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, …
Gas will inevitably decline as an energy source for industry and homes due to economic and environmental issues, and will not deliver the Morrison government’s promised “gas-led recovery”, a new report finds. The analysis by the Grattan Institute said most of the cheap gas on the east coast had already …
Investing in nature and nature-based solutions is an important pathway to address the current ecological crisis. The loss of biodiversity, with around one million animal and plant species threatened with extinction, is putting at risk our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide. Diverse and innovative measures …
SDSN’s National and Regional Networks promote the localization and implementation of the SDGs, develop long-term transformation pathways, provide education for sustainable development, and launch Solutions Initiatives to address challenges. Each network focuses on distinct projects and priorities in line with their local contexts and challenges. The 2020 Networks in Action …
The report assesses the consumption emissions of different income groups between 1990 and 2015 – 25 years when humanity doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. During 2020, and with around 1C of global heating, climate change has fuelled deadly cyclones in India and Bangladesh, huge locust swarms …
The 2020 report, produced by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and released on behalf of the Red Meat Advisory Council (RMAC) and red meat industry, provides an overview of the industry including updated figures on production, consumption, exports, the economic significance of the industry and key issue snapshots. The Australian …
The discovery of diagnoses and treatments that could save or improve lives requires access to large data sets, but such access has historically been blocked by variations in data security, patient privacy and data interoperability issues globally. Over the course of two years, the World Economic Forum led the Breaking …
Nearly three billion animals – mammals, reptiles, birds, and frogs – were killed or displaced by Australia’s devastating 2019-20 bushfires. It’s almost three times an earlier estimate released in January. The breakdown is 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds, and 51 million frogs.
This brochure offers decision-makers in the real estate and energy industries, as well as urban and municipal developers, a broad overview of the topics of decentralised energy generation and supply, and raises awareness of the goal of decarbonisation by 2050 at the latest. The advancing digitalization in the construction and …
Indigenous Peoples globally are among those who are most acutely experiencing the mental health impacts of climate change; however, little is known about the ways in which Indigenous Peoples globally experience climate-sensitive mental health impacts and outcomes, and how these experiences may vary depending on local socio-cultural contexts, geographical location, …
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has already brought considerable human suffering and major economic disruption. Output contractions in China are being felt around the world, reflecting the key and rising role China has in global supply chains, travel and commodity markets.The adverse impact on confidence, financial markets, the travel sector and …
Disastrous bushfires during the last months of 2019 and January 2020 affected Australia, raising the question to what extent the risk of these fires was exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change. To answer the question for southeastern Australia, where fires were particularly severe, affecting people and ecosystems, we use a physically-based …
The Asia-Pacific country profiles provide a snapshot of the energy policy highlights of the ESCAP regional member states. The country profiles deliver an overview of the national energy policy framework along with the energy-related emissions reduction and climate change policies, which together aim to facilitate the energy transition to achieve …
African swine fever (ASF), is a highly contagious viral disease of domestic and wild pigs that has become a serious global threat to the pig industry and related sectors. Its existence and rampant spread has made a significant impact on protein availability, consumption and trade. It also poses a blockbuster …
The ~70 km-diameter Yarrabubba impact structure in Western Australia is regarded as among Earth’s oldest, but has hitherto lacked precise age constraints. Here we present U–Pb ages for impact-driven shock-recrystallised accessory minerals. Shock-recrystallised monazite yields a precise impact age of 2229 ± 5 Ma, coeval with shock-reset zircon. Original Source
The impact of alien predators on native prey populations is often attributed to prey naiveté towards a novel threat. Yet evolutionary theory predicts that alien predators cannot remain eternally novel; prey species must either become extinct or learn and adapt to the new threat. As local enemies lose their naiveté …
A range of animal and human data demonstrates that excessive consumption of palatable food leads to neuroadaptive responses in brain circuits underlying reward. Unrestrained consumption of palatable food has been shown to increase the reinforcing value of food and weaken inhibitory control; however, whether it impacts upon the sensory representations …
The Melbourne Boxing Day Test may have to be played at night or moved away from Christmas to November or March as the number of extreme heat days rises over coming decades, a new report says. The analysis by the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub says the climate crisis …
We evaluate methods to calculate the economic value of protected areas derived from the improved mental health of visitors. A conservative global estimate using quality-adjusted life years, a standard measure in health economics, is US$6 trillion p.a. This is an order of magnitude greater than the global value of protected …
Drought is not a natural disaster and must be accepted as an enduring feature of the Australian landscape which climate change is only going to make worse, the drought coordinator has reported, warning the nation may see some areas become “more marginal and unproductive” as a result. The Morrison government …
This report examines current and future climate change impacts on the Australian climate and weather extremes that produce significant property, personal and economic damage and hardship. The level of scientific knowledge and available tools has now reached the stage where it is possible to make confident assessments on the impacts …
