The new US-China climate deal is a game-changer. The United States, the world’s biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, has pledged to cut emissions by 26-28% by 2025 relative to 2005 levels, while…
The world’s economy is becoming less carbon-intensive, but not nearly fast enough.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
James Whitmore, La Conversation Canada et Michael Hopkin, La Conversation Canada
The world is falling far behind in its bid to curb greenhouse emissions enough to limit global warming to 2C, according to two new reports. For the sixth year running, the world has failed to meet the…
Flying is dirty, but few are willing to change.
USAF
Transportation continues to generate a large proportion of emissions worldwide, even as emissions from other areas of the economy fall. In the EU, transport accounts for around 30% of CO2 emissions, and…
A tourist train from Sheringham to Holt steams past an offshore wind farm, one of many that have sprung up along the UK coast.
Gerry Balding/Flickr
Australia’s carbon price has gone – but a UK review released this week shows that to lay the foundations for a low-carbon economy, pricing carbon is far from the whole story. Over recent months, as Australia’s…
Third time lucky: after a deal between Clive Palmer (right) and his Senate PUPs with the government, the carbon tax has finally been repealed.
Alan Porritt/AAP
UPDATED THURSDAY 17 JULY, 11:20am: Australia’s “carbon tax” has been axed – so what does it mean for you and for Australia? We asked Conversation readers to tell us on Facebook and Twitter what questions…
Melt pond on the Greenland ice sheet.
NASA / Michael Studinger
The concept of a “tipping point” – a threshold beyond which a system shifts to a new state – is becoming a familiar one in discussions of the climate. Examples of tipping points are everywhere: a glass…
Australia’s Tim Cahill never loses sight of the goal – and neither should we on climate change.
Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Kicking goals is a whole lot easier when you’re running hard, with a clear line of vision. But amid so much backpassing and confusion on climate policy in Australia, it could be easy to lose sight of what…
The Castelao stadium in Fortaleza was the first of Brazil’s World Cup stadiums to receive green certification.
Pedroichimaru/Wikimedia Commons
This year’s World Cup was supposed to be the “greenest ever”, with FIFA taking measures to account for the event’s greenhouse gas emissions, including an estimated 2.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide…
Australia has a possible path to 100% renewables – if governments and business can be persuaded to take it.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The political outlook for renewable energy is not great – and I’m not just talking about the view out of Joe Hockey’s car window. The Renewable Energy Target (RET), which aims to deliver 41 million megawatt-hours…
Greg Hunt says he is confident the Emissions Reduction Fund will meet its target of cutting carbon pollution by 5%.
AAP Image/Daniel Munoz
The long-awaited White Paper on the A$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund answers some questions about how the Abbott government’s Direct Action climate plan will work. But it looks like the policy will…
Better appliances and energy-efficiency rules saved Australians more than A$3 billion on electricity last year alone.
Shutterstock
The latest review of Australia’s energy-saving appliance scheme has delivered a rare trifecta: a good news story for the economy, the community and the environment. According to my estimates from data…
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – shown at UN headquarters with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop last year – is urging governments and businesses to bring “bold pledges” to a UN summit later this year.
EPA/Jason Szenes
After a week of mostly bad news on climate change, new figures reveal that Australia easily beat its first internationally-agreed climate target, with nearly 131 million tonnes of emissions to spare. That’s…
For the first time the IPCC has addressed the ethical, as well as technical, issues of reducing greenhouse emissions.
EPA/How Hwee Young/AAP
Frank Jotzo, Australian National University et David Stern, Australian National University
The new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that global greenhouse gas emissions have grown faster than ever over the last decade. Taking action to achieve the world’s goal…
Melting permafrost in places like Sweden could result in even higher levels of carbon emissions than predicted, accelerating…
A mini power plant in a North Sydney basement. Trigeneration plants like these generate electricity, heating and cooling far more efficiently than with mains power.
AAP/Short Communications, Girrit Fokkema
The debate about the future of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) has largely focused on the issue of immediate costs to business. But if we’re thinking about Australia’s long-term economic interests…
Alcoa is to close its Point Henry smelter in Geelong.
AAP
Alcoa’s decision to close the Point Henry smelter, at a cost of almost 1000 jobs in Geelong and elsewhere, comes amid a perfect storm buffeting Australia’s aluminium industry. Point Henry will be the second…
Cooling towers at Yallourn, one of Victoria’s major brown coal power generators.
Flickr/ccdoh1
Australia’s Renewable Energy Target looks likely to be weakened or even axed, with the Prime Minister saying the scheme needs to be reviewed because it is causing “pretty significant price pressure”. But…
Nuclear power is back on Australia’s radar. In its recent issues paper released as a preface to September’s Energy White Paper, the Abbott government reopened the debate thus: With environmental considerations…
A plane struggles to keep its course in stormy weather at Amsterdam airport last month.
EPA/OLAF KRAAK
If global aviation was a country, its emissions would be ranked about seventh in the world, between Germany and South Korea on CO2 emissions alone. Yet despite flying being a growing global contributor…