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, …
An Australian government commissioned report on Tuesday rejected drought insurance for farmers as uneconomical, dashing landowner hopes of a change in government policy which could help boost output to meet Asia's fast-growing food market. Australia is one of the world's largest exporters of wheat, beef and sugar, despite farmers regularly …
As the mangroves dry up, the local ecosystem also suffers. Thousands of hectares of mangroves in Australia's remote north have died, scientists said today, with climate change the likely cause. Some 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres), or nine percent of the mangroves in the Gulf of Carpentaria, perished in just one …
Australia's top scientists and health experts have declared that Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is no longer a public health issue, with Australia joining the small number of countries worldwide to have successfully overcome the epidemic. The number of AIDS cases diagnosed now is so low that researchers from the …
Australia’s third-biggest island could combine wind, solar, PV and battery storage to fuel own electricity needs – and set a blueprint for the rest of the country Kangaroo Island is one of the great icons of Australian tourism. As Andrew Boardman, the chief executive of the Kangaroo Island council, says: …
Climate change and El Niño have caused the worst mangrove die-off in recorded history, stretching along 700km of Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria, an expert says. The mass die-off coincided with the world’s worst global coral bleaching event, as well as the worst bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef, in …
A hundred kilometres of kelp forests off the western coast of Australia were wiped out by a marine heatwave between 2010 and 2013, a new study has revealed. About 90% of the forests that make up the north-western tip of the Great Southern Reef disappeared over the period, replaced by …
As many as 400 scientists and four scientific societies are expected to sign a declaration on Friday warning that land-clearing rates are again picking up. Eastern Australia has become the only rich nation to feature among the 11 global deforestation hotspots, they will say. "Worldwide the most important issue for …
A dead dugong, with injuries researchers say are consistent with entanglement in a fishing net or line, has been found near Townsville, raising concerns about lack of oversight over fishing practices in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Found on Wednesday last week near Saunders beach, just north of Townsville, …
There is increasing interest in water pricing instruments as policy tools in a variety of contexts. This paper discusses use of these instruments towards achieving complex goals, often including social and environmental components. Case studies from Australia and South Africa highlight that the development of a policy regime to achieve …
The Great Barrier Reef could be considered again for an “in danger” listing by the United Nations World Heritage Committee following the devastating bleaching this year, the Guardian can reveal. The news came as a group of prominent lawyers, scientists and NGOs wrote to the committee, urging it to ask …
Australian researchers believe they've cracked the code which could lead to keeping the dreaded herpes virus, which causes cold sores, at bay for good. The herpes simplex virus (HSV) is known to remain dormant in an infected person's nerve cells long after any cold sores have healed, and scientists at …
The Baird government's plan to loosen land-clearing laws in the state may struggle to get through Parliament, with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party indicating they will heed opposition to the new bill from farmers. NSW Farmers, the industry's peak body, has demanded "drastic changes" to the draft biodiversity bill …
Sydney has just shivered through its coolest June day in 21 years although the worst of the cold spell is probably over for now. Sydney's maximum temperature for Monday reached just 11.7 degrees making it the coolest day for any month in 20 years, said Brett Dutschke, senior meteorologist with …
An international team of scientists and coral reef experts have, in a letter to the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, urged greater action to protect the iconic Great Barrier Reef — a region that is currently witnessing its worst bleaching event on record. The letter, signed by past and present …
Environmentalists fear a vulnerable eagle species will disappear from the ACT when the CSIRO allows developers onto its large research field station in Canberra's north-west. The little eagle, a very small eagle species native to Australia, remains in the ACT only in limited numbers. One of the few remaining nesting …
A group of business and academic leaders have bemoaned the “huge gap” between what experts say ought to be done to decarbonise Australia’s economy and the public’s willingness to accept such a policy. They want Australia’s leaders to restart a conversation after the federal election about the need to transition …
Despite a proliferation of legal instruments related to the environment, environmental challenges such as ecosystem degradation, climate change and species loss continue to accelerate. At local, national and global scales, environmental legal systems are not consistently achieving the goals for which they were designed. A publication by the IUCN Environmental …
If the bleaching continues on the Great Barrier Reef, tourists say they will pack their bags and go elsewhere, taking with them an estimated $1bn a year and costing 10,000 jobs in regional Queensland, according to a new poll. The majority of Chinese tourists, and about a third of UK …
After over 6,000 reef surveys in 46 countries, Australian researchers are extremely excited as they have found 15 areas in damaged world reefs that are heaving with fish. The scientists have named these areas “bright spots,” as they have can prove to be instrumental in developing exciting coral reef conservation …
The frequency of major flood events along Australia's eastern seaboard is increasing, with climate change one of the possible factors, senior Bureau of Meteorology researchers say. The report, published in the bureau's inaugural edition of the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science, comes as eastern Australia braces for the …
