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• ABC TV, I Can Change Your Mind About…Climate, official website.
• Anna Rose, Keep Going: You Never Know Where Things Will Lead, AYCC.
• Anna Rose, Why I engaged with the sceptics, ABC Opinion.
• Ian McHugh, ‘I’d rather slam my cock in a door than debate climate change’ – A review of ABC’s ‘I can change your mind about climate, Crikey.
• Lisa Tuck, Living Lightly: Empowering a generation to act, Border Mail, Saturday 26th May, p. 68.

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DOWNLOAD AUDIO: Margaret Alston: Rural Education…Shaping Leaders for the Future

ABC Radio National: Big Ideas

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The first Sidney Myer Rural Lecture was presented by Professor Margaret Alston OAM on Wednesday 28 March 2012. Professor Alston is the Director of the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability (GLASS) Research Unit and the Head of Department- Social Work at Monash University. In 2010 Margaret was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the community, social work and to rural women. She is current Chair of the Australian Heads of Schools of Social Work (ACHSSW).

Margaret drew upon her extensive research and publications, as well as her firsthand knowledge of rural life, to clearly set out what needs to be done to ensure that education in rural Australia (and elsewhere) is shaping leaders for the future.

Report by the Australian Climate Commission

 Download full report here.

WATCH response to above report, compiled by Lizette Salmon.

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The impacts of climate change described in the Climate Commission report did not come as a surprise to WATCH spokesperson, Lizette Salmon.

“This report, like many that have preceded it, makes it clear that much of NSW, including, by implication, the Border region, will be vulnerable to increasing climate variability and increasing intensity of extreme weather events, such as severe droughts and occasional flooding rains, crop and livestock losses, more destructive bush fires, more severe heat waves, flourishing of invasive plants and pests and adverse impacts on human health. This is not the sort of future we want for ourselves or our children. We need to change it and we can change it”, said Ms Salmon.

WATCH supports the opportunities and actions and outlined in the Report, including the need for more public transport and to move beyond coal.

“Too much money is being spent on roads and not enough on rail. This report emphasises the need for much more investment in low pollution public transport,” said Ms Salmon.

The Report reveals that “A train line can move 50,000 commuters per hour, whereas a freeway lane can only move 2,500 in the same time.” Despite this, research by the Australian Conservation Foundation shows that NSW has been spending twice as much on roads as on rail. “Given that rail is 20 times more efficient in moving people around, and has less than a quarter the pollution, it’s time governments got serious about improving rail infrastructure”, said Ms Salmon.

WATCH is also very supportive of the Report’s plan for more renewable energy. “Here in Australia coal mining is a fast growing source of greenhouse pollution, while the Asian economic power houses are busy making plans to transition to renewable energy. Japan installed 1,000MW of solar photovoltaics in 2011 and is introducing a feed-in tariff for renewable energy that starts in a couple of months, while China has targets to build a massive 210GW of solar and wind by 2020. Yet NSW is planning to double coal exports from Newcastle, and build the equivalent of 15 new mega mines in the Upper Hunter and Liverpool Plains. This is so counter-intuitive to climate action it’s ridiculous”, said Ms Salmon.

“Currently only 6% of electricity produced in NSW is from renewable sources, even though the NSW government has a target of increasing this to 20% by 2020. Why isn’t the Government working harder to achieve this target? WATCH recently conducted a second large survey of local residents, and found that support for renewable energy remains very high. Border residents want more renewable energy and they want the government to build large scale renewable energy; actions that are consistent with the recommendations in the Climate Commission report.”

“The opportunities for regional Australia to capitalise on renewable energy are enormous.  Regional areas such as Albury Wodonga have a massive solar resource which has barely been tapped yet.  Developing these resources means jobs for Australians, stable electricity prices and a more stable climatic future.”

“The NSW Government has been playing cheap politics over the carbon price, Australia’s first serious attempt at reducing greenhouse pollution. Instead of pandering to the interests of the mining industry, which are clearly not in the national interest, they should be showing leadership, be part of a global effort to avoid the future shown to us in the Climate Commission’s report, and put people and communities ahead of mining executives.”

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For more comments on the potential for solar energy in our region, see also:

http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/local/news/general/solar-plant-pie-in-sky-says-sophie/2475691.aspx

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These recommendations are based on the current social research and four years experience of leading workshops on peer to peer communications.  For more information, see George Marshall’s blog Climate Change Denial or visit the Climate Outreach Information Network website.

“The SREX approaches the topic by assessing the scientific literature on issues that range from the relationship between climate change and extreme weather and climate events (‘climate extremes’) to the implications of these events for society and sustainable development. The assessment concerns the interaction of climatic, environmental, and human factors that can lead to impacts and disasters, options for managing the risks posed by impacts and disasters, and the important role that non-climatic factors play in determining impacts.”

Featuring contributions from 220 authors in 62 countries, the SREX is the latest in a long line of authoritative reports documenting the evidence for anthropogenic climate change and the range of impacts that are likely to result from human-induced changes to the Earth’s climate system.  To access links to this extensive body of evidence, see WATCH’s Key Climate Documents page.

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Download: Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX)

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Video Overview of the SREX Report

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SREX in the Media:

ABC Radio – The World Today: ‘Scientists say it’s time to act’

SBS TV – World News Australia: ‘Global warming linked to extreme weather’

Roger Jones, The Conversation: ‘Spinning uncertainty? The IPCC extreme weather report and the media’

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About the IPCC

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess scientific information related to climate change, to evaluate its environmental and socio-economic consequences and to formulate realistic response strategies.  The IPCC has produced a series of Assessment Reports (in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007). The Fifth Assessment Report will appear in four stages in 2013 and 2014. It has also produced several Special Reports (of which Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) is the latest), Technical Papers, Methodologies and other key documents.  Together these have become the standard references for policymakers and scientists.  The IPCC assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to understanding climate change and its effects. It does not conduct any research itself or monitor climate-related data. The work of the IPCC is carried out by thousands of scientists on a voluntary basis.  The IPCC is currently organized in three Working Groups and the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change (what causes it and what will happen next); Working Group II deals with climate change impacts, adaptations and vulnerability (what is climate change doing to the Earth and human society); and Working Group III examines the mitigation of climate change (what can we do about it).

State of the Climate 2012 is the second paper produced by CSIRO and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology summarising observations of Australia’s climate and analysing the factors that influence it.

Here are some of the report’s key findings…

• Climate change is continuing.
• Warming has been measured around Australia and globally during recent decades.
• 2010 Global temperatures were the warmest on record (slightly higher than 2005 & 2008).
• Australia experienced record rainfalls and the coolest temperatures since 2001 due to a very strong La Niña event in 2010 and 2011.
• Concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new high in 2011.
• Australian temperatures are projected to increase in coming decades.
• Rising CO₂ emissions from the burning of fossil fuels has affected global temperature much more than natural climate variability during the past century.

The full report and an interview with Dr Karl Braganza from the Climate Monitoring Section of the Bureau of Meteorology can be found here.

The launch location was a large block of land behind the Wodonga Salesyards in Bandiana which had been identified by the North East Greenhouse Alliance as a potential site for a large solar thermal power station. Indeed with its existing power substation (i.e. existing transmission line infrastructure) and flat, open land it appeared an ideal site.

The purpose of the national Let’s Build Big Solar campaign is to rally community support for medium to large scale solar energy plants and to encourage the Federal Government to provide funding for such plants through its $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation. This month will see many other grassroots Climate Action Groups from around the country conduct similar launches in their local areas.

After viewing the site, posing for photos and speaking to reporters from the Border Mail and Newsweekly, attendees of the Albury-Wodonga launch were treated to a stimulating presentation by the Managing Director of PSE Communication and Electrical, Paul Shelley. Paul and his wife visited Spain recently and attended guided tours of the three solar thermal power stations (Gemsolar, Valle 1 and Valle 2). Spain has undergone an incredible transformation, moving from being a net importer of electricity to a net exporter, thanks to the construction of countless acres of photovoltaic arrays and wind turbines as well as the solar thermal power stations. For a country with less solar intensity than Australia it is clear they are streets ahead of us. The Australian Government needs to get its act together and make good its commitment to large scale renewables.

In the next couple of months, WATCH members, together with people from many other Climate Action Groups around Australia, will be conducting thousands of community surveys to gauge community attitudes to big solar and then present the findings to Parliament. If you would like to participate in one of these brief (less than 5 minutes) surveys or are able to assist with conducting some surveys, please contact Lauriston Muirhead on 0419633297.

For more information on the Let’s Build Big Solar campaign visit: www.100percent.org.au/bigsolar

Further information on the Spanish Gemsolar power station is available at: www.torresolenergy.com/TORRESOL/gemasolar-plant/en

***The Let’s Build Big Solar launch was covered in the local media…

• Argoon, A. ‘Solar plant pie in the sky, says Sophie‘, Border Mail, Saturday 3rd March, 2012, page 29.
• ‘Powerful start to solar campaign‘, Albury-Wodonga News Weekly, Friday 9th March, 2012, page 4.

This presentation as based on Anderson’s peer reviewed paper Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world, published recently in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.  Here is the abstract for that paper…

‘The Copenhagen Accord reiterates the international community’s commitment to ‘hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius’. Yet its preferred focus on global emission peak dates and longer-term reduction targets, without recourse to cumulative emission budgets, belies seriously the scale and scope of mitigation necessary to meet such a commitment…The analysis suggests that despite high-level statements to the contrary, there is now little to no chance of maintaining the global mean surface temperature at or below 2◦C. Moreover, the impacts associated with 2◦C have been revised upwards, sufficiently so that 2◦C now more appropriately represents the threshold between ‘dangerous’ and ‘extremely dangerous’ climate change.’

Kevin Anderson is professor of energy and climate change in the School of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester. He has recently finished a two-year position as director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK’s leading academic climate change research organisation, during which time he held a joint post with the University of East Anglia.

David Roberts from the website Grist has written two articles in response to Anderson’s presentation and paper: The brutal logic of climate change and The brutal logic of climate change mitigation, which make for sobering reading.

We am extremely interested in the responses of WATCH supporters and Albury-Wodonga residents to Professor Anderson’s speech and paper, and encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments box below so we can start a local conversation about the implications of this confronting research.

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References and Further Information:

Kevin Anderson, Going Beyond Dangerous Climate Change: Exploring the Voice Between Rhetoric and Reality in Reducing Carbon Emissions, London School of Economics – Department of International Development lecture series, 21 October 2011.

Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows, Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, A (2011) 369, 20–44.

David Roberts, The brutal logic of climate change, Grist, 6 December 2011.

David Roberts, The brutal logic of climate change mitigation, Grist, 9 December 2011.

Radio Ecoshock (Canada), Kevin Anderson: The Brutal Logic of Climate Change, 18 January 2012.

You can follow the progress of the COP-17 via the official website.

Here is analysis from several different media outlets and think-tanks on the prospects for the talks…

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SBS World News Australia

Durban – Quick guide to the climate summit

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Peter Christoff

The Conversation

And what if nothing happens at Durban?

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The Climate Institute

Policy Briefing: Durban Climate Summit

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Giles Parkinson

The Climate Spectator

Durban talks off to a bad start

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The Guardian

Durban Climate Change Conference 2011 (news portal)

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Simon Retallack

The Huffington Post

Durban Climate Conference: The Only Way is (Bottom) Up

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Professor Gawne’s talk entitled, ‘The implications of climate change and its challenges’, will discuss the current conditions of the Murray Darling Basin, and future challenges for the ecosystem and the management of the Basin.

Professor Gawne has been with MDFRC for the past 14 years where he was initially appointed as the Officer in Charge of the Mildura Laboratory.  He was appointed the Director of MDFRC in 2002, and his main research interests involve aquatic ecosystems and fish habitats. MDFRC has been fundamental in supporting sustainable management of the ecology of the Basin.