Greg Combet says carbon price working but further tax cuts deferred

Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet held a press conference at lunchtime today to scotch rumours and misleading comments on the Government's carbon price package. Basically, due to changes in the forecast carbon price for two years hence, tax cuts worth about $1.59 per week associated with an increasing carbon price will also be deferred.

The Government's carbon price mechanism and clean technology fund and associated support packages are largely working to reduce Australian carbon emissions. In December 2012, just 5 months after the carbon price was introduced the reduction in electricity demand showed a clear trend, a trend for coal fired generation to continue to fall. In fact Gas fired power stations for NSW and Victoria have also been placed on hold.

In terms of compensation packages, the examples of the funding of solar PV energy panels to reduce electricity costs for the Adelaide Ice Services factory, or funding Biomass Renewable Electricity from Mackay Sugar cogeneration plant, show the industry support assistance is working to help businesses adapt.

Here is Greg Combet's press conference statement in full:

Flinders Street Station Banner drop tells Vic Premier to get off the coal train

Climate activists this morning were up early, scaling the front of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station to do an anti-coal and pro-renewables banner drop above the iconic clocks at the station.

Quit coal activists abseiled down the building's facade unfurling the large banner addressed to the Victorian Premier Denis Napthine, "Get off the coal train and on track for Renewables!".

The climbers have been charged with trespass and other offenses. They have all been released from police custody.

Carbon price funding solar PV energy for Adelaide factory puts Tony Abbott on ice

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott made a frosty mistake in visiting the Adelaide Ice Service factory today, arguing the business was a victim of the carbon tax. At the same time Climate Change Minister Greg Combet and local Labor MP Mark Butler announced a grant of nearly $90,000 to the company from the carbon price funded Clean Technology Food and Foundries Program to install a 87.5 kilowatt photovoltaic solar system at its ice manufacturing plant in Regency Park.

The visit continues Abbott's attempt to beat up the carbon price as a negative, but it shows just how shallow and loose with the truth his own campaign is, especially regarding climate change policy. The carbon price hasn't brought economic ruin. Indeed, there are strong arguments by Environment Victoria that the compensation package to carbon intense energy providers is overly generous. Victoria's brown coal generators are being subsidised to continue polluting to maintain healthy profits.

Climate protest: Coal ship boarded by Greenpeace activists off the Great Barrier Reef

In a climate protest over Australian coal exports, Greenpeace activists boarded a bulk coal carrier while navigating through the Great Barrier Reef on 23 April 2013. The ship, the MV Meister, had just loaded coal from Abbot Point, located 25km north of the town of Bowen on the central Queensland coast.

Abbot Point coal loading facility is being expanded, with four new coal terminals proposed to be built, part of the development of 9 new coal terminals for the Great Barrier Reef Coast.

Related: Greenpeace petition - We stand in solidarity for action against coal | Queensland's Coal addiction - talk by Guy Pearse | Greenpeace activists say Coal ship highlights 'Reef in Danger' | Global Warming imperils coral reefs: 2 degrees warming is too hot say scientists

After decades of war Iraq faces water scarcity, floods, desertification and climate disruption

Iraq has suffered decades of war with much of the social and agricultural infrastructure being damaged and now poorly maintained. Climate change was already impacting the country under Saddam Hussein with desertification and reduced river flow rates. Climate impacts of desertification, water scarcity, flood damage from more intense rain when it falls, are all taking their toll on food production. The legacy of decades of war, UN sanctions and a dictatorial regime have only added and multiplied these impacts.

The fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has provided the basis for agricultural production feeding Iraq's population which has tripled between 1970 and 2007 to 30 million people. Indeed, ancient Mesopotamia may have been one of the birth places for agricultural civilisation. But according to Matteo Mantovani at TEDxBaghdad "Agriculture is dying in the place where it was born." he told the audience.

Coal Seam Gas fugitive emissions monitoring to be tightened

Updated: 17 April, 2013.
The Minister for Climate Change, Greg Combet today unveiled proposals for better monitoring of emissions from coal seam gas (CSG) production. A discussion paper sets out proposals to introduce new CSG-specific measurement and estimation methods into Australia’s greenhouse gas reporting framework.

This comes at a time of rising widespread concern on fugitive CSG emissions of methane released during CSG extraction and production. Methane over short time periods of 20 years is 100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas contributing to climate change, while for longer time periods it is about 21 times as powerful.

Antarctic Peninsula: nonlinear intensification of melt unprecedented in last 1000 years

This study analysing an Antarctic Peninsula ice core from James Ross island has determined that there has been a ten fold increase in melt intensity over the last 600 years. I reported recently that the Antarctic Peninsula summer melt season prolonged by global warming according to research from the British Antarctic Survey.

"The warming has occurred in progressive phases since about AD 1460, but intensification of melt is nonlinear, and has largely occurred since the mid-twentieth century. Summer melting is now at a level that is unprecedented over the past 1,000 years. We conclude that ice on the Antarctic Peninsula is now particularly susceptible to rapid increases in melting and loss in response to relatively small increases in mean temperature." concludes the study.

The information comes from a 364 meter ice core drilled by a joint UK and French research team on James Ross Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Analysis of the ice core can reveal past temperature changes as well as revealing past extent of ice melt events.

West Antarctic Ice Cores find changes at upper bound of normal

A new ice core study from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) concludes that current dramatic and unusual warming changes on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may still be in the bounds of natural decadal variability.

In other words, the warming trend signal is still not strong enough to distinguish it above the noise of peak warming periods in multi-decade long cycles involving the Tropical Pacific atmospheric circulation, sea surface temperatures and the El Niño (ENSO) cycle.

While acknowledging the rapid warming over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet the authors conclude that "It is unknown whether these changes are part of a longer-term trend."

Related: Global warming in Antarctica: Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers | Waking the giant: Global Warming in the Weddell Sea | Southern Ocean warming impact on Antarctic Ice Sheet and global sea level | Antarctic Paradox: ocean warming melting ice shelves causing sea ice expansion

Winter Chill: Fruit and nut trees feeling the heat of global warming

Climate change affecting safe winter chill for orchard trees.

A new study says that global warming will impact fruit and nut tree productivity in Australia and globally. Most fruit and nut trees have evolved in cool temperate climates and go through a dormant winter phase and require a certain amount of winter chill to trigger their spring growth and fruit production. But with strong trends in many regions for warming winter minimum temperatures and reduced number of 'winter chill' days, the heat is on our orchards.

Temperatures are projected to rise in most parts of the world with winter minimum temperatures projected to rise most rapidly. Our orchards have been established taking account of current climate conditions, which are now rapidly changing due to greenhouse gas pollution contributing to climate change. This will have a major impact on costs and productivity of fruit and nut orchards, an industry estimated to be worth about US$93 billion globally in 2005.

Antarctic Octopus genetics reveals past West Antarctic Ice sheet collapse

It seems the genetics of the Antarctic Octopus is showing us how fragile the West Antarctic Ice sheet (WAIS) may be with global warming. It raising questions about the ice sheet susceptibility to collapse.

The Antarctic octopus - Turquet's octopus - is a little creature that doesn't like moving house. It is a stay-at-home tending to live in one place and only moving short distances to escape predators. Yet when marine scientists looked at the genetic diversity of specimens of the octopus from the Ross Sea and compared them with specimens 10,000kms by sea away in the Weddell Sea they found there was little genetic difference.

To explain how these different populations can be so alike scientists believe there has been at least partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with the last time perhaps being the previous interglacial period - the Eemian some 125,000 years ago. A partial collapse may have opened up a channel between the Weddell and Ross Seas.