1.5 degrees Paris climate target not ‘safe or appropriate’ given climate tipping point risks, ‘major rethink’ required: new report

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Climate tipping points in the Antarctica, the Arctic and the Amazon are at risk of being reached before or at the current level of global warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius, requiring a “major rethink” of global climate goals and the action necessary to achieve them, according to a report released today.

A ‘tipping point’ is a threshold at which a small change initiates a larger, more critical change, taking the climate system from one state to a discreetly different state, which may be abrupt and irreversible. 

Climate Dominoes: Tipping point risks for critical climate systems,is published by Breakthrough - National Centre for Climate Restoration. Co-authored by former head of the Australian Coal Association Ian Dunlop and Breakthrough’s Research Director, David Spratt, the report outlines the scientific evidence that critical climate tipping points are already being reached in Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland Ice Sheet, the Amazon rainforest and for coral reefs.

Tullamarine’s dream of a third runway is an emissions nightmare

by Mark Carter

Aviation is gearing up to be once more the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. And MelbourneAirport is planning to play its part.

It’s now asking the federal transport minister to approve a third runway that will create cumulative emissions,estimated at around 160 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) out to 2046 from additional flights.

Australia Pacific Airports (Melbourne) Pty Ltd (APAM), Melbourne Airport’s owner, seems to be in denial about our climate reality. It understates Third Runway emissions, its assessment of climate risk to the runway is cavalier, and it ignores realistic threats to passenger growth.

Are renewables decreasing global fossil fuel use?

by David Spratt

Recently Shane White, who blogs at worldenergydata.org, alerted me to a recent report, Boom and Bust Coal 2022: Tracking the global coal plant pipeline, compiled by by Global Energy Monitor in association with CREA, E3G, Sierra Club, SFOC, Kiko Network, CAN Europe, LIFE, and Bangladesh Groups. The report points to a net increase in the global coal-power fleet of 18.2 gigawatts (GW) in 2021.

Whilst the pace of solar and wind energy construction is accelerating, it is not making significant inroads into the quantity of emissions from fossil-fuel based energy systems. Recently Mark Diesendorf from the University of NSW noted that: "We must confront a hard fact: In the year 2000, fossil fuels supplied 80% of the world’s total primary energy consumption. In 2019, they provided 81%.”