- Joined
- 21 April 2014
- Posts
- 7,956
- Reactions
- 1,072
Tisme can be very cruel.
Yep...Near the end of September and we still have a blanket on at nights....never had it happen in 44 years living here.....Very dry though....The Ross River Dam is down to 40 % and water restrictions apply.
They say it has lot to do with the El Nino.
Shell's global chief executive says an effective carbon price is needed to tackle climate change, whether through a trading or tax system.
Speaking exclusively to ABC TV's The Business program, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said a price on carbon was necessary to discourage pollution.
"Putting, in one form or another, a real, clear price on carbon that compels people to act with rational economic actions, I think is something that we need," he told presenter Ticky Fullerton.
When pressed over the Australian Government's current direct action plan, which provides funding for programs to cut emissions rather than charging heavy emitters, Mr van Beurden said the design of the system was a matter for politicians in each country.
"Ultimately it doesn't matter too much if you have a trading system, a tax system or another system, as long as it is effective at what it does," he responded.
With the Paris climate change conference now just a couple of months away, Shell has joined forces with a number of other energy producers and industrial firms to form a Commission of Energy Transition.
Members include Australian mining giant BHP Billiton - with its interests in coal, gas and oil - as well as Dow Chemical and General Electric, two major industrial firms which are major energy consumers.
The aim of the commission is to provide advice to governments about how to combat climate change with the least disruption to their economies.
Many environmental groups are deeply sceptical of the commission, with Carbon Tracker saying the group's first report, which it says looks at how to lower the use of fossil fuels to 50 per cent of energy production by 2050, leaves the world open to warming twice as much as the current international target.
"We question the credibility and independence of an Energy Transitions Commission funded by fossil fuel incumbents," said Carbon Tracker's chief executive Anthony Hobley in a press release earlier this week.
"Shell's track record on climate change does not inspire us with confidence and plans that would see half our power generated by fossil fuels in 2050 risk seeing us go way over the UN's 2 °C climate change target."
However, Mr van Beurden said it is vital that companies with actual knowledge of energy production and usage are involved in the designing the solutions.
"The debate has gone to a place where some of the realism that we can bring to it has gone missing," he responded.
Exports needed to make Arrow's Queensland gas viable
Another, local, challenge that Shell faces is a battle to win approval for its takeover of BG Group and its LNG project in central Queensland.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has raised concerns that the project could lower competition and raise domestic gas prices on the east coast.
That has led to some speculation that the ACCC might require much of Shell's gas reserves to be set aside for domestic use.
While Mr van Beurden declined to suggest solutions to the ACCC's concerns, he noted that gas exports were essential to the project's viability.
"It's going to be obvious in order to drive real scale in that project we will need to have access to export markets," he said in the extended interview, which can be watched on The Business's website.
"The original plan was to build our own LNG plant. It may well be that we end up selling gas to other neighbouring LNG facilities so ultimately, and this is also what the ACCC has recognised, Arrow to be developed as a resource base does need the underpinning of an export project, whether its our own, whether it is somebody else's, whether it is somebody else's in which we have a share, is to some extent immaterial."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-...price-needed-to-tackle-climate-change/6824510
It's time to 'Do the math' again
DOWNLOAD
Have we gone mad? A new report released today explains why contemporary climate change policy-making should be characterised as increasingly delusional.
As the deadline approaches for submissions to the Australian government's climate targets process, there is a flurry of submissions and reports from advocacy groups and the Climate Change Authority.
Most of these reports are based on the twin propositions that two degrees Celsius (2 °C) of global warming is an appropriate policy target, and that there is a significant carbon budget and an amount of "burnable carbon" for this target, and hence a scientifically-based escalating ladder of emission-reduction targets stretching to mid-century and beyond.
A survey of the relevant scientific literature by David Spratt, "Recount: It's time to 'Do the math' again", published today by Breakthrough concludes that the evidence does not support either of these propositions.
The catastrophic and irreversible consequences of 2 °C of warming demand a strong risk-management approach, with a low rate of failure. We should not take risks with the climate that we would not take with civil infrastructure.
There is no carbon budget available if 2 °C is considered a cap or upper boundary as per the Copenhagen Accord, rather than a hit-or-miss target which can be significantly exceeded; or if a low risk of exceeding 2 °C is required; or if positive feedbacks such as permafrost and other carbon store losses are taken into account.
Effective policy making can only be based on recognising that climate change is already dangerous, and we have no carbon budget left to divide up. Big tipping-point events irreversible on human time scales such as in West Antarctica and large-scale positive feedbacks are already occurring at less than 1 °C of warming. It is clear that 2 °C of climate warming is not a safe cap.
In reality, 2 °C is the boundary between dangerous and very dangerous climate change and 1 °C warmer than human civilisation has ever experienced.
About This Series
After eight months of investigation, InsideClimate News presents this multi-part history of Exxon's engagement with the emerging science of climate change. The story spans four decades, and is based on primary sources including internal company files dating back to the late 1970s, interviews with former company employees, and other evidence, much of which is being published here for the first time.
It describes how Exxon conducted cutting-edge climate research decades ago and then, without revealing all that it had learned, worked at the forefront of climate denial, manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that its own scientists had confirmed.
Find the entire project here.
ExxonMobil Faces Heightened Risk of Climate Litigation, Its Critics Say
Advocates explore holding the company accountable after new evidence shows it's long understood that global warming threatened its business and the planet.
By Bob Simison, InsideClimate News
Sep 30, 2015
ExxonMobil may face renewed legal challenges from plaintiffs claiming that it should have acted to address the risks of climate change, based on new evidence that its own researchers warned management about the emerging threat decades ago.
In an online petition drive, in public statements and behind the scenes, environmental advocates and their political allies are pressing federal and state authorities to launch investigations, subpoenas or prosecutions to pin down what Exxon knew and when. The oil giant's critics say Exxon might be held liable either for failing to disclose the risks to shareholders and financial regulators, or for manufacturing doubt to deceive people about the science of climate change.
"I think the case is already there to be made," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island. He has raised the possibility of a Justice Department investigation under federal racketeering law. A former prosecutor, he is one of the Senate's leading voices for action to address the climate crisis.
The interest in pursuing legal action against Exxon has been sharpened by new disclosures from an eight-month InsideClimate News investigation documenting extensive concern within the company about the risks of global warming dating back nearly 40 years, according to environmental advocates, litigators and legal experts.
The evidence, much of it drawn from internal Exxon documents, shows Exxon understood that climate change posed catastrophic risks to people if nothing was done to control pollution from fossil fuels. It was also aware of material risks to the company if the use of fossil fuels had to be limited.
The new documentation of Exxon's internal study of climate science would influence the tactics in future litigation, said several people active in the long-running strategizing among the company's most determined antagonists.
Pressure could come from the U.S. Justice Department, state attorneys general, private plaintiffs in the U.S. or abroad, or shareholders, legal authorities said. While no legal pathway is assured, and Exxon would surely mount a powerful defense, at the very least the litigation might lead the company to reveal new details of Exxon’s actions, or force it to be more forthcoming in its public statements.
http://books.insideclimatenews.org/exxonsclimategambleEditor’s Note: This is the first of several articles on American oil companies and whether their track records on shareholder resolutions on climate change expose them to legal liabilities.
These stories also launch ICN’s Climate Accountability Project, which investigates the role that people, companies and other groups have played in opposing or delaying action on climate change.
Refusing to act on climate resolutions could become a costly mistake, and invite the kind of legal onslaught that cost tobacco companies billions of dollars.
By Elizabeth Douglass, InsideClimate News
At ExxonMobil, the answer is still no.
For a quarter-century, stockholders have asked Exxon to confront the threat of climate change in all sorts of ways: by investing in renewable energy, cutting harmful emissions, providing carbon risk assessments and adding a board member with climate expertise. Year after year, the oil giant has said no, rejecting shareholders’ requests and downplaying their concerns long after scientists concluded that unfettered burning of fossil fuels is leading to catastrophic climate change. At Chevron and ConocoPhillips, executives have also routinely opposed climate-related shareholder resolutions.
But Exxon, the biggest and richest of the oil giants, is also the most dug-in. Late last month, it fought off another shareholder request to adopt one of the most basic and widely endorsed climate policies in corporate America””to set company-wide goals to lower greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a proposal Exxon investors have introduced at annual meetings on and off since 1990, and it continues to hit the same wall.
“We have been ringing alarm bells for years saying to the oil companies that the status quo is unsustainable, is dangerous for investors, and in the long term isn’t in the companies’ best interests,” said Timothy Smith, shareholder engagement director at Boston-based Walden Asset Management, a 40-year-old investment firm managing $3 billion in assets. “They’re aware of the trends, but that doesn’t mean they’re changing their business plans. They’re not convinced they should move away from [the oil] business, or even curtail it.”
But I am still xxxxxxx outraged at the duplicity of the Exxon Board to have their own expert scientific knowledge at hand and then decide to bury it in favour of a systemic campaign of deceit.
IMO they should go to jail.
.....(In another universe.)
I agree. Pity Freedom of Information doesn't extend to corporations.
Oh puleeeeze.But I am still xxxxxxx outraged at the duplicity of the Exxon Board to have their own expert scientific knowledge at hand and then decide to bury it in favour of a systemic campaign of deceit.
IMO they should go to jail.
.....(In another universe.)
Oh puleeeeze.
You want outrage? How about this, a client of mine's daughter has been suffering depression foe some time and three days ago topped herself.
Featuring prominently in her suicide note was the fear of global warming.
Congratulations a55holes, because of the like of you and your politicking on this matter a beatiful, gorgeous, sensitive young lady is dead.
No prizes for who I think should be locked up
Every hour, enough sunlight blasts the earth to power humanity for a year. By 2050, across the entire world, solar energy could power our computers, phones, lights, hot water – anything we use electricity for today. There would be no need to pollute the planet with oil, coal or gas. Plus, solar panels are cheap at the moment. What better way to save a heating planet?
And on a more constructive note consider this. Check out a 60 sec vid.
If we seriously went in this direction maybe we wouldn't have to spend so much mental and emotional energy energy denying the obvious and actually improving our lives.
Doesn't it make simple sense to move to clean renewable energy ASAP ?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2015/jul/22/sun-cool-down-earth-video
_________________________________________________________________
And while your at it have a look at The Guardians campaign to create hope and serious solutions.
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...ches-phase-two-of-its-climate-change-campaign
Of course it does. I'm on record in this thread for agreeing on energy security and general pollution grounds.
As far as I am concerned, you (collectively) have blood on your hands, a pox on your house.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?