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In our top story today, reactions to a UN report analysing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) from countries around the world. The findings show the world needs to show much more ambition if we are to keep warming well below two degrees by 2100. The good news is that pressure is building to do just that.
 
In other news:
  • An Australian farming family has been recording rainfall for the last 100 years and noticed a trend;
  • Australia hasn’t been recording methane emissions that come from gas extraction and processing, increasing the emission count significantly;
  • Experienced climatologist Michael Mann is hopeful the world is at a turning point on climate action;
  • Including externalities like the social cost of pollution increases the cost of using fossil fuels as the USA reinstates this measure;
  • Bitcoin sounds like a waste of energy;
  • Three ways to ensure equitable vaccination;
  • Changing how research is conducted through ‘sustainability science’;
  • The importance of urban trees; and
  • The balancing act of reducing private vehicle emissions.
 
 

Top Story

 
New UN Climate Report Puts the World on ‘Red Alert’ for Climate Catastrophe | Gizmodo
Leading climate scientists are freaking out. That’s a clear takeaway from the latest report commissioned by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the international body that represents the 197 signatories of the Paris Climate Agreement, which was released Friday. The study, called the Initial NDC Synthesis Report, measures countries’ progress on their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), or their plans to meet the Paris Climate Accord’s goal of keeping global temperature rise “well below” a 2-degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) increase over pre-industrial levels. Those pledges, the authors write, fall far short of the transformative changes needed to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
See also:
The sunset is pictured as steam rises from the chimneys of Niederaussen lignite-fired power plant in Roggendorf, western Germany on November 8, 2019. (Photo: Federico Gambarini / dpa / AFP, Getty Images)
 
 

Climate Crisis

 
Family honoured for 100 years of service to Bureau of Meteorology say past 10 years one of the driest | ABC News
A Queensland family honoured for 100 years of service to the Bureau of Meteorology as rain observers say the past 10 years have been the driest on record. Overlooking the old family farmhouse on Gerard Walsh's farm is a hill covered in hundreds of dead ironbarks. "Two years ago, they would have all been alive and flourishing. Basically every tree has died," Mr Walsh said. Across all of 2019, his property at Greymare in southern Queensland recorded just 144 millimetres of rain — the driest in 100 years. "Certainly the rainfall has changed, all for the lesser," Mr Walsh said.

Hundreds of ironbark trees have died on the Walsh farm.(ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris)
 
 

Climate Action

 
Australia pumped out an extra six months' worth of emissions than previously recorded | The Guardian
AUSTRALIA - The Australian government has acknowledged it previously underestimated the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and has increased the official estimate for every year on record. Revised data in the latest quarterly emissions update shows Australia pumped out the equivalent of 272.5m more tonnes of heat-trapping gas between 2000 and 2020 than suggested in the last report three months ago.
 
Strong climate targets make strong friendships, Fiji tells Australia | Sydney Morning Herald
FIJI - Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has called on Australia to increase its emissions reductions goals after a United Nations report showing that despite new commitments the world is still on track for devastating global warming. “We’ll be watching major players like the US, China, and Australia with bated breath,” Mr Bainimarama told the Herald and The Age. “Strong commitments will make strong friendships among climate-vulnerable Pacific Islanders ... To anyone who may think that Australia is too small to make a real difference, there are a number of small island states in your backyard that beg to differ,” he said, adding that renewed climate ambition by the US was an opportunity to increase global action.
 
Denmark’s climate policies 'insufficient' to meet 2030 emissions target | The Guardian
DENMARK - The Danish government’s efforts towards meeting the country’s ambitious target of reducing emissions by 70% by 2030 have been judged “insufficient” by the body tasked with monitoring its progress, with measures so far announced only likely to take it a third of the way… “This is an important first step, but from this, it cannot be deduced that we have now met a third of the challenge,” the report warns, noting that as the country has started with “low-hanging fruit”, all remaining reductions would be more difficult to achieve… After the environment unexpectedly became the hottest campaigning issue in Denmark’s 2019 election, the winning Social Democrats and its support parties agreed on the 70% reduction target.
See also:  
Climatologist Michael E Mann: 'Good people fall victim to doomism. I do too sometimes' | The Guardian (Book talk)
Michael E Mann is one of the world’s most influential climate scientists. He rose to prominence in 1999 as the co-author of the “hockey-stick graph”, which showed the sharp rise in global temperatures since the industrial age. This was the clearest evidence anyone had provided of the link between human emissions and global warming. This made him a target. He and other scientists have been subject to “climategate” email hacking, personal abuse and online trolling. In his new book, The New Climate War, he argues the tide may finally be turning in a hopeful direction.
 
 

Environment and Biodiversity

 
High hopes: the satellite network building the ‘internet of animals’ | Sydney Morning Herald
In the northern autumn of 2020, teams of scientists began fanning out across the globe to stalk and capture thousands of other creatures – rhinos in South Africa, blackbirds in France, fruit bats in Zambia – to outfit them with an array of tracking devices that can run on solar energy and weigh less than five grams. The data they collect will stream into an ambitious new project, two decades in the making and costing tens of millions of dollars, called the International Co-operation for Animal Research Using Space, or ICARUS, project. Each tag will collect data on its wearer’s position, physiology and microclimate, sending it to a receiver on the International Space Station, which will beam it back down to computers on the ground. This will allow scientists to track the collective movements of wild creatures roaming the planet in ways technically unimaginable until recently: continuously, over the course of their lifetimes and nearly anywhere on Earth they may go.
 
Ecological damage caused by dingo fence can be seen from space | ABC News
AUSTRALIA - Australia's dingo fence is one of the world's longest structures and researchers at the University of New South Wales have been observing it from space for more than three decades. Built in the 1800s, the fence was made to keep livestock safe and away from dingoes in the relatively fertile south-east corner of Australia. But it is not the structure itself that has caught the eyes of Mike Letnic and Adrian Fisher, it is the stark difference in vegetation that is occurring on each side of the fence.

More vegetation was found on the side of the fence where dingoes inhabit. (Supplied: Nick Chu)
 
Endangered animals on Kangaroo Island protected by new refuge | ABC News
AUSTRALIA - A wildlife refuge to protect some of Australia's most endangered animals has opened on Kangaroo Island. The Western River Refuge spans almost 370 hectares and is ringed by a six-foot tall electric fence to provide a safe habitat for vulnerable species, including the critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart.

The Kangaroo Island dunnart was considered endangered before last summer's bushfires.(Supplied: Australian Wildlife Conservancy)
 
 

Economy and Business

 
'Hidden cost’ of energy and transport could add up to $25 trillion, research estimates | The Independent
The “hidden cost” of our largely fossil fuel-based energy and transport systems could add up to around $25 trillion (£18 trillion) – the equivalent of more than a quarter of the world’s entire economic output. That’s according to new research, which estimates the hidden environmental, social and health costs associated with different forms of transport and electricity generation. There are many “hidden costs” associated with these systems, which occur from production to end use by humans, the researchers say. For example, the burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation not only drives damaging climate impacts such as more frequent and severe extreme weather events, but also deadly air pollution.
Related:
The hidden costs of different types of electricity generation, including biomass (bio), coal, hydrogen (fuel cell), gas, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, oil, solar power (PV), solar thermal, energy from waste and wind power. Sovacool et al. (2021)
 
White House restores key climate measure calculating carbon's harm | Reuters
USA - The White House on Friday announced a major change in how the federal government will calculate and weigh the cost of climate change in its permitting, investment and regulatory decisions with a move to restore the “social cost of greenhouse gases,” which had been slashed under the Trump administration.
 
How Bitcoin's vast energy use could burst its bubble | BBC News
We've all heard the stories of Bitcoin millionaires. Elon Musk is the latest. His electric car company Tesla made a paper profit of more than $900m (£646m) after buying $1.5bn (£1bn) -worth of the cryptocurrency in early February. Its high profile support helped pushed the price of a single Bitcoin to more than $58,000. But it isn't just the digital asset's price that has hit an all-time high. So has its energy footprint. And that's caused blowback for Mr Musk, as the scale of the currency's environmental impact becomes clearer… as Bitcoin gets more valuable, the computing effort expended on creating and maintaining it - and therefore the energy consumed - inevitably increases… And this vast computational effort is the cryptocurrency's Achilles heel, says Alex de Vries, the founder of the Digiconomist website and an expert on Bitcoin.
 
'A disgrace’: Luxury housing plans threaten Cambodia’s Bokor National Park | Mongabay
CAMBODIA - Bokor National Park, also known as Preah Monivong Bokor National Park, sits on the southern coast of Cambodia and is a refuge for many threatened plants and animals, as well as a popular tourist site. But conservationists warn Bokor’s habitat is under threat from the development of luxury residential estates that are planned to occupy 19,000 hectares inside the park. The park gained official protected status in 1993, yet was awarded to Cambodian tycoon Sok Kong in 2007 as a 99-year concession for $1 billion. In the intervening years, Kong’s company has developed an access road, luxury hotels and condominiums in Bokor. Meanwhile sources say international and local NGOs, which ordinarily play a meaningful role in preventing widespread forest loss in Cambodia, have been muzzled in the country.
 
 

Waste and the Circular Economy

 
Victoria to ban single-use plastics including straws, cutlery and plates by 2023 | ABC News
AUSTRALIA - Victoria will ban certain single-use plastics by 2023 in a bid to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, however the hospitality industry has warned consumers may face a hit to the hip pocket to accommodate the measures. Plastic straws, cutlery, plates, drink stirrers, polystyrene food and drink containers, and plastic cotton bud sticks are the specific items getting phased out, the state government announced today.
 
'Stormy Fruit' provides a ray of sunshine from Motueka hailstorm | Stuff
NEW ZEALAND - A Nelson apple company is hoping its new product will bring a ray of light out of the gloom brought on by the Boxing Day Hailstorm. Over the weekend Golden Bay Fruit launched its new “Stormy Fruit” brand, comprised of apples which suffered cosmetic damage in the hailstorm but were otherwise unaffected. Golden Bay Fruit chief executive Heath Wilkins said while the company had been mulling over the concept for several years – the hailstorm had significantly increased the amount of fruit that would fall into the new product line.

Golden Bay Fruit launched its new “Stormy Fruit” brand at the end of February, made up of fruit affected by the Boxing Day hailstorm in Motueka. Credit: Golden Bay Fruit/Supplied
 
 

Politics and Society

 
3 ways to vaccinate the world and make sure everyone benefits, rich and poor | The Conversation
A study in mid-November analysed commitments to buy 7.48 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Just over half will go to the 14% of the world’s population who live in high-income countries. It’s estimated most high-income countries will achieve widespread vaccination coverage by the end of 2021. Most middle-income countries will not achieve this until mid- to late 2022, while the world’s poorest countries, including almost every country in Africa and some in our own Asia-Pacific region, will have to wait until 2023. This inequality is clearly a moral outrage. But it is also a surefire way to perpetuate the pandemic’s devastating health, social and economic impacts on the whole world.
Related:  
Changing the way we conduct research: advocating for sustainability science | The Conversation
The recent advent of “sustainability science” is a sign of a radical change in the construction of new knowledge systems. A defining feature of this approach is that research problems are anchored in addressing real-world problems, rather than in the sole dynamics of the scientific disciplines involved. The aim is to promote interdisciplinary knowledge, built jointly by scientists and stakeholders in society, in an effort to move beyond disciplinary interests. This approach is still marginal, especially in France, but is essential to gaining a better understanding of the complexity of the modern world and finding more comprehensive solutions to the economic, social and environmental challenges facing our societies.
 
Climate campaign teens prepare for court battle with minister over coal expansion | Sydney Morning Herald
AUSTRALIA - Anjali Sharma first felt a sick sense of climate-related dread in the pit of her stomach when she was a primary school student. Keen to find out more about climate change, the 16-year-old watched an online video that warned Earth only had eight years before it reached a tipping point, triggering an irreversible chain of environmental damage… Now she is the lead claimant in a group of eight teenagers from across Australia driving a landmark class action that begins in the Federal Court in Melbourne on Tuesday. The teenagers are supported by 86-year-old Brigidine nun Sister Brigid Arthur, who is acting as their “litigation guardian” because they are under 18.
 
WA election changes the conversation on climate change | ABC News
AUSTRALIA - On a packed, sun-drenched oval at the University of Western Australia's "O Day", thousands of boisterous first-year students wander excitedly from stall to stall, signing up for as much fun as possible... But, pressed on what they care about as the election draws closer, almost all of the students who spoke to the ABC turn a little more serious, nominating "secure jobs" and "climate change" as two of the most important issues… That brings us to one of the more remarkable aspects of the highly unusual election campaign unfolding in the west. The WA Liberal opposition stunned just about everyone when it departed from the party's traditional non-committal stance on climate change and vowed to close coal-fired power stations within four years, setting a target for Government to reach net zero emissions by 2030.
 
 

Energy

 
The end of the NEM as we know it | RenewEconomy
AUSTRALIA - When the Victorian Government announced it was creating VicGrid, a new entity that will be responsible for the connection of renewable energy, it reinforced how impatient many states and territories have become and chosen to ‘go it alone’ when it came to clean energy… The pressure to accommodate the growth of renewables on the grid has gained further momentum in the last 12 months. From plans for New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria to create Renewable Energy Zones (REZ) to support regions that have a high potential for renewables, to the ambitious NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap that looks to reduce carbon emissions from energy by 90 million tonnes by 2030.
 
Thousands of homes to be heated by first-of-its-kind ‘poo-power’ system | The Independent
UK - Thousands of homes could soon be heated by human waste in a first-of-its-kind “poo-power” system. Thames Water plans to use excess heat recovered from the sewage treatment process to warm more than 2,000 new homes in Kingston, southwest London as part of a regeneration plan. Rather than returning all of the final treated warm water directly to a river, about one-third will be captured and sent to a new energy centre at the company’s Hogsmill site, where it will help heat water connected to Kingston’s Cambridge Road housing estate. If successful, up to seven gigawatt hours of low-carbon heat per year could be supplied by a sealed network of pipes to the district heating system at the estate when it is eventually regenerated.
 
 

Built Environment

 
Look up! A powerful owl could be sleeping in your backyard after a night surveying kilometres of territory | The Conversation
AUSTRALIA - We strapped tracking devices to 20 powerful owls in Melbourne for our new research, and learned these apex predators are increasingly choosing to sleep in urban areas, from backyard trees to city parks. These respite areas are critical for species to survive in challenging urban environments because, just like for humans, rest is an essential behaviour to conserve energy for the day (or night) ahead. Our research highlights the importance of trees on both public and private land for wild animals. Without an understanding of where urban wildlife rests, we risk damaging these urban habitats with encroaching development.

The classic ‘surprised’ powerful owl expression at a roost. Nick Bradsworth
 
SUVs and extra traffic cancelling out electric car gains in Britain | The Guardian
UK - Carbon emissions from passenger cars across Britain have fallen by just 1% since 2011, despite a steep rise in the sale of electric and hybrid vehicles, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has said. The National Audit Office said the popularity of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and an increase in road traffic were among factors that have cancelled out expected reductions from low-emission car sales. Its report concludes that the government has a long way to go to achieve its target for almost all cars to emit no carbon by 2050.
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