World Bank calls for action on climate change

The World Bank has joined the call for greater action on climate change with the release of its' report titled "Turn Down the Heat". According to the Bank, the planet is plausibly on track to reach 4 degrees Celsius in warming above pre-industrial levels as early as 2060 which is double the 2 degrees Celsius threshold established as the target by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to mitigate climate change. A world with a 4 degree C increase would experience major floods, unprecedented heatwaves and negative impacts on ecosystems and human services. This reflects the warning conveyed in the IPCC's 4th Assessment in 2007 and the IPCC has already indicated that the 5th Assessment Report due in 2013 will reinforce the view that current CO2 emissions have been increasing rather than declining. The World Bank warns that a 4 degree C warming would have stronger impacts in some parts of the planet than others, particularly the Middle East, North Africa, the Mediterranean and the contiguous United States which would have summers hotter than the most extreme heatwaves to date. For Australia, the interior of the continent would be uninhabitable during the Summer months with knock-on effects on water, agriculture and population distribution. The acidification of the oceans would also mean impacts on coral reefs with a corresponding loss of food sources, income, tourism and shoreline protection - all of which apply to Australia.

The report makes sobering reading but equally underscores the critical message that there is still time to act, but only if the action is today and not put off until tomorrow.

 

The full report can be accessed at this link: http://bit.ly/UO5GNq

Mining in the Arctic - the growing environmental challenge

The Leiv Eiriksson sent to Greenland's Baffin Bay

The constant reduction in ice coverage in the Arctic have not only opened up the North East passage but created opportunities for the exploitation of the oil, gas and mineral reserves found in what was once a too remote and difficult region. September 2012 was significant as it marked the lowest seasonal coverage of ice ever recorded being 3.41 million square kilometres. In terms of mineral resources, the Arctic (including Greenland) has considerable deposits including an estimated 90 million barrels of oil (or 13 per cent of the Earth's remaining total). There are also gas deposits in the Barents and Karens Seas and rare earth elements at Kvanefjeld in Greenland. While there has been, for many years, a small degree of mining present in the region, it is only a matter of time till much more large scale exploration and extraction projects are underway with substantial risks for the environment and the planet.

Kyoto II and a low carbon future - there is no Plan B

Executive Director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, addressed a standing-room only lunchtime gathering at the Lowy Institute for International Policy on Wednesday 24 October 2012.

She reviewed progress with the establishing a low-carbon future emphasising that every nation and every sector of society holds part of the solution to solving a global problem and a top-down level approach on its own will not work. The international climate change negotiations are the intergovernmental face of this global trend towards a low-carbon future with the next step in the international response to climate change, being in Doha, this year.

She made three key points in her speech starting with a negative reality but balanced with two positive trends. First the negative reality is the progress has been slow and the world is well behind the targets needed to manage climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

The positive points are that a large number of countries are implementing carbon reduction and emission trading schemes or equivalent. Australia is not alone in developing a response and the Clean Energy Future policy of the Australian Government is in line with policies being taken overseas by many countries including many of Australia's trading partners - China, South Korea and Singapore.

 

She observed that she is often asked what she has for “Plan B” if the negotiations fail. Her response: “There is no Plan B for there is no Planet B. There’s no alternative for we only have one planet and failure is not an option”.

The sustainable world from Monsanto's view

Monsanto is arguably the world's largest multinational agricultural biotechnology company (but not agricultural company per se) with assets of $19.8 billion USD and the leader in genetically modified grain. It has an interesting history having previously been a chemical, polymers and plastics company and was transformed between 1997 and 2002 into the current entity. It still produces some pesticides but in its earlier incarnation, DDT and Agent Orange came from this company as well as PCBs for insulation. As a corporation it remains highly controversial and its development of GM products remains highly contested in the public domain.

Social License to Operate and Coal Seam Gas Mining

 A central principle and mechanism for community engagement used in the mining industry generally is termed the 'Social License to Operate' or SLO. This term is used to describe the approval and / or ongoing acceptance for a development granted by the local community and other related stakeholders. It's not a static arrangement but a dynamic approval which must be renegotiated continually as new information comes to light or circumstances change. Arguably the coal seam mining sector has failed to adequately address this critical link to communities with whom they interact and ultimately also affect with their mining operations. SLO has five key features -

• Starting point is that no SLO exists until one is negotiated - miners cannot assume they have any social licence from the community until they engage in dialogue to establish one.
• Dynamic is the descriptive term underpinning the SLO and an SOL must be earned and then maintained.
• Key values for an SLO must include credibility, transparency and fundamentally, trust.
• Dialogue enabling communties and stakeholders to engage meaingfully with miners on issues around the acceptibility of new or continuing operations.
• Information which is sufficient and from a range of perspectives for public education to enable communities and the broader public to make informed decisions, consider trade-offs and develop realistic expectations concerning coal seam gas mining.

To the degree that there is a high level of opposition to coal seam gas mining, there is equally apparent an absence of a social license to operate.

Genetically Modified Food - the Greenpeace view

Genetically Modified (GM) Food - The perspective from Greenpeace - this short animation contains some of the accepted information on this issue but should be seen as one view on the debate as some explantations are contestable.

Genetically Modified Crops - The Upside Debate

Maize harvested

Any discussion involved genetically modified (GM) foods plus GM crops immediately triggers regular and consistent controversy with steadfast opposition from both environmentalists and some in the agriculture sector. However not all of the negative reaction is warranted and in a number of cases, the evidence against GM crops is flawed. In September 2012, the University of Caen, France reported that rats fed GM maize with an inbuilt resistence to the herbicide, glyphosate, were more susceptible to cancer. However subsequent analysis of the study has found that many of the control mice fed non GM maize also developed cancer. This month, the European Food Safety Authority concluded that the Caen study was of "insufficient scientific quality to be considered valid for risk assessment.."

An alternative set of data from the US National Agricultural Statistics Service has found that between 1996 and 2010, use of herbicides and insecticides with GM crops apparently declined by 9.1 % globally compared with non-GM crops. This is due to the fact that some GM crops have been engineered to be partly pest resistant and hence require less pesticides. Other GM crops produce sufficient pest resistant chemicals to not require spraying at all. This is a debate however which remains inconclusive and will continue for many years to come.