Victoria has joined three other states and territories in setting a renewable energy target.
Wind energy from www.shutterstock.com
Victoria has announced a renewable energy target of 40% by 2025.
Wasting food, wasting the earth.
Matt Carey
Feeding Melbourne generates over 900,000 tonnes of edible food waste every year, enough to feed more than 2 million people.
Airlines have saved energy by changing flight routes and modifying wings for better fuel use.
Plane image from www.shutterstock.com
Companies could improve their profits 2-10% each year by saving energy, according to a world-first attempt to assess energy performance.
Labor has promised 50% of electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050, but has left the detail for after the election.
Wind turbine image from www.shutterstock.com
Labor’s detailed climate policy is ambitious, but it remains to be seen if it will capture the voters.
Green planet: tropical rainforests have produced more growth in response to rising carbon dioxide.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr
Half of the world’s vegetated land has got greener in the past 30 years, mostly driven by rising CO2.
An LNG tanker leaves Gladstone, Queensland. Gas development is one of the drivers behind Australia’s increasing emissions and electricity demand.
AAP/Dan Peled
Over the past year Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from electricity rose 2.7%.
Electricity emissions have risen by 5.5% in the past two years due to increasing demand and the scrapping of Labor’s carbon price.
David Crosling/AAP
Modelling done for the Climate Institute indicates that without big policy changes Australia’s path to zero emissions from the electricity sector by 2050 would mean huge disruption after 2030.
Google
Self-driving cars are way more energy efficient than your average vehicle – but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll reduce carbon emissions.
Is the sun setting on coal investments?
EPA/Federico Gambarini/AAP
Energy companies are realising that, in light of the Paris climate deal, the economics are starting to line up in favour of climate action, not against it.
The Great Barrier Reef is made up of thousands of individual reefs.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr
Ocean acidification will hurt some parts of the Great Barrier Reef more than others.
The mussel hustle.
Joy Prescott
Shellfish will have more brittle shells as oceans get more acidic – making them more vulnerable to predators. New research gives a fascinating glimpse into how they will adapt.
Renewable energy is at the more expensive end of the emissions cost curve, but is a vital piece of the bigger picture.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Australia’s greenhouse emissions are once again rising, after a decade of consistent declines. But the right policies are already in place to turn things around - they just need to be ramped up.
Steve Cordory / shutterstock.com
The IMF wants a levy on ship and plane fuel, but that won’t magically create low-carbon alternatives.
Prime Minister Bob Hawke opening the General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Perth, November 1990.
National Archives of Australia
The National Archives of Australia today released selected federal cabinet records for 1990 and 1991. They reveal intense battles over Australia’s domestic climate targets and, above all, a palpable determination that Australia not damage its coal revenue.
Shutterstock
If shipping and aviation don’t rein in their emissions it could seriously jeopardise our goal of preventing more than 2°C of warming.
While low emissions technology might help coal, there are plenty of other energy sources competing in the post-Paris climate race.
Coal image from www.shutterstock.com
Despite its vital role in the development of Australia’s economy, the future of coal looks grim in a world aiming to limit warming to below 2°C.
Leaders celebrate the adoption of the Paris Agreement on Saturday.
Stephane Mahe/Reuters
The Paris Agreement is an extraordinary achievement. But there is much work to be done to ensure global warming does not exceed dangerous levels.
Dan Riedlhuber / Reuters
Countries have signed up to the Paris climate deal, but they have not yet promised the necessary cuts to emissions.
Coal consumption is down in China, slowing growth in global carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
Coal image from www.shutterstock.com
Despite robust global economic growth over the past two years, worldwide carbon emissions from fossil fuels grew very little in 2014, and might even fall this year.
Planting trees is one way to pull carbon out of the atmosphere – but is limited if it competes with food production.
CIFOR/Flickr
To prevent dangerous climate change, it’s likely we’ll have to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But that’s looking less and less promising.