From deep-rooted racism to the Covid-19 pandemic, from extreme inequality to ecological collapse, our world is facing dire and deeply interconnected emergencies. But as much as the present moment painfully underscores the weaknesses of our economic system, it also gives us the rare opportunity to reimagine it. As we seek to rebuild our world, we can and must end the carbon economy.
Australian coal plants 'on a hiding to nothing' and likely to close before schedule | The Guardian
Australia’s ageing coal-fired power plants make little money and are likely to shut sooner than planned due to the amount of cheap renewable energy coming into the grid, the chair of Australia’s Energy Security Board said.
ANZ will ditch customers without a climate plan | AFR
ANZ boss Shayne Elliott says the bank will drop carbon-heavy business customers if they repeatedly refuse to develop a plan to deal with climate change risk. “If we really don’t see an alignment of values, we would move to exit that customer over time.”
Gladys Berejiklian says reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is achievable and would be 'the stuff of dreams' | The Guardian
Berejiklian said she believed a post-Covid world would present opportunities to consider “more sustainable ways of living, more sustainable ways of working”. “I think as we emerge from Covid that the public will feel connected and more in tune with protecting the environment,” she said.
Warming to prayer | The Saturday Paper
This government is not serious about climate change. It treats the science as a punchline. Its policies are a joke. It will fail to meet its Paris commitments. On the latest United Nations models, climate change will be worse than was predicted even a few years ago. Whole ecosystems will collapse. Natural disaster will ravage half of Australia.
The Third Degree | Breakthrough
Following Breakthrough’s widely-reported policy brief on Existential Climate-related Security Risk, this latest discussion paper provides supporting evidence for the contentious 3°C scenario. A 3°C scenario, developed in 2007 by US national security analysts, is reproduced in this paper highlighting a proven prescient in foreseeing some of the major socio-political events that have emerged in the last decade.
Directors put on notice over climate change related disclosures | JDSupra
The hardwiring of climate change-related disclosure guidance in ASIC's regulatory regime marks a new direction for the corporate regulator, and follows a series of other milestones in the push to include climate change on the global regulatory agenda.
Redburn says Big Oil no longer a ‘buy’ as peak demand looms | Financial Times
Redburn, the equity research house, has removed all “buy” ratings from the biggest integrated oil companies, arguing that the industry faces an “existential risk” as long-term forecasts for oil demand are up to 30 per cent too high.
Climate risk and sustainability: ASIC guidance developments | MinterEllison
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has released revised guidance on climate change-related financial disclosures.
ASIC has released revised guidance on climate change-related financial disclosures made in both offer documents and Annual Report Operating & Financial Reviews:
Regulatory Guide 228 Prospectuses: Effective disclosure for retail investors; and
Regulatory Guide 247 Effective disclosure in an operating and financial review.
ASIC has updated its guidance to, amongst other things:
incorporate the types of climate change risk developed by the G20 Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) into the list of examples of common risks that may need to be disclosed in a prospectus appearing in Table 7 of RG 228; and
in RG 247.66, highlight climate change as a systemic risk that could impact an entity’s financial prospects for future years and that may need to be disclosed in an operating and financial review.
BHP pressured by investors to suspend membership of groups including Minerals Council | The Guardian
BHP pressured by investors to suspend membership of groups including Minerals Council.
Climate Change: Evolution and Impact on Financial Risk Management | GARP
The presidential nominee of the European Commission recently endorsed the idea of creating a European bank focused on climate change, and the European Union is trying to figure out how to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. What's more, as part of a green finance push, the U.K. is considering rules that force companies to disclose their climate-related risks.
All of this follows on the heels of comprehensive climate risk regulatory guidance issued by both the Financial Stability Board's Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the Prudential Regulation Authority. Clearly, the transition to a low-carbon economy is coming, but how are financial institutions responding to these significant developments?
In a recent interview with Mike Barber (see full video, below), a partner in Deloitte's U.K. sustainability services group, GRI co-president Jo Paisley said the survey clearly showed that firms have different levels of maturity. “Some firms were doing an awful lot and had really thought about [climate risk] and had embedded it in their day-to-day operations,” she said. “Others, frankly, had not started and were really looking for help.” This video interview was first published on Deloitte U.K.'s dedicated climate change website.
'We're moving to higher ground': America's era of climate mass migration is here | The Guardian
The era of climate migration is, virtually unheralded, already upon America.
The population shift gathering pace is so sprawling that it may rival anything in US history. “Including all climate impacts it isn’t too far-fetched to imagine something twice as large as the Dustbowl,”
A warmer world makes hurricanes wetter and more intense | AP News
And to look at Florence specifically, “it’s very likely that climate change has warmed the ocean such that the hurricane’s intense rainfall is more destructive than without global warming,” said Weather Underground Meteorology Director Jeff Masters, a former hurricane hunter.
Tracking Progress To Net Zero Emissions | ClimateWorks
Behind the 8 Ball
The latest Tracking Progress report from ClimateWorks (September 2018) shows Australia is not yet on track to meet its emissions reduction targets as stipulated under the Paris Agreement - but there are still many opportunities to get there.
At this rate, Earth risks sea level rise of 20 to 30 feet, historical analysis shows | Washington Post
Temperatures not much warmer than the planet is experiencing now were sufficient to melt a major part of the East Antarctic ice sheet in Earth’s past, scientists reported Wednesday, including during one era about 125,000 years ago when sea levels were as much as 20 to 30 feet higher than they are now.
“It doesn’t need to be a very big warming, as long as it stays 2 degrees warmer for a sufficient time, this is the end game,” said David Wilson, a geologist at Imperial College London
ASIC reports on climate risk disclosure by Australia’s listed companies - Media Release
ASIC commissioner John Price said:
‘Climate change is a foreseeable risk facing many listed companies in the Australian market in a range of different industries. Directors and officers of listed companies need to understand and continually reassess existing and emerging risks (including climate risk) that may affect the company’s business – for better or for worse.
The Media Release can be found here and the full report can be downloaded here.
What lies Beneath: The Understatement Of Existential Climate Risk | Breakthrough, David Spratt and Ian Dunlop
“Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.”
Those are the challenging words from Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, for twenty years the head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and a senior advisor to Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union. In the foreword to a new report, Schellnhuber says the issue now "is the very survival of our civilisation, where conventional means of analysis may become useless”.
The report, What Lies Beneath: The understatement of existential climate risk, is released today by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration.
California governor signs law for clean energy by 2045 | BBC News
As New York and London mayors, we call on all cities to divest from fossil fuels | The Guardian
Paris climate deal doesn't stop us building new coal plants, Canavan says | The Guardian
“We have to build power stations. There’s nothing in the [Paris] agreement that would stop us building power stations, including coal-fired power stations,” Canavan said.