The Great Barrier Reef is vast: a network of coral reefs that cover an area about the size of Italy. It is in good condition. After all, unlike coral reefs in many other tropical parts of the world, Australia is a rich country with a population concentrated in the south – a long way from the corals.
It could be that the last 26-years of temperature recordings by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology will be found not fit for purpose and will eventually need to be discarded. This would make for a rather large hole in the calculation of global warming – given the size of Australia.
The Climate Study Group has produced another succinct overview of the state […]
A long cycle of approximately 1,000 years dominates variation. Analysis suggests direct and indirect influences of solar activity can explain this variation
These ice sheet cycles have been repeating for millions of years and therefore any current thinning of the ice beneath the ice shelves cannot simply be attributed to human activity, just because we now have the technology to measure it.
COP26 in Glasgow has ended with an ambiguously worded ‘Glasgow Pact’ containing little of substance. Australia was able to hide its national interests behind those of China and India.
The last USA/China climate declaration in 2015 occurred just before a massive expansion in Chinese construction of coal-fired power stations both domestically and abroad. We also observe that the resource requirements of renewables (steel, cement, copper, etc) promise massive revenues for the likes of BHP and Rio, so selling (not closing) coal mines to free up cash for investment in such commodities is also good for business.
The demands from developing countries are unsurprising, given the global north is asking them to forego the very kind of development that provided them with the wealth they enjoy. Thus Vijaya Ramachandran, of the Breakthrough Institute, has decried ‘green colonialism’ in an essay in Foreign Policy magazine. Ramachandran is particularly scathing of Norway which, he points out, is the most fossil fuel-dependent affluent country in the world.
Commencement of the second week at COP26 produced few highlights, but Barack Obama’s tendentious address has at least enabled today examination of how climate politics has polluted climate science and driven noble cause corruption.
Michael Bloomberg, who in 2018 was appointed by Secretary-General Guterres as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Ambition and Solutions, has been at Glasgow calling for an end to coal. He is also both a huge donor to anti-coal organisations and, it would seem, a beneficiary of their campaigns.