World greenhouse emissions reached a new record in 2013 and will be even higher in 2014, driven largely by the continued use of fossil fuels such as coal.
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As heads of state gather in New York for tomorrow’s United Nations climate summit, a new report on the state of the world’s carbon budget tells them that greenhouse emissions hit a new record last year…
The world’s economy is becoming less carbon-intensive, but not nearly fast enough.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
James Whitmore, The Conversation and Michael Hopkin, The Conversation
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…
As early as 2015 China’s use of thermal coal for electricity could peak.
Bret Arnett/Flickr
China’s use of coal for electricity could peak as early as next year, then decline until 2020 in a turnaround of “global importance”, according to economist Ross Garnaut in a lecture presented at the Melbourne…
If press coverage is any measure, it appears that electric vehicles (EVs) have finally arrived. Tesla’s Model S was named Automobile Magazine’s Car of the Year, the Nissan Leaf is topping the EV sales…
The Alpha Coal Project in Queensland’s Galilee coal basin. The Carmichael project is the second to be approved in the region.
Lock the Gate Alliance
Australia’s biggest coal mine, the Carmichael Coal and Rail Project, yesterday received the go-ahead from the federal government. Environment minister Greg Hunt approved the mine, proposed by Indian coal…
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…
Last week there was a bit of a hullabaloo when it was discovered that the international programme director for Greenpeace, Pascal Husting, was flying to work from Luxembourg to Amsterdam a few times a…
We’ll need more of these, wherever they end up.
Andrew Milligan/PA
Do we have enough onshore windfarms, or do we have too many? And who decides what “too many” looks like? The Conservative Party has announced it would end subsidies for new onshore wind farms if it won…
A rich western businessman sips champagne as he cruises at 35,000ft and looks down at an archipelago below populated with subsistence fishers. In a few years these coastal communities will be washed away…
Global action to reduce emissions could threaten Australia’s coal exports.
Lock the Gate Alliance/Flickr
Australia’s economy faces grave threats from climate change, but the greatest threat is if we do not make a serious effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not just the physical impacts of climate…
New Delhi at night: India’s surging electricity demand may prove a challenge for renewable energy.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr
India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inherited the ongoing problem of supplying energy to one of the world’s largest economies. The challenge is made even bigger by India’s ambitions to meet rigorous…
When was the last time you booked a flight? That extra A$1 in the final stages of booking may seem a small price to pay for offsetting the carbon emissions you generate travelling by air. But globally…
The swollen Fitzroy River in Queensland, Australia, where heavy rains in early 2011 led to extraordinary regrowth with a global impact.
Capt. W. M. & Tatters/Flickr
Record-breaking rains triggered so much new growth across Australia that the continent turned into a giant green carbon sink to rival tropical rainforests including the Amazon, our new research shows…
Moving to a low-carbon economy could attract emissions-intensive industries to Australia to use renewable power.
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There is an instinctive fear that overhauling the parts of our economies that emit greenhouse gases would spell economic doom and gloom. But the reality is much brighter. As the Intergovernmental Panel…
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…
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 and 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…
Make one change, cause another - everything’s closely linked.
Dominic Lipinski/PA
The UK is one of only a handful of countries that has put in place legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels. How the country intends to go about…
It is estimated that by 2050 there will be a six-fold increase in the number of flights there are today. This is going to be an environmental problem, and it will need radical change in aircraft design…
A major justification for exploiting natural resources, including burning fossil fuels, is that it helps improve the quality of our lives. We rely on oil, coal and gas, for example, to power our cars…