Good morning <<First Name>>
In today’s top story, a poll finds Australian’s are more concerned about climate change than catching Covid-19 and this concern has increased since the last time the poll was conducted. In related news, a New Zealand poll finds overwhelming support for local government to ramp up climate action and, in the UK, a poll finds climate concern has not been diminished by the pandemic.
In other news:
- The outgoing secretary general of the OECD says we need a price on carbon and "... today, if you are not green, it probably means you died and no one told you”;
- The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, endorses a report by the UN environment programme saying "...making peace with nature, securing its health and building on the critical and undervalued benefits that it provides are key to a prosperous and sustainable future for all";
- Logging is set to resume in burnt forest of the South Coast, NSW, under the same rules as before the Black Summer fires;
- The latest report on the Great Barrier Reef confirms it is still in poor condition;
- Western Australian government burns are destroying biodiverse peatlands;
- Some of the world’s largest banks are on board with developing a credible pathway to a net zero banking sector;
- An Amazon pledge to get to net zero by 2040 has been joined by 20 other companies;
- Getting involved in citizen science is not only good for science, it educates and motivates action to protect the environment;
- Why Australia needs to think about encouraging EV uptake; and
- Technologies that can help produce food.
Top Story
Australians fear climate change more than catching Covid, survey shows | The Guardian
AUSTRALIA - A new survey has found Australians are more afraid of climate change than catching Covid-19 – and they want government to do something about it. The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer asked 1,350 Australians questions on a range of topics between October and November 2020. While the survey found that Australians were most immediately concerned with job security after the pandemic, climate change ranked as the second biggest issue of concern – even above risks posed by the pandemic itself.
Related:
After a horror year of bushfires and coronavirus lockdowns, a survey has found Australians are more worried about the effects of climate change than catching Covid-19. Photograph: Sandra Sanders/Reuters
Climate Crisis
White House says severe winter storm likely due to climate change | Reuters
USA - The White House on Thursday said a severe winter storm engulfing Texas and other states was the type of extreme weather event that climate change is triggering and proof that “we’re not adequately prepared for it.” White House homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall said 1 million or more people are still experiencing power outages as a result of the storm that has engulfed Texas and other areas of the United States.
Related:
Climate Action
Barnaby Joyce's call to allow Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in coal rejected by Frydenberg | The Guardian
AUSTRALIA - The deputy Liberal leader, Josh Frydenberg, has rejected Barnaby Joyce’s call to allow the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in coal in a bid to slap down a growing Nationals revolt. The Morrison government has deferred the looming internal brawl on coal by removing its own bill from the daily program, but on Wednesday more Nationals came out in support of the Joyce amendment and Liberal Craig Kelly said he would consider it.
'Put a big fat price on carbon': OECD chief bows out with climate rally cry | The Guardian
The environment, climate change and the protection of nature must be the defining tasks of rich and major developing countries now and in the years to come, the outgoing head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has said, and the institutions that advise governments must take responsibility for keeping them focused on those tasks. Ángel Gurría said the coronavirus crisis must be dealt with as a matter of urgency, but that the biggest task after that would be tackling the world’s environmental emergencies.
See also:
World must ‘transform relationship with nature’ to tackle burgeoning environmental crises, says UN | The Independent
The world must transform its relationship with nature to tackle its worsening environmental crises, a new UN report urges. The report, published by the UN environment programme, warned that millions of people now die each year as a result of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and pollution. The three crises are inextricably linked and so must be fought together, the report said, with the economic recovery from the Covid pandemic providing an “unmissable opportunity” to face up to the challenge.
See also:
Facebook tests climate change myth-busting labels on posts in the UK | Belfast Telegraph
UK - Facebook users in the UK will be first to see information labels on posts about climate change, the social network has announced. The move is part of a wider effort by the tech giant to debunk climate myths and to promote more facts from leading environment specialists on Facebook’s existing knowledge hub. Labels will direct people to the Climate Science Information Centre section of the platform, starting as a “small test” on posts in the UK before rolling out to other countries.
Environment and Biodiversity
State government agencies at war over logging forests ruined by fire | Sydney Morning Herald
AUSTRALIA - Pressure to maintain wood supply contracts set before bushfires swept through the state’s forests is behind new tensions between the state-owned logger and the environmental watchdog, internal documents suggest. On Wednesday the Environment Protection Authority revealed Forestry Corp had notified that it intended to resume logging in the South Coast forests under the same rules that existed before the fires, breaking an agreement between the two agencies to abide by new conditions after the fires. The EPA responded that it intended to increase its surveillance of Forestry Corp logging operations, and it is understood to have also taken outside legal advice.
Conservation activists Joslyn van der Moolen and Nick Hopkins measure the girth of the known tallest spotted gum in the South Brooman State Forest in NSW. The area was burnt by bushfires last summer but it is still being logged. Credit: Janie Barrett
Great Barrier Reef found to be in failing health as world heritage review looms | The Guardian
AUSTRALIA - A government report card has found the marine environment along the Great Barrier Reef’s coastline remains in poor health, prompting conservationists to call for urgent action ahead of a world heritage committee meeting this year. The reef water quality report card, released on Wednesday, said the health of corals and seagrass meadows in inshore areas had not improved, but water quality was slightly better than previous years. Officials gave the condition of the marine environment in 2019 a “D” grade relative to reports covering 2017 and 2018.
Dead, sick baby turtles wash up on central Queensland beaches after eating plastic | ABC News
Dead and sick baby turtles are washing up on Capricorn Coast beaches in numbers never seen before by researchers, after swallowing plastic. The Department of Environment (DES) said an "unusually large number" of weeks old flatback turtles have been found on the west coast of Keppel Bay. Chief Scientific Officer Col Limpus said fragments of floating hard plastics and soft plastics had been found in the post-hatchling turtles.
Don’t disturb the cockatoos on your lawn, they’re probably doing all your weeding for free | The Conversation
AUSTRALIA - Australians have a love-hate relationship with sulphur-crested cockatoos, Cacatua galerita. For some, the noisy parrots are pests that destroy crops or the garden, damage homes and pull up turf at sports ovals. For others, they’re a bunch of larrikins who love to play and are quintessentially Australian. Along with other scientists, I had a unique opportunity during the COVID-19 lockdowns to study things that had intrigued me closer to home, perhaps for years. While isolating in the suburbs of Melbourne, I wanted to find out why cockatoos return to the same places, and what they’re after. The answer? Onion grass, reams of it.
Sulphur-crested cockatoos nest in old hollow trees. Shutterstock
Increasing land use could turn Mount Kilimanjaro into an ecological island | The Conversation
Nowadays, Mount Kilimanjaro is almost completely surrounded by developed areas that include wheat farms, commercial sugar cane plantations and rice paddies. There are also smallholder farms all around and growing, built-up settlements. This means the mountain’s ecosystem is at risk of turning into an “ecological island”, entirely surrounded by cultivation and development. When natural habitats are isolated in this way, species are less able to migrate, leading to less genetic variation and diversity. Less genetic variation makes ecosystems more vulnerable during environmental changes. Diversity increases the ability to adapt. For instance, if there’s a warming event some plants or animals might not survive and others might.
A herd of elephants walk in front of Mount Kilimanjaro in Amboseli National Park. Photo by Carl De Souza/AFP via Getty Images
Fires
Are we burning in ignorance? | ABC News
AUSTRALIA - Botanist Joanna Young strides across an unrecognisable, charred moonscape-like patch of dirt. With every step, a billow of dust is picked up by her boots. The area Dr Young is touring is a destroyed peat swamp in the heart of the Walpole Wilderness area, about 40km north of Denmark, WA. Scientists estimate this peat swamp to be more than 5,000 years old. Until recently, they believe, it would have been abundant with endemic species of flora and fauna. But in November 2019, it was destroyed during a broadscale prescribed burn conducted by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA).
Economy and Business
HSBC, Barclays, NatWest join Prince of Wales' net zero banking task force | BusinessGreen
CEOs from a raft of the world's largest banks have joined together in a new task force convened by the Prince of Wales to "work on meaningful and actionable plans to accelerate the world's transition to a sustainable future", with a view to defining a "credible pathway" to a net zero banking sector. Spearheaded by the Prince of Wales' Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) - a network of global business leaders established last year - the Financial Services Task Force (FSTF) includes top executives from HSBC, BNP Paribas, Barclays, NatWest, Bank of America, and many others.
Fed's Brainard: Financial firms should start addressing climate risk now | Reuters
USA - Uncertainty about the impact climate change may have on the financial system should not prevent financial firms and their supervisors from moving now to prepare for the shocks to come, a key Federal Reserve policymaker said on Thursday. Fed Governor Lael Brainard, in remarks to an Institute of International Finance forum on the move to a low-carbon economy, said financial firms faced risks not just from weather-related disasters, but also potentially fast changes in asset prices if and when government policies change.
Amazon's Climate Pledge gains 20 members, including two based in Seattle | Phys.org
IBM and 19 other companies have joined Amazon's Climate Pledge, committing to neutralize their carbon emissions, Amazon announced Wednesday. The new signatories include Seattle-based companies MiiR, the upscale thermos manufacturer, and consulting group Slalom. All told, 53 companies have now signed the Climate Pledge. Members agree to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize their businesses, and purchase offsets to bring their total carbon emissions to zero by 2040.
Politics and Society
To fix the culture in Canberra, we need to take a sledgehammer to male privilege | The Conversation
AUSTRALIA - As the government looks for ways to address the toxicity of Australia’s parliament for the women who work there, it’s important to consider the underlying issue that pervades Australian politics: male privilege. In making public allegations of rape by a colleague, former parliamentary staffer Brittney Higgins identified what needs to be done to protect women in the future — a review of the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act and an independent body to handle complaints.
Our turtle program shows citizen science isn’t just great for data, it makes science feel personal | The Conversation
AUSTRALIA - Citizen science is ripe with benefits. Programs can involve hundreds, sometimes thousands, of volunteers who collect reliable, long-term and geographically widespread data. These people donate their time for a cause (or just for fun)… But we’ve found the benefits of citizen science extend well beyond data collection. In a new research paper, we show how our environmental citizen science program TurtleSAT is not only an important source of knowledge and skill development, but also influences participants’ attitudes and behaviours towards the environment… You can search for citizen science programs through the Australian Citizen Science Project Finder.
A large freshwater turtle in Queensland. Citizen scientists throughout the country are learning to record turtle sightings and stopping turtles dying on roads or from predators. TurtleSAT
NZ tourism can use the disruption of COVID-19 to drive sustainable change — and be more competitive | The Conversation
NEW ZEALAND - The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s second tourism report urges the government to take advantage of the disruption caused by COVID-19 to transform the tourism industry. Titled “Not 100% – but four steps closer to sustainable tourism”, it builds on commissioner Simon Upton’s 2019 “Pristine, popular … imperilled?” report and presents four detailed policy proposals intended to shift the tourism sector from a volume/demand model to a sustainability model.
See also:
'Matter of urgency': Industry groups urge Ministers to 'fix' Green Homes Grant Scheme | BusinessGreen
UK - Solar energy groups, energy efficiency installers, and landlords have joined the growing chorus of calls for the government to fix "administrative failings" in the beleaguered Green Homes Grant scheme, warning ongoing problems risk damaging consumer and industry confidence in the UK's flagship retrofit programme.
Related:
Energy
Why India’s urban poor struggle to transition to clean cooking despite grave health impacts | The Conversation
INDIA - Fire has been essential for cooking since before the dawn of civilisation. In many places across the world, traditional methods – cooking on an open fire or stove – have been replaced by gas or electricity, yet continued use of solid biomass fuels in traditional stoves across the developing world is seriously affecting the health of people who are already vulnerable… While traditional use of biomass has been falling it is estimated that over 2.6 billion people globally still don’t have access to clean cooking. Almost 80% of people in sub-Saharan Africa rely on traditional biomass fuels to some extent, and in India that figure stands a little under 50%.
Built Environment
Australia risks being left behind in petrol-fuelled 'parallel world' as other countries embrace electric cars | The Guardian
AUSTRALIA - Australia risks being left in a “parallel world” with petrol cars as the rest of the world turns to electric vehicles in an effort reduce carbon emissions. As Ford announced that all its cars sold in Europe would be electric by 2030, industry experts warned Australia faces an uphill struggle to catch up with other nations in preparation for the phasing out of the internal combustion engine.
Related:
Food Systems
3 technologies poised to change food and the planet | The Conversation
Agriculture’s impact on the planet is massive and relentless. Roughly 40 per cent of the Earth’s surface is used for cropland and grazing. The number of domestic animals far outweighs remaining wild populations. Every day, more primary forest falls against a tide of crops and pasture and each year an area as large as the United Kingdom is lost. If humanity is to have a hope of addressing climate change, we must reimagine farming… To address these challenges, new technologies promise a greener approach to food production and focus on more plant-based, year-round, local and intensive production. Done right, three technologies — vertical, cellular and precision agriculture — can remake the relationship to land and food.
Hydroponic cucumbers can be grown indoors with LED lights. (Lenore Newman)
|
|
|
|
