We are still screwed: the coming climate disaster

Politics and religion
3023

‘BP is playing fast and loose with our future’:

s shareholders gather for BP’s AGM in London this week, they deserve to be made aware of just how at-risk their investments are — and what BP thinks about the future of the firm and the planet. Because the company their investments allow to operate is fourth in a list of the world’s top-emitting companies and was responsible for 2.47% of global emissions from 1751-2010.

The company will be forever linked to the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico — but its the daily environmental toll that ultimately matters more — the constant, minute-by-minute flow of carbon into the atmosphere.

In order to keep its profits coming, despite the science, BP has worked its way into the highest levels of governments, and even gotten inside great cultural institutions like the British Museum and the Tate Britain gallery. It’s now attempting to slide unchallenged into the magical and dangerous waters of the Great Australian Bight, searching zombie-like for yet more oil. Ditto Azerbaijan, Angola, the tar sands of Canada and the old hunting grounds of the North Sea, even though scientists are painfully clear about the fact that we can’t burn most of the reserves we already know about.

BP’s actions are weird, in that they insist “we have publicly acknowledged the risk [of climate change] and have been working to address it since the 1990,” and that they are part of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) which publicly supported a global agreement at the Paris talks. But when you scratch beneath the surface, this is just another carbon major, being fast and loose with the future.

BP is also a card-carrying member of a trade organisation that lobbied against the EU setting renewables and energy efficiency targets for 2030; and opposed carbon pricing while supporting it publicly. It actively lobbied against action to reduce emissions – a 2015 analysis gave BP the lowest rating - a “negative and actively conflicting approach to climate change regulation”.

They’re out there every day, hunting for more hydrocarbons, even though their current reserves of oil and gas will release seven gigatonnes of carbon dioxide - 1% of the world’s remaining carbon budget.

BP is not only ignoring what its activities could mean for climate change. It is also ignoring the energy transition that is already happening. While BP hopes for an “orderly” transition to a low-carbon energy system, it has repeatedly underestimated the exponential growth of renewables. Clean energy currently represents just 0.5% of BP’s business - and it doesn’t seem to have any plans to change this. While the energy transition moves on, BP just keeps drilling.

Their old pillage and pollute business model is failing, though. Last financial year they posted the worst financial loss in their corporate history, even as investment capital around the world swings toward renewables. That’s the future, clearly — but the news comes as cold comfort for the people of the Pacific islands, or drought-affected Africa or India, or the folks in Australia whose livelihood depends on the survival of the Great Barrier Reef or the fishing industry in the Great Australian Bight.

3024

Or they just go bankrupt:

Peabody Energy Corp (BTU.N) filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after a sharp drop in coal prices left it unable to service debt of $10.1 billion, much of it incurred for an expansion into Australia.

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing from Peabody, the world’s biggest private-sector coal producer, ranks among the largest in the commodities sector since energy and metal prices began to fall in mid-2014 as once fast-growing markets such as China and Brazil started to slow.

Unlike most large corporate bankruptcies, Peabody’s filing did not sketch out a plan for cutting debt, although it said it expected its mines to continue to operate as usual.

Peabody estimated its assets at $11.0 billion and liabilities at $10.1 billion as of the end of 2015, according to court documents…

…The St. Louis-based company said its planned sale of mines in New Mexico and Colorado had fallen through and that its Australian operations were excluded from the bankruptcy filing.

So wait. You borrowed a bunch of money to invest in Australia, and then you declare bankruptcy (so you don’t have to pay that money back, to a degree), but exempt the Australian expansion???

Oh, and it appears as though they may be avoiding their (known) externality costs as well:

In Wyoming alone, Peabody owes nearly $900 million in mine cleanup liabilities.

3025

To be fair it is not just the coal corporations that do that kind of thing. Corporations force governments to offer them sweetners to set up shop (for the jobs they create) and often juggle the books so they wrap up early claiming financial issues, while keeping the sweetners (these are usually legally non-refundable in the terms of the agreement between Corporation and Government.

A big (nasty) part of the secret TTIP agreement is about corporations having legal rights to sue sovereign nations and governments (so the people of that country in effect) over lost earnings, potential lost earnings and really for whatever reason they (corporations) so choose.

There is a huge corporate attack going on in the world currently, and we are all the target (ultimately) of this cash grab.

3026

A big (nasty) part of the secret TTIP agreement is about corporations having legal rights to sue sovereign nations and governments (so the people of that country in effect) over lost earnings, potential lost earnings and really for whatever reason they (corporations) so choose.

Why wouldn’t corporations have the right to sue the government?

3027

Well, there is the whole Sovereign Immunity thing, but I’m far from a legal expert.

3028

‘March temperature smashes 100-year global record’:

The global temperature in March has shattered a century-long record and by the greatest margin yet seen for any month.

February was far above the long-term average globally, driven largely by climate change, and was described by scientists as a “shocker” and signalling “a kind of climate emergency”. But data released by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) shows that March was even hotter.

Compared with the 20th-century average, March was 1.07C hotter across the globe, according to the JMA figures, while February was 1.04C higher. The JMA measurements go back to 1891 and show that every one of the past 11 months has been the hottest ever recorded for that month.

Data released released later on Friday by Nasa confirmed last month was the hottest March on record, but the US agency’s data indicated February had seen the biggest margin. The Nasa data recorded March as 1.65C above the average from 1951-1980, while February was 1.71C higher.

The World Meteorological Organisation, the UN body for climate and weather, said the March data had “smashed” previous records.

3029

Data released released later on Friday by Nasa confirmed last month was the hottest March on record, but the US agency’s data indicated February had seen the biggest margin. The Nasa data recorded March as 1.65C above the average from 1951-1980, while February was 1.71C higher.

Small victory, I suppose. Had March continued the trend of breaking not only the record for the month but breaking the anomalously warm record as well we’d be looking at a terrifying trend going into the warmer months in the Northern Hemisphere. Not that 11 straight months of broken records for given months is not alarming.

3030

‘Climate change: website reveals which homes will be swamped by rising sea levels’:

For the first time, Australians can see on a map how rising sea levels will affect their house just by typing their address into a website. And they’ll soon be able to get an estimate of how much climate change will affect their property prices and insurance premiums, too.

Launched on Friday, the website Coastal Risk Australia takes Google Maps and combines it with detailed tide and elevation data, as well as future sea level rise projections, allowing users to see whether their house or suburb will be inundated.

Coinciding with that is the launch of a beta version of Climate Valuation, a website that gives users an estimate of how much climate change will impact their property value and insurance premiums over the life of their mortgage.

Not sure if there is a rest of the world version yet, but hopefully this kind of data will be available for the global picture, no one will want investments in future risk area’s and the window to sell is going to be shrinking pretty quick this next decade or so.

3031

‘Modelling shows move to 100% renewable energy would save Australia money’:

Transitioning Australia to 100% renewable energy by 2050 would cost less than continuing on the current path, according to a new report.

Building the infrastructure to supply renewable energy for all electricity, transport and industry would cost about $800bn between now and 2050, the report from the institute for sustainable futures at the University of Technology Sydney, found.

That’s about $650bn more than continuing with the status quo. But by removing the need for fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil, it would save the economy up to $740bn, saving $90bn over the period to 2050, the report found.

Fuel cost savings would cover 110% of the capital investment needed to transition the economy.

The report is the first comprehensive modelling study to examine a scenario where not just electricity, but also all transport and heat used by industry, is transitioned to 100% renewable energy in Australia. It uses a model developed by the German Aerospace Agency and Greenpeace, which was relied on to help inform how Germany would implement its 80% renewable target for 2050, and by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for some of its scenario testing.

Commissioned by GetUp and Solar Citizens, it examines three scenarios for Australia’s energy system.

The first is based on a continuation of current policies and government forecasts, in which coal, gas and other fossil fuels continue to be used. The second scenario sees electricity generation is almost completely transitioned to renewable energy by 2030, but gas and oil continue to be used for heat and transport.

In the third scenario electricity generation is completely transitioned to renewable energy by 2030, and all transport and heat used in industry are transitioned by 2050. Renewable synthetic fuels replace fossil fuels in some cases where electrification is difficult, such as air travel and long distance freight.

Since many of Australia’s coal-fired power stations are ageing, the first scenario requires considerable infrastructure investment, with $150bn being spent by 2050. Almost half that would be spent on infrastructure for fossil fuel-based electricity generation.

The model suggests that both renewable scenarios become cheaper than the status quo as early as 2020.

3032

BP, a classic Big Oil villain:

'EU dropped climate policies after BP threat of oil industry ‘exodus’:

3033

‘Coral bleaching spreads from Great Barrier Reef to Western Australia’:

The global coral bleaching event devastating the Great Barrier Reef has spread to reefs in Western Australia, where the federal government halted the implementation of marine parks, which would help the reefs recover.

In light of worsening bleaching, the Greens have called on the government to urgently implement the marine reserves, which were created in 2012, but were effectively abandoned by the Coalition when elected.

Greens senator Rachel Siewert put on notice a motion calling on the government to “make the marine parks operational without further delay” and to “commit adequate funding for management, buyout and education”.

Bleaching has been recorded at reefs between Darwin and Broome, as well as Browse Island. Other reports emerging from Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims) surveys have revealed bleaching at sites along the Kimberley coast, and further off-shore at Christmas Island, Cocos Island and Seringapatam Reef.

The latest reports show that between 60% and 90% of coral at the renowned and isolated Scott Reef have been bleached in water as deep as 15m. Scientists there say widespread coral death has been seen already.

Karen Miller, a program leader and researcher at Aims said the bleaching at Scott reef is the worst they have ever seen, even worse than the severe bleaching that smashed the reef in 1998.

3034

Wikipedia says that some coral bleaching can be recovered from fairly quickly and can actually rejuvenate reefs. Other times its replaced by oxygen-sucking algae. Hopefully researchers are on what causes the latter and in this case the former will happen.

3035

Some good news on earth day!

Paris Climate Deal Signed

3036

I had to laugh when Obama’s headline on Facebook said that this was the result of American leadership. That is almost the opposite of true.

3037

Well just thank god there is atleast now recognition from US government that climate change is actually a thing! That might give us a chance for human survival beyond the next few hundred years :)

3038

No it’s not. American leadership in the negotiations made it happen. At least in large part. The fact that there are issues implementing it in the US (currently) does not diminish the US role in creating the pact.

3039

'Rise in CO2 has ‘greened Planet Earth’:

A new study says that if the extra green leaves prompted by rising CO2 levels were laid in a carpet, it would cover twice the continental USA.

Climate sceptics argue the findings show that the extra CO2 is actually benefiting the planet.

But the researchers say the fertilisation effect diminishes over time.

They warn the positives of CO2 are likely to be outweighed by the negatives.

The lead author, Prof Ranga Myneni from Boston University, told BBC News the extra tree growth would not compensate for global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, the loss of Arctic sea ice, and the prediction of more severe tropical storms.

The new study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change by a team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries.

It is called Greening of the Earth and its Drivers, and it is based on data from the Modis and AVHRR instruments which have been carried on American satellites over the past 33 years.The sensors show significant greening of something between 25% and 50% of the Earth’s vegetated land, which in turn is slowing the pace of climate change as the plants are drawing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Just 4% of vegetated land has suffered from plant loss.

This is in line with the Gaia thesis promoted by the maverick scientist James Lovelock who proposed that the atmosphere, rocks, seas and plants work together as a self-regulating organism. Mainstream science calls such mechanisms “feedbacks”.

The scientists say several factors play a part in the plant boom, including climate change (8%), more nitrogen in the environment (9%), and shifts in land management (4%).

But the main factor, they say, is plants using extra CO2 from human society to fertilise their growth (70%).

Harnessing energy from the sun, green leaves grow by using CO2, water, and nutrients from soil.

“The greening reported in this study has the ability to fundamentally change the cycling of water and carbon in the climate system,” said a lead author Dr Zaichun Zhu, from Peking University, Beijing, China.

The authors note that the beneficial aspect of CO2 fertilisation have previously been cited by contrarians to argue that carbon emissions need not be reduced.

Co-author Dr Philippe Ciais, from the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in Gif-sur‑Yvette, France (also an IPCC author), said: "The fallacy of the contrarian argument is two-fold. First, the many negative aspects of climate change are not acknowledged.

“Second, studies have shown that plants acclimatise to rising CO2 concentration and the fertilisation effect diminishes over time.” Future growth is also limited by other factors, such as lack of water or nutrients.

A co-author Prof Pierre Friedlingstein, from Exeter University, UK, told BBC News that carbon uptake from plants was factored into Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models, but was one of the main sources of uncertainty in future climate forecasts.

Warming the Earth releases CO2 by increasing decomposition of soil organic matter, thawing of permafrost, drying of soils, and reduced photosynthesis - potentially leading to tropical vegetation dieback.

He said: "Carbon sinks (such as forests, where carbon is stored) would become sources if carbon loss from warming becomes larger than carbon gain from fertilisation.

“But we can’t be certain yet when that would happen. Hopefully, the world will follow the Paris agreement objectives and limit warming below 2C.”

3040

Resettling the First American ‘Climate Refugees’

One of those grants, $48 million for Isle de Jean Charles, is something new: the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community struggling with the impacts of climate change. The divisions the effort has exposed and the logistical and moral dilemmas it has presented point up in microcosm the massive problems the world could face in the coming decades as it confronts a new category of displaced people who have become known as climate refugees.

-Todd

3041

And Elon Musk spells it out plainly:

Elon Musk: ‘We need a revolt against the fossil fuel industry’:

Tesla’s chief executive Elon Musk has accused politicians of bowing to the “unrelenting and enormous” lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry, warning that a global “revolt” may be needed to accelerate the transition to more sustainable energy and transport systems.

Speaking at the World Energy Innovation Forum at the Tesla Factory in California on Wednesday, Musk claimed that traditional vehicles and energy sources will continue to hold a competitive edge against greener alternatives due to the vast amounts of subsidies they receive.

The solution to this energy dilemma, Musk says, is to introduce a price on carbon by defining a tax rate on greenhouse gas emissions or the carbon content of fossil fuels.

“The fundamental issue with fossil fuels is that every use comes with a subsidy,” Musk said. “Every gasoline car on the road has a subsidy, and the right way to address that is with a carbon tax.”

“Politicians take the easy path of providing subsidies to electric vehicles, which aren’t equal to the applied subsidies of gasoline vehicles. It weakens the economic forcing function to transition to sustainable transport and energy.”

While reiterating these calls for a robust carbon tax, Musk acknowledged that introducing the concept would be “hugely and politically difficult - especially when you have enormous lobbying power on behalf of the fossil fuel industry”. The business magnate therefore believes that educating the public on climate issues will be essential in reeling back the fossil fuel industry’s influence over big political decisions – which has already led to European climate policies being dropped over fears of a mass exodus.

“It is quite worrying, the future of the world,” he added. “We need to appeal to the people and educate them to sort of revolt against this and to fight the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry which is unrelenting and enormous.”

3042

‘The time has come to turn up the heat on those who are wrecking planet Earth’:

An interesting question is, what are you waiting for?

Global warming is the biggest problem we’ve ever faced as a civilisation — certainly you want to act to slow it down, but perhaps you’ve been waiting for just the right moment.

The moment when, oh, marine biologists across the Pacific begin weeping in their scuba masks as they dive on reefs bleached of life in a matter of days. The moment when drought in India gets deep enough that there are armed guards on dams to prevent the theft of water. The moment when we record the hottest month ever measured on the planet, and then smash that record the next month, and then smash that record the next month? The moment when scientists reassessing the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet have what one calls an ‘OMG moment’ and start talking about massive sea level rise in the next 30 years?

That would be this moment – the moment when 135 children have drowned in Thailand trying to cool off from the worst heatwave on record there. The moment when, in a matter of months, we’ve recorded the highest windspeeds ever measured in the western and southern hemispheres.

For years people have patiently and gently tried to nudge us on to a new path for dealing with our climate and energy troubles – we’ve had international conferences and countless symposia and lots and lots and lots of websites. And it’s sort of worked—the world met in Paris last December and announced it would like to hold temperature increases to 1.5C or less. Celebration ensued. But what also ensued was February, when the planet’s temperature first broke through that 1.5C barrier. And as people looked past the rhetoric, they saw that the promises made in Paris would add up to a world 3.5C warmer—an impossible world. The world we’re starting to see take shape around us.