the protection of key conservation features. Its recommendations address almost all of the major areas of contention raised during the review.

There is no loss of area under conservation management (reserve outer boundaries are unchanged), more of the estate is more highly protected, yet the displacement of commercial fisheries has been reduced through careful zone adjustments.

The review provides a strong foundation for future generations to benefit from the conservation, appreciation and sustainable use of the marine reserves – as long as it is effectively managed and adequately resourced.

Colin Buxton was co-chair the Bioregional Advisory Panel and a member of the Expert Scientific Panel of the Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review He is currently Chair of the Board of Southern Rocklobster Ltd and a member of the Board of the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) He has been the recipient of several research grants from the FRDC and the Tasmanian State Government

Peter Cochrane was a co-chair of the Bioregional Advisory Panel and a member of the Expert Scientific Panel of the Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review. He chairs the Steering Committee of the National Environment Science Program's Marine Biodiversity hub. He is a Councillor of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. He has received funding from the Australian Government Department of Environment.

Apple bud in flower Martine Combret

As the weather warms and days lengthen, your attention may be turning to that forgotten patch of your backyard. This week we’ve asked our experts to share the science behind gardening. So grab a trowel and your green thumbs, and dig in.

Spring arrives and the warming weather encourages the plants in our gardens and parks to burst into life, commencing their annual reproductive cycle.

Plants use cues from the weather and climate to time their growth, flowering and fruiting. But as the world heats up due to climate change, these patterns are changing.

So how is climate change affecting our gardens, and what can we do about it?

In sync with climate

Many temperate plants have evolved to reproduce in spring to avoid damage from extreme cold or heat. Warmer conditions tend to speed up these processes, causing plants to grow faster.

Plants have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to synchronise with climate. This means they are excellent bio-indicators of climate change.

We know from global assessments that most plants studied so far are behaving as we’d expect them to in a warming world. Studies in the Southern Hemisphere have found the same.

In Australia, plants in southern Australia are maturing earlier – winegrapes, for instance, by 27 days on average between 1999 and 2007. We can see this in wine growers’ records. As you can see in the handwritten chart below, wine grapes are on average maturing (measured by their sugar content) earlier.

Grower-recorded winegrape maturity through time. Sugar content (oB) is the y-axis. Note the staple at the top of the page to accommodate early maturity in 2000 and 2007 . Courtesy of Dr Leanne Webb

Other plants may behave differently. Fruit trees such as apples need cold weather to break buds from their dormant state, before commencing growth when warm temperatures arrive.

This means after warm winters, such as this one, flowering may actually be delayed. Data from a recent study show potentially delayed flowering for Pink Lady® apples, as you can see below.

Observed full-bloom timing for Pink Lady® in 2013. Part of data set Darbyshire et al. (2016)

In the examples above, Applethorpe had the warmest spring and flowered first, as we’d expect for most plants. But Manjimup had the second-warmest spring and flowered last, even after Huon, the coldest spring site. This seems counter-intuitive but the delay is likely because Manjimup had the warmest winter.

Do these changes matter?

The earlier emergence of reproductive tissues may increase the risk of devastating frost damage. Contrary to what you might expect, evidence shows recent warming in southern Australia has not necessarily led to fewer frosts. On the other hand, plants that delay flowering because of warmer winters may reduce their frost risk.

Shifts in flowering timing, earlier or later, can be problematic for plants that rely on pollination between different varieties. Both varieties must shift flowering in the same way for flowering periods to overlap. If flowering times don’t overlap, pollination will be less successful, producing fewer fruit.

Bee and bird pollinators must also adjust their activity in sync with changes to flowering time to facilitate pollination.

Faster maturity may shift ripening into hotter times of year, as seen for wine grapes. This increases the risk of extreme heat damage.

Sun-damaged Pink Lady® apples in Western Australia Rebecca Darbyshire What about other changes?

Pests and diseases will also adjust their growth cycles in response to a changing climate. One pest well known to gardeners is the Queensland Fruit Fly (QFF). Their maggots are found in a wide range of fruits.

Climate change will likely favour fruit flies. Warmer temperatures for longer periods will encourage a higher number of generations each year. Meanwhile, reduced cold weather will mean fewer fruit flies will die, increasing the flies’ survival rates.

On the other hand, temperate pests and diseases may decrease if warming exceeds their temperature thresholds.

What can you do?

What have you observed? Citizen scientists who track the timing of biological events have provided valuable information, especially in Australia, for us to monitor and interpret plant responses to climate change. Keeping garden records will show if and how your plants or pests are changing their patterns.

If you observe your flowers emerging earlier, coverings can be used to protect against frost. Keep an eye on cross-pollinators – are they flowering together? If not, consider planting a different cross-pollinator.

Nets are an effective way to reduce heat damage and can also be used to protect against some pests. Setting pest traps according to weather rather than the calendar will help disrupt the first generation and reduce pest impact.

Climate change has already influenced biological responses, perhaps even in your own garden. Seeing these changes in our gardens gives us an insight into the significant challenges faced by our food production systems under a changing climate.

Adapting to current and future climate change is a reality, and is essential to preserve both the enjoyment we experience in our own gardens and the security of future food supply.

Rebecca Darbyshire received funding from the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

Snow Barlow receives funding from Department of the Environment Biodiversity Fund

Power is gradually returning to South Australia after wild storms blew across the state last night, but some areas could be offline for days.

The storm - associated with heavy rain, lightning, and severe winds - damaged transmission lines that carry electricity from power generators to people, causing a state-wide blackout.

South Australian premier Jay Weatherill told ABC radio, “the system operated as it was meant to operate”.

However senator Nick Xenophon, in calling for an independent inquiry, said “there are key questions that need to be asked”. He has also questioned whether more gas-power stations would have prevented the power failure. Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce pointed the finger squarely at the state’s reliance on renewable energy.

So, what did cause South Australia’s blackout?

Was it because of wind or wind turbines?

Dylan McConnell, Research fellow, Melbourne Energy Institute, University of Melbourne

It has everything to do with wind - because that’s what blew over the transmission lines. But it has nothing to do with South Australia’s wind turbines. Transmission lines are large power lines that take electricity from generators to the smaller distribution lines that bring power to our homes.

South Australia’s energy generation mix is mixture of wind, gas and some solar, and as of this year, zero coal. The state is connected to the rest of eastern Australia’s electricity market through two inter-connectors, one of which is down for service.

Where the transmission lines, managed by ElectraNet, came down is south of Port Augusta. In May this year South Australia closed its last coal-power station at the port. If those coal-power stations were still operating, they still would have dropped offline and seen the cascading failure that tripped the generations. Having those thermal generators there wouldn’t have helped at all.

A lot of generation capacity was lost because of the transmission failure. Because of that there was a voltage drop, which triggered safety protection measures that tripped the Haywood inter-connector that connects South Australia with Victoria. This could have happened in any state or with any generation technology.

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

These kinds of failures in the National Energy Market (NEM) which covers the five eastern states) are extremely rare. The NEM experiences a range of extreme weather on a regular occurrence and a vast majority of the time copes well.

The system contains multiple levels of redundancy and safety mechanisms, however it is impractical if not impossible to build any complex system that is completely 100% reliable. Providing additional redundancy to insure against such events would be extremely costly, and would still not completely guarantee against further extreme events.

That being said, as we find out more about the incident it may become apparent that there are weaknesses in the grid that need addressing. However it is hard to imagine how the high penetration of renewable energy in the state could be implicated in this incident.

Just under 1,000 megawatts of wind power was dispatching onto the grid at the time of the blackout with another 400 megawatts from gas plant and 300 megawatts supply from the Victorian inter-connector making up the total. Had either of the brown coal generators still been in operation the system would not have been any more resilient to this event.

Why is South Australia vulnerable?

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

Wide-area blackouts like that in South Australia this week are rare, but by no means unknown. For example, between 1998 and 2012 there were no less than six major blackouts in the US, each affecting many more consumers for much longer than the South Australia blackout.

In each case damage caused by extreme weather was the primary cause, exacerbated in some cases by poor management of the unfolding event. Whether that was also the case in South Australia will undoubtedly emerge from the investigations not the event.

Regardless of that, as a generalisation the electricity supply system in South Australia is at higher risk of blackouts occurring than other areas with mature electricity grids such as Europe or North America, Victoria, New South Wales and south east Queensland. This is a simple consequence of geography and population density, not of the quality of the grid per se.

In western Europe if one transmission line is knocked out, as appears to have happened in South Australia, the dense network of nearby transmission lines is usually able to supply demand by alternative pathways without any over-loading.

By contrast, the National Electricity Market grid as a whole is widely-recognised as being amongst the most the most spread-out or “skinny” interconnected electricity grids in the world. This means that there is a much lower density of alternative transmission pathways for electricity to flow, in the event of a failure on one major line.

The consequence is that the few alternative transmission routes are more likely to become over-loaded, and then tripped out, by the automatic protection systems designed to prevent further and more severe damage to the grid as a whole.

South Australia, being at the extreme end of the grid, and north Queensland at the other end, each have a relatively small share of total NEM demand for electricity, and are particularly vulnerable. Generation on one side of the failure event is cut off from customers on the other side of the failure, and customers are blacked out. On this occasion there appears to have been plenty from windfarms operating at the time.

Of course, if there were more alternative transmission lines available, the blackout may have been avoided. Equally obviously, however, transmission lines are very expensive. Whether such redundancy should exist comes down to how much electricity consumers would be prepared to pay to further reduce the risk of another supply disruption as rare, though very severe, as occurred on Wednesday.

Was it climate change?

Andrew King, Climate extremes research fellow, University of Melbourne

The role of climate change in the storm that hit South Australia yesterday is unclear. With these types of storm systems it is much harder to see the human fingerprint than it is for heatwaves for example.

For intense rainfall events like yesterday’s you need two main ingredients: a lot of moisture in the atmosphere and a trigger, such as a deep low pressure system. We know that climate change is increasing the amount of moisture in the air, but the human influence on the frequency of the triggers is far less clear.

In general the storms that track across southern Australia are moving southwards with climate change. For very intense storms like the one that hit South Australia yesterday we don’t have enough data to make a definitive statement on how they’re changing in this region.

We can’t say that climate change was to blame for this storm without a full analysis of the event.

More to come.

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

Dylan McConnell has received funding from the AEMC's Consumer Advocacy Panel and Energy Consumers Australia.

Hugh Saddler is a member of the Board of the Climate Institute and Principal Consultant in the Climate Change Business Unit of Pitt & Sherry and also the Managing Director of Sustainability Advice Team

Roger Dargaville has received funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Plants absorb carbon and store it in the land. Blue mountains image from www.shutterstock.com

Just as people pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, the land also absorbs some of those emissions. Plants, as they grow, use carbon dioxide and store it within their bodies.

However, as the Climate Council’s latest report shows, Australia’s fossil fuels (including those burned overseas) are pumping 6.5 times as much carbon into the atmosphere as the land can absorb. This means that, while storing carbon on land is useful for combating climate change, it is no replacement for reducing fossil fuel emissions.

Land carbon is the biggest source of emission reductions in Australia’s climate policy centrepiece – the Emissions Reduction Fund. This is smoke and mirrors: a distraction from the real challenge of cutting fossil fuel emissions.

Land carbon

Land carbon is part of the active carbon cycle at the Earth’s surface. Carbon is continually exchanging between the land, ocean and atmosphere, primarily as carbon dioxide.

In contrast, carbon in fossil fuels has been locked away from the active carbon cycle for millions of years.

Carbon stored on land is vulnerable to being returned to the atmosphere. Natural disturbances such as bushfires, droughts, insect attacks and heatwaves, many of which are being made worse by climate change, can trigger the release of significant amounts of land carbon back to the atmosphere.

Changes in land management, as we’ve seen in Queensland, for example, with the relaxation of land-clearing laws by the previous state government, can also affect the capability of land systems to store carbon.

Burning fossil fuels and releasing CO₂ to the atmosphere thus introduces new and additional carbon into the land-atmosphere-ocean cycle. It does not simply redistribute existing carbon in the cycle.

The ocean and the land absorb some of this extra carbon. In fact, just over half of this additional carbon is removed from the atmosphere, and split roughly equally between the land and the ocean. However, this leaves almost half of the CO₂ emitted from fossil fuel combustion in the atmosphere. It’s this remaining CO₂ that is driving global warming.

Figure 2. Changes in the global carbon cycle from 1850 to 2014. Positive changes (above the horizontal zero line) show carbon added to the atmosphere and negative changes (below the line) show how this carbon is then distributed among the ocean, land and atmosphere. Adapted from Le Quéré et al. 2015, data from CDIAC/NOAA-ESRL/GCP/Joos et al. 2013/Khatiwala et al. 2013.

Although Australia’s land sector has absorbed more carbon than it has emitted over the past decade or two, this has been overshadowed by our domestic fossil fuel emissions and those from our exported fossil fuels. These are roughly 6.5 times greater than the uptake of carbon by Australian landscapes.

Under international carbon accounting protocols, emissions are assigned to the country that burns the fossil fuels. However, many Australians are becoming increasing concerned about the ethics associated with exploiting our fossil fuels, no matter where they are burned.

In short, we’ve got a big problem that requires a global response, which includes a strong commitment from Australia.

Falling short of our commitment

Last December, Australia joined the rest of the world in pledging to do everything possible to limit global warming to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and furthermore to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C. Yet Australia lacks a robust, credible long-term plan to cut Australia’s CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

Current climate change policies and practices in Australia allow for the use of land carbon “offsets” – that is, carbon taken up by land systems can be used to offset or subtract from fossil fuel emissions. For example, the government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) provides financial incentives for organisations or individuals to adopt new practices or technologies that reduce or sequester greenhouse gas emissions.

Currently, vegetation (land system) projects represent the majority of ERF-accepted projects (185 out of 348). And yet, while storing carbon on land can be useful, it must be additional to, and not instead of, reducing fossil fuel emissions. Moreover, numerous critiques have questioned the effectiveness of the ERF.

Problems of scale

We also have a problem of scale. Reducing emissions through land carbon methods could save up to 38 billion tonnes of carbon globally by 2050 if combined with sustainable land management practices. By comparison, global carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion are currently around 10 billion tonnes per year.

If this rate is continued, total fossil fuel emissions from 2015 to 2050 will be about 360 billion tonnes – nearly 10 times larger than the maximum estimated biological carbon sequestration of 38 billion tonnes over the same period.

It is now virtually certain that the carbon budget (the amount of carbon that can be produced while keeping warming below a certain level) will be exceeded. To meet the Paris 1.5°C aspirational target (and probably to meet the 2°C target) will require the use of negative emission technologies throughout the second half of the century.

However, no proposed negative emission technology has yet been proven to be feasible technologically at large scale and at reasonable cost, so this approach remains an in-principle option only. For effective climate action, the emphasis must remain on reducing emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

Using land carbon to “offset” our fossil fuel emissions is ultimately a smokescreen for real climate action.

Our thanks to Jacqui Fenwick for co-authoring this article and the report.

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.

2016 continues to be a momentous year for Australia’s climate, on track to be the new hottest year on record.

To our south, Antarctica has also just broken a new climate record, with record low winter sea ice. After a peak of 18.5 million square kilometres in late August, sea ice began retreating about a month ahead of schedule and has been setting daily low records through most of September.

It may not seem unusual in a warming world to hear that Antarctica’s sea ice – the ice that forms each winter as the surface layer of the ocean freezes – is reducing. But this year’s record low comes hot on the heels of record high sea ice just two years ago. Overall, Antarctica’s sea ice has been growing, not shrinking.

So how should we interpret this apparent backflip? In our paper published today in Nature Climate Change we review the latest science on Antarctica’s climate, and why it seems so confusing.

Antarctic surprises

First up, Antarctic climate records are seriously short.

The International Geophysical Year in 1957/58 marked the start of many sustained scientific efforts in Antarctica, including regular weather readings at research bases. These bases are mostly found on the more accessible parts of Antarctica’s coast, and so the network – while incredibly valuable – leaves vast areas of the continent and surrounding oceans without any data.

In the end, it took the arrival of satellite monitoring in the 1979 to deliver surface climate information covering all of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. What scientists have observed since has been surprising.

Overall, Antarctica’s sea ice zone has expanded. This is most notable in the Ross Sea, and has brought increasing challenges for ship-based access to Antarctica’s coastal research stations. Even with the record low in Antarctic sea ice this year, the overall trend since 1979 is still towards sea ice expansion.

The surface ocean around Antarctica has also mostly been cooling. This cooling masks a much more ominous change deeper down in the ocean, particularly near the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Totten glacier in East Antarctica. In these regions, worrying rates of subsurface ocean warming have been detected up against the base of ice sheets. There are real fears that subsurface melting could destabilise ice sheets, accelerating future global sea level rise.

In the atmosphere we see that some parts of the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica are experiencing rapid warming, despite average Antarctic temperatures not changing that much yet.

In a rapidly warming world these Antarctic climate trends are – at face value – counterintuitive. They also go against many of our climate model simulations, which, for example, predict that Antarctica’s sea ice should be in decline.

Winds of change

The problem we face in Antarctica is that the climate varies hugely from year to year, as typified by the enormous swing in Antarctica sea ice over the past two years.

This means 37 years of Antarctic surface measurements are simply not enough to detect the signal of human-caused climate change. Climate models tell us we may need to monitor Antarctica closely until 2100 before we can confidently identify the expected long-term decline of Antarctica’s sea ice.

In short, Antarctica’s climate remains a puzzle, and we are currently trying to see the picture with most of the pieces still missing.

But one piece of the puzzle is clear. Across all lines of evidence a picture of dramatically changing Southern Ocean westerly winds has emerged. Rising greenhouse gases and ozone depletion are forcing the westerlies closer to Antarctica, and robbing southern parts of Australia of vital winter rain.

The changing westerlies may also help explain the seemingly unusual changes happening elsewhere in Antarctica.

The expansion of sea ice, particularly in the Ross Sea, may be due to the strengthened westerlies pushing colder Antarctic surface water northwards. And stronger westerlies may isolate Antarctica from the warmer subtropics, inhibiting continent-scale warming. These plausible explanations remain difficult to prove with the records currently available to scientists.

Australia’s unique climate position

The combination of Antarctica’s dynamic climate system, its short observational records, and its potential to cause costly heatwaves, drought and sea-level rise in Australia, mean that we can’t afford to stifle fundamental research in our own backyard.

Our efforts to better understand, measure and predict Antarctic climate were threatened this year by funding cuts to Australia’s iconic climate research facilities at the CSIRO. CSIRO has provided the backbone of Australia’s Southern Ocean measurements. As our new paper shows, the job is far from done.

A recent move to close Macquarie Island research station to year-round personnel would also have seriously impacted the continuity of weather observations in a region where our records are still far too short. Thankfully, this decision has since been reversed.

But it isn’t all bad news. In 2016, the federal government announced new long-term funding in Antarctic logistics, arresting the persistent decline in funding of Antarctic and Southern Ocean research.

The nearly A$2 billion in new investment includes a new Australian icebreaking ship to replace the ageing Aurora Australis. This will bring a greater capacity for Southern Ocean research and the capability to push further into Antarctica’s sea ice zone.

Whatever the long-term trends in sea ice hold it is certain that the large year-to-year swings of Antarctica’s climate will continue to make this a challenging but critical environment for research.

Nerilie Abram receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Matthew England receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Tessa Vance receives funding from the Australian government through the Cooperative Research Centres Programme.