Over the last two decades, summers in the most populous areas of Australia are a month longer than in the 1950s and 1960s. Summers over the last five years were longer still, reaching twice the length of winters in those years. Longer, more extreme summers will have increasingly profound impacts on Australian health, food production and quality of life.
A New Horizon - speech by Mark Carney, Governor Bank of England
“Once climate change becomes a clear and present danger to financial stability it could already be too late to stabilise the atmosphere at two degrees.
The paradox is that risks will ultimately be minimised if the transition to a low-carbon economy begins early and follows a predictable path. But for markets to anticipate and smooth the transition to a 2-degree world, they need the right information, proper risk management, and coherent, credible public policy frameworks.”
Here's why Australia needs to keep subsidising renewables | The Guardian
If Australia wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, we have the technologies and the policies to do so at our finger tips. And of course if we don’t want to, we don’t have to, but the polls suggest we do. Time will tell whether our democratic structures are capable of responding to a problem like climate change — what we do know is that subsidies, regulation and taxes work.
Weather insurance: Insurers ‘don’t fully understand climate change risk’ | Compelo
“Munich Re said in December that the wildfires caused $24bn in losses, $18bn of which were uninsured.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported there were a total of 8,527 fires burning an area of 1,893,913 acres, which is the the largest amount of burned acreage recorded in a fire season.”
Global Institutions Exiting Coal | IEEFA
Since 2013 more than 100 global financial institutions have made increasingly tight divestment/exclusion policies around thermal coal.
Revealed: Glencore bankrolled covert campaign to prop up coal | The Guardian
The C|T Group used teams in Sydney and London to further Glencore’s interests across the globe, including in Australia, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the project and documents seen by Guardian Australia.
Role of disclosure in addressing climate data deficiency | Geoff Summerhayes, Sustainable Insurance Forum
On the 22nd February 2019, Geoff Summerhayes gave this speech in London at the Sustainable Insurance Forum.
“The weight of money, through consumer demand, investor decisions and regulatory responses, is pushing the transition to a low carbon economy relentlessly forward. This shift has consequences for us all, but to make good decisions, governments, regulators, businesses and investors need access to timely, reliable and sufficiently granular information.”
Saudi Aramco bows to 'peak petrol' as oil veterans grapple with climate backlash | The Telegraph
Saudi Arabia is bowing to the inevitable. Aramco is launching radical plans to switch its oil output from cars to petrochemical use over the next decade, implicitly accepting that the curtain is coming down on the era of petrol and diesel.
The worst-case scenario for global warming just got 14°F worse | Think Progress
And halfway through the book he says, in all caps, “If you have made it this far, you are a brave reader.” He admits that any of those chapters contains, “enough horror to induce a panic attack in even the most optimistic of those considering it.”
Press Release | TCFD
The work of the TCFD gains wider acceptance.
Down to the wire: A sustainable electricity network for Australia | Grattan Institute
Billions of dollars spent on network infrastructure that was not needed. We need to re-think how we forecast demand and cope with demand during peak times of consumption.
Australia one of the countries most exposed to climate change, bank warns | SMH
We in Australia need to start addressing this problem seriously.
Climate and Growth: An OECD perspective on the future we need | Melbourne Sustainability Society
The University of Melbourne is hosting this free lecture, organised by the Melbourne Sustainability Society. The lecture will be given by OECD Environment Directorate Acting Director, Anthony Cox, and will focus on what governments can do to boost economic growth and enhance productivity without locking the world into a high-emissions future.
Still too much NSW baseload after Liddell closure: AGL Energy | AFR
Even after the shutdown of Liddell, NSW still has excess baseload supply. Were the doomsayers right?
Mind The Gap: the $1.6 trillion energy transition risk | Carbon Tracker Initiative
Fossil fuel companies risk wasting $1.6 trillion of expenditure by 2025 if they base their business on emissions policies already announced by governments instead of international climate goals, Carbon Tracker warns in a report released today, that models the IEA’s 1.75C scenario for the first time.
Financing Sustainable Growth | European Commission
Visualisation of the actions
Download the report here
The action plan on sustainable finance adopted by the European Commission in March 2018 has 3 main objectives:
- reorient capital flows towards sustainable investment, in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth
- manage financial risks stemming from climate change, environmental degradation and social issues
- foster transparency and long-termism in financial and economic activity
'Browning' Lakes Look Like Alien Landscape in Climate Change Study | Inverse
Is this the beginning of the positive feedback effect. Does anyone know how it ends?
None of our insurers are keeping pace with climate change | SMH
Although insurance companies are in the firing line of climate change risk, they need to do more to report the risks their firms face exposure.
Keeping lights on can't be guaranteed | AFR
There is no sense in spending billions of dollars trying to guarantee the impossible – that the lights will always stay on. But this has not stopped government ministers, corporate executives and numerous commentators from pretending a particular source of power will always keep the lights on. Nor has it stopped journalists from repeatedly asking ministers to guarantee "the lights will stay on" in future. It might be tempting to claim that everyone understands it is impossible to deliver these promises, but much of the current debate is conducted on the premise that they don't.
The gas industry's power play | The Saturday Paper
Long-term mismanagement of Australia’s gas industry has seen price gouging by cartels and the possible need for imports. Even if the government can put things to right, natural gas will never again be a cheap alternative fossil fuel. By Mike Seccombe.