Showing posts with label Great Barrier Reef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Barrier Reef. Show all posts
Monday 1 May 2017
Left unchecked the gas & coal mining sectors will be the death of the Great Artesian Basin and what is left of the Great Barrier Reef
According to an August 2016 Report Commissioned By The Australian Government And Great Artesian Basin Jurisdictions Based On Advice From The Great Artesian Basin Coordinating Committee the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is one of the largest underground freshwater reservoirs in the world. It underlies approximately 22% of Australia – occupying an area of over 1.7 million square kilometres beneath arid and semi-arid parts of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Approximately 70% of the GAB lies within Queensland…..
The first people to make use of GAB water were Indigenous tribes for whom it was critical to survival. Indeed, there is evidence that the GAB sustained Aboriginal people for thousands of years prior to European settlement.
The natural springs of the GAB provided a critical source of fresh water, and supported valuable food sources including birds, mammals, reptiles, crustaceans and insects, creating an abundant hunting ground for local tribes. The plants and trees around the artesian springs were used for food, medicine, materials and shelter.
The springs provided semi-permanent oases in the desert and supported trade and travel routes which evolved around them. The springs also played a key part in the spiritual and cultural beliefs of Aboriginal people. Ceremonies and other events were held at spring wetland areas which remain precious cultural and sacred sites. Numerous Creation stories feature a connection to groundwater.
This underground freshwater reservoir holds 65,000 million megalitres much of which fell as rain 1 to 2 million years ago, but not all of this water is in accessible layers.
For assessment purposes the GAB is divided into four regions – Carpentaria, Central Eromanga, Western Eromanga and the Surat Basin.
In 1878 the first bore was sunk to draw water from the Great Artesian Basin.
In modern Australia its economic values are shared by towns, agriculture, cattle & sheep grazing and industry/mining across the four basin regions.
The Courier map based on a 22 August 2016 report
The report points out that Water has historically been extracted from the GAB at a greater rate than recharge and this creates a problem for 21st Century Australia.
As the pressure in the GAB has declined and the water table drops, mound springs (where groundwater is pushed to the ground surface under pressure) have begun to dry up in South Australia and Queensland. Associated paperbark swamps and wetlands are also being lost and it gets more and more expensive to extract the groundwater for irrigation and other commercial applications.
On average, rates of groundwater extraction across Australia has increased by about 100 per cent between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, reflecting both the increased population size and commercial usage of groundwater stores.
Despite the strain on water resources, the gas and coal mining industries are allowed virtually unlimited water extraction from within the Great Artesian Basin and where the few limits are placed on extraction it is poorly policed by government agencies.
This is a graph of coal seam gas, conventional gas and petroleum industry water use 1995-2015:
Source:.DNRM 2016, p. 62.
The Adani Group’s most recent water licence for the Carmichael coal project issued in April 2017 allows it to take a virtually unlimited volume of groundwater each year for the next 60 years, plus surface water – with minimum oversight.
The Environmental Defender’s Office (Qld) states that: It is expected that Adani may require up to 9.5 billion litres of groundwater every year for the Carmichael project.
Poor management by Adani of its Abbot’s Point coal waste has already led to a smothering of the vibrant, nationally important Caley Wetlands with run-off via its estuarine system expected to reach adjacent waters of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
Satellite image of Caley Wetlands after emergency water release by Adani - now covered in coal waste.
A picture of the Abbot Point coal loading facility showing coal water run-off moving north-west into the wetlands and coal dust on the beaches. The Age, 12 April 2017, Photo: Dean Sewell
Coal dust on the beaches next to the Abbot Point coal loading facility Photo: Dean Sewell/Oculi
On 10 March 2015 ABC News reported:
Hundreds of square kilometres of prime agricultural land in southeast Queensland are at risk from a cocktail of toxic chemicals and explosive gases, according to a secret State Government report.
A study commissioned by Queensland's environment department says an experimental plant operated by mining company Linc Energy at Chinchilla, west of Brisbane, is to blame and has already caused "irreversible" damage to strategic cropping land.
The department, which has launched a $6.5 million criminal prosecution of the company, alleges Linc is responsible for "gross interference" to the health and wellbeing of former workers at the plant as well as "serious environmental harm".
The 335-page experts' report, obtained by the ABC, has been disclosed to Linc but not to landholders.
It says gases released by Linc's activities at its underground coal gasification plant at Hopeland have caused the permanent acidification of the soil near the site.
Experts also found concentrations of hydrogen in the soil at explosive levels and abnormal amounts of methane, which they say is being artificially generated underground, over a wide area.
The region is a fertile part of the Western Darling Downs and is used to grow wheat, barley and cotton and for cattle grazing, with some organic producers.
Other documents, released to the ABC by the magistrate in charge of the criminal case, show four departmental investigators were hospitalised with suspected gas poisoning during soil testing at the site in March.
"My nausea lasted for several hours. I was also informed by the treating doctor that my blood tests showed elevated carbon monoxide levels (above what was normal)," one of the investigators said.
High levels of cancer-causing benzene were detected at the site afterwards.
On 9 February 2017 ABC News was still reporting on the contamination:
Flammable levels of hydrogen have been found at a number of locations near the site of a controversial gas project that has been blamed for contaminating huge swathes of prime Queensland farm land.
The ABC understands an ongoing Environment Department investigation has confirmed that the contamination is much more widespread than previously thought.
The Queensland Government has dispatched Environment Department officers to the Hopeland community, near Chinchilla in the state's south, and is setting up a call centre to help explain the situation to landholders…..
Due to fears about possible hydrogen explosions, the Government has been enforcing a 314-square kilometre "excavation caution zone" around the Linc plant, with landholders banned from digging any hole deeper than two metres.
The ABC understands further investigation by the Environment Department has now found flammable levels of hydrogen at locations outside the current caution zone.
The hydrogen has been detected underground and the department says it dissipates quickly in the open air.
Government sources have stressed the gas is not of an explosive concentration but landholders will be encouraged to exercise caution.
Left unchecked the mining industry will bring the Great Artesian Basin closer to collapse.
It is not as if either federal or state governments ever fully realise the supposed financial gains allowing this environmental degradation was supposed to bring to their treasuries.
In 2007-08 the Australian Taxation Office released taxation data which showed that 68.8 per cent of all mining companies on its books paid no tax in that financial year. In 2009-10 the percentage of mining companies paying no tax had risen to 73.1 per cent and in in 2010-11 the percentage of mining companies paying no tax was 72.2 per cent. By 2013-14 a total of 60 per cent of publicly listed energy and resources companies did not pay tax and again in 2014-15 60 per cent of all energy and resources companies paid no tax.
Add to this the fact that Adani in Australia in estimated to have paid only 0.008 percent in tax on their total income in 2014-2015 and is structured in such a way that its tax burden is artificially lowered and a significant proportion of its profits move offshore to the Cayman Islands tax haven.
It isn’t hard to see a pattern developing here.
Maximum environmental, cultural, social and economic risk for Australia with minimal financial return on risk.
Tuesday 18 April 2017
"Zero prospect of recovery" for many sections of Australia's World Heritage Great Barrier Reef
James Cook University, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, media release, 10 April 2017:
Two-thirds of Great Barrier Reef hit by back-to-back mass coral bleaching
For the second time in just 12 months, scientists have recorded severe coral bleaching across huge tracts of the Great Barrier Reef after completing aerial surveys along its entire length. In 2016, bleaching was most severe in the northern third of the Reef, while one year on, the middle third has experienced the most intense coral bleaching.
“The combined impact of this back-to-back bleaching stretches for 1,500 km (900 miles), leaving only the southern third unscathed,” says Prof. Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, who undertook the aerial surveys in both 2016 and 2017.
“The bleaching is caused by record-breaking temperatures driven by global warming. This year, 2017, we are seeing mass bleaching, even without the assistance of El Niño conditions.”
The aerial surveys in 2017 covered more than 8,000 km (5,000 miles) and scored nearly 800 individual coral reefs closely matching the aerial surveys in 2016 that were carried out by the same two observers.
Dr. James Kerry, who also undertook the aerial surveys, explains further, “this is the fourth time the Great Barrier Reef has bleached severely – in 1998, 2002, 2016, and now in 2017. Bleached corals are not necessarily dead corals, but in the severe central region we anticipate high levels of coral loss.”
“It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest growing corals, so mass bleaching events 12 months apart offers zero prospect of recovery for reefs that were damaged in 2016.”
Coupled with the 2017 mass bleaching event, Tropical Cyclone Debbie struck a corridor of the Great Barrier Reef at the end of March. The intense, slow-moving system was likely to have caused varying levels of damage along a path up to 100 km in width. Any cooling effects related to the cyclone are likely to be negligible in relation to the damage it caused, which unfortunately struck a section of the reef that had largely escaped the worst of the bleaching.
“Clearly the reef is struggling with multiple impacts,” explains Prof. Hughes. “Without a doubt the most pressing of these is global warming. As temperatures continue to rise the corals will experience more and more of these events: 1°C of warming so far has already caused four events in the past 19 years.”
‘Ultimately, we need to cut carbon emissions, and the window to do so is rapidly closing.”
Not all data is shown, only reefs at either end of the bleaching spectrum: Red circles indicate reefs undergoing most severe bleaching (60% or more of visible corals bleaching) Green circles indicate reefs with no or only minimal bleaching (10% or less of corals bleaching).
Without doubt the most confronting research project I've ever done. Please act NOW to save the #GreatBarrierReef from climate change. pic.twitter.com/rVujRxoPeD— Terry Hughes (@ProfTerryHughes) April 10, 2017
Wednesday 21 December 2016
CCRAP and the Adani Group
Adani Mining Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of India's largest coal trader the Adani Group, intends to dig an enormous hole in the ground costing over $16 billion and the odd billion or two it can extract from gullible federal and state governments in Australia.
This hole known as the Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project will comprise six open-cut pits and five underground mines; supported by five mine infrastructure areas, a coal handling and processing plant, a heavy industrial area, water-supply infrastructure, 189-kilometres of rail line (Adani has applied for a $1 billion loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to build the rail link), as well as off-site infrastructure including a workers' accommodation village and airport.
All of this running roughly parallel with the Great Barrier Reef and the Abbott Point port required to ship all this coal overseas at considerable risk to fresh water security, coral sustainability and marine biodiversity.
To facilitate
its aim of environmental vandalism for corporate profit the Adani Group has registered the following
companies which are all currently operating out of an office tower in Eagle Street,
Brisbane:
Abbot Point
Operations Pty Ltd
Adani Abbot
Point Company Pty Ltd
Adani Abbot
Point Holding Trust
Adani Abbot
Point Terminal Holdings Pty Ltd
Adani Abbot
Point Terminal Pty Ltd
Adani
Australia Coal Terminal Finance Company Pty Ltd
Adani
Australia Coal Terminal Holdings Pty Ltd
Adani
Australia Coal Terminal Pty Ltd
Adani
Australia Company Pty Ltd
Adani
Australia Holding Trust
Adani
Minerals Pty Ltd
Adani Mining
Pty Ltd
Carmichael
Rail Finance Company Pty Ltd
Carmichael
Rail Holdings Pty Ltd
Carmichael
Rail Network Holdings Pty Ltd
Carmichael
Rail Network Holdings Trust
Carmichael
Rail Network Pty Ltd
Carmichael
Rail Network Trust
Carmichael
Rail Pty Ltd
Carmichael
Rail Pty Ltd
Galilee
Transmission Holdings Pty Ltd
Galilee
Transmission Holdings Trust
Galilee
Transmission Pty Ltd
Mundra Port
Holding Trust
Mundra Port
Holdings Pty Ltd
Mundra Port
Pty Ltd
Juice Media put this mocking video together to let the Adani family and the world know what many people in this country think of this mining scheme.
Thanks to Simon Chance for this link
Published on Dec 4, 2016
The Australian Government just released this advert about the proposed Carmichael Coal Mine and it's surprisingly honest and informative.
6 WAYS YOU CAN HELP STOP CCRAP:
1. Tell PM Malcolm Turnbull you don't want your tax dollars to be used to subsidise CCRAP: https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/gr...
2. Join GetUp!'s Fight for the Reef: https://fightforthereef.getup.org.au
3. Donate to the Wangan & Jagalingou defense fund: http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/donate
4. Follow the Wangan & Jagalingou on Facebook to keep up to date with the campaign to stop CCRAP on their lands: https://www.facebook.com/WanganandJag...
5. Find out more about the Wangain & Jagalingou traditional owners: http://wanganjagalingou.com.au
6. Share this video.☛ CREDITS: Written & created by Giordano. Performed by Matylda. Voice by Lucy. Thanks to Adso, Kajute, Miriam, Anthony, Adam, Benna, Damian, Dave and Dbot for helping out! Photos and Footage of Wangan & Jagalingou people used with permission from Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council. ☛ Please SUPPORT the Juice Media to help us make more videos: https://www.patreon.com/TheJuiceMedia
6 WAYS YOU CAN HELP STOP CCRAP:
1. Tell PM Malcolm Turnbull you don't want your tax dollars to be used to subsidise CCRAP: https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/gr...
2. Join GetUp!'s Fight for the Reef: https://fightforthereef.getup.org.au
3. Donate to the Wangan & Jagalingou defense fund: http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/donate
4. Follow the Wangan & Jagalingou on Facebook to keep up to date with the campaign to stop CCRAP on their lands: https://www.facebook.com/WanganandJag...
5. Find out more about the Wangain & Jagalingou traditional owners: http://wanganjagalingou.com.au
6. Share this video.☛ CREDITS: Written & created by Giordano. Performed by Matylda. Voice by Lucy. Thanks to Adso, Kajute, Miriam, Anthony, Adam, Benna, Damian, Dave and Dbot for helping out! Photos and Footage of Wangan & Jagalingou people used with permission from Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council. ☛ Please SUPPORT the Juice Media to help us make more videos: https://www.patreon.com/TheJuiceMedia
BACKGROUND
Financial
Review, 6
December 2016:
Challenges:
Finance – There
is a reason the Galilee Basin has been left undeveloped for the past 50 years.
For a start, it's close to 500 kilometres from ports on the coast, meaning
whoever is going to build the project has to outlay billions of dollars to get
the project built. And the quality of the coal is not as good as others in the
closer Bowen and Surat Basin.
India's Adani Group also
has to find $10 billion to finance the project. There are also questions raised
about whether the project is economically viable after a plunge in the coal
price following the end of the coal boom. But even though the price of thermal
coal has recovered to above $100 a tonne in recent months, it is less relevant
because Adani is using the coal for its own power stations rather than selling
to other customers. The Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis
director Tim Buckley – a vocal critic of the project – says Adani's
parent company is struggling with current market capitalisation of equity at
$US1.1 billion, against which it has net debts of $US2.4 billion.
Environmentalists – Adani's
Carmichael project has become the lightning rod for anti-fossil fuel activists
and environmentalists who want to stop the building of any new coal mines in
Australia. It also fits into the narrative about Australia's changing energy
mix – from one dominated by coal and gas to renewable energy such as wind and
solar. Environmentalists claim the extra coal exports will damage the
World Heritage-protected Great Barrier Reef, although it has received
environmental approval from both state and federal governments. As
the Turnbull government releases its 2017 climate review this week, the
argument over the Adani mega-mine also ties in with the debate about
whether Australia,- which has one of the largest emissions per capita,- should
be building another large coal mine that will release more greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere.
Well-funded and
media-savvy environmental groups have also been very effective in targeting
banks about lending to the Carmichael mine. Some banks, under pressure to make
sure they look like good corporate citizens, have promised not to lend to any
future coal mines.
Legal activism – One
of the reasons the project has been progressing at a snail's place the past
seven years is because environmental and Indigenous groups have used the legal
system to their advantage and challenged virtually every aspect of the project.
The mining lease, environmental authority, and native title have been
challenged by a range of parties, including the Australian Conservation
Foundation, little-known group Coast & Country as well as Indigenous group,
the Wangan and Jagalingou. They have successfully held up the project,
resulting in the former Abbott government threatening to change the laws to
make it harder to challenge big mining projects.
Last month, two
legal challenges were thrown out of court, leaving three appeals – two
before the full bench of the Federal Court over the Environmental Protection
and Biodiversity Act and native title, and there is also a judicial review of
Adani's port expansion at Abbot Point which has been brought by local
residents in the Whitsundays – before the project can be given the green
light.
Scandal – The Adani Group has been plagued by allegations of corruption surrounding its projects in India. Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani is one of India's richest men, whose personal wealth was valued at $7.1 billion in 2014 by Forbes magazine. There have been allegations of environmental vandalism in relation to the development of the Port of Mundra, which is owned by Adani, as well as claims of tax evasion. Adani's Australian chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj has also been dragged into the scandal by failing to disclose his history running a mining company in Africa that pleaded guilty to serious economic harm. So far, none of these allegations have failed to bring down any of Adani's executives, but it adds to the controversy over the project.
Scandal – The Adani Group has been plagued by allegations of corruption surrounding its projects in India. Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani is one of India's richest men, whose personal wealth was valued at $7.1 billion in 2014 by Forbes magazine. There have been allegations of environmental vandalism in relation to the development of the Port of Mundra, which is owned by Adani, as well as claims of tax evasion. Adani's Australian chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj has also been dragged into the scandal by failing to disclose his history running a mining company in Africa that pleaded guilty to serious economic harm. So far, none of these allegations have failed to bring down any of Adani's executives, but it adds to the controversy over the project.
UPDATE
ABC News, 21 December 2016:
Giant Indian conglomerate Adani, which plans to build one of the world's largest coal mines in Queensland's Galilee Basin, has set up a complex network of companies and trusts in Australia which are owned in one of the world's major tax havens, the Cayman Islands.
The Adani Group is also attempting to shift ownership of the existing Abbot Point coal port — which it bought for $1.8 billion — to a Singaporean company ultimately owned in the Cayman Islands.
An exhaustive search of company filings and documents across the globe has cast light on this opaque structure of ownership and control.
It has alarmed environmental activists and legal experts, who fear it could make it harder to gain compensation from Adani in the event of an environmental disaster from Adani's planned mine and port expansion on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.
"I've been a businessman for most of my life, as well as an environmental activist, and the risks are great," said Geoff Cousins, former Optus CEO and chairman of the George Paterson advertising agency, now a board member of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
"With these kinds of approvals of big mining operations or port operations, you always get a set of conditions that the Government puts on.
"But those conditions aren't worth anything if, when something goes wrong, you try to find the company responsible and either it has no money or if it has money it's in a tax haven and you can't reach it."
It is a view echoed by David Chaikin, a professor of business law at the University of Sydney.
"The advantage of having the money in tax havens is that you are able to conceal the source of money, the use of money, and also to minimise tax," he said…..
Adani has created four companies and two trusts in Australia for the rail project.
The parent company for all these entities is Carmichael Rail and Port Singapore Holdings Pte Ltd, a company registered in Singapore where the corporate tax rate is 15 per cent.
This Singapore parent company is in turn owned by Atulya Resources Limited, a private company controlled by the Adani family and based in the Cayman Islands.
The port expansion has a similar structure: five companies and two trusts in Australia, ultimately controlled by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands……
Adani has created four companies and two trusts in Australia for the rail project.
The parent company for all these entities is Carmichael Rail and Port Singapore Holdings Pte Ltd, a company registered in Singapore where the corporate tax rate is 15 per cent.
This Singapore parent company is in turn owned by Atulya Resources Limited, a private company controlled by the Adani family and based in the Cayman Islands.
The port expansion has a similar structure: five companies and two trusts in Australia, ultimately controlled by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands.
The port expansion has a similar structure: five companies and two trusts in Australia, ultimately controlled by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands.
The vast expansion of the coal port planned by Adani has sparked enormous controversy.
It will involve dredging 1.1 million tonnes of spoil from the ocean near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and poses a potential danger to the environmentally-sensitive reef, which is listed on the World Heritage Register.
Critics say the company structure set up by Adani raises serious concerns about the value of strict environmental approvals placed on the project.
Ownership of the existing Abbot Point Coal Terminal is in limbo.
Adani bought a 99-year lease over the coal port in 2011 for $1.8 billion through a company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (AZPEZ).
That company said it "sold" the port three years ago to a Singaporean-based Adani family company "subject to regulatory and lenders approvals".
But the sale has not been completed, because of objections by the State Bank of India, which lent Adani $US800 million ($1.1 billion) for the port purchase.
In its latest filings with the Australian corporate watchdog, Adani still lists the port as being owned by the Bombay-listed company.
But ASPEZ's 2016 annual report said it had "recorded the divestment" of the port to Abbot Point Port Holdings Pte Ltd, Singapore: an entity which lists as its sole director Vinod Shantilal Adani, the brother of Guatam Adani, head of the Adani Group, and which is ultimately owned by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands.
Transferring ownership of the critical port infrastructure to a Caymans Islands' company "means it will be unregulated, unaccountable," Tim Buckley, director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analytics told the ABC.
"It will be non-transparent to the Australian Government as to what is going on, who owns it, who are the directors. To me it is a matter of national security."
Companies and trusts created by Adani for the proposed Carmichael mine are ultimately owned by Adani Enterprises, a publicly-listed company in India, but the control flows via a company registered in the tax haven of Mauritius, Adani Global Ltd.
Adani Global Ltd. is based at Suite 501 St James Court, St Denis Street in Port Louis, Mauritius, and since 1998 has operated as a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited which was incorporated in March 1993 as Adani Exports Ltd with the name change effected in 2007.
In October 2010 Adani's Australian subsidiary, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, made an application for approval of the Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project.
In 2014 Adani and Posco had agreed to build rail line in Australia and the following year Adani signed an MoU with Australia's Woodside Energy for Energy Cooperation.
On 14 October
2015 the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment granted approval of 'controlled
action' subject to conditions following re-consideration of project under
the Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
In 2014 Adani and Posco had agreed to build rail line in Australia and the following year Adani signed an MoU with Australia's Woodside Energy for Energy Cooperation.
Adani media release, 25 November 2016:
Adani welcomes court decisions Adani Group today welcomed decisions by the Queensland Supreme Court to dismiss activist lead appeals against the granting of a Mining Lease and an Environmental Authority in relation to the company’s planned $21 billion coal project. The company said the decisions were further positive steps towards starting work in the September Quarter 2017 on the Carmichael Mine in central western Queensland and associated projects – a near-400km rail line and port expansion at Abbott Point. Adani said it would now examine the full decision documents and make no further comment.
Adani letter to the Indian stock exchange, excerpt, 8 December 2016:
Live Mint, 21 December 2016:
Adani Enterprises Ltd is aiming to start production at its $16 billion integrated mining project in Australia by end of 2020, after facing a four-year delay because of stiff resistance from environmental groups.
In an interview, group chairman Gautam Adani brushed aside concerns about the group’s indebtedness and said it was looking at investment opportunities in sectors such as defence, coal conversions and water. He added that the group continues to explore opportunities in the mining sector as it looks at an integrated “pit-to-plug” strategy encompassing mines, rail and the port sector.
The Carmichael mines in Galilee, Australia, will produce about 25 million tonnes of coal a year in fiscal 2021. The group has invested close to $4.5 billion in the first phase, Adani said. It is planning to use the coal to fuel its Mundra and Udupi power plants.
Adani also said he sees the ports business—one of the group’s most successful ventures so far—to meet its target of setting up 200 million tonnes of cargo handling capacity by the end of 2018, two years before schedule.
Wednesday 8 June 2016
Adani threatens to take his bat and ball and go home - half the Australian east coast rushes to open the door
Essential Research poll, commissioned by environmental activists 350.org, The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 December 2015:
The Australian, 4 June 2016:
Indian billionaire Gautam Adani may abandon his proposed $16 billion coalmine in central Queensland if environmentalists continue to delay the project in the courts.
In his first interview with the Australian media, Mr Adani said he was disappointed the “pit to plug’’ project had yet to receive the green light after six years of environmental assessments and court battles.
Mr Adani, who late last year appealed to Malcolm Turnbull to act over the legal activism, said he hoped the court challenges to Australia’s largest proposed coalmine would be finalised early next year.
With one court case yet to be heard in the Federal Court, and at least two groups threatening High Court action, Mr Adani warned he could not wait indefinitely. The self-made billionaire, who plans to export up to 60,000 tonnes a year of Australian coal through the Great Barrier Reef, said he was already scouting alternatives to feed his power stations in India.
“You can’t continue just holding,’’ he said at the headquarters of his $US26 billion ($36bn) energy and infrastructure conglomerate in Ahmedabad, northwest India. “I have been really disappointed that things have got too delayed.’’
Mr Adani confirmed he had met the Prime Minister last December to implore him to deliver greater certainty on projects like his proposed Carmichael mine. It is forecast to deliver thousands of jobs to the economically depressed central Queensland region. “We were suggesting how to bring in the certainty of the timings,’’ he said. “We were asking how we get certainty of the time schedules … that is the most important for us in committing all of our resources.’’
The Carmichael mine, rail and port project promises to open up the untapped Galilee coal province to other mega-mines, including one being planned by Gina Rinehart in a joint venture with another Indian giant, GVK.
Mr Adani’s comments come after the focus of the federal election this week turned to measures to tackle coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and climate change…..
Thursday 2 June 2016
Australian Federal Election 2016: the lengths to which an Abbott-Turnbull Government will go
As the end of Week Three of the federal election campaign drew near a little plausible deniability was obviously called for………..
News.com.au, 27 May 2016:
THE FEDERAL government has had the nation axed from a UNESCO report on climate change and world heritage sites.
Every reference to Australia has been scrapped from the final version of the 87-page report, which detailed the impact of global warming on 31 natural and man-made world heritage sites around the world.
The initial “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate” report included a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef. It also referenced Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests.
But the Australian Department of the Environment made sure every mention of Australia was removed, even though it lists other sites in the Asia Pacific region and says coral reefs are “particularly vulnerable” to climate change.
This means Australia is the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions in the report.
In a statement to news.com.au, the Environment Department confirmed it asked for references to Australia to be removed, saying it would have a negative impact on tourism:
“Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.
“The department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two issues — the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising from climate change and tourism……
Here is the Department’s full statement:
The World Heritage Centre initiated contact with the Department of the Environment in early 2016 for our views on aspects of this report.
The Department expressed concern that giving the report the title “Destinations at risk” had the potential to cause considerable confusion. In particular, the World Heritage Committee had only six months earlier decided not to include the Great Barrier Reef on the in-danger list and commended Australia for the Reef 2050 Plan.
The Department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two issues – the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising from climate change and tourism. It is the World Heritage Committee, not its secretariat (the World Heritage Centre), which is properly charged with examining the status of World Heritage sites.
Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of World Heritage properties impacted on tourism.
The Department indicated it did not support any of Australia’s World Heritage properties being included in such a publication for the reasons outlined above.
The Department of the Environment conveyed these concerns through Australia’s Ambassador to UNESCO.
The Department did not brief the Minister on this issue. [my red bolding]
I’m not impressed Team Turnbull! Not only was it a foolish move when the world's media has been reporting on the effects of climate change on Australia's reef systems - there is no way that a government department is going to pressure the United Nations to alter a report without relevant ministers right up to the foreign minister and prime minister being aware.
Neither was lead author of this United Nations report, Adam Markham, the deputy director of climate and energy with the Union of Concerned Scientists impressed by the Turnbull Government's actions.
He issued this statement on behalf of the UCS:
He issued this statement on behalf of the UCS:
Adam
Markham, deputy director, Climate &
Energy Program | May 26, 2016, 3:06 pm EDT
A
lot has changed since Captain Cook became the first European to try to navigate
the Great Barrier Reef in 1770. It was the reports of Cook and naturalist
Joseph Banks on their return to England that first alerted the scientific world
to the existence of this biological marvel. The Great Barrier Reef is now one
of the world’s most important coastal and marine tourism areas, but its future
is at risk, and climate change is the primary long-term threat.
A
World Heritage site since 1981, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s
most complex and diverse ecosystems, with at least 400 species of hard coral,
150 species of soft corals and sea fans, and more than 2,900 individual reefs
and some of the most important seagrass meadows in the world. It teems with
marine life of all sorts, including more than 1600 fish species, seabirds,
seahorses, whales, dolphins, crocodiles, dugongs and endangered green turtles.
The reef extends for 2,300km along the coast of Queensland in Northeast
Australia and has evolved over a period of 15,000 years. The region is
important for the indigenous heritage of First Australians who are Traditional
Owners including Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander people. Climate change
threatens hunting and fishing as well as other traditional and cultural
practices. Some sacred sites are also at risk for the more than 70 Traditional
Owner groups for whom natural resources are inseparable from cultural identity.
Tourism
is an important economic driver
Today,
tourism (including touring, diving, beaches, sailing, fishing and cruising) is
the most important economic sector in the GBR communities, contributing $5.2 billion dollarsto the Australian economy
in 2012 and supporting 64,000 jobs, or about 90% of the total economic activity
in the region. Visitors spent nearly 43 million total nights in the GBR region
in 2012, of which nearly 2 million nights were on the reef, mainly at Cairns
and the Whitsunday Islands. Direct reef-related tourism alone contributes 4,800
jobs. Approximately 500 commercial boats operate bringing tourists out to dive
and snorkel on the reef, and there can be negative impacts associated with
this, including damage from fuel spills and walking and dropping anchors on
fragile corals. Tourism infrastructure, along with other coastal developments,
can cause habitat degradation and damaging pollution and sediment run-off.
Australia is the world’s fourth largest coal producer and debate currently
swirls around the risks embodied in plans to expand coal mining and coal shipping near the Great Barrier Reef.
Higher
temperatures and ocean acidification threaten reefs
The biggest threat to the GBR today, and to its ecosystems
services, biodiversity, heritage values and tourism economy, is climate change,
including warming sea temperatures, accelerating rates of sea level rise,
changing weather patterns and ocean acidification. Coral reefs worldwide are
being directly impacted
by warming waters and ocean acidification, and climate change is exacerbating
other localized stresses. Ocean acidification is occurring because of increased
levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A significant portion of this CO2
is being absorbed by the oceans and the resulting increases in seawater acidity
reduces the capacity of some marine life, such as corals, to build their
calcium carbonate based skeletons. Significant drops in coral growth rate have
been recorded in the last two decades for massive Porites corals on
the Great Barrier Reef.
Worst
ever coral bleaching
Other
significant threats to the reef include coastal development, agricultural
run-off pollution, port-based shipping activities, illegal fishing and
outbreaks of the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish. Assailed by multiple
threats, the status of the GBR has been assessed as being poor and
deteriorating. Half of its coral cover has been lost over the last three
decades. Unusually high sea temperatures have caused nine mass coral bleaching
events on the GBR since 1979, and until this year, the worst had been in 1998 and 2002 (Great Barrier
Reef Marine Park Authority 2012, Steffen et al 2009, Hughes et al 2015). But
higher water temperatures and a severe El Nino have been pushing corals into
the danger zone all over the world in 2015-16, and the Great Barrier Reef is
currently suffering the most severe bleaching episode ever recorded.
Coral
bleaching occurs when higher than usual maximum temperatures disrupt the
relationship between corals and the photosynthetic zooxanthelae algae that live
in their tissues in a vital and mutually beneficial biological relationship.
Bleaching can kill corals, but depending on the severity of the impact and
local factors they can also recover. The same is true for coral damage from
storms, but damaged or bleached corals and reefs need time to recover. All
indications are that bleaching events will become more frequent and tropical
storms more intense with continued global warming, and that this combined with
a continued trend in warming water and ocean acidification will be massively
detrimental to the GBR. The current bleaching episode has affected more than
90% of the reef, with the worst damage being in the northern region where surveys have confirmed 50% mortality in some places.
Without
global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions coupled with local management
responses to increase resilience, current projections suggest that coral cover
could decline to 5-10% of the GBR by the early 2020s from 28% in 1985—a
potential loss of 80% in just 40 years. Similar fears are associated
with one of the other keystone ecosystems of the GBR, seagrass meadows
representing 20% of the world’s 72 seagrass species. These shallow-water
habitats provide vital nursery areas for fish and shrimps, critical food
resources for turtles and dugongs, and act as carbon sinks, sequestering
organic carbon in marine sediments. The combination of agricultural runoff,
fishery impacts and climate change may exceed seagrass beds’ natural ability to adapt. Sea turtles
too are at risk from climate change as high temperatures and sea level rise
impact their breeding and nesting beaches.
A
need for action
Spurred
by the direct evidence of climate change already impacting the GBR, degradation
of the reefs and the likelihood of much worse to come, the Australian
government has begun to plan and implement actions to reduce the risk of future
damage. At the core of the adaptation strategy are efforts to build ecosystem
resilience, fill gaps in scientific knowledge, and monitor environmental,
social and economic impacts of climate change. Collaborative management
strategies are also being developed and tested with local communities,
Traditional Owners, as well as with business and industry. The GBR was also the
first World Heritage property for which a comprehensive Tourism and Climate
Change Action Strategy was developed. The strategy recognizes the vital
importance that a healthy GBR ecosystem plays for the Australian economy and
that the tourism industry must quickly come to grips with the problem.
Recommended actions include reducing direct impacts and greenhouse gas
emissions from tourism companies operating on or near the reef; increased training
and awareness for guides and operators; helping to raise public understanding
of the threat, and; supporting scientific research and monitoring activities.
The plan also calls for the industry itself to plan adaptive responses for
declining reef conditions and to contribute to risk management strategies for
climate disasters.
Despite
these measures, international concern has continued to grow, however, that
without a comprehensive response more in keeping with the scale of the threat,
the GBR’s extraordinary biodiversity and natural beauty may lose its World
Heritage values. The World Conservation Outlook 2014 published by IUCN
(International Union for Conservation of Nature) assessed the status of the
World Heritage values of the GBR as of “high concern” and experiencing a
deteriorating trend. The most recent strategy from the Australian government,
the Reef 2050 Long-term Sustainability plan addressed this issue head on and
has been designed to “ensure the Great Barrier Reef continues to improve on its
Outstanding Universal Value every decade between now and 2050 to be a natural
wonder for each successive generation to come”.
The full UNESCO report, World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate, can be read here.
Thursday 5 May 2016
The Great Barrier Reef: black letter days
It’s time to ask incumbent federal MPs and senators what they intend to do to when faced with legislative bills or ministerial decisions which have the potential to negatively impact on The Great Barrier Reef and to make it very clear that their answers will decide votes in July 2016.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 2016:
Scientists surveying the mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef say only 7 per cent of Australia's environmental icon has been left untouched by the event.
The final results of plane and helicopter surveys by scientists involved in the National Coral Bleaching Taskforce has found that of the 911 reefs they observed, just 68 had escaped any sign of bleaching.
The severity of the bleaching is mixed across the barrier reef, with the northern stretches hit the hardest.
Overall, severe bleaching of between 60 and 100 per cent of coral was recorded on 316 reefs, almost all of them in the northern half of the barrier reef. Reefs in central and southern regions of the 2300 kilometre Great Barrier Reef have experienced more moderate to mild affects.
The mass bleaching event has been driven by significantly higher than average sea temperatures as a result of the current El Nino event, coupled with a long-term warming of the oceans due to climate change.
While the barrier reef has experienced mass coral bleaching events in the past – notably in 1998 and 2002 – Professor Terry Hughes, convenor of the bleaching taskforce, said the current event was by far the biggest.
*It could be too late to reverse the effects of coral bleaching in large swathes of the Great Barrier Reef caused by man-made climate change, a leading academic fears.
Professor Justin
Marshall, from The University of Queensland's CoralWatch team, has just spent
10 days at the Lizard Island Research Station, north of Cairns, gathering data
and images of coral bleaching in the northern part of the reef.
Prof Marshall said
almost all of the coral in a 500km stretch of the reef was bleached and about
half of that coral was dead because of the bleaching.
He said sometimes coral
could recover from bleaching, where it becomes white after losing the symbiotic
algae that brings it nutrients, but when there was large-scale coral death like
in this situation, it was far less likely.
'The absolute figures
are unknown and our research is ongoing to determine that,' Prof Marshall said.
'Over the next few
months we'll be able to give you an answer, but to be honest I'm a bit
pessimistic.'
Prof Marshall said the
coral bleaching in the area was the worst he'd ever seen it.
'I have kids, I love to
take them up to the reef, but to be honest, I would have been ashamed to take
my children up there this time,' he said.
He said global warming
was causing coral bleaching, which wasn't helped by El Nino conditions this
year.
'There is an additional
natural fluctuation, but that must not deflect our realisation that this is
definitely a man-made, carbon-emission event, which is killing the Australian
reef,' Prof Marshall said.....
ABC News, 28 March 2016:
An
aerial survey of the northern Great Barrier Reef has shown that 95 per cent of
the reefs are now severely bleached — far worse than previously thought.
Professor
Terry Hughes, a coral reef expert based at James Cook University in Townsville
who led the survey team, said the situation is now critical.
"This
will change the Great Barrier Reef forever," Professor Hughes told 7.30.
"We're
seeing huge levels of bleaching in the northern thousand-kilometre stretch of
the Great Barrier Reef."
Of
the 520 reefs he surveyed, only four showed no evidence of bleaching.
From
Cairns to the Torres Strait, the once colourful ribbons of reef are a ghostly
white.
"It's
too early to tell precisely how many of the bleached coral will die, but
judging from the extreme level even the most robust corals are snow white, I'd
expect to see about half of those corals die in the coming month or so,"
Professor Hughes said.....
Professor
Hughes said he is frustrated about the whole climate change debate.
"The
government has not been listening to us for the past 20 years," he said.
"It
has been inevitable that this bleaching event would happen, and now it has.
"We
need to join the global community in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"For
me, personally, it was devastating to look out of the chopper window and see
reef after reef destroyed by bleaching.
"But
really the emotion is not so much sadness as anger.
"I'm
really angry that the government isn't listening to us, to the evidence we've
been providing to them since 1998.".....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)