The public would be kept up to date on progress towards meeting Australia’s 43% emissions reduction target with an annual ministerial statement and oversight by the Climate Change Authority
Australia needs an honest reckoning with the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long hold over Australian politics. Without that, we cannot shift to a principled stand against ceaseless expansion.
A new study finds that companies’ emissions reductions may not be what they seem.
(Shutterstock)
Companies are buying renewable energy certificates to meet their emissions targets, but new research suggests that the bulk of these purchases do not lead to actual emission reductions.
A stray polar bear is seen outside Oktyabrsky mine on the outskirts of the Russian industrial city of Norilsk in 2019.
Irina Yarinskaya/AFP
The war in Ukraine threatens to turn back the clock on Russia’s climate progress, with some calling on the country to leave the Paris Agreement and roll back environmental regulations.
Managing the transition to a net-zero emissions economy must be a priority task for the next government. Our strategic and economic success depends on it.
The Coalition’s climate policy is consistent with a very dangerous 3°C of global warming. But one party is comfortably consistent with keeping warming at safe levels.
The main driver of climate change is the greenhouse effect – when certain gases in the Earth’s atmosphere trap the sun’s heat and cause global warming.
Richard Drury/Getty Images
With the world on track to blow the carbon budget for 1.5°C before the end of this decade, we must use offsetting carefully. It can no longer be a substitute for deep emissions cuts.
Olaf Morgenstern, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
The current estimate is that Earth would warm by 1.5°C to 4.5°C if emissions were to double on pre-industrial levels. The range has remained stubbornly wide, despite improved climate modelling.
A global treaty on plastic pollution must incentivize a take-make-reuse waste management system and include quantitative targets based on geography-specific emissions.
Over 170 countries have endorsed a resolution to negotiate a plastics treaty that’s much more precise than the Paris climate change agreement.
Carbon markets can protect forests but increasing the economic value of these lands can also create incentives for land-grabbing.
(Boudewijn Huysmans/Unsplash)
Many see carbon markets as key to channelling billions of dollars into reducing carbon emissions and protecting forests, but they also put the well-being of communities at risk.
Mark Howden, Australian National University; Joy Pereira, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia), and Roberto Sánchez, Colegio de la Frontera Norte
The IPCC is the global authority on climate change. Their new report paints a worrying picture of climate impacts already affecting billions of people, economies and the environment.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, the agenda for 2022 includes key developments to tackle the connected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.