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In drought-prone Chad, 4.3 million people – more than a third of the population – are food insecure, and 176,000 children have severe acute malnutrition, after erratic rains led to ruined crops

Photographs: Peter Caton/Tearfund

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Lord Gardiner, who will be involved in reforming EU farming support post-Brexit, receives £49,000 a year in payments, it has been revealed

One of Theresa May’s new environment ministers has been accused by campaigners of a conflict of interest over tens of thousands of pounds he receives annually in EU farming subsidies.

Lord Gardiner is parliamentary under secretary of state and the House of Lords spokesperson for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which will be heavily involved in plans for replacing EU farming support.

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Like the annual music concert at your child’s primary school, the English Premier League’s offseason can seem endless. But despair not, it does end, and its end is nigh. As Jurgen Klopp would say: “Boom!” So how will you take in the coming Premier League season? Whether you’re a solo spectator, in a group, or out on the town, what steps should you consider taking in order to appreciate all that the world’s most exciting football league has to offer? We’re glad you asked!

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China's Jade Rabbit says a final goodbye and shuts down forever, after 31 months exploring the Moon, far outliving its predicted lifespan.

The State of the Climate in 2015 report, led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was released yesterday. Unfortunately, it paints a grim picture of the world’s climate last year.

For a second consecutive year the globe experienced its hottest year on record, beating the 2014 record by more than 0.1℃. From May 2015 onwards, each month set a temperature record for that particular month, a pattern that has yet to end.

The record-breaking temperature anomaly in 2015 (around 1℃ higher, on average, than what would be expected in a world without humans) was in large part due to human-caused climate change. A small fraction of the heat was because of a major El Niño event, which developed midway through 2015 and ran into this year.

During El Niño events we see warmer sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. A resulting transfer of heat from the ocean into the lower atmosphere causes a temporary warming effect. In La Niña seasons, the opposite happens.

Overall, about 0.05-0.1℃ of the global temperature anomaly for 2015 was due to El Niño. The bulk of the remainder was due to climate change. So even if we hadn’t had an El Niño last year, 2015 would still have been one of the hottest years on record.

Of the 16 hottest years ever recorded, 15 have happened this century.

Extreme events around the world…

At regional scales we also saw many extreme events last year. The downward trend in Arctic sea ice continued, with the lowest annual maximum extent on record. Alaska’s winter was almost non-existent, with many Arctic mammals and fish being forced to change their behaviour and shift their habitats.

Many extreme heatwaves occurred in 2015. These included a deadly hot spell in India and Pakistan and severe heat events in Europe and North America. Combined, these events killed thousands of people.

In Europe, various summer heat records were set in Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain, while Germany posted an all-time record temperature.

Seasonal-scale extreme heat occurred over many parts of the globe. There were many more warm days and nights than normal over much of Europe in summer, and in Russia and North America in spring.

Extreme events occurred around the world in 2015. NOAA NCEI

Across the world there were more tropical cyclones than normal, mainly due to increased cyclone activity across the Pacific basin, and many significant flood events. On the other hand, large areas suffered severe drought (14% of the land surface, up from 8% in 2014).

The Ethiopian drought devastated crops and affected millions of people. Parts of South America experienced the worst drought in 80 years. The western US drought continued, despite the fact that El Niño events usually bring this region some reprieve.

…including in Australia

In Australia, probably the most significant climate extreme we had was the record heat in October.

The country experienced its biggest monthly temperature anomaly on record – almost 3℃ above the historical national average. The frequency of very warm days was also well above average. This unusual early heat triggered bushfires across the southeast.

Even given the El Niño event (which normally warms up Australia in spring and summer), the maximum temperature records that were set were, for example, at least six times more likely in Melbourne than they would have been in the absence of human-caused climate change.

For 2015 as a whole, Australia experienced its fifth-warmest year on record. Nine out of 12 months were warmer than average.

A continuation of climate change trends

Besides the record heat, the world saw many other unwanted records tumble in 2015, providing ever more extensive evidence for the effect that humans are having on the climate. Greenhouse gas concentrations (the primary cause of our changing climate) rose to record high levels, with carbon dioxide concentrations passing the 400 parts per million mark at many sites. The year’s margin of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations was also the largest on record.

Our influence on the climate can also be seen through record high globally-averaged sea levels and the highest globally-averaged sea surface and upper ocean temperatures on record.

The trend towards more heat extremes and fewer cold ones also continued. In fact, 2015 had about three times as many very warm days as very cold ones globally compared with the historical average.

A plethora of records was broken, with a human fingerprint being clear in many cases.

What’s next?

We already know that 2016 is very likely to overtake 2015 globally as the hottest year on record. As the El Niño peaked earlier this year we saw many extreme events around the world and in Australia. This included the devastating coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, which would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.

Unfortunately, in many ways, the climate of 2015 is not likely to stand out as especially unusual in a few years’ time. More record hot years are likely, with associated extreme weather events, as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to climb.

Only with rapid and substantial cuts to these emissions will it be possible to limit global warming to well below 2℃, a key aim of the Paris climate agreement, and reduce the likelihood of yet more climate records tumbling.

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

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Proposals would see the basic income support system of subsidies scrapped and farmers being paid out of public funds for environmental services

The National Trust has called for complete reform of the British farm subsidy system after Brexit, by ending payments for owning land and only rewarding farmers who improve the environment and help wildlife.

“The subsidy system is broken. It is not working. Farmers are going out of business. The state of wildlife is in steep decline and large parts of that is because of intensive agriculture. The vote to leave the EU allows us to think radically about the future of the entire system,” the trust’s director general, Dame Helen Ghosh, told the Guardian ahead of a speech at Blenheim Palace on Thursday.

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New regulator report notes electricity price spikes caused by sudden loss of output at coal-fired generators, caused by "trips" and coal "quality" issues.

Warkworth beach, Northumberland Wave-agitated sand had ground down the shell revealing its hidden structure, a helter-skelter chamber

We have beachcombed this tideline on scores of summer days but have only gone home with painted top shells (Calliostoma zyzyphinum) on a handful of occasions.

Of all the shells washed ashore here, this is the most desirable: a pointed yellow cone decorated with purple streaks. Stand it on its tip and it resembles a 1in tall replica of an old-fashioned spinning top.

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Electricity market operator says there are no technical barriers to having more wind and solar on the national grid, but the market design and regulations need to catch up with new technology, rather than servicing a century-old system.

How does Peter Singer's figure of 750 million fit within the range of estimates on 'climate change refugees'? Q&A

The Conversation is fact-checking claims made on Q&A, broadcast Mondays on the ABC at 9.35pm. Thank you to everyone who sent us quotes for checking via Twitter using hashtags #FactCheck and #QandA, on Facebook or by email.

Excerpt from Q&A, August 2, 2016, watch from 1.12.

PETER SINGER: That is going to basically inundate every coastal city around the world, including, of course, all Australian major cities are coastal. It is going - estimated to cause something like 750 million refugees just moving away from that flooding. Never mind those who also because refugees because (indistinct)…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Some of those claims are contested, of course?

PETER SINGER: Well, they are contested but do you want to take the chance, right? – Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University, speaking on Q&A with host Virginia Trioli, August 2, 2016.

Ethicist Peter Singer told Q&A that climate change-related sea level rises are “estimated to cause something like 750 million refugees just moving away from that flooding”.

It is beyond the scope of a FactCheck to say with any certainty what will happen in the future. And there is no single official data source on the numbers of people who migrate because of the impacts of climate change, partly because there is no legal definition of a “climate change refugee”. Furthermore, most such displacement occurs within countries, not across international borders, and is always due to a number of different factors. Finally, there is no systematic monitoring of such movement.

That said, we can check how Singer’s figure of 750 million fits within the range of estimates that exist on this question.

Checking the source

When asked by The Conversation for sources to support his statement, Peter Singer said:

Factchecking always welcome! My source for the figure is Climate Central and in terms of the possible extent of sea level rises, please see this paper by Hansen et al.

The figure I gave is near the top end of the Climate Central range, but remember that I agreed with Virginia Trioli that this is contested. I argued that if it is even a small chance, the stakes are too high to be worth taking the risk.

Climate Central is a group of scientists and journalists researching and reporting climate change and its effects. In 2015, the group said that:

Carbon emissions causing 4°C of warming — what business-as-usual points toward today — could lock in enough sea level rise to submerge land currently home to 470 to 760 million people, with unstoppable rise unfolding over centuries.

Predictions vary and uncertainties abound, but climate scientists say it is possible we may reach 4°C of warming by 2100 if insufficient effort is made to reign in emissions.

As Singer acknowledges, his figure of 750 million is at the upper end of estimates – and he readily agreed that estimates are contested.

Without detracting from Singer’s broader point about the human consequences of climate change, it is worth taking a closer look at the context, assumptions and methodologies behind some of these alarming-sounding figures.

What does Singer’s source say about climate refugees?

When Climate Central released its Mapping Choices report in 2015, the headline it used on its website was “New Report and Maps: Rising Seas Threaten Land Home to Half a Billion”.

But to be clear, Climate Central’s full report did not say that 750 million people would need to move away due to rising sea levels – in fact, unlike Singer, it didn’t use the term “refugees” at all.

Instead, it said only that under a 4°C warming scenario, there could be “enough sea level rise to submerge land currently home to 470 to 760 million people” (emphasis added).

Many people would indeed move in that scenario – but past experience from around the world means we can be confident that many would also stay and try to live with a changed environment.

The Climate Central report acknowledges that its estimates do not take adaptation strategies into account, noting:

Results do not account for present or future shoreline defences, such as levees, that might be built, nor for future population growth, decline or relocation.

A vast range of estimates – and plenty of guesswork

Some of the numerical estimates on climate-related displacement are based on crude methodologies, as explained in my 2012 book, Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law.

For example, in 1993 social scientist Norman Myers wrote a paper suggesting that 150 million people could be displaced by climate change by the the mid-21st century. He had identified areas expected to be affected by sea-level rise, and then calculated the anticipated population of those areas in 2050. In subsequent work and interviews, he said the figure could be closer to 200 million or 250 million. Estimates ranging from 50 million to 600 million to even a billion have been cited by some.

The Observer published an article in 2010 headlined “Climate change will cost a billion people their homes, says report”.

However, that report misconstrued a paper by Dr François Gemenne – whose work is empirically based and well-reasoned – that referred to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) comment that freshwater availability in a changing climate may adversely affect more than a billion people by the 2050s. That’s a different story from the one told in The Observer’s headline.

Many of these upper end estimates – and the methodologies used to calculate them – have been criticised by other researchers, who note that very big estimates often fail to account for adaptation.

The IPCC itself has said that:

Estimates of the number of people who may become environmental migrants are, at best, guesswork.

How much weather-related displacement of people have we seen so far?

Peter Singer’s comment was about future impacts of climate change. But what do we know about current and past climate-related movement?

The best statistics on this are published by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), the leading source of information on internal displacement whose role has been endorsed by the UN. It said in its Global Estimates 2015: People displaced by disasters report that:

Since 2008, an average of 22.5 million people have been displaced by climate- or weather-related disasters [each year].

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)

These figures were also recognised in the Nansen Initiative’s Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the context of Disasters and Climate Change, endorsed by 109 States (including Australia) in late 2015, and by the UN Secretary-General’s report on refugees and migrants prepared for a high-level summit on large movements of refugees and migrants to be held in New York in September 2016.

Verdict

Are rising seas “estimated to cause something like 750 million refugees” to have to move, as Peter Singer said? Not according to the source he provided, which actually found that sea level rises under a 4°C warming scenario could submerge land currently home to 470 to 760 million people; the report didn’t say that all or most would subsequently become refugees.

As Singer acknowledged, his figure of 750 million people being affected by climate change-related flooding in future is at the upper end of estimates – and is contested. The methodologies and assumptions underpinning some of the upper end estimates have been critiqued by scholars, as they often do not adequately account for adaptation. – Jane McAdam

Review

In general, I and others in the migration field would strongly agree with the author’s sound critique of Singer’s assertion.

Human mobility in the context of climate change is complex. Limits to a more nuanced understanding of this issue may be due to a lack of agreement on the legal definitions and the methodological choices made to project numbers of environmental migrants, as well as - importantly - an understatement of the agency and adaptive capacities of people.

Communities in coastal and low-lying areas that may be affected by sea-level rise in the future are affected today by recurrent natural hazards, coastal erosion, land subsidence, and saltwater contamination of arable land.

Empirical studies, including from the United Nations University, have explored how migration contributes to livelihoods and household adaptation strategies.

Experts tend to agree that the types of movements that might fall under that moniker “climate migrant” are varied and complex. Robust estimates by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre fall short of accounting for people living in prolonged displacement, displaced across borders (generally agreed to be a minority), or migrating away from their homes due to the long-term effects of climate change (erratic weather, droughts, and the gradual loss of land). The last grouping may be the largest – and would be considered labour migration under current definitions.

The author’s section on weather-related displacement rightly adds an important dimension to a focus on sea-level rise, which is by no means the only cause of movement. An additional important point: climate change experts have largely been reluctant to attribute any individual weather event to climate change, thus making it difficult to attribute displacement due to climate- or weather-related disasters to climate change. – Julia Blocher

Have you ever seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.

Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Research Council of Norway.

Julia Blocher has previously received funding through the project “High-End cLimate Impacts and eXtremes” (HELIX - http://helixclimate.eu/home), funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme for research (FP7). She is an associate member of the Hugo Observatory at the University of Liege, an interdisciplinary research group exploring migration phenomena related to environmental factors and climate change. The Hugo Observatory is directed by Dr. François Gemenne, who is referred to by the other author in this article.

Technique developed at Aalborg University creates a component resistant to high temperatures and able to capture broader spectrum of solar irradiation.

ASX-listed engineering group joins with ZEM Energy to form new company focused on developing large-scale renewables projects in the race to meet the RET.

So how did an international environmental champion fail to meet the promises of a sustainable Rio in time for the city’s biggest international event in decades?

According to GTM Research’s latest edition of its quarterly Global Solar Demand Monitor, global solar installations are expected to grow by 43 percent this year, increasing to a total of 73 gigawatts.

Infinite Energy says partnership with JET Charge will "complete the picture" for customers, adding EV charging to solar, battery storage and retail electricity offering.

Public funding is vital for programs like CSIRO's research vessel RV Investigator, which is too expensive for universities to run. CSIRO, CC BY

The new instruction from Science Minister Greg Hunt to restore climate science as a “core activity” at Australia’s peak science body, the CSIRO, is a ray of hope for public good science.

Yesterday, Hunt told Fairfax Media he had issued a directive to CSIRO executives to add 15 jobs and A$37 million over ten years to CSIRO’s climate science research program.

The move follows months of uncertainty over CSIRO’s climate research capability, after chief executive Larry Marshall announced in February that 350 jobs would be lost from CSIRO, including cuts to the oceans and atmosphere division.

After widespread condemnation, losses to climate science capacity have reportedly been significantly reduced, although it is still unclear exactly how many and where the losses will be felt.

So what does the new development mean for CSIRO and Australia’s climate science?

The role of CSIRO

Reinstating 15 jobs is certainly a step in the right direction, even if they don’t make up for the previous cuts. But perhaps even more significant is the statement of intent – that the government wants climate science, and wants it to be done by CSIRO.

This is important because these government-funded agencies are well placed to carry out sustained observations and the accompanying development of climate models. Here in the university sector we focus mostly on “blue sky”, discovery-based research and training the next generation of researchers and PhDs. These are very important roles, but we can’t run marine research vessels or decades-long observation programs, because university research generally relies on three-year grant cycles.

The minister’s announcement is a very important cultural acknowledgement from the government that it needs to ensure that its publicly funded agencies underpin those important areas of climate monitoring and modelling.

Key investments

There are two key areas in which Australia needs to invest.

The first is sustained observations of the southern hemisphere’s oceans and atmosphere. As one of the few nations in the region with the capacity to monitor this vast area, Australia arguably has an obligation to make these measurements.

The second is developing next-generation climate models for Australia and the world. Northern hemisphere modelling groups, even though they do global modelling, have pressures from their own governments to focus on high-quality simulations of their own regions. Without Australia doing the same, there’s not the same pressure to have superbly accurate forecasts for this part of the world.

These two areas need to be secured via an appropriate scale of investment in climate science. Where this new money should go depends on exactly where the cuts have been made and what needs to be restored.

Government steps up

For some time now, CSIRO’s executive has been making moves away from public good research and towards an agenda of “innovation”.

While investment in public good climate research might not make you money this year or next, it can save vast amounts of money by, for example, avoiding poor investment in infrastructure. It is vital science that is needed to secure a resilient economy, a resilient environment and social well-being for all Australians.

This type of research is often undersold. Unfortunately, the culture in CSIRO over the past year seems to have been to sacrifice some of that public good science and focus on more lucrative research. This is important and beneficial science as well, but you can’t drop the public good.

Hunt’s new comments are important because they show the government is taking renewed responsibility for how CSIRO invests in research that helps the public.

This isn’t just about climate science; it’s about any area of public-good research that delivers what the community needs for societal well-being.

Restoring reputations

This is an important step towards restoring Australia’s international reputation in climate science. The science is always judged by the excellence of the work being done and papers published, which will take a while to materialise, but this announcement will be applauded around the world.

The cuts were condemned by thousands of international researchers as well as the World Climate Research Program of the World Meteorological Society and the director of a NASA-led atmospheric monitoring network.

CSIRO’s international reputation in climate science has been going down the gurgler ever since Royal Society Fellow Trevor McDougall, one of the most influential oceanographers Australia has produced, was cut in 2012 to worldwide condemnation. The recent cuts went further.

We often criticise ministers for what they do wrong, but the latest announcement is a real cause for hope. Until now the government had taken a hands-off approach, arguing that CSIRO is an independent statutory body that shouldn’t be interfered with.

That’s now been thrown out. This is public money, and the government is saying we need to get public-good value from it.

Matthew England receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

The spot Victoria energy efficiency market lost ground rapidly in July, and the softening has continued into early August.

A protest and one-week hunger strike has prompted the South Korean Government to indefinitely postpone consideration of the 1160 MW ‘Dangjin Eco Power’ coal-fired plant.

Many are proposing the obvious , but wrong, solution to Australia’s crisis : develop more gas production resources. But this path fails for several reasons.

QUANTUM MILESTONE: US researchers have unveiled the development of a small quantum computer that can be reprogrammed to complete three algorithms in a single step.