This white paper examines the current challenges for clean energy infrastructure and identifies solutions that industrial clusters, transport and logistics industries, and the wider clean energy value chain can jointly explore in order to accelerate its deployment. Thirteen new industrial clusters from Australia, Brazil, Colombia, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, …
Sydney's record-breaking weather juggernaut rolls on, with summer confirmed as the city's hottest for both days and nights over records stretching back 157 years. There's also an increased chance of an El Nino developing later in the year, an event that tends to bring abnormally warm and dry conditions to …
As Australia's interest in energy storage technologies grows, Chinese giant BYD has launched new battery systems that aim to help Australians cope with rising electricity prices and keep the lights on during increasingly frequent blackouts. Chinese solar and energy storage powerhouse BYD has launched a new line of residential and …
With over 75% of litter items collected on Australian beaches being plastic, anyone can see that this isn’t good for the environment. It’s projected that by 2050 there will be more plastic waste in our oceans than marine life. So what can be done about it? This week Australian company …
Solar power is surging in Australia and around the world, on the back of scaled-up production and continually falling costs. The new report finds that the solar rollout will continue to go gangbusters this year, with more than 20 industrial-scale installations set to go ahead across the country, and another …
The Western Cape High Court will on Monday begin hearing the case of Australian mining company Tormin, which is accused of large scale environmental destruction in the province. The Department of Environmental Affairs had previously attempted to hold Tormin criminally responsible for transgressing environmental laws. Tormin's mining operations are alleged …
A musical protest at the Rio carnival will stress the damaging impacts of factory farming on indigenous people and on global warming. Concern about the environmental impact of industrialised farming through the use of pesticides and the destruction of the rainforest has even spread to Brazil’s famous Rio carnival. One …
The following report is a summary of mining giant Adani’s track record, based on research into hundreds of court documents by Environmental Justice Australia and Earthjustice and other publicly available evidence. In 2011, a ship carrying Adani coal sank off the coast of Mumbai, devastating beaches, tourism and marine life. …
Federal government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation says coal ‘seriously challenged’ as a commercial investment. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has said it is “very unlikely” it would invest in new coal-fired generators and poured cold water on the federal government’s push to support “clean coal” technology. The CEFC’s hostile approach …
The Tax Justice Network says taxpayers deserve a fair return on their natural resources. The Turnbull government must introduce a 10% royalty on all offshore oil and gas projects in Australia to ensure taxpayers start getting a fair return on their natural resources, the Tax Justice Network says. The group …
Climate change is now influencing all extreme weather events – with some of the most severe climate impacts occurring in 2016, the latest report has found. Cranking Up The Intensity: Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events finds that while the links between climate change and some extreme weather events such …
SYDNEY - Parts of Australia's farming industry are rushing to recruit a new generation of tech-savvy graduates as the sector swaps its bucolic past for a future of drones, robots and automated sensors. The push comes as cutting-edge machinery is used to plug a labour shortage on the nation's remote …
Taronga Zoo's proposal to build a four to five storey "eco resort" on its plum harbourside site has been slammed as a thinly disguised development bid pitched at wealthy visitors to Sydney. In a submission to the NSW Department of Planning, Mosman Council says the planned $45 million resort appears …
A major Australian government report published 25 years ago called for urgent investment in research on the impacts of climate change on human health. Since that report's release, less than 0.1% of Australian health funding has been allocated to this area. As the world continues on a high emissions pathway, …
An epidemic of Ross River virus (RRV) occurred in the South Pacific in 1979–1980, but RRV has not been thought to occur endemically outside Australia and Papua New Guinea. A seroprevalence study was conducted to determine whether RRV has circulated in American Samoa since 1980. Original Source
Malcolm Turnbull has said Australia’s renewable energy target was “never intended to be perpetual”, giving encouragement to conservatives including Tony Abbott in Coalition ranks who are calling for it to be scrapped. The prime minister made the statement at the National Press Club on Wednesday, after a speech in which …
Setting aside protected areas is a key strategy for tackling biodiversity loss. Reserve effectiveness depends on the extent to which protected areas capture both known occurrences and areas likely to support the species. We assessed the effectiveness of the existing reserve network for Leadbeater’s Possum (Gymnobelideus leadbeateri) and other forest-dependent …
Worldwide heat records have been broken again, with 2016 declared the hottest for a third consecutive year, a new report has revealed. 2016 was the hottest year on record globally for the third year in a row. Climate change was the dominant factor in driving the record-breaking heat worldwide. Climate …
Models and physical reasoning predict that extreme precipitation will increase in a warmer climate due to increased atmospheric humidity. Observational tests using regression analysis have reported a puzzling variety of apparent scaling rates including strong rates in midlatitude locations but weak or negative rates in the tropics. Here we analyse …
Devising agricultural management schemes that enhance food security and soil carbon levels is a high priority for many nations. However, the coupling between agricultural productivity, soil carbon stocks and organic matter turnover rates is still unclear. Archived soil samples from four decades of a long-term crop rotation trial were analyzed …
Tackling the overconsumption of discretionary foods (foods and drinks not necessary to provide the nutrients the body needs) is central to aligning human and planetary health. Whilst the adverse health impacts of discretionary foods are well documented, the environmental and broader sustainability impacts of these products deserve more attention, especially …
