Australia’s secret ETS starts in five weeks - Alan Kohler
Quietly, surprisingly, Australia’s climate change policy has become a bipartisan emissions trading scheme, or ETS … well, almost. The parties might try to manufacture differences for the election campaign, although they haven’t yet, and anyway they don’t really exist.

From July 1, coincidentally the day before the election, the Coalition’s “safeguard mechanism” within its Direct Action Plan will come into force.

One-hundred and fifty companies, representing about 50 per cent of Australia’s total carbon emissions, will be capped by legislation at their highest level of emissions between 2009-10 and 2013-14.

If they emit less than their caps, they will get credits, called Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), which were created by the Gillard government’s 2011 legislation; if they emit more, they have to buy ACCUs on the market.

The caps specifically include the electricity sector and the ACCUs are “financial products” under both the Corporations Act and the ASIC Act, and can be traded, so an ETS market will be established from July 1.

It is, in short, a classic cap-and-trade ETS, similar in effect to the one legislated by the ALP in 2011, but which unwisely started with a fixed price that could be labelled a carbon tax, and was repealed on July 17, 2014 by the Abbott government, with high-fives and champagne.

What hasn’t been announced or included in the Coalition’s legislation yet is that the caps will start to be reduced from next year, which will make it even more similar in some ways to the Gillard government’s Clean Energy Act 2011.

The legislation that included the Coalition’s ETS was passed by the Senate — with the support of both the ALP and the Greens — on its last day of sitting in 2015, in December.

As it happens, that was the day before the Paris climate conference, called COP 21, got underway, at which an agreement to keep the global temperature increase to 2 degrees was signed by 189 countries, including Australia.

The emissions caps imposed on 150 companies are described by the government as a “safeguard mechanism” to support the Emissions Reduction Fund that is the centrepiece of the Direct Action Plan, in which companies bid at auction for the right to be paid to reduce their emissions. Those auctions have so far resulted in 143 million tonnes of abatement at an average price of $12.10 per tonne, which is much lower than had been forecast by the scheme’s opponents.

The Department of Environment’s website says: “The safeguard mechanism will protect taxpayers’ funds by ensuring that emissions reductions paid for through the crediting and purchasing elements of the Emissions Reduction Fund are not displaced by significant increases in emissions above business-as-usual levels elsewhere in the economy.”

But depending on the gradient of cap reduction that is decided next year, the safeguard itself could end up becoming the central pillar of Australia’s response to the Paris agreement.

That’s because the government almost certainly can’t afford to pay for enough abatement under the auction system to meet its Paris commitments, given the state of the budget.

In fact, the safeguard mechanism becomes a way for the government — Coalition or Labor — to adjust the budget deficit: reducing the “safeguard” caps faster would reduce the amount that the ERF would have to pay out.

The interesting question is why no one is talking about any of this. Obviously the 150 companies involved know about it, and it’s all described in full on the department website, but the fact that Australia has effectively legislated an emissions trading scheme is virtually a secret.

So far, climate change has been absent from the election campaign and will probably remain so — because fundamentally the parties agree now. The only disagreement is likely to be rate of the reduction in the caps, and no one is ready to talk about that yet.

In fact, the idea of a cap-and-trade scheme has been part of the Coalition’s climate policy since well before Greg Hunt went from shadow minister to Minister for the Environment in 2013. He made it a condition of his appointment by Tony Abbott that the science of climate change would be accepted and the emissions reduction target would not change.

Within that, he and Abbott constructed a policy position that could more or less credibly be argued as achieving the abatement targets, while at the same time satisfying three requirements: differentiating their policy from the ALP, not increasing electricity prices and not upsetting the far right of the Coalition.

When Malcolm Turnbull became leader and Prime Minister last year, amazingly, he did not fully understand his party’s climate policy, and in particular the inclusion of a cap and trade ETS, because Hunt had never discussed it in Cabinet. Apparently, he was pleasantly surprised, but decided to maintain radio silence, as part of his broader efforts to keep the conservatives onside.

The whole process has been a remarkable strategy by Hunt: he has effectively steered an emissions trading scheme into Australia’s response to climate change through a ferociously polarised political debate.

It’s arguably a bit like Nixon in China — only a conservative minister could have done it.

The key has been not talking about the ETS part of the policy and to emphasise the lack of a price on all emissions. He hasn’t exactly kept it secret, since it’s in the legislation, but nor has he talked about it publicly and nor has anyone else.

Both the Greens and the ALP passed the legislation in December, even though they probably could have blocked it. Why? It’s because they basically agree with it and want to use the mechanism if elected.

Will it work? That depends on the gradient of the cap reductions when they start. The key is that an ETS has now been legislated in Australia and can be adjusted to fit requirements, either budgetary or political.

Will it result in higher electricity prices? Almost certainly. Shhh.

The Totten Glacier in East Antarctica has an unstable area that could collapse and contribute to more than two metres of sea level rise beyond what is generally predicted if climate change remains unchecked, researchers say.
East Antarctica is the world's largest area of ice and, until recently, was thought to be more stable than the smaller West Antarctic ice sheet.
The Totten Glacier, in particular, has rapidly become recognised as the most vulnerable of all the East Antarctic glaciers, with its floating ice shelf already in retreat.
"While traditional models haven't suggested this glacier can collapse, more recent models have," said Dr Alan Aitken of the University of Western Australia, co-author of a new study published today in the journal Nature....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-19/warning-on-tipping-point-for-east-antarctic-glacier/7425362

2016 is likely to be the world’s hottest year: here’s why

We’re not even halfway through the year but already you may have heard talk of 2016 being the hottest on record. But how can scientists be so sure we’re going to beat the previous record, set just last year?

Even before the end of 2015, the UK Met Office was forecasting with 95% confidence that 2016 would beat the record. Since then, that confidence has grown still further, as record after record has tumbled. April 2016 broke the record for the hottest April after we had experienced the hottest February and March on record already this year.

NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt recently estimated at least a 99% likelihood of 2016 being hotter than 2015.....
https://theconversation.com/2016-is-likely-to-be-the-worlds-hottest-year-heres-why-59378

Scientists Warn of Perilous Shift within Decades, Not Centuries
The nations of the world agreed years ago to try to limit global warming to a level they hoped would prove somewhat tolerable. But leading climate scientists warned on Tuesday that permitting a warming of that magnitude would actually be quite dangerous.

The likely consequences would include killer storms stronger than any in modern times, the disintegration of large parts of the polar ice sheets and a rise of the sea sufficient to begin drowning the world’s coastal cities before the end of this century, the scientists declared.

“We’re in danger of handing young people a situation that’s out of their control,” said James E. Hansen, the retired NASA climate scientist who led the new research. The findings were released Tuesday morning by a European science journal, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

A draft version of the paper was released last year, and it provoked a roiling debate among climate scientists. The main conclusions have not changed, and that debate seems likely to be replayed in the coming weeks.

The basic claim of the paper is that by burning fossil fuels at a prodigious pace and pouring heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, humanity is about to provoke an abrupt climate shift...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/science/global-warming-sea-level-carbon-dioxide-emissions.html?_r=0

March temperatures sets record as hottest ever, Bureau of Meteorology says

You could be forgiven for not noticing the end of summer — March was a hot one.

Information released by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) indicated it was the hottest March on record, reaching 1.7 degrees Celsius above the long-term average.

This eclipsed the 1986 record of 1.67 degrees above the average, BoM said in its monthly climate report.

The unusual heat was particularly noticed in the Top End, where the failure of the monsoon allowed temperatures to creep up.

This, coupled with a high pressure system off the east coast of Australia, caused a heatwave strong enough to prompt BoM to issue a special climate statement about the phenomenon.

March 2 became Australia's hottest day on record.

Averaged across the country, it reached a top of 38 degrees Celsius.

There was no relief overnight either with minimum overnight temperatures the warmest ever, smashing the 1983 record by 0.83 degrees.

The hot March came on the back of the hottest February globally, and the hottest year for 2015....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-01/march-temperatures-sets-record-as-hottest-ever,-bom-says/7293500?section=environment

For many people, their solution is to stick their fingers in their ears & sing "la la la". Or, more pertinently, say "I'll be dead by the time the shit hits the fan, so I don't care" or "thanks to my first world wealth, I'm insulated from the major effects, so I don't care", etc, etc
In 2015, we just had a record for the greatest carbon dioxide increase in a 12 month period.
http://www.noaa.gov/record-annual-increase-carbon-dioxide-observed-mauna-loa-2015
So our emissions are actually increasing; not decreasing, not levelling off.

Some positivity and solutions. Rather than negative shit.

Data released Saturday from NASA confim that February 2016 was not only the warmest month ever measured globally, at 1.35 degrees Celsius above the long-term average—it was more than 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the previously most unusually warm month ever measured: January 2016.....
.....NASA’s global temperature data is measured from a 1951-1980 baseline, about 0.3 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels. That means February 2016 was the first month in history that global average temperatures passed the 1.5 degree Celsius mark. Also, since last month’s warmth was concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere (2.76 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1951-1980 baseline) and the Arctic (5.36 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1951-1980 baseline), these regions of our planet were also record warm, likely the warmest they’ve been for at least thousands of years....
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html

Got some peer reviewing for those facts m8?

-PB

I know a number of people of my age (60+) who baldly admit that they don’t care what happens down the track as long as the shit doesn’t hit the fan while they are alive. They include people with grandchildren.

I am inclined to feel this reflects a sense of entitlement.

Needless to say, these people are inclined to be Liberal voters rather than Green.

What is up for discussion is whether humans are influencing the global warming? (anthropogenic influences)

Global temperatures will continue to soar over the next 12 months as rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions and El Niño combine to bring more record-breaking warmth to the planet.

According to the Met Office’s forecast for the next five years, 2016 is likely to be the warmest since records began.....
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/31/weather-forecast-next-five-years-even-hotter

COAL CONSUMPTION AFFECTING CLIMATE.
The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/100645214

Global temperatures in 2015 were by far the hottest in modern times, according to new data from American science agencies.

Not only was 2015 the warmest worldwide since 1880, it shattered the previous record held in 2014 by the widest margin ever observed, a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

"During 2015, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.90 Celsius above the 20th century average," the NOAA report said.

"This was the highest among all years in the 1880 to 2015 record [and also] the largest margin by which the annual global temperature record has been broken.".....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/2015-was-by-far-hottest-in-modern-times-noaa/7103164

I am guessing that now when you use blue font, that's when you're NOT trolling...?

You are a piece of shit.

In addition to the IPCC reports, there are plenty of government based websites that are freely available to educate anyone who chooses to not be wilfully ignorant about anthropogenic global warming and their confidence intervals/error estimates.