A brief explanation of the science of global warming

The science of global warming beautifully and simply explained by Dr. Carl Sagan, ca. 1985. pic.twitter.com/r85v5Vj5Kp

— Physics In History (@PhysInHistory) August 16, 2023

Climate Change Maps of the Month, July 2023

 

The world has just experience twenty-four straight days of record breaking global temperatures with no end in sight.

Global average air temperature was 17.139 Celsius on Wednesday, 26 July 2023.

Daily Average 2 Meter Air Temperature

Daily Average 2 Meter Sea Surface Temperature

 

Daily Average Southern Hemisphere Seas Ice Extent

Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent is 3.518 million sq. km less that it was on the same day in 2014.

NOTE: All maps are visualizations generated using the Climate Reanyalizer from the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, and is based on NOAA's NCEP Climate Forecast System v2.

Tweet of the Month

 

In case you haven't been paying attention, we've now had 24 days in a row of record global temperatures, likely the hottest stretch of 24 days in the last 100,000+ years.

We humans have some amazing talents, not least of which is our ability to cause global suffering. pic.twitter.com/CQGQ0qoXiY

— Prof. Eliot Jacobson (@EliotJacobson) July 27, 2023

Climate Change & Putin's aggression see the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight in January 2023

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a media organization, publishing a free-access website and a bimonthly magazine. It began as an emergency action, created by scientists who saw an immediate need for a public reckoning in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Since 1947 it has published the Doomsday Clock, which to date has been updated a total of 24 times. “The closer the clocks’ hands move toward midnight, the closer humanity supposedly moves toward self-inflicted destruction. As well as assessing risks from nuclear war, the scientists incorporate dangers from climate change, bioweapons and more.” [Time Magazine, 24 January 2023]

Science and Security Board, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2023 Doomsday Clock Statement, 24 January 2023:

A time of unprecedented danger: It is 90 seconds to midnight

This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward, largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.

The war in Ukraine may enter a second horrifying year, with both sides convinced they can win. Ukraine’s sovereignty and broader European security arrangements that have largely held since the end of World War II are at stake. Also, Russia’s war on Ukraine has raised profound questions about how states interact, eroding norms of international conduct that underpin successful responses to a variety of global risks.

And worst of all, Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict—by accident, intention, or miscalculation—is a terrible risk. The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high.

Russia’s recent actions contravene decades of commitments by Moscow. In 1994, Russia joined the United States and United Kingdom in Budapest, Hungary, to solemnly declare that it would "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" and "refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine..." These assurances were made explicitly on the understanding that Ukraine would relinquish nuclear weapons on its soil and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—both of which Ukraine did.

Russia has also brought its war to the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor sites, violating international protocols and risking widespread release of radioactive materials. Efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to secure these plants so far have been rebuffed.

As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between Russia and the United States, New START, stands in jeopardy. Unless the two parties resume negotiations and find a basis for further reductions, the treaty will expire in February 2026. This would eliminate mutual inspections, deepen mistrust, spur a nuclear arms race, and heighten the possibility of a nuclear exchange.

As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in August, the world has entered “a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War.”

The war’s effects are not limited to an increase in nuclear danger; they also undermine global efforts to combat climate change. Countries dependent on Russian oil and gas have sought to diversify their supplies and suppliers, leading to expanded investment in natural gas exactly when such investment should have been shrinking.

In the context of a hot war and against the backdrop of nuclear threats, Russia’s false accusations that Ukraine planned to use radiological dispersal devices, chemical weapons, and biological weapons take on new meaning as well. The continuing stream of disinformation about bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine raises concerns that Russia itself may be thinking of deploying such weapons, which many experts believe it continues to develop.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased the risk of nuclear weapons use, raised the specter of biological and chemical weapons use, hamstrung the world’s response to climate change, and hampered international efforts to deal with other global concerns. The invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory have also violated international norms in ways that may embolden others to take actions that challenge previous understandings and threaten stability.

There is no clear pathway for forging a just peace that discourages future aggression under the shadow of nuclear weapons. But at a minimum, the United States must keep the door open to principled engagement with Moscow that reduces the dangerous increase in nuclear risk the war has fostered. One element of risk reduction could involve sustained, high-level US military-to-military contacts with Russia to reduce the likelihood of miscalculation. The US government, its NATO allies, and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; they all should be explored. Finding a path to serious peace negotiations could go a long way toward reducing the risk of escalation. In this time of unprecedented global danger, concerted action is required, and every second counts.

Countervailing dynamics: Addressing climate change during the invasion of Ukraine

Addressing climate change requires faith in institutions of multilateral governance. The geopolitical fissure opened by the invasion of Ukraine has weakened the global will to cooperate while undermining confidence in the durability, or even the feasibility, of broad-based multilateral collaboration.

With Russia second only to the United States in global production of both natural gas and oil, the invasion of Ukraine sparked a rush to establish independence from Russian energy supplies, particularly in the European Union. From the standpoint of climate change, this has contributed to two countervailing dynamics.

First, the elevated energy prices have spurred investment in renewables and motivated countries to implement policies that support renewables development. With this rise in deployment, the International Energy Agency now projects that wind and solar energy combined will approach 20 percent of global power generation five years from now, with China installing nearly half of the new renewable power capacity.

At the same time, however, high natural gas prices have driven a quest to develop new gas supplies, spurring investment in natural gas production and export infrastructure in the United States, the EU, Africa, and elsewhere, largely financed by major oil and gas transnationals and investment firms. This private capital continues to flow into developing new fossil fuel resources, even while public finance is facing pressure to pull out. All G7 countries have pledged to end public financing of international fossil fuel projects this year, and the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, a group of eight countries, has formally committed to end new concessions, licensing or leasing rounds for oil and gas production and exploration, and to set a timeline for ending production that is consistent with their Paris agreement pledges.

Notwithstanding these two processes, both of which should in principle reduce demand for Russian gas, Russia was on course in 2022 to earn as much as the previous year from oil and gas exports, largely owing to continued European demand.

As a consequence, global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, after having rebounded from the COVID economic decline to an all-time high in 2021, continued to rise in 2022 and hit another record high. A decline in Chinese emissions was overshadowed by a rise in the United States, India, and elsewhere…. 

Tweet of the Week

 

We no longer need an El Niño event to trigger mass bleaching of corals, because La Niñas now are hotter than El Niños used to be just 20yrs ago. https://t.co/03FUn1DEuu https://t.co/Cs7hbqzd4j

— Terry Hughes (@ProfTerryHughes) January 17, 2023

A reminder of just how long the fossil fuel industry has been lying about climate change and why this is so important in 2022......

 

In recent years there have been a number of media and legal journals reporting on individuals, communities and classes of people suing multinational mining, oil, gas and coal corporations with regard to the environmental and climate change consequences of their business policies and actions.

One of the telling points being made before the courts is 'what did the company know and when did it know it'.

Although the facts set out below refer to the fossil fuel industry, it is time rural, regional and outer metropolitan communities on the Australian East Coast began a search in the records of federal, state, local governments and their agencies/agents, for all documents, minutes, memos, emails, as well as Hansard and media articles or comments, which reveal 'what governments knew and when they knew it'. 

It's well past time that the level of private litigation increases — because these three tiers of government will not stop: a) giving permission for urban development on floodplains or geologically unstable land; b) all but ignoring high greenhouse gas emissions by industry & business; c) refusing to act on the high rate of land clearance & destructive logging of native forest which exacerbates land mass temperature rise or d) failing to seriously address the climate risk associated with the millions of vulnerable residential dwellings which will not be able to withstand the erratic rolling unnatural disasters anticipated to hit Australia within the next 8-28 years; unless the courts begin to hand down judgments that cumulatively cost them billions in any election cycle and through budgetary pain force government to act.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1959 — years before some reading this post were born —

the American Petroleum Institute (API) along with the great and good of the oil industry celebrated 100 years of drilling for oil in the USA.

At that centennial celebration nuclear weapons physicist Edward Teller addressed the around 300-strong audience.

According to a later account of this address, in part he stated:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that the energy resources of the past must be supplemented. First of all, these energy resources will run short as we use more and more of the fossil fuels. But I would [...] like to mention another reason why we probably have to look for additional fuel supplies. And this, strangely, is the question of contaminating the atmosphere. [....] Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide. [....] The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?

Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect [....] It has been calculated that a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe…..

At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 per cent, by 1980, 8 per cent, by 1990, 16 per cent [roughly 360 parts per million], if we keep on with our exponential rise in the use of purely conventional fuels. By that time, there will be a serious additional impediment for the radiation leaving the earth. Our planet will get a little warmer. It is hard to say whether it will be 2 degrees Fahrenheit or only one or 5. [my yellow highlighting]

But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise. Well, I don’t know whether they will cover the Empire State Building or not, but anyone can calculate it by looking at the map and noting that the icecaps over Greenland and over Antarctica are perhaps five thousand feet thick.

Robert Galbraith Dunlop, Chairman of Sun Oil Co and a director on the API board at the time, was present when Teller informed the oil industry it was contaminating the atmosphere.

In 1965 at an annual API conference its president Frank Ikard gave an address titled “Meeting the Challenges of 1966” which informed his audience of the contents of a recent published report submitted to President Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee titled “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment”.

Ikard stated: “One of the most important predictions of the report is that carbon dioxide is being added to the Earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at such a rate that by the year 2000 the heat balance will be so modified as possibly to cause marked changes in climate beyond local or even national efforts. The report further states, and I quote: “...the pollution from internal combustion engines is so serious, and is growing so fast, that an alternative nonpolluting means of powering automobiles, buses and trucks is likely to become a national necessity.” [my yellow highlighting]

Then again in 1968 an unpublished paper commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute was delivered in final form to API. Again, at this time Robert Dunlop of Sun Oil was still a current director & by now also a former Chair of the American Petroleum Institute (1965 to 1967).

Here are the details of that paper…..

“Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Pollutants”, Final Report, Robinson, E. “Elmer” (Author) & Robbins, R. C. “Bob” (Contributor - American Petroleum Institute, Stanford Research Institute). First published in 1968 by Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif. USA, with supplementary information supplied in1969 and 1971, 123 pages with diagram, table & references at:

http://chr.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Exhibit-3H-Sources-Abundance-and-Fate-of-Gaseous-Atmospheric-Pollutants.pdf

Excerpts:

It seems ironic that in our view of air pollution technology we take such a serious concern with small-scale events such as the photochemical reactions of trace concentrations of hydrocarbons, the effect on vegetation of a fraction of a part per million of S0₂, when the abundant pollutants which we generally ignore because they have little local effect, CO₂ and submicron particles, may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes….. [my yellow highlighting]

Possible Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

We are concerned with the possible changes in atmospheric CO₂ content because CO₂ plays a significant role in establishing the thermal balance of the earth. This occurs because CO₂ is a strong absorber and back radiator in the infrared portion of the spectrum, especially between 12 and 18. As such CO₂ prevents the loss of considerable heat energy from the earth and radiates it back to the lower atmosphere, the so-called “greenhouse effect. Thus the major changes which are speculated about as possibly resulting from a change in atmospheric CO₂ are related to a change in the earth's temperature….

If the earth's temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur, including the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans, and an increase in photosynthesis. The first two items are of course related since the increase in sea level would be mainly due to the added water from the ice cap. [my yellow highlighting]

Estimates of the possible rate at which the Antarctic ice cap might melt have been made….

Changes in ocean temperature would change the distribution of fish and cause a retreat in the polar sea ice. This has happened in recent time on a very limited scale….

Summary of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere

In summary, Revelle makes the point that man is now engaged in a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the earth. Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000 and these could bring about climatic changes…..

[my yellow highlighting]

The following year saw this report sent to API, “Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Pollutants: Project PR-6755, Supplemental Report” (1969) at:

http://chr.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Exhibit-3I-Sources-Abundance-and-Fate-of-Gaseous-Atmospheric-Pollutants-Supplement.pdf

Yale Environment 360, 30 November 2022:

The Center for International Environmental Law, an advocacy group Muffett now runs, published excerpts in 2016. Now, the paper — along with a follow-up that Robinson and Robbins produced in 1969 — is playing a key role in a wave of lawsuits seeking to hold oil companies accountable for climate change.

Minnesota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Baltimore, and Honolulu are among about two dozen U.S. states and localities suing the industry. Some of the cases seek compensation for the damage wrought by climate-driven disasters like floods, fires, and heat waves, plus the cost of preparing for future impacts. Others allege violations of state or local laws prohibiting fraud and other deceitful business practices, or requiring companies to warn consumers of a product’s potential dangers. The defendants, which vary from case to case, include the American Petroleum Institute as well as major companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips.

The suits’ common thread is the charge that the industry has long understood emissions from oil and gas combustion would drive warming — and create a host of major global risks — but carried out a decades-long misinformation campaign to confuse the public and prevent a shift to cleaner fuels. Most cite Robinson and Robbins’ work. The pair’s reports have been proffered internationally too, most notably in a Dutch case in which a court last year ordered Shell to slash its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030; the company is appealing. European courts have been more favorable for cases seeking to force such reductions or push governments to strengthen climate policies, while U.S. suits generally aim at extracting financial penalties or compensation from companies….. [my yellow highlighting]

Read the full article here.

Further reading

https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Smoke-Fumes-FINAL.pdf

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/162144/Presentation%20Geoffrey%20Supran.pdf

“Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications”, Geoffrey Supran, PhD, History of Science, Harvard University

A reminder of just how long the global political class have been fully aware of the "Possibility of Catastrophic Climate Change"

 

Memorandum to United States of America President James "Jimmy" Carter, dated 7 July 1977

Description:

FROM: US OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY.

SUBJECT: Release of Fossil co2 and the Possibility of a Catastrophic Climate Change 

Memorandum to United States... by clarencegirl

 

How the US National Academy of Sciences saw author of this memo, Frank Press:

Frank Press [4 December 1924 – 29 January 2020] served as the 19th president of the National Academy of Sciences from July 1, 1981 to June 30, 1993. As NAS president, Press also led a reorganization of the Academy’s operating arm, the National Research Council. He believed that the landmark 1986 report, Confronting AIDS — which warned that the toll of the AIDS epidemic would become far worse and urged a massive national response — was the most significant report issued while he was president. In fact, he told the Research Council’s governing body that the report, “may well rank among our most important contributions to the public welfare.” A report examining the cause of the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion was another key report issued during his tenure.

From 1977 to 1981, Press was national science adviser to President Jimmy Carter and the second director of the recently formed White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In this role, Press was key in establishing a science and technology exchange agreement between the U.S. and China, which enabled thousands of Chinese students to study in the U.S. — many of whom went on to become U.S. citizens. He also focused on “increasing government commitment to basic research, evaluating the impact of federal regulations on the economy, and providing analyses of a national energy policy,” according to documents at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum. In addition, Press was on the presidential science advisory committees during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and served on the National Science Board under President Richard Nixon.

Press was among the first generation of geophysicists who benefited from and contributed to revolutionary developments associated with the evolution of the field of plate tectonics, and he quickly became a leader in this area of research. He received the National Medal of Science in 1994 “for his contributions to the understanding of the deepest interior of the earth and the mitigation of natural disasters.” He was the recipient of many other awards and honors, including the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Japan Prize, and the Vannevar Bush Award.

Prior to his positions in Washington, D.C., Press was professor of geophysics and chair of the department of earth and planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1965 to 1977. He had also held academic appointments at Columbia University and the California Institute of Technology, and was the chair of the U.S. delegation to the 1960 Nuclear Test Ban Conference in Geneva. Press received his undergraduate degree in physics from the City College of New York in 1944 in his Ph.D. in geophysics from Columbia University in 1946.

Upon completing his service as NAS president at age 69, Press accepted a four-year appointment as the Cecil and Ida Green Research fellow at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, and remained active as an adviser to several organizations — both public and private — for many years.

A reminder that climate change and pandemic risk are here to stay

"As climate change reshapes life on earth, it may also become the single biggest upstream driver of pandemic risk." [Colin J. Carlson PhD, Georgetown University, Centre for Global Health Science & Security, 28 April 2022]

IMAGE: Colin J. Carlson, @wormmaps
Click on map to enlarge

nature, 28 April 2022:

Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk

Colin J. Carlson, Gregory F. Albery, Cory Merow, Christopher H. Trisos, Casey M. Zipfel, Evan A. Eskew, Kevin J. Olival, Noam Ross & Shweta Bansal

Abstract

At least 10,000 virus species have the capacity to infect humans, but at present, the vast majority are circulating silently in wild mammals^1,2. However, climate and land use change will produce novel opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically-isolated species of wildlife^3,4. In some cases, this will facilitate zoonotic spillover—a mechanistic link between global environmental change and disease emergence. Here, we simulate potential hotspots of future viral sharing, using a phylogeographic model of the mammal-virus network, and projections of geographic range shifts for 3,139 mammal species under climate change and land use scenarios for the year 2070. We predict that species will aggregate in new combinations at high elevations, in biodiversity hotspots, and in areas of high human population density in Asia and Africa, driving the novel cross-species transmission of their viruses an estimated 4,000 times. Because of their unique dispersal capacity, bats account for the majority of novel viral sharing, and are likely to share viruses along evolutionary pathways that will facilitate future emergence in humans. Surprisingly, we find that this ecological transition may already be underway, and holding warming under 2 °C within the century will not reduce future viral sharing. Our findings highlight an urgent need to pair viral surveillance and discovery efforts with biodiversity surveys tracking species’ range shifts, especially in tropical regions that harbor the most zoonoses and are experiencing rapid warming.

Tweets of the Week

 

200 Dead Trees in Forest Corps Log Dump - Stand Up For Cherry Tree Forest https://t.co/BYjuFJhbzD via @forests4ever
Logging Koala habitat 🐨🌳😢 #nswnorthcoast #worthmorestanding #standup4forests #nswpol

— Meredith Stanton (@CloudsCreek) December 14, 2021

#Antarctica just registered its 2nd lowest November sea ice extent in the satellite era (43 years), amid our planet's 4th warmest November in 142 years of records.

More details here > https://t.co/GvZd7sv7YM pic.twitter.com/DDfPGmQkte

— Ben Domensino (@Ben_Domensino) December 15, 2021

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is back trying to pretend the politically inconvenient fact of climate change is not occurring in the leadup to the 2022 federal election

Australian Bureau of Meteorology

On 5 November 2021 Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook (NSW) Scott Morrison issued a lengthy media statement which ended with these three lines:

“High Risk Weather Events

National Cabinet received a briefing from Emergency Management Australia on the 2021-22 High Risk Weather Season, and noted that a La Niña watch has been issued in 2021.”

NOTE: Emergency Management Australia falls within the Dept. of Home Affairs. It organises the National Catastrophic Natural Disaster Plan (NATCATDISPLAN) last updated in 2017, republished in 2020.

To be honest I did not think why those three lines had been tacked on at the end of a statement which covered Vaccination and Booster Plans, Ensuring COVID-19 Outbreak Readiness for Indigenous Communities, National Plan to Transition Australia’s COVID-19 Response, Living with COVID-19 - Revised Test, Trace, Isolate and Quarantine (TTIQ) and Public Health and Social Measures (PHSMs), Living with COVID-19 - Health System Capacity, Borders and International Travel, along with this live link Doherty Institute COVID-19 modelling: 2nd tranche [PDF 651 KB].

At most all I thought was ‘Oh yes, the La Niña ALERT. North Coast Voices covered that in October and November posts'.

What I didn’t know and the Prime Minister did, was that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology had put together a rather more pointed weather outlook and forecast in power point form, which brought together the dry technical language on its website & its YouTube videos in a way that clearly showed where climate change had landed us all in 2021-22.

It must have been as obvious to the Prime Minister, as it was to me once I sighted segments of that presentation, that this was not information that a notorious climate change trivialising federal government would want to highlight going into an election year. However, as a slippery, slithering game player who is always looking for plausible deniability, those three brief lines would allow Morrison to say 'but I told Australia about it!' if a journalist thought to ask.

Here are a selection of slides from that presentation courtesy of Senator Rex Patrick’s Twitter account:

Click on images to enlarge.

The Guardian, 4 December 2021:

Tropical cyclones and flooding are set to pummel Australia over summer, national cabinet documents reveal.

The Bureau of Meteorology briefed the meeting of premiers, chief ministers and the prime minister on 5 November about the high-risk weather facing the nation until April.

National cabinet documents are usually kept secret, but South Australian senator Rex Patrick obtained these under freedom-of-information laws.

Last week Patrick, the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, and One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts all launched attacks on the prime minister’s department for its secrecy. There is a broader legal question about whether national cabinet is entitled to the cabinet-in-confidence protection, with critics saying that merely calling it a cabinet does not actually make it one.

The bureau director general, Joe Buffone, presented Emergency Management Australia’s 2021-22 High Risk Weather Season briefing.

The PowerPoint presentation shows there are increased chances of widespread flooding, coastal flooding and erosion, tropical cyclones and marine heatwaves, compared with average summers and early autumns.

There is a lower chance of drought and dust.

The overall risk of severe storms is on par with other years, while parts of Queensland and NSW have an increased risk of bushfire, and there is a higher chance of heatwaves than usual.

Warm waters mean slightly above average tropical cyclone numbers – the average is 11 per season.

La Niña means the weather is likely to be cooler, wetter and stormier. Areas that had above-average rainfall during spring, and therefore more grass, could lead to a heightened grassfire risk, while parts of the east coast will have a lower risk – because the 2019-20 fires reduced fuel loads.

The bureau’s presentation was prepared with publicly available information.

Patrick said the prime minister, Scott Morrison, should have released the documents when he released a media statement about the national cabinet meeting. That statement focused almost entirely on Covid, with a single line about the briefing.

That line prompted Patrick to make the FOI request to the Department of Home Affairs…….

And so it starts.

NSW and Victoria floods: rivers break banks as rain and wind lash Australia’s eastern states, The Guardian, 13 November 2021.

NSW flood damage bill expected to exceed $1b as November rain submerges crops, ABC News, 1 December 2021.

Man dies in Queensland floodwaters as heavy rainfall causes Inglewood to be evacuated, cars swept off road in state's south, ABC News, 1 December 2021.

BOM issues flood warning for Chinchilla on the Western Downs, as parts of southern Queensland begin clean-up, ABC News, 3 December 2021.

Global Climate Change Response 2021": Advice that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg & the rest of the Cabinet Ministers, are determined to ignore

 

Moody’s Investor Services, Research Announcement, 12 October 2021:

Moody's - Financial firms that take rapid, predictable pace to zero financed emissions will win the race



Singapore, October 12, 2021 --

• Financial firms are under rising regulatory and commercial pressure to support the global sustainability drive

• Those that take a rapid, well-communicated and measurable pace to net zero financed emissions will be able to preserve their credit quality

As the race to net zero emissions accelerates, banks, insurers and asset managers will need to ramp up climate risk assessments and set clear goals for reaching net zero in their financed emissions, says Moody's Investors Service in a new report. A delayed and disorderly carbon transition would pose the greatest risk to financial firms, while a rapid, well-communicated and measurable transition would keep risks lower.

"Financial firms will lend to and invest in green businesses and new technologies as the transformation to a low-carbon economy creates vast financing opportunities. At the same time, they will help fund the capital needs of corporate clients in carbon-intensive sectors who are aligning their business strategies with low-carbon business models," says Alka Anbarasu, a Moody's Senior Vice President.

Across the G-20, financial firms hold $22 trillion in loans and investments subject to carbon transition risk. Green lending and investments will bring major commercial opportunities to financial firms, but the credit impact of carbon transition will begin to hit home in the second half of this decade when scrutiny of their interim climate goals is likely to intensify.

"A scenario in which concerted action to achieve carbon transition is delayed beyond the end of this decade by uncoordinated government and regulatory policies poses the greatest threat of losses for the financial industry. It risks triggering sudden, large-scale and drastic action in later years by governments, firms, and regulators to limit climate change, hurting the quality of loans and invested assets," says Sean Marion, a Moody's Managing Director. [my yellow highlighting]

Financial firms adopting a rapid but predictable shift towards climate-friendly finance will best preserve their credit quality. In this scenario, financial firms integrate climate risk considerations into their strategic decisions, business processes, governance structures and risk management frameworks, while setting out clear goals for reaching net zero in their financed emissions.

Subscribers can access the report "Financial institutions - Decarbonizing finance: Financial firms need to rise to the challenge of supporting carbon transition" at: http://www.moodys.com/researchdocumentcontentpage.aspx?docid=PBC_1298854

The total CO2-e emissions of the richest 10 per cent of the world's population are set to exceed the 1.5°C-aligned level in 2030, regardless of what the other 90 per cent do. Australia went to UN COP26 to exclusively represent the interests of that richest 10 per cent

 

______________________________________________________

Carbon emissions of richest 1% set to be 30 times

the 1.5°C limit in 2030

Footprints of poorest 50% set to remain well below this limit

The carbon footprints of the richest 1% of people on Earth is set to be 30 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement in 2030, according to new research out today. It comes as delegates grapple with how to keep this goal alive at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow.

In 2015, governments agreed to the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, but current pledges to reduce emissions fall far short of what is needed. To stay within this guardrail, every person on Earth would need to emit an average of just 2.3 tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030 – this is roughly half the average footprint of every person on Earth today.

Today’s study, commissioned by Oxfam based on research carried out by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), estimates how governments’ pledges will affect the carbon footprints of richer and poorer people around the world. It treats the global population and income groups as if they were a single country. It finds that by 2030:

• The poorest half of the global population will still emit far below the 1.5°C-aligned level in 2030.

• The richest 1% and 10% of people are set to exceed this level by 30 times and 9 times respectively.

• Someone in the richest 1% would need to reduce their emissions by around 97% compared with today to reach this level.

But in a sign that the 2015 Paris Agreement is having some impact, the middle 40% are on course for per capita emissions cuts of 9% from 2015 to 2030. This is a turnaround for a group, which is mostly made up of citizens in middle-income countries like China and South Africa that saw the fastest per capita emissions growth rates from 1990 to 2015.

Looking at total global emissions, instead of per capita emissions, the richest 1%– fewer people than the population of Germany - are expected to account for 16% of total global emissions by 2030, up from 13% in 1990 and 15% in 2015. The total emissions of the richest 10% alone are set to exceed the 1.5°C-aligned level in 2030, regardless of what the other 90% do.

Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Lyn Morgain said: “The emissions from a single billionaire space flight would exceed the lifetime emissions of someone in the poorest billion people on Earth. A tiny elite appear to have a free pass to pollute. Their over-sized emissions are fuelling extreme weather around the world and jeopardising the international goal of limiting global heating.

“The emissions of the wealthiest 10 per cent alone could send us beyond the agreed limit in the next nine years. This would have catastrophic results for some of the most vulnerable people on Earth who are already facing deadly storms, hunger and destitution.”

The geography of global carbon inequality is set to change too, with a larger share of the emissions of the world’s richest 1% and 10% linked to citizens in middle income countries. By 2030, Chinese citizens will be responsible for almost a quarter (23%) of the emissions of the richest 1%, US citizens for a fifth (19%) and Indian citizens for a tenth (11%). 

Tim Gore, author of this briefing and Head of the Low Carbon and Circular Economy programme at IEEP, said: “The global emissions gap to keep the 1.5°C Paris goal alive is not the result of the consumption of most of the world’s people: it reflects instead the excessive emissions of just the richest citizens on the planet. To close the emissions gap by 2030, it is necessary for governments to target measures at their richest, highest emitters – the climate and inequality crises should be tackled together. That includes both measures to constrain luxury carbon consumption like mega yachts, private jets and space travel, and to curb climate-intensive investments like stock-holdings in fossil fuel industries.”

Emily Ghosh, Scientist at Stockholm Environment Institute says: “Our research highlights the challenge of ensuring a more equitable distribution of the remaining and rapidly diminishing global carbon budget. If we continue on the same trajectory as today the stark inequalities in income and emissions across the global population will remain, challenging the equity principle at the very heart of the Paris Agreement. Analysis of carbon inequality must urgently be put at the centre of governments’ efforts to reduce emissions.”

Oxfam said world leaders should focus on targeting deeper emissions cuts by 2030, in line with their fair share, and ensure that the richest people worldwide and within countries make the most radical cuts. The richest citizens have the potential to speed up this process dramatically, both by leading greener lifestyles but also by directing their political influence and investments towards a low-carbon economy.