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, …
A way forward is needed for the post-2012 period to address the threat of global climate change. The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements is an international, multi-year, multi-disciplinary effort to help identify the key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture. …
This study comprehensively summarises the current status of transport biofuels and related technologies in the Australian context, to provide input to formulation of government policy development and to assist in guiding future research priorities. Biofuels potentially play a major part in a range of policy areas: energy security, through the …
Australia's plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions through carbon trade will not be the "company killer" feared by business and no major polluters will be forced to move offshore, the government said on Wednesday. Treasury department modelling of the impact of the scheme after its mid-2010 introduction showed that even …
Rising sea levels as a result of climate change will erode Sydney's iconic beaches by 2050, with some at risk of disappearing, and threaten beachfront homes and commercial properties, a new climate change study said. Sea levels along Sydney's coast are expected to rise by up to 40 cm above …
An international team of scientists wants to ban the catching of eight species of Atlantic Ocean sharks and put a strict limit on the catch of two others to try to prevent population crashes. Sharks are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because they reproduce and grow slowly, but there are currently …
Rising carbon dioxide levels in the world's oceans due to climate change, combined with rising sea temperatures, could accelerate coral bleaching, destroying some reefs before 2050, says a new Australian study. The study says earlier research may have significantly understated the likely damage to the world's reefs caused by man-made …
Australia's plans to launch a carbon emissions trading scheme within two years will not be derailed by the global financial crisis, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Tuesday. Australia's second-largest oil and gas producer, Woodside Petroleum Ltd, this week told Rudd's centre-left Labor government that global market volatility and bank …
SYDNEY: Asian consumers seeking a safer alternative to China's tainted milk products are turning to Australian dairy farmers, but their demands may be difficult to meet because Australia's grass-fed cattle can only produce so much milk. The largest Australian milk exporter, Murray Goulburn Co-operative, has seen a recent spike in …
Setting a fixed price for carbon during the initial phase of Australia's emissions trading scheme will stunt the fledgling market, the head of the country's only carbon exchange warned on Friday. The government has yet to fix a price per tonne of carbon for the scheme, set to begin in …
When the economy falters, environmental issues tend to take a back seat. But looking beyond the current downturn, businesses are braced for an acceleration of the move to a carbon-constrained world. A plethora of tools is being used by governments to influence the behaviour of businesses, including regulation, voluntary agreements, …
Climate change threatens Australia's A$2.1 billion (US$1.6 billion) commercial fishing and aquaculture industry, but may create new wild fisheries as tropical marine species move south as sea temperatures rise. Changes in sea temperatures, currents, winds, rainfall, sea levels and extreme weather events threaten to adversely affect fish and shellfish numbers, …
The crown-of-thorns starfish, a notorious threat to coral in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, comprises four species, not one, biologists reported on Tuesday. The spiny predator, known by its Latin name of Acanthaster planci, has been a worsening peril to reefs for at least three decades, latching onto coral polyps …
The rapid march of climate change across Australia's main food-growing region has caught the country by surprise and will reshape farming across an area bigger than France and Germany, says the top water official. "I think we've been caught unawares," Murray-Darling Basin Commission Chief Executive Wendy Craik told Reuters, glancing …
The scale of investment needed to slow greenhouse gas emissions is larger than governments can manage through transfers. Therefore, climate change policies rely heavily on markets and private capital. This is especially true in the case of the Kyoto Protocol with its provisions for trade and investment in joint projects. …
This report uses economic models to analyse the macroeconomic, sectoral and household impacts of Australia reducing its greenhouse gas emissions under different targets and trajectories. Because responding to climate change is a global challenge, this report evaluates the impacts on Australia in the context of global action to reduce emissions. …
Sydney: Nearly 750-550 million years ago, aeons before the advent of dinosaurs, earth survived the severest ice age, alternating with extremes of tropical greenhouse conditions.
The Supplementary Draft Report of the Garnaut Climate Change Review should be read in conjunction with the Draft Report released on 4 July 2008. Is it possible to secure effective international action to reduce the risks of dangerous climate change to acceptable levels, presuming that Australia would play its proportionate …
