The federal government is holding the first reverse auction to award contracts for its Direct Action emissions plan. Here’s how it will work.
Safeguarding rainforests is an area where the United Nations has made great strides - hopefully the Paris summit can deliver more of the same.
Sze Ning/Flickr.com/Wikimedia Commons
In the final part of his essay on the Paris climate talks, Nick Rowley explains how a successful deal, whether binding or not, needs to influence directly the domestic policies of the world’s nations.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been urged to join the fossil fuel divestment movement.
Adbar/Wikimedia Commons
The Guardian’s divestment campaign is targeting charitable research trusts. John Quiggin says they have a moral duty to divest fossil fuels, regardless of the temptation to research technological climate fixes.
Switching to alternative energy sources, such as renewables, and using more electric cars could double Australia’s energy productivity.
NRMA Motoring and Services/Flickr
Meat uses a lot of resources - between three and ten times as much as plants for the same amount of protein. The rich world might be slowly losing its taste for meat, but the developing world isn’t.
For the first time, the February monthly average carbon dioxide levels at the Mauna Loa Observatory have passed 400ppm.
NOAA/Wikimedia Commons
We have hit a new milestone in carbon dioxide levels: the average for February topped 400ppm. It’s the first time this has happened in the northern winter, when levels are typically lower than in summer.
What happens to coal in China will play a big role in deciding which climate road we’re all on.
Han Jun Zeng/Flickr
Emissions fell by six times the rate in the five years before the carbon tax than they did under the carbon tax. – Environment minister Greg Hunt, The Guardian, January 17, 2015. Australia’s total greenhouse…
The Western Treatment Plant in Werribee, Victoria, largely powers itself using biogas – a by-product of sewage treatment.
Jason Patrick Ross/Shutterstock
Could what we flush down the toilet be used to power our homes? Thanks to biogas technology, Australia’s relationship with organic waste – human and animal excreta, plant scraps and food-processing waste…
Imagine the smokestacks without the billowing clouds of greenhouse gas pollution.
JuergenGER
Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental…
Julie Bishop will need to fight to rescue Australia’s standing after a dire first week at the Lima climate talks.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop will have a lot of explaining to do when she arrives here in Lima, Peru, ahead of her address to the UN climate summit tomorrow. It will take all of her diplomatic…
Australian farmers apply nearly a million tonnes of nitrogen-based fertilisers every year.
Pete Hill/Flickr
Peter Grace, Queensland University of Technology and Louise Barton, The University of Western Australia
When we talk about greenhouse gases we usually talk about carbon dioxide. When media reports depict climate change, we invariably see the cooling towers of a coal power station. Which is fair, because…
Aerial image of gas fields in the Darling Downs. Can science keep up with coal seam gas expansion?
Google Earth
One of the key questions about the coal seam gas (CSG) industry, which is now being developed at breakneck speed across Australia, is how much methane is released as “fugitive” emissions. Three weeks ago…
To match the US, Australia would have to increase its emissions reduction target to 25% below 2000 levels.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
If you use the full Kyoto period — 1990 to 2020 — the US is minus 5% and Australia is almost exactly the same. Environment minister Greg Hunt, Radio National, November 17. *We and the United States are…
The Australian National University has drawn fire for dumping mining stocks - but is it alone?
Bidgee/Wikimedia Commons
The Australian National University’s decision to withdraw A$16 million in investment from seven resources companies, including gas producer Santos, has been praised by divestment campaigners and condemned…
Planes and airports both have big carbon footprints – and the sector is still growing.
ssguy/Shutterstock
No matter what the aviation industry does to reduce emissions, it will be outweighed by growth in air travel, according to a new analysis. Growth will trump emissions cuts even if significant (and contentious…
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…
Research coming from UCLA and five other universities has proven that by far the most effective way to prevent further global…
Whatever you call it - climate change, global warming, or the greenhouse effect - it’s increasing the frequency and severity of heatwaves.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
How we talk about climate change has a lot to do with how we feel about it, and what we’re willing to do to act on it. Recent research from the US found that the terms “global warming” and “climate change…