Australia must join gobal effort to meet climate budget | The Saturday Paper

What do you call a planet where the temperature sets a new record every month, where the northern ice cap is melting at disastrous pace, where drought and flood have begun to alternate with devastating relentlessness? You call it Earth, in 2016.

Australians have had a front row seat to the carnage. The oceans have warmed so much that only 7 per cent of the coral reefs across the Great Barrier Reef have completely avoided bleaching, and experts are saying the northern hemisphere is set for its worst reef-bleaching events this summer. In Tasmania, bushfires have ravaged more than 1000-year-old forests. In Sydney and the Pacific region, fierce storms have lashed the coast.

Dear Minister Frydenberg | Geoff Cousins, The Saturday Paper

Letter to the Minister
Congratulations on your appointment as minister for the environment and energy. The bringing together of these two portfolios for the first time could present a substantial opportunity for sound policy development in Australia.  More ..
 

The Economics of the Saudi’s “take-the-money-and-run” Strategy | Huffington Post

As the Financial Times reported on 12 July, Saudi Arabia’s oil-output reached record highs in June 2016. Increasing production 280,000 barrels/day to 10.6m b/d, Saudi Arabia has once again waved off OPEC’s request not to glut the market with oil. 

As it turns out, economic principles explain why the Saudis began, in late 2014, to pump crude as fast as they could - or close to as fast as possible. In fact, there is a good reason why the Saudi princes are panicked and pumping. 

Renewable Energy Global Paper | Insights | DLA Piper

In a world where the corporate green agenda is increasingly integral to business strategy, particularly following the Paris climate change agreement, this paper explores the growing trend of large corporates using power purchase agreements (PPAs) to purchase renewable energy. 

Truth about Australia's coal industry and climate policy | The Saturday Paper

If Malcolm Turnbull or freshly appointed Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg stood on Queensland’s coast and saw a coal-fired power station float past, they’d notice, right? If more than half a million new cars drove past, they’d surely raise an eyebrow. Or would they? Each day, more than a million tonnes of Australian coal sails up that coast, past the Great Barrier Reef, to power stations or steel mills elsewhere, quietly fuelling climate change and bleaching the reef. Once used, the coal exported daily generates about as much carbon pollution as a 500-megawatt coal-fired power station, or 570,000 cars, in a year. 

Small increase in energy investment could cut premature deaths from air pollution in half by 2040 | IEA

Each year an estimated 6.5 million deaths are linked to air pollution with the number set to increase significantly in coming decades unless the energy sector takes greater action to curb emissions. Air pollution is a problem felt around the world, particularly the poorest in society.