Fossil Awards to Norway, Japan and Australia, Ray awards to Scotland, India at COP26 Day 2

Photo: Angus Taylor spruiking Santos Gas and CCS. Photo courtesy @RichieMerzian

Today had a plethora of awards, both good and bad. Norway snatched the first fossil award of the day for pushing gas with CCS. Japan is still promoting fossil coal power plants on the justification that they are necessary to integrate renewable energy, not only in Japan, but also throughout Asia. For Australia the award was for Enegy Minister Angus Taylor for selling Australian fossil fuels and our future down the toilet so brazenly with gas company Santos at the Australian pavillion.

The awards aren't all negative. Scotland received a Ray of the Day for putting £1m from their Climate Justice Fund into Loss and Damage. Much needed real leadership on Loss and Damage finance. And India's substantial increased commitments for 2030 were truly an unexpected  highlight of the Leaders Summit National Statements for their Ray award. 

Guest Post: As India cuts aerosol air pollution, extreme temperatures may spike making heat health adaptation plans crucial

An insightful article into India's situation with regards to the air pollution problem and extreme heatwave temperatures. This year temperatures spiked to 51C in north western India: Wet Bulb Near 35 C — Heatwave Mass Casualties Strike India Amidst Never-Before-Seen High Temperatures.

The researchers argue that aerosols from air pollution are likely to have a substantial cooling impact at the moment, even as India experiences record temperatures. With roll out of renewables and the push to electrify vehicle transport, air pollution will likely be reduced increasing health outcomes. But it may be at the expense of a spike in temperatures at this time of year which will have a large heat health impact on the population, especially poorer people who cannot afford technological adaptation measures such as air-conditioning. It is another reason why recently implemented adaptation plans in India for heat health are so important, as well as taking effective and rapid emissions reduction on a global level in accordance with the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.

What is going on with India's weather?

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, UNSW Australia; Andrew King, University of Melbourne, and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh

AYCC #CoralnotCoal protest during Indian Finance Minister visit

The Indian Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, was in Australia for 4 days trying to wrangle investment money for infrastructure projects India, but also potentially including the the giant Adani Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin of Queensland. Read the original article at nofibs.com.au

It was reported in Indian media (1, 2) before Jaitley left India that he was meeting with Australian Finance Minister Matthias Cormann and the $120 billion sovereign wealth Future Fund Chairman Peter Costello, in regard to sourcing investment funding in Indian projects, possibly including Adani's Carmichael mine.

When asked in Sydney if he would discuss the issue of Adani's Carmichael coal mine project in Queensland with Australian leaders and investors he replied with "not really", then elaborated slightly, "This is a subject which is internal to Australia and this is not the purpose of my visit," he said, reported The Press Trust of India.

So Adani was not the purpose of the Minister's visit, but it wasn't a full rejection that the subjection may be discussed either.

Coal on the skids - China, India, USA, Great Britain, and Australia

Coal production and the seaborne coal market are all suffering as renewables ramp up and coal-fired power is reassessed due to pollution, health and greenhouse gas emission concerns.

Coal prices for Newcastle thermal coal is just above US$56 per metric ton. Major coal markets in India and China are drying up. Vietnam has just announced a review of coal power citing the need to implement all international commitments in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

There is increasing closure of coal power stations driven by health impacts from pollution as well as growing concern to reduce emissions after the historic UN climate conference Paris Agreement.

Coal is in structural decline. And it needs to be.

A study by Ekin and McGlade published January 2015 into fossil fuel resources and the 2 degree limit found that, without any Carbon Capture and Storage, 88 per cent of coal needs to stay in the ground, unburnt.

So here is a list of recent heartening news on the coal front.

• China closes mines, imposes 3 year new mines moratorium
• US puts new coal leases under 3 year review to align with climate policy
• UK pledges coal power station phaseout by 2025
• India expanding local coal but also massive renewables expansion
• Australia: new mines approved as coal export markets shrink
• Australia, Germany, Japan and the US at risk of stranded coal assets, utility death spiral

India: Over 2,000 heat-related deaths as Climate change projected to intensify #heatwaves

India swelters through deadly heatwave while awaiting monsoon arrival. With heat wave temperatures continuing to hit 46C and 47C across parts of India, heat related deaths are quickly rising. The death toll as of Friday 29 May stands at over 1800 official heat-related deaths and rising, most from the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. While India awaits arrival of the monsoon, the lack of thunder storms and clear skies has allowed temperatures to rise, with UV radiation reaching dangerously extreme levels, as the heat blows in from Pakistan. With rising temperatures associated with climate change, extreme heatwaves are expected to start earlier in the pre-monsoon season, last longer and be more intense.

PwC report: World still on track for dangerous warming this century

The latest Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC) Low Carbon Economy Index (LCEI) shows that the world is still on track for 3.7 to 4.8°C of warming by the end of the century, rather than the 2 degrees limit committed to at Copenhagen in 2009 and at subsequent climate talks. But there are small glimers of climate hope from the continued growth in renewables and in the reduction in carbon intensity reported by some countries. Australia in particular was a surprise showing a 7.2 per cent reduction in carbon intensity in 2013, more than any other major nation.

However, even if all current policies on the table were fully implemented at their highest ambition range, the planet would still be on a trajectory of at least 3 degrees warming by the end of the century.

India innovating with solar PV, poised to become a global solar leader

Yesterday I saw an image shared on my Facebook timeline. It was of solar PV panels installed over an irrigation canal in India. This has the obvious advantage of a double impact for sustainability. Low carbon power is generated by the panels feeding into the transmission grid, and the panels shade the water in the irrigation canal reducing evaporation loss thus saving a scarce resource used for drinking and agriculture.

I googled for more information and posted the image in a tweet. This has become one of my most popular tweets to date, obviously striking a responsive nerve.

Mangrove forests threatened by Climate Change in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India

A new study has found the Sundarban coast retreating up to 200 metres in a single year due to rapidly deteriorating health of the world's largest Mangrove forest in the Sundarbans, the Ganges delta region of India and Bangladesh.

Zoological Society of London (ZSL) researcher Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, senior author of the paper says: "Our results indicate a rapidly retreating coastline that cannot be accounted for by the regular dynamics of the Sundarbans. Degradation is happening fast, weakening this natural shield for India and Bangladesh."

In the Bengali language 'Sundarban' can be literally translated as 'beautiful forest'. The area is the largest block of continuous mangrove forest in the world, being home to almost 500 species of reptile, fish, bird and mammals, including the endangered Bengal tiger.

See Also: Mangrove Alliance | Mangrove Action Project | Mangrove Watch Australia | Planners need to allow for Coastal wetlands migration due to sea level rise, climate change

Indian monsoon more likely to fail as global warming accelerates - Climate tipping point

A new predictive study for future monsoon failure in India says that full season failure will become much more likely in the next two hundred years. Failure of the Indian Seasonal Monsoon (ISM) has been identified as a climate change tipping point by climate scientists.

The study highlighted that monsoon rains could fail about one year in every five between 2150 and 2200 with continued global warming due to continued human burning of fossil fuels, and related shifts in tropical air flows.

More than a billion people are dependent on the reliability of the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) for agricultural productivity. A small variability in rainfall on the Indian sub-continent has large impacts on agriculture. Lower rainfall can reduce crop yield, while excessive rain causes flooding damaging to crops and disruption to peoples' lives. India's monsoon lasts from June to September each year.

Extreme Weather: Cyclone Thane hits India

One of the last tragic extreme weather events of 2011 was Cyclone Thane hitting the Tamil Nadu coast of India. It caused 46 deaths and damaged buildings, roads and crops. It was the strongest tropical cyclone of 2011 within the North Indian Ocean.

Image from NOAA - Cyclone Thane in the Bay of Bengal
on 28 December 2011, taken by Meteosat

From the Bay of Bengal it made landfall as a very severe cyclone on Friday 30 December very close to Puducherry. The storm struck with torrential rains and gale force winds from 125 to 140 kilometres per hour which uprooted hundreds of trees and knocked down electric poles and mobile phone towers producing power outages and communications blackouts in several areas.

A recent study linked increasing air pollution over the Indian sub-continent to an increase in the intensity of Tropical cyclones in the region.

Cyclone Intensity in North Indian Ocean linked to increasing air pollution

A recent study linked increasing air pollution over the Indian sub-continent to an increase in the intensity of Tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea. The air pollution over the Indian sub-continent changes wind circulation patterns reducing wind shear in the Northern Indian Ocean providing more potential for intense cyclones to form. This is combined with warm sea surface temperatures in the region, especially in the Bay of Bengal, to provide the conditions for more intense and destructive cyclones.

Image by NASA Earth Observatory - Category 4
Tropical Cyclone Gonu in the Arabian Sea in 2007

Environmental and anti-globalisation activist Vandana Shiva awarded Sydney Peace Prize

Physicist, environmentalist and anti-globalisation activist Dr Vandana Shiva has been awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for 2010 for her commitment to social justice, her advocacy of human rights, empowerment of women, and her scientific contribution to environmental sustainability.

The City of Sydney Peace Prize lecture will be delivered by Vandana Shiva at the Sydney Opera House on November 3 followed by an award ceremony on November 4.

Professor Stuart Rees, a Sydney Peace Foundation director, told AAP that Ms Shiva was an inspiring recipient, "Many communities are threatened by the consequences of global warming, yet in Australia the movement to address this issue has gone to sleep," he said. "Vandana's presence in Sydney in November should wake them up."

In December 2009 at the peoples Klimaforum in Copenhagen Vandana Shiva spoke with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now, "We know we need climate action now. I come from the Himalaya. I just had an office in Delhi; I don’t live in Delhi. It’s a polluted city. The automobile has taken over. I come from the Himalaya. Our glaciers are melting. Our villages are getting flooded out or drying up. Agriculture is collapsing. Ninety percent of the food production in my area has collapsed in this year. Seventy percent of the streams have dried up. And that is not happening because of what the local people did. My journey in the environment movement began with Chipko, where women came out to hug the trees. We are now hugging our mountains and telling the polluters, “You’ve got to stop polluting, because you are stealing our water, you are stealing our food, you are stealing our snows."

Global Warming: Rising Seas creates 70,000 Climate Refugees

Rising seas attributed to human induced global warming have submerged Lohachara island, once the home to 10,000 people. Unhinhabited Suparibhanga has also vanished, while the inhabited island of Ghoramara has lost two thirds of its area to the rising seas in the Bay of Bengal.

While we were all distracted by Christmas festivities, this sober news on the impact of climate change was published in The Independent (UK), about the inundation of various Sundarban islands in the Indian part of the delta region of the Ganges and Brahmaputra river, where they empty into the Bay of Bengal.

The region is considered remote and researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University discovered the submergence through examining satellite photos of the area. According to the report in the Independent, Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, said that there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta.