Solar thermal for South Australia? Solar Reserve says 6 power stations may be built

Originally published at nofibs.com.au

Solar Reserve has a plan to build a solar thermal power station with 8 hours molten salt storage at Port Augusta which would diversify South Australian electricity generation, bringing jobs and solar innovation to the state.

A report in the Adelaide Advertisor says that once the first power station is built with locked in long term contracts and finances, a further 5 solar thermal power stations of a similar size could be built across the north of the state. Leigh Creek, Woomera, Whyalla, and Roxby Downs have all been identified as possible sites. This would then amount to about 650MW capacity, as much as the expanded interconnector with Victoria.

ARENA briefly made Australia a world leader in renewables R&D. Time to #SaveARENA

Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is facing a huge funding cut of $1.2 billion as part of the budget omnibus the Federal Government wants to pass. It is responsible for providing seed funding for innovative renewable energy projects. The latest funding round has just been released. It features substantial seed funding for 12 major solar projects and builds on innovative seed funding for renewables projects in previous years.

According to the Guardian, "The only time in Australia’s recent history that research and development for renewables outstripped R&D for fossil fuels was when the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) began making grants to renewables in 2013, the study of International Energy Agency figures found."

Turnbull increases climate aid for Pacific at Regional leaders meeting

Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull attended the Pacific Leaders' meeting forum, and announced a small increase in climate related aid for the region. But this comes after the Abbott Government slashed Australia's foreign aid budget to extremely low levels in 2014.

Related: Pacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold | Pacific Island nations lead in ratification of Paris Agreement on climate change

Pacific Island nations lead in ratification of Paris Agreement on climate change

The Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting has concluded in Pohnpei in the Marshall Islands. A major focus of this meeting was action on climate change following Paris and COP21.

The Statement following 47th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting was released by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, The Honorable John Silk:

“Today’s communique is a clarion call to action that even with the Paris Agreement, there remains a lot of work to do to guarantee there will still be 16 seats at the Pacific Islands Forum in a hundred years from now.”

“The Pacific is strongest when we come together and fight as one. Along with our big brothers and sisters in Australia and New Zealand, we have declared that we will continue to push for an ambitious amendment to the Montreal Protocol in October, and to see ambitious climate action across all sectors. This must include reducing aviation and maritime emissions in line with the 1.5°C temperature target we all agreed in Paris.”

“I want to particularly thank President Christian for the Federated States of Micronesia’s tireless leadership in the Montreal Protocol negotiations, beginning with their first submission in 2009. If we succeed in Kigali, it will be one of the best examples of island leadership that we have ever seen and help us avoid up to half a degree of warming – the biggest chunk yet off the ambition gap.”

Guest post: Pacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold

Tony De Brum with Coalition of High Ambition at Paris COP21. The Marshall Islands helped to galvanise what became an inexorable push towards a 1.5-degree target in Paris
Photo: John Englart, CC BY-SA

Wesley Morgan, The University of the South Pacific

Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will have some explaining to do when he attends the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Pohnpei, Micronesia, this week.

Australia’s continued determination to dig up coal, while refusing to dig deep to tackle climate change, has put it increasingly at odds with world opinion. Nowhere is this more evident than when Australian politicians meet with their Pacific island counterparts.

It is widely acknowledged that Pacific island states are at the front line of climate change. It is perhaps less well known that, for a quarter of a century, Australia has attempted to undermine their demands in climate negotiations at the United Nations.

Deciphering the US-China bilateral climate change outcomes

This article first appeared at indybay.org.

The nine point statement on the U.S.-China Climate Change Outcomes in Hangzhou China negotiated between Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama outlined the growing bilateral cooperation between the US and China on climate policy in a number of meetings since 2013. (First outcome).

These bilateral negotiations should be widely welcomed. They proved to be an important stage setter for the Paris Agreement at COP21 in Paris which set in place for the first time a true international framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dealing with climate change.

Read the U.S.-China Climate Change Outcomes (Whitehouse.gov) in full.

United States and China ratify Paris Agreement

The formal occasion in Hangzhou China was used to lodge instruments of ratification of the Paris Agreement with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and call for all other UNFCCC signatory countries to ratify the agreement this year. (Second Outcome)

Read more on this by me: China and the United States Ratify Paris Agreement on climate

China and the United States Ratify Paris Agreement on climate while Australia fumbles on policy

On Saturday China agreed to ratify the Paris Agreement according to the Guardian, with members of China's National People's Congress Standing Committee adopting "the proposal to review and ratify the Paris Agreement" on Saturday morning.

China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter with about 24 percent of total global emissions. The USA is second on about 12 percent of global emissions.

The report comes on the eve of the G20 summit in Hangzhou China over the weekend, where China, US set to release review of each other’s fossil fuel subsidies in historic move at G20 summit according to the South China Morning Post.

The announcement comes as Xi Jinping and Barack Obama met ahead of the start of the G20 on Sunday to make a joint statement on climate change and submit their country instruments of ratification to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Shining a light in Melbourne on Reef not Coal

Originally posted at Climate Action Moreland

Last night I ventured to Federation Square. I had heard that Nemo and Dory were in town.

The Climate Guardian angels were also there poignantly making a statement with a piece of the redline ribbon from Paris COP21 last year. The redline derives from diplomatic symbolism for a boundary or limit which should not be crossed. No new coal mines or other fossil fuels is one such boundary for a safe climate, backed up by research by McGlade and Ekins (2015) (See Unburnable carbon: why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground). Two of the Angels present are from our Climate Action Moreland group.

Seems the East Australian current is warmer and going further south. The Tasman sea has warmed by over 2 degrees C in the last 70 years - it's a global sea surface temperature hotspot. That's climate change for you.

Guest Post: Without a longer-term view, the Paris Agreement will lock in warming for centuries

Eelco Rohling, Australian National University

The Paris climate agreement set a “safe” global warming limit of below 2℃, aiming below 1.5℃ by 2100. The world has already warmed about a degree since the Industrial Revolution, and on our current emissions trajectory we will likely breach these limits within decades.

However, we could still come back from the brink with a massive effort.

54C temperatures in Kuwait and Iraq as heat spikes pose increasing health risk

Last week Kuwait and the city of Basra in Iraq sweltered in 54C heat reported Dr Jeff Masters on the Weather Underground blog. At these temperatures, a major heat hazard is posed to human health.

The heat danger to human health was outlined by Steven Sherwood and Matthew Huber (2010) in the study: An adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress which I reported on in May 2010: Scientists outline health limits of heat stress with Climate Change.