Storm King dam near Stanthorpe in regional Queensland used to be a popular swimming spot, but there is hardly any water left now. Photo: William West / AFP Photo

“Day Zero” looms in Australian Outback as climate change bites – “It’s that core of the country, where mum and dad and the kids work together, they’re the ones that are going to be pulled down”

By Holly Robertson 19 September 2019 Stanthorpe (Australia) (AFP) – An unprecedented water shortage in drought-stricken eastern Australia is driving home the brutal realities of climate change and threatening the much-mythologised Outback way of life. From sunny Queensland all the way to Sydney, more than a dozen small towns are facing their own “Day Zero” […]

A montage of photos that were submitted to the Environmental Photographer of the Year 2019 award. “Journey by Launch” by Azim Khan Ronnie; “Polluted New Year” by Eliud Gil Samaniego, “Remains of the Forest” by J Henry Fair, “Tuvalu Beneath the Rising Tide” by Sean Gallagher, “My Climate Future” by Souray Karmakar, “Looking Beyond What is There” by Graham Earnshaw, “Where the City Ends and the Ships Begin” by Azim Khan Ronnie, and “Tuvalu Beneath the Rising Tide” by Sean Gallagher (second entry). Photo: CIWEM

Photo gallery: Striking images from the 2019 Environmental Photographer of the Year competition – “Climate change is the defining issue of our time and now is the time to act”

23 September 2019 (CIWEM) – The CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year exposes the terrible impacts being wrought on our planet by humans, but also celebrates humanity’s innate ability to survive and innovate, lending hope to us all that we can overcome challenges to live sustainably. [See all of the submissions: Environmental Photographer of the […]

Historical U.S. election industry spending, Energy vs. Environment, 1990-2019, showing contributions to candidate campaigns, party committees, and outside groups (1990-2018 federal election cycles). Graphic: Center for Responsive Politics

Fossil fuel industry continues to dwarf environmental groups in election-related spending – Industry gives millions to Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again Committee

By Yue Stella Yu 24 September 2019 (Center for Responsive Politics) – Following a global climate strike over the weekend, climate activists in Washington, D.C., raged on and flooded the district Monday as the United Nations Climate Action Summit took place in New York. Participating groups issued several demands, including the passage of the Green New Deal, the […]

While speaking at the United Nations on 23 September 2019, climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered an impassioned speech during the Climate Action Summit 2019, where she spoke about the dangers of climate change. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” climate activist Greta Thunberg has told world leaders, accusing them of ignoring the science behind the climate crisis: “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth - how dare you?” Photo: United Nations / NBC News

Climate activist Greta Thunberg condemns world leaders in emotional speech at UN – “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.”

By Oliver Milman 23 September 2019 UNITED NATIONS (The Guardian) – Greta Thunberg has excoriated world leaders for their “betrayal” of young people through their inertia over the climate crisis at a United Nations summit that failed to deliver ambitious new commitments to address dangerous global heating. In a stinging speech on Monday, the teenage […]

Eni Norge’s “Goliat” FPSO arrives in Hammerfest, Norway, on 17 April 2015, from South Korea after a 63-day voyage covering 15,608 nautical miles. When the “Goliat” came on stream later in 2016, it was the world’s northernmost producing offshore oil field. Photo: Fredrik Refvem / Stavanger Aftenblad

Cowboy Nation: Norway’s Wild West fantasy – “It’s your misfortune and none of my own”

By Henrik Olav Mathiesen 11 September 2019 (The Dark Mountain Project) – Equinor is the publicly owned Norwegian company firmly intent upon wreaking havoc on the world for as long as possible. Off our own shores – and far beyond. In 2017, the company won the bid for two licences to drill offshore in the […]

A herd of musk ox graze in an area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Photo: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge / AP

Trump administration opens huge wildlife refuge in Alaska to drilling – “This destructive, unlawful plan would sell off one of America’s last great wildlands to the highest bidder”

By Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin 13 September 2019 (The Washington Post) – The Trump administration on Thursday said it would seek to open up the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, picking the most aggressive development option for an area long closed to drilling. In filing […]

Aerial view of an oil sands field (bitumen mine) in Alberta, Canada. Photo: Jennifer Grant / Pembina Institute / Northern Lifeblood

No large oil companies are “Paris-aligned” – Newly-sanctioned oil development projects will take the world past 1.5ºC

5 September 2019 (Carbon Tracker Initiative) – This report provides an update to our 2017 and 2018 2 Degrees of Separation reports, along with an updated methodology. The most common climate-related question facing investors – “how can we tell if a company is aligned with Paris”? Carbon Tracker’s framework for addressing this challenge in the oil and gas sector […]

Australia’s Minister for International Development Alex Hawke at the official opening of the Pacific Islands Forum in Funafuti, Tuvalu, Tuesday, 13 August 2019. Hawke says Australia will not agree to any demand from the Pacific Islands Forum to shut down coal-fired power or mining. Photo: Mick Tsikas / AAP Image

Australia tells Pacific leaders: we won’t budge on coal – Australia’s “carbon loophole” is seven times larger than the annual emissions of its Pacific neighbors

By Rebecca Gredley 14 August 2019 TUVALU (AAP) – Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to touch down in Tuvalu’s capital of Funafuti on Wednesday, joining Minister for the Pacific Alex Hawke. Hawke says coal is a “red line issue” for Australia in negotiations with its smaller island neighbours. “Australia’s position on coal is we […]

Aerial view of the Abbot Point coal port run by Adani Group. A report on 29 August 2019 by IEEFA Australia has found the Adani Carmichael coal project is “unviable” without $4.4 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies. Photo: Greenpeace

Adani coal mine “unviable” without $4.4 billion in subsidies from Australia taxpayers – Mine will receive subsidies and tax concessions for more than 30 years – “This project is entirely contrary to Australia’s international commitments under the Paris Agreement”

By Ben Smee 28 August 2019 (The Guardian) – Australian governments will give $4.4 billion in effective subsidies to Adani’s Carmichael coal project, which would otherwise be “unbankable and unviable”, a new analysis has found. The report, by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, concluded that the project would benefit from several Australian […]

Top: Opal Reef in the northern Great Barrier Reef before, during and after the 2016 mass bleaching event. (left to right: September 2015, April 2016, November 2016). Bottom: Double Cone Island in the Whitsundays area of the Great Barrier Reef in 2014, post-cyclone Debbie in 2017 and mid-2018 (left to right). Photo: Taylor Simpkins / Australian Institute of Marine Science

Great Barrier Reef outlook downgraded to “very poor” as threats mount – “We’ve had ten years of warnings, ten years of rising greenhouse emissions, and ten years watching the Reef heading for a catastrophe”

By Peter Hannam 30 August 2019 (The Sydney Morning Herald) – The Great Barrier Reef is at “a critical point” with the marine park’s outlook downgraded on Friday from “poor” to “very poor” due to coral bleaching and deforestation. Climate change resulting in rising sea temperatures was blamed in the federal government’s five-year Great Barrier Reef […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial