“the amount of renewable energy capacity committed in Australia during 2018 increased 260% on 2017, with 14.8 GW underway in 2018 compared to 5.6 GW in 2017”
Global Energy Perspective 2019 | McKinsey & Company
With the speed and magnitude of these changes evolving rapidly, we’ve identified eight potential shifts that could further accelerate the energy transition. Although these eight shifts may not represent the most probable future, they should be considered conceivable based on the developments that can be observed today.
Download the summary here.
Updated Hutley opinion on directors' duties and climate risk | CPD
The Hutley legal opinion on directors’ duties and climate risk, first released in 2016, has been updated by Noel Hutley SC and Sebastian Hartford Davison to emphasise five developments in the elapsed three years which increase the need for directors to consider climate risks. Those are: regulator alignment on the impact of climate change; new reporting frameworks; investor and community pressure; advances in scientific knowledge; and increased litigation risks. The authors write:
“In our opinion, these matters elevate the standard of care that will be expected of a reasonable director. Company directors who consider climate change risks actively, disclose them properly and respond appropriately will reduce exposure to liability. But as time passes, the benchmark is rising.”
Investors set out policy priorities to limit systemic climate risks | IGCC
The policies investors have outlined today are critical first steps to managing the substantial risks of climate change. They will also unlock multi-billion dollar investments in economic revitalisation and zero carbon modernisation.”
Download the Media Release or the policy document Policies for a Resilient Net Zero Emissions Economy.
A New Horizon - speech by Mark Carney, Governor Bank of England
“Once climate change becomes a clear and present danger to financial stability it could already be too late to stabilise the atmosphere at two degrees.
The paradox is that risks will ultimately be minimised if the transition to a low-carbon economy begins early and follows a predictable path. But for markets to anticipate and smooth the transition to a 2-degree world, they need the right information, proper risk management, and coherent, credible public policy frameworks.”
Here's why Australia needs to keep subsidising renewables | The Guardian
If Australia wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, we have the technologies and the policies to do so at our finger tips. And of course if we don’t want to, we don’t have to, but the polls suggest we do. Time will tell whether our democratic structures are capable of responding to a problem like climate change — what we do know is that subsidies, regulation and taxes work.
Weather insurance: Insurers ‘don’t fully understand climate change risk’ | Compelo
“Munich Re said in December that the wildfires caused $24bn in losses, $18bn of which were uninsured.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported there were a total of 8,527 fires burning an area of 1,893,913 acres, which is the the largest amount of burned acreage recorded in a fire season.”
Global Institutions Exiting Coal | IEEFA
Since 2013 more than 100 global financial institutions have made increasingly tight divestment/exclusion policies around thermal coal.
Revealed: Glencore bankrolled covert campaign to prop up coal | The Guardian
The C|T Group used teams in Sydney and London to further Glencore’s interests across the globe, including in Australia, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the project and documents seen by Guardian Australia.
Role of disclosure in addressing climate data deficiency | Geoff Summerhayes, Sustainable Insurance Forum
On the 22nd February 2019, Geoff Summerhayes gave this speech in London at the Sustainable Insurance Forum.
“The weight of money, through consumer demand, investor decisions and regulatory responses, is pushing the transition to a low carbon economy relentlessly forward. This shift has consequences for us all, but to make good decisions, governments, regulators, businesses and investors need access to timely, reliable and sufficiently granular information.”
Saudi Aramco bows to 'peak petrol' as oil veterans grapple with climate backlash | The Telegraph
Saudi Arabia is bowing to the inevitable. Aramco is launching radical plans to switch its oil output from cars to petrochemical use over the next decade, implicitly accepting that the curtain is coming down on the era of petrol and diesel.
The worst-case scenario for global warming just got 14°F worse | Think Progress
And halfway through the book he says, in all caps, “If you have made it this far, you are a brave reader.” He admits that any of those chapters contains, “enough horror to induce a panic attack in even the most optimistic of those considering it.”
Climate change-related litigation was once seen as a joke, but could soon become business reality | ABC
Emma Herd, chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change and member of the global Steering Committee for the Climate Action 100+, said the change in sentiment was because of greater recognition by CEOs that climate change is not just an ethical issue.
"This is about financial risk, as well a company's social licence to operate," she said.
Brian Preston: The activist judge shaking the climate change world | AFR
In what lawyers say is one of the most important parts of the decision, Preston rejected Fisher's "market substitution" argument. There was no proof other mines would go ahead, he asserted, and wealthy countries such as Australia have a responsibility under the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris agreement "to take the lead" on climate change.
Alan Pears: The Politics of Confusion on Achieving the Paris Commitment | John Menadue
Why Glencore's Ivan Glasenberg buckled on coal | Financial Review
Glasenberg said the coal production cap was part of the company's climate change policy, which could also see it dropping its support of the World Coal Association.
"Our commodity portfolio and its key role in enabling the energy and mobility transition for a low-carbon economy enables us to look ahead with confidence and to remain focused on creating sustainable long-term value for all our shareholders," he said.
Suncorp calls for climate action as profits slump | Financial Review
Suncorp CEO Michael Cameron: "The facts support undeniably that change is occurring in our climate, and we need to make sure that the communities are resilient."
Shell faces lawsuit in the Netherlands, a new legal front in climate battle | Climate Liability News
“for decades, Shell has been aware of the impact of burning fossil fuels on the climate. Like ExxonMobil, Shell had studied the problem and acknowledged the danger in internal documents, yet publicly downplayed the risk while funding climate denial groups.”
The truth about big oil and climate change | The Economist
"Yet amid the clamour is a single, jarring truth. Demand for oil is rising and the energy industry, in America and globally, is planning multi-trillion-dollar investments to satisfy it. No firm embodies this strategy better than ExxonMobil, the giant that rivals admire and green activists love to hate."
Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown | IPPR
“In the extreme, environmental breakdown could trigger catastrophic breakdown of human systems, driving a rapid process of ‘runaway collapse’ in which economic, social and political shocks cascade through the globally linked system – in much the same way as occurred in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007-08,” the paper warns.