Imagine you’re a fairywren living in a patch of scrub behind a schoolyard in the suburbs. It’s been pretty nice so far, but a recent increase in neighbourhood cats and the council’s insect control tactics mean it’s time to look for somewhere safer to live.

There’s a problem, though. You’re a small, bright blue bird that tends to make short flights from shrub to shrub, staying safe in the foliage. Beyond your little patch of habitat, there don’t seem to be any places you can easily access. On one side are wide-open sportsfields; on the other, a busy six-lane road. Where do you go?

It’s a bad situation for a fairywren, and for many other native species in cities. In ecology, we call this habitat fragmentation.

The map of suitable habitat for city-dwelling wildlife often looks like a scattering of islands in an inhospitable sea of other land uses. These species face threats or barriers such as roads, buildings, fences and feral predators. This poses several issues, such as barring access to feeding areas, increasing competition for nesting spaces within habitat patches and even reducing gene flow by making it hard to find mates.

Our newly published research shows how native species in our cities can benefit if we focus on creating strategically located green spaces to connect isolated patches of habitat.

Why we should care for urban species

Despite the myriad challenges facing plants, animals and insects in urban areas, cities are important places to take care of our native species. Urban areas still offer valuable nesting and feeding resources, especially for tree-dwelling mammals, canopy-feeding birds and water-adapted species.

In addition to their value for conservation, urban habitats are precious spaces for people to encounter nature in the places we live and work. Urban nature has been shown to be important in balancing out the stresses of city life, particularly in disadvantaged communities. It’s also good for our physical health and social connectedness – it even improves cognitive development in children.

Unsurprisingly, studies have shown people want more nature in their cities.

But actively supporting native species hasn’t generally been the norm in many cities. The practice of planning and design to deliberately bring nature back into urban areas is still developing. Our open-access research paper in Landscape and Urban Planning offers insights into how we can tackle one aspect of the problem: habitat fragmentation.

What did the study look at?

We examined how greening projects could best connect up habitat for New Holland honeyeaters (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae), blue-banded bees (Amegilla spp) and mole crickets (Gryllotalpa spp) in Melbourne, Victoria. These are all species that occur locally but experience some degree of habitat fragmentation.

We have a lot of greening to do for climate adaptation and to create open space for new residents in our growing cities. What if we could also do this greening in a way that boosts habitat for non-human residents too?

We compared a scenario where a large number of small green spaces (formerly parking spaces) were created mainly for climate adaptation purposes, to a pair of scenarios where a smaller number of green spaces were created exclusively in areas that had been identified as key links between habitat fragments.

What were the findings?

In total, the benefit of each space in the targeted scenario was more than double that of the scenario where we placed green spaces for climate adaptation purposes, even with the same design of individual green spaces.

Here’s an image of the kind of green spaces we modelled in this study.

We found significant benefits for two of our three species when green spaces were located in a way that specifically targeted habitat connections.

Blue-banded bees and mole crickets did especially well. It is trickier for these small creatures to navigate the space between habitat patches. When these small green spaces provided “stepping stones” between bigger patches, they greatly increased the area of habitat a bee or cricket could reach.

Linking up habitats when we create new green spaces is one way to give native species a chance in our cities. It also gives us (and our kids) a better chance of having everyday nature experiences.

Of course, adding this “ecosystem connectivity” lens to our green space planning isn’t a biodiversity panacea. We’ll still need to deliver a lot of new greenery.

And we’ll have to design it carefully to support native animals while also providing cooling, reduced flood risk and recreational spaces. We also need to make sure we’re picking the right species to model our maps on, and then design our spaces for.

Still, if we get this right, that fairywren might just one day have small, green “stepping stones” to find their way around the city to a happy new home.

Thami Croeser, Research Officer, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University and Holly Kirk, Research Fellow, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In recent weeks, the Menzies Research Centre, the Liberal party-aligned think tank, has criticised the rise in “environmental lawfare”. National media outlets duly took up the mantle.

With an introduction by BHP Chief Executive David Hughes and nearly all the case studies involving the fossil fuel industry, its report tries to paint a picture of a “cashed-up” environmental movement. By extension, the report says, the use of the court system by environmental groups threatens democracy.

It attacked private donations, government funding, and charity status of public interest advocacy groups (such as the Environmental Defenders Office, a body Peter Dutton has pledged to defund). But these attacks disguise the David and Goliath battles that occur when environmental groups challenge large industries such as mining and fossil fuels.

Accusations that environmentalists are abusing our legal system, blocking progress, and costing the economy are not new, but they are getting louder. In reality, legal cases have long featured in this space because changing law is an important goal of any social change movement.

But it’s not just green groups turning to the courts. Large corporations, too, use the law to further their cause. Far from threatening democracy, this is democracy in action.

What is ‘green lawfare’?

“Green lawfare” refers to the various ways individuals and organisations use legal action to achieve their goals, which might include stopping a new mine or changing government climate policy.

I’ve extensively researched the concept for my book. In it, I explore how activists, corporations and government have all turned to the courts to prosecute environmental cases. Notably, these strategies also involve communication strategies aimed at getting, or avoiding, media attention.

The battle to save Tasmania’s Franklin River blockade in the southern summer of 1982–83 is a great example. News and other media shared images of protest, arrests and jail time to the world as symbols of defiance. The battle was ultimately won in the High Court.

It is not a question of whether individuals and public interest groups should be able to use the courts. Instead, the current debate focuses our attention on the importance of access to the courts in any healthy democracy.

In contrast, the current attacks on justice systems, including personal attacks on judges, prosecutors, and lawyers and stopping participatory governance have become a hallmark of the swing to authoritarian and far-right governments.

Democracy in action

These legal cases provide a window into the relationship between democracy and powerful economic interests. They also bind the legal system to environmental politics, which has long been fought out in the media.

For decades, the global environmental movement has campaigned, protested, and appealed to governments to mend the divide between human activity and the natural world on which we all depend.

These are exercises in democracy. Public participation and protest, alongside scientific and economic expertise, has created a large body of environmental law. This then spurred on the creation of the institutions that manage these laws, such as environmental departments.

In Australia, our environmental laws continue to evolve because Australians overwhelmingly want them to be stronger. The government is at least trying to heed that call, albeit not as urgently as many would like. It currently has an environmental protection bill before parliament.

Legislation inevitably sometimes lands parties in court. All stakeholders have – and should have – access to our legal system to ensure these laws are not ignored, broken or bent.

Prosecuting opposition

What often goes unmentioned is the full extent of green lawfare in Australia by industry, which includes the rise in strategic litigation against public participation. This means environmentalists can be subject to expensive lawsuits designed to intimidate or silence their opposition.

Climate activists are already being targeted this way. Ben Pennings is being sued for millions of dollars by Gautam Adani, chairman of multinational conglomerate Adani.

Adani has little chance of recovering the $17 million he wants. But the legal harassment may be more the point. Adani has hired private investigators to photograph Pennings and his family and asked the courts to force him to hand over his electronic devices.

It’s not just individuals being sued this way, but governments. The fossil fuel industry leads the world in investor-state arbitration claims, which allow offshore companies to sue governments for millions, and often billions, of dollars. These claims have become a major obstacle to global climate action.

Climate in the courtroom

Science has clearly told us that carbon emissions, pollution, and biodiversity loss caused by human activity are threatening global wellbeing. We only need to turn to the news to see the human suffering causes by a dangerous heatwaves, polluted waterways and spoiled habitats.

While science is diagnosing the cause of our troubles, addressing environmental problems is a social challenge for local communities and their governments. The courts are increasingly the chosen arena for all sides in the debate.

As a result, we are seeing increasingly novel approaches to what legal systems, especially the courts, are being asked to determine.

Landmark cases, including Sharma vs Minister for the Environment and Pabai Pabai vs Commonwealth of Australia have asked the courts to determine whether the Australian government has the duty to protect Australians from climate change.

Corporations, too, are using novel approaches. For instance, mining giant Santos is currently using the courts to uncover the financial backers behind a case that delayed their $5.4 billion Barossa gas project.

Green lawfare is on the rise because our knowledge and understanding of our environment, and what needs to be done to fix the mess we are in, tells us we need to change.

People are demanding our governments do more to address the problem. Public participation in our democratic processes includes access to our legal system. The turn to the courts is a sign that our legal system is working exactly as it should.

Dr Claire Konkes, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The laws designed to protect the environment in New South Wales are completely ineffective, according to the scathing Henry Review in 2023.

In response, the state government this week announced a major overhaul of the Biodiversity Conservation Act, introduced in 2016. The Minns govermment has committed to introducing 49 of 58 recommendations made by the review, either in full or in part.

First up will be reform of biodiversity offsets – the easily gamed and largely ineffective requirement for developers to offset their destruction of vital habitat with gains elsewhere.

The state government is also promising to align reformed biodiversity laws with national and international goals, and set goals and targets to tackle threats, bring species back from the brink, and conserve landscapes at scale.

Good news? Certainly – especially given the federal government has delayed reforms to national biodiversity laws. But there are still big gaps – especially around how to actually stop land clearing, which is a major driver of species and ecosystem loss in the state.

These changes are essential, if we are to curb rapid and increasing rates of nature loss. Without them, around 500 species are predicted to become extinct in NSW over the next century and many nature-dependent industries – such as tourism, water supply and agriculture – will suffer.

How do you fix the offset problem?

Offsets are popular with governments because they offer the possibility of having your cake and eating it too. You want to develop a prime chunk of waterfront land, even though there are endangered koalas feeding in the trees? That’s fine, as long as you protect and improve koala habitat elsewhere to create an environmental gain equal to your destructive impact.

Well, that’s the theory. In reality, research has demonstrated offset projects rarely achieve their promise of enabling development with no net-loss of biodiversity.

Researchers have found biodiversity offsets in NSW are permitting major biodiversity losses to occur now in return for a “promise” of uncertain future gains.

The biodiversity value of 21,928 hectare of habitat already cleared under this policy in exchange for averting loss’ elsewhere is estimated to need 146 years to be regained.

The Minns government committed to reforming the biodiversity offsets scheme before winning the election. It will be the first nature law reform pushed through NSW parliament this year, while other reforms are not expected to reach state parliament until 2025.

So what are these proposed reforms? Key measures include:

• requiring developers to take genuine steps to avoid and minimise impacts on biodiversity, before moving to offset their impact

• making payments into a biodiversity conservation fund only as a last resort. At the moment, developers often just make a payment to the government fund to “balance” their impact

• closing a loophole where mining companies can claim a “discount” against their environmental impact if they have plans to rehabilitate the mine site in future

• increasing transparency through public reporting.

What else has the government promised?

Other important promises in the NSW government’s plan include:

• bringing the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Act in line with national and international biodiversity conservation goals

• introducing a new nature strategy with targets for tackling threats, recovering threatened species, conserving landscapes and working to restore and connect fragmented landscapes across public and private land

• reviewing conservation programs to boost restoration efforts and support the goal of no new extinctions

• increasing recognition of First Nations cultural values and connection to Country, including bringing traditional ecological knowledge into environmental assessment processes

• expanding private land conservation agreements to recognise and protect Aboriginal cultural values and traditional ecological knowledge.

What was missed?

While these measures are positive, there’s one big gap – the failure to take stronger action against native vegetation clearing.

The speed at which intact natural habitat is being destroyed in NSW has actually increased since the current biodiversity laws were introduced in 2016.

The NSW Government’s own data show almost 100,000 hectares of native vegetation was cleared every year after the act was introduced.

This is equivalent to a strip of land the entire length of the NSW coastline and almost 1 kilometre wide being cleared – every year.

The lion’s share (83%) of the clearing was done for farming, though infrastructure claimed 10,000 hectares and forestry claimed more than 6,000 hectares a year.

This week’s announcements included a commitment to review vegetation clearing codes. This is a welcome step but much more needs to be done to stop the large scale loss of habitat for native animals and plants in the state.

Stopping the routine clearing of native vegetation will require both carrots and sticks – incentives and regulations.

Clashing laws

There’s another unresolved problem. The Henry Review found the effectiveness of the state’s biodiversity laws are being actively undermined by other state laws. When environmental conservation and economic growth clash, the economy usually wins.

While the environment minister can comment on major projects with environmental impact, such as mine sites, in many cases their concerns can be ignored by other ministers and the project can be approved even if the environment minister objects. This needs to change.

Genuinely protecting native species and ecosystems in NSW means the government has to elevate the environment as a priority with an equal seat at the table during decision making.

No-go zones for development

The Minns government announced it would increase the consideration of biodiversity in planning by producing maps which identify areas of current and future high biodiversity value.

This is a step in the right direction. But the government did not take up the review’s recommendation to institute development no-go zones around natural places of particular value, such as vital Ramsar-listed wetlands and critical habitat of threatened species.

No-go zones would provide clarity for developers and protect the habitat of our most critically threatened native species.

Progress – from a very low base

So how should we see these reforms? It’s progress, most certainly – but starting from a very low base.

The natural infrastructure (functioning ecosystems, habitats and species) that underpin the economy and wellbeing of NSW has been steadily eroding since European arrival. The health of 90% of Murray Darling Basin rivers is rated poor or worse. Some 78 species have been driven to extinction and at least 1,000 more risk the same fate.

Without major reform, half of these species are projected to go extinct over the next century, according to the Henry Review.

We often take biodiversity for granted. Trees, shrubs, mammals, birds, insects, fish – they’ll always be there. But the natural world can only take so much punishment. Humans are also part of the natural world. We rely much more on functioning ecosystems than we would like to think, to provide clean water and air, pollinate and grow our crops, and attract tourist dollars.

Hugh Possingham, Professor of Conservation Biology, The University of Queensland; Carolyn Hogg, Deputy Director, Sydney Environment Institute; Co-Lead Australasian Wildlife Genomics Group, University of Sydney, and Jaana Dielenberg, University Fellow in Biodiversity, Charles Darwin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains an image of deceased people, which is used with permission from the Traditional Owners.

In May 2020, as part of a legally permitted expansion of an iron ore mine, Rio Tinto destroyed an ancient rockshelter at Juukan Gorge in Puutu Kunti Kurrama Country in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Working with the Traditional Owners, we had excavated the shelter – known as Juukan 2 – in 2014, six years before its destruction. We found evidence Aboriginal people first used Juukan 2 around 47,000 years ago, likely throughout the last ice age, through to just a few decades before the cave was destroyed.

The site held thousands of significant objects including an ancient plait of human hair, tools and other artefacts, and animal remains. The results of the excavation led to last-minute efforts to stop the destruction of the site, but they were unsuccessful.

The full results of the excavation are published for the first time today in Quaternary Science Reviews.

Where is Juukan and what happened there?

Juukan is a gorge system with a series of caves in Puutu Kunti Kurrama Country, approximately 60 km north west of Tom Price, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The Juukan 2 rockshelter is one of the caves that make up this system. It was once part of a deep gorge featuring fresh water holes, large camping areas surrounded by massive ironstone mountains and a large river that flowed at some times of the year and was dry at others.

Today the area is part of a Rio Tinto iron ore mine. As widely reported in May 2020, the Juukan 2 rockshelter was destroyed during mine expansion activities. While Rio Tinto held ministerial consent to destroy the heritage site, the action was against the wishes of the Traditional Owners.

The destruction led to widespread global condemnation and shone a spotlight on Western Australia’s substandard heritage protection legislation.

What is so significant about Juukan?

Juukan Gorge is named after a Puutu Kunti Kurrama ancestor. It is extremely significant both for cultural and scientific reasons.

For the Puutu Kunti Kurrama, Juukan is a deeply spiritual place that contains deep-time evidence of their presence and association with the landscape in their Traditional Country.

In terms of the scientific significance of Juukan 2, the site is one of the oldest known locations of Aboriginal settlement of Australia. While there are some sites that have been found to be older, such as Madjedbebe in Kakadu in the Northern Territory and off the Western Australian coast, there are only a few places as old as Juukan in inland Australia.

Juukan is about 500 kilometres from the coast today. Up until approximately 10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose, it was almost 1,000 kilometres inland.

This means people living around Juukan were adept at living in the desert. This is also shown by the fact they were able to continue to use the cave even during the last ice age (from around 28,000 to 18,000 years ago). Archaeologists have found very little direct evidence from this period at any other sites.

Often just a handful of artefacts is regarded as enough evidence to show people used an archaeological site. However, at Juukan 2 we found thousands of artefacts, including many that featured resin from spinifex grass, which was likely used as a kind of glue to hold together the pieces of composite tools.

Juukan 2 also held amazing evidence of animals over the ages. We found broken bones from animals that had died naturally, and also bones associated with people cooking and eating kangaroos, emus, and even echidnas at the site.

Among this material was a plait of human hair dated to around 3,000 years old. The hair was DNA tested and the results told us it was likely related to the Traditional Owners who were part of the excavation team.

The material we found was extremely well preserved. We even found a bone point made from a kangaroo’s shinbone around 30,000 years old with ochre on its end. We don’t know what this was used for, but the ochre may indicate a ritual function.

What now?

After the blast in 2020, we began to re-excavate the site. Over the past two years we have removed about 150 cubic metres of rubble that was once the roof and back wall of the cave. Beneath the debris we found traces of organic material, and then remnants of the cave floor.

Excavations have now reached the original floor level throughout most of the site, and we are carefully digging and finding more incredible materials. This includes more plaited hair, shell beads we think were brought from the coast, and fragments from the jaw of a Tasmanian devil, an animal which has been extinct on mainland Australia for over 3,000 years.

The publication of these results from 2014 is just the next chapter in the archaeology of Juukan 2, a place special to the Traditional Owners, but also of immense significance to science and our understanding of cultural heritage of Australia.

The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation is a co-author of this article and the associated research, recognised collectively according to their cultural preference.

Michael Slack, Director, Scarp Archaelogy and Adjunct Associate Professor of Archaeology, James Cook University; Jordan Ralph, Adjunct Lecturer, Archaeology, Flinders University, and Wallace Boone Law, Postdoctoral Researcher, Geospatial Science and Archaeology, University of Adelaide

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Access to nature is essential for our health and wellbeing. However, as our cities become increasingly crowded, it becomes more and more challenging to find ways to connect with nature in urban spaces.

We know urban parks are key places to engage with nature. However, our research suggests informal green spaces – despite being unplanned, untended and often overlooked – are equally important. We have found people use informal green spaces, such as vacant lots and vegetated areas along railway lines, to engage with nature just as much as in formal green spaces.

This raises the question: should we be doing more to embrace these neglected spaces?

Being connected with nature is good for us

People living in cities are increasingly disconnected from nature. This has potentially far-reaching consequences.

Studies have shown regular interaction with nature can be important for mental and physical health. Time in nature reduces stress and encourages mental restoration. Access to the natural environment is important for children’s mental and social development.

People who do not interact regularly with nature have been shown to be less likely to engage with broader environmental issues. It’s a worrying trend, given the environmental crises we are facing.

Despite the known benefits, interacting with nature is becoming increasingly difficult for people in cities. Urban areas are becoming more densely populated, increasing pressure on accessible green spaces.

At the same time, the amount of green space in many cities is declining. This is due to rising urban density as well as changing housing trends. Traditional backyards are shrinking in countries such as Australia.

In light of this, there is a growing need to use the green space available to us more effectively.

The neglected value of informal green spaces

Informal green spaces are the overlooked areas of vegetation scattered throughout our cities and towns. Think of the tangle of greenery thriving along railway lines, flowers growing on vacant lots, or the unmown grassy patches under power lines. These areas are not usually recognised or managed as part of a city’s official green infrastructure, but provide a unique type of green space.

People report liking these spaces for their wild, unmanaged nature, in contrast to more neatly manicured parks. We know people use these spaces for a range of activities, from taking shortcuts or dog walking to creating community gardens. However, the extent to which people use informal green space to engage with nature has not been well understood until now.

Our recent study sheds light on the importance of informal green space for access to nature in urban areas. We analysed data from citizen science apps such as iNaturalist.

This enabled us to study how often people recorded sightings of animal and plant species in informal green spaces compared to their more formal counterparts, such as parks. It provided a measure of their interaction with nature. We found people use informal green spaces to engage with nature just as much as formal green spaces.

Areas along railway lines and utility corridors were most popular. This may be due to their fixed land tenure. It allows people to become familiar with them and gives nature a better chance to establish on these sites.

Street verges were also important. The data suggest they are as popular as private gardens for connecting with nature.

While parks remain crucial, these findings highlight the important role of informal green spaces in giving people access to nature in cities.

Rethinking how we manage green space in cities

Our works shows the need to expand our thinking about how to improve people’s connection to nature in cities. It’s important to start recognising informal green spaces as a legitimate part of urban green space networks.

We can then begin to consider how best to manage these spaces to support biodiversity while encouraging public use. This will present its own challenges. We’ll need to balance the needs of people with the need to leave enough quiet spaces for nature to thrive.

A majority of the world’s people already live in cities. As urban populations continue to grow, so will the need for accessible green space.

Formal parks will always be important to ensure people have regular, meaningful interactions with nature for the sake of their health and wellbeing. But we need to broaden our perspective to include a more diverse selection of green spaces. By valuing and integrating informal green spaces better into existing green space networks, we can ensure nature remains part of urban life.

Allowing urban residents to connect with nature will promote healthier, happier and more environmentally engaged communities.

Hugh Stanford, Researcher Associate, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University and Holly Kirk, Research Fellow, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Great Barrier Reef is world famous – it’s the largest coral reef system in the world and home to tens of thousands of species. No wonder it is World Heritage listed.

But Australia has three lower profile reefs which are also World Heritage listed –  Ningaloo and Shark Bay in Western Australia, and Lord Howe Island, 600 kilometres off the New South Wales coast, the southernmost coral in the world. Ningaloo has 260km of coral reef, while the reefs of Shark Bay have less coral but are home to ancient stromatolites, vast seagrass beds and iconic species such as dugongs.

This month, the World Heritage Committee will meet in New Delhi. On the agenda will be how the world’s natural World Heritage sites are faring. The Australian government will be under increased scrutiny to prove it has upheld its international commitments to protecting these reefs.

Our new research has found all four of these reefs are in greater danger than we thought – even those in subtropical waters, such as Lord Howe Island. Our two Indian Ocean reefs at Shark Bay and Ningaloo actually face more species and function loss than the Great Barrier Reef.

At 1.5°C of warming, we are likely to lose about 20% of the 400-odd coral species which currently live across these four reefs (equating to about 70 extinctions). At 2°C warming, our modelling of species abundance and ecosystem functions predict an almost complete collapse in reef ecosystems – even for the subtropical reefs. This aligns with predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the future of coral reefs.

We believe our work adds to the need to consider whether Australia’s four iconic reefs should be on the list of World Heritage sites in danger.

What does it mean when a reef is World Heritage listed?

Declaring a natural or cultural site as World Heritage is done to encourage the preservation of locations of immense ecological and cultural value. Nations have to nominate sites they think are worthy of protection. Australia has 20 World Heritage sites, of which 12 are natural.

When sites are formally listed, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) requires the country’s government to look after it. If the site is degrading, it can be listed as in danger.

UNESCO has considered listing the Great Barrier Reef as in danger twice, in 2021 and again in June this year. For the reef to keep its World Heritage status, the government must prove its policies are sufficient to keep the reefs in good health.

In the debate over the Great Barrier Reef, two things have been missed – first, any mention of Australia’s other World Heritage reefs, and second, whether the federal government’s current policies to cut greenhouse gases are enough to protect the reefs into the future.

What did we find?

Our new results suggest all four reefs are in trouble. Given current warming trends, they will only deteriorate further in the future if we stay on this course.

While the Barrier Reef has drawn a great deal of attention, it’s actually the ecosystems at Ningaloo, Shark Bay and Lord Howe Island which are projected to warm the most. When standardised to park boundaries, temperatures here are projected to increase by up to 1.3°C by the end of the century. (This temperature estimate is for sea temperatures, not the overall surface temperature which we use as shorthand when we talk about 1.5°C or 2°C of warming).

While that might not sound like much, it will be enough to push many corals to potential extinction. Many coral species already exist within 1-2°C of the maximum temperature they can tolerate.

Our modelling shows Shark Bay and Ningaloo actually face a greater risk of species and function loss than the Barrier Reef. It also suggests the ability of our reefs to bounce back will be overcome when warming tips over 1.5°C globally.

While these models incorporate the baseline heat tolerance of coral species on these reefs, they don’t yet include their potential for genetic adaptation. The question of whether some corals could adapt to this rapid warming is still open. A lot is riding on their ability to do so.

Looming danger

This year, the Great Barrier Reef and Lord Howe Island have suffered intense stress from high sea temperatures – the direct result of burning fossil fuels and producing heat-trapping greenhouse gases. This year is on track to again be the hottest year on record, overtaking the previous record holder of 2023.

Australia is already in the midst of an extinction crisis. Australia has one of the worst track records for extinctions. Since European colonisation, 34-38 mammal species have gone extinct compared to just one from the contiguous United States, which covers a similar area.

You might have read that coral cover – a measure of how much coral there is in an area – hit historic highs on the Great Barrier Reef last year.

Coral cover is a helpful and important metric, but it’s not perfect. For instance, fast-growing heat tolerant coral species might expand as less heat tolerant species die off. Importantly, relying on coral cover alone can mask significant changes in how the reef is functioning.

It’s hard to assess how species in our oceans are doing, given the difficulty of access and the large number of species, including many unknown to science. If warming continues unabated, we will likely start to lose species before we have even documented them.

Our results are based on “moderate” climate models of global surface temperature changes. Australia has committed to cutting emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. While that sounds good, it’s not enough – this decrease is compatible with hitting 3.2ºC by 2100. To limit warming to 1.5ºC or below by 2050, we would need to commit to much greater cuts in emissions – 90% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Our results clearly suggest Australia’s four World Heritage reefs will be dramatically affected by warming in the near future. They will no longer qualify as being maintained under “conditions of integrity”. It’s hard to see how they can avoid being added to the in danger list.

Kate Marie Quigley, DECRA Research Fellow in molecular ecology, James Cook University and Andrew Hamilton Baird, Professorial fellow in coral reef ecology, James Cook University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australians have a love affair with household appliances. The national household appliance market is projected to reach A$13 billion in 2024 – a figure that grows each year.

On average, Australian homes have five large appliances and up to ten smaller ones such as hair clippers and irons – not to mention numerous other electronic gadgets not included in this count, such as those operated by batteries. As you might expect, the most common appliances are refrigerators and washing machines, with vacuum cleaners, microwaves and toasters close behind.

But what happens when these appliances break? Unfortunately, broken appliances are unlikely to be repaired. It doesn’t have to be this way, however.

And if we fail to keep up with legal developments in other parts of the world, Australia could soon become a dumping ground for cheap and nasty appliances.

They don’t make them the way they used to

Just over a decade or so ago, when household appliances such as televisions or washing machines broke down, an appliance repair man could be called, spare parts obtained, and the problem fixed.

But getting large and small appliances repaired these days can be very challenging, if not impossible. Brands and retailers often discourage repair by offering replacement instead.

While it may be technically possible to repair modern white goods and appliances, it’s expensive. There are high call-out fees for service technicians, and spare parts are difficult to find.

And many appliances are designed in such a way that makes repairs impossible, or there are no spare parts available.

Most manufacturers, brands and retailers provide only a one- or two-year warranty. Often we are encouraged to pay extra for an extended warranty. But that shouldn’t be necessary, because consumer law requires the manufacturer or importer to provide spare parts and repair facilities for a reasonable time after purchase – longer than the manufacturer’s warranty.

Once the warranty has expired, Australian consumers with broken appliances can really only take the matter up with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as a breach of their consumer rights. Even then, as consumer advocates have repeatedly highlighted, there are no penalties for manufacturers that refuse to comply with our consumer rights by failing to offer repair over replacement.

A lack of consumer protection

Australia’s consumer law means we technically have a right to repair, refund or replacement for defective goods. However, manufacturers are not required to provide spare parts or repair services – so there’s no guarantee consumers can have their broken appliance fixed.

In contrast, both the United Kingdom and European Union have passed laws to ensure manufacturers that sell their goods in those markets support their products for longer than one or two years. A UK Right to Repair law was passed in 2021. This law requires manufacturers to make spare parts available to consumers and third-party companies, effectively extending the life cycle of a range of devices and appliances by up to ten years.

Similarly, in the EU, the new Right to Repair directive will require manufacturers to not only provide spare parts but also provide these details on their website, as well as offering spare parts to independent repairers at reasonable prices.

Consumers in France, and soon the EU more broadly, are also better informed about the “repairability” of their appliance.

Labels on appliances and packaging at the point of sale will reflect the ability to have an appliance repaired, as well as the spare parts and service support available. A repairability label helps educate consumers and encourages manufacturers to better design their products for longevity and disassembly now that they have to disclose more information at the point of sale.

It seems obvious that manufacturers required to comply with the right to repair laws, labelling and other sustainability requirements in the UK and EU should have to adhere to the same conditions in Australia. However, without similar law, this is simply not the case.

This means Australia could become a dumping ground for endless streams of poorly designed, low-quality, cheap imports that have no regulatory support for repair. Global e-waste is growing five times faster than the rate of recycling, so most appliances will never be recycled.

Only repair cafes are helping appliances last longer

Australians are increasingly taking their broken appliances to one of the nation’s 100 “Repair Cafes”. These are community-run events aimed at giving a new life to broken items that would otherwise be thrown away. Volunteer repairers help to fix broken items. They report commonly attending to small household electrical appliances such as stick vacuums, coffee machines, toasters, lights and kettles.

But these volunteer-run repair cafes cannot repair the thousands of broken appliances in our homes. The system must change.

Embracing the benefits of repair

Repairing appliances reduces waste, and saves energy, materials and emissions involved in making replacements. It also saves the emissions and road congestion associated with transporting replacement appliances to stores.

But if Australia is to take repair seriously, we need the infrastructure to support repair activity at scale.

Almost two years ago, Assistant Minister for Competition Andrew Leigh opened the Australian Repair Summit in Canberra, saying:

There are opportunities to further reduce barriers to repair for products in some markets, and the Australian Government wants to pursue reforms that are evidence‑based and target sectors where it will be most beneficial.

But little has changed. Australia is still lacking policies to require manufacturers to provide better long-term support for the appliances they make. This means Australians will continually struggle to keep their appliances going.

Repairing household appliances to keep them in use for just a couple more years would significantly reduce the amount of electronic waste being generated.

As is often cited, the best kettle, toaster or washing machine is the one you already have. Australia must create laws and incentives to extend product life through durability and repairability.

Leanne Wiseman, Professor of Law, Griffith University, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Before renewables came along, coal-fired power stations pumped out electricity (and carbon emissions) 24 hours a day. But now, this type of “always on” baseload power is no longer necessary or commercially viable.

This is one of many reasons why the Coalition’s proposed nuclear strategy is flawed. Even if nuclear power was cheap, which it isn’t, it would have to be the least appropriate energy source going around.

Why? Because the world has changed. The greening of the electricity grid means we need far more flexibility. Solar and wind can do the heavy lifting, provided we have enough storage (batteries, pumped hydro and other technologies) and something we can quickly switch on and off to fill the gaps, such as gas or (eventually) hydrogen.

The only way to make nuclear power work in Australia is to switch off cheap renewable energy. Stop exporting electricity from your rooftop solar system. Forget feed-in tarrifs. The system has to call on baseload nuclear power first, or the plan makes no sense whatsoever. And to make space for nuclear in 10-15 years, you’d have to somehow make coal financially viable now.

Comparing the cost of electricity

The price we pay for electricity as customers is a function of the wholesale price retailers pay, to secure energy from generators, plus the cost of transporting it (transmission and distribution).

To compare the cost of nuclear power to other sources, we need to take a closer look at each generator’s capital and operating costs.

For capital costs, the market operator and most energy analysts turn to the CSIRO GenCost report. It finds conventional nuclear power stations cost 40% more to build than coal, 2.5 times more than onshore wind and 5 times more than large-scale solar.

Operating costs reflect both fixed costs (such as maintenance) and variable costs (such as fuel). The less time the plant operates, the higher the capital and operating costs per megawatt hour (MWh) of output.

Both coal and nuclear can operate around 90% of the time at full capacity, while both wind and solar only operate at full capacity some of the time. So it’s best to compare annual operating costs on the basis of the actual energy generated in a year. Even on this basis it costs less to operate onshore wind and solar than coal or gas, mainly because there is no fuel cost.

Nuclear plants are incredibly complex and cost about five times more to maintain and manage than onshore wind and large scale solar. And that’s not including the high cost of decommissioning the plant, or treating and disposing of used fuel and wastes during its use.

South Australia offers a glimpse of the future

So far this analysis assumes all of the power plants operate at their optimum capacity. But the real world is not like that.

The market operator is required to supply electricity according to customer demand, which they do by dispatching the cheapest form available at the time.

This is onshore wind and solar, when available. However, network demand for electricity is also heavily influenced by what customers are doing to meet their own demand with rooftop solar.

South Australia has lots of rooftop solar plus large-scale onshore wind and solar power plants. Just take a look at the hour-by-hour supply of electricity to SA customers on July 6 this year.

On this day in the middle of winter, private rooftop solar reduced demand by more than half in the middle of the day. Renewables (mainly wind) provided almost all the network electricity demand. A small amount of electricity was supplied by gas turbines (which are not baseload power generators) and batteries. No coal or gas generation was imported from other states.

About one third of SA homes have rooftop solar. As take-up inevitably grows, total network demand will continue to fall.

SA was the first state to see network demand fall below zero back in October 2021.

In the southwest of Western Australia the market operator is projecting network loads will become negative in coming years, something I predicted a decade ago.

As baseload generation is used less and less, it costs more and more per MWh and becomes less competitive and commercially viable. This is the main reason coal fired power stations are closing and baseload generation is becoming redundant.

SA is a predictor of the whole of Australia in coming years. If coal is not commercially viable into the future, then how can nuclear possibly be, when it is far more expensive?

Switching off solar and propping up coal

According to analysis by the Smart Energy Council the Coalition’s proposed seven nuclear reactors would only provide 3.7% of Australia’s electricity demand by 2050.

However, even if nuclear was to be a significant component of the mix by 2040 (under a very optimistic scenario), it wouldn’t be compatible with renewables already on rooftops and in the network.

That’s because nuclear power stations have very limited flexibility to power up, or power down. So if they are always on, something else has to be switched off. The only solution would be to “curtail” (switch off) cheap renewable energy, including exports from your rooftop solar.

For nuclear to be a significant energy source in future, Australia would have to start making more room for baseload power generation now. Existing coal-fired generators would have to be made financially viable so they can continue to operate until they’re eventually replaced by nuclear.

Meanwhile renewable generators and rooftop solar exports would have to be either disallowed from supplying the network or financially undermined – by government subsidies for coal and gas plants. The result of either would of course be higher costs and higher emissions.

The market operator’s Integrated System Plan for the National Electricity Market aligns with my analysis of the WA network. That is, the optimum energy solution, from both a cost and emissions perspective, is a combination of:

• renewable generation (mainly wind and solar)
• storage in the form of pumped hydro and batteries
• small amounts of gas, eventually replaced by hydrogen, to fill in the gaps.

There is neither room, nor need, for nuclear energy in Australia.

Bill Grace, Adjunct Professor, Australian Urban Design Research Centre, The University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan to build seven nuclear power plants in Australia has attracted plenty of critical attention. But there’s a striking feature which has received relatively little discussion or criticism: the nuclear plants would be publicly owned and operated, similar to the National Broadband Network (NBN).

On the contrary, it received enthusiastic endorsement from free-market advocates such as The Australian’s Judith Sloan, who observed: “It’s how the French nuclear plants were first constructed.” It is also the way Australia built its biggest single piece of energy infrastructure, the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

But there’s a fundamental problem here. Over the last three or four decades the federal public service has been hollowed out in the name of “new public management”. This became very clear during the COVID pandemic, when state governments – who have preserved their ability to act far better – ran most of the response. There is a very real question over whether we have the governmental capacity to achieve net zero.

From NBN to National Nuclear Network?

Dutton’s acknowledgement of the publicly owned NBN as a model worth using is a welcome advance on the view of Malcolm Turnbull, one of his predecessors as Liberal leader.

A decade ago, then-prime minister Turnbull embarked on a disastrous “mixed mode” redesign of the NBN. This reflected his belief – expressed publicly after leaving office – that a publicly owned broadband network should never have existed.

Labor is in no position to oppose Dutton’s calls for public ownership. State Labor governments in Victoria and New South Wales have re-established publicly owned electricity enterprises, while South Australia’s Labor government has floated the same idea.

Whatever technological choices we make, it is clear our days of relying on the private sector to provide vital infrastructure are coming to an end. The question now is whether the public sector can recover to take the lead.

The National Energy Market, for instance, was meant to promote competition and drive electricity prices down. It has failed to do so, resulting in a string of government interventions, some more successful than others.

Arguably the biggest failed intervention was the now-defunct Energy Security Board, a politically driven response to South Australia’s statewide blackout in 2016.

The board sought to patch up the National Energy Market with a capacity market, which was immediately dubbed “CoalKeeper” due to incentives for old coal plants to keep going, as well as new grid access charges, promptly dubbed “Solar Stopper” due to discouraging new investment in solar. Energy experts did not favour this approach.

What proved more successful as a response to South Australia’s big blackout was the decision by the state government to fund the Horndale big battery, which was, when built in 2017, the world’s largest utility-scale battery storage.

Should new power be private or publicly owned?

Both major parties are flagging more intervention. The federal government has stopped waiting for markets to provide clean energy in favour of seeking tenders for new renewables through a capacity investment scheme. The scheme received 40 gigawatts worth of bids from renewable developers, far beyond the goal of 6GW.

This shift has come in response to developments bogging down, hampered by inadequate regulation and local opposition driven by a combination of genuine concerns about environmental impacts and culture-war driven science denialism.

Labor’s current renewables-led strategy requires 10,000 kilometres of new publicly built transmission lines, to meet our net zero goals. We’d need even more transmission if we are to become a major exporter of clean energy, either as electricity or in products such as green hydrogen and ammonia.

On the Coalition side, no private firm is likely to accept the risks involved in creating a nuclear power industry from scratch. Government would have to lead.

As Nationals leader David Littleproud has now acknowledged in relation to finding sites for nuclear plants, the national need for clean energy is too important to allow “not in my backyard” opponents – some with only a tenuous connection to the area in question – to slow or stop government plans.

If government is to lead, it must have the capacity

What Dutton’s nuclear gambit shows us is that, surprisingly, Australia’s two major political parties are in strong alignment on the need to rebuild state capacity.

Whether it’s Labor working to get transmission lines and offshore wind up and running or the Coalition working to create a nuclear industry from scratch, it will take a strong government with the capacity to articulate a plan, and the legal, financial and human resources to make it a reality.

All of these requirements were met when we constructed the Snowy Mountains Scheme, a decades-long federal government initiative undertaken in cooperation with Victoria and NSW.

Are they still in place? Not yet. Government capacity to act has been eroded over decades of neoliberalism. Particularly at the national level, public service expertise has been hollowed out and replaced by reliance on private consulting firms.

To rebuild the federal government’s capacity to act will require recreating the public service as a career which attracts the best and brightest graduates – many of whom currently end up in the financial sector.

The private sector still plays a central role in the construction of infrastructure, as was the case with the Snowy Scheme. But it’s up to governments to take the lead in finance and planning.

This poses particular challenges for the Liberal Party, which has long favoured the interests of businesses small and large, and has been historically opposed to public ownership. But from the late 1990s until relatively recently, Labor was also keen on privatisation.

The French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau once observed that “war is too important to be left to generals”. As we are discovering to our cost, infrastructure investment is similarly too important to be left to private investors.

John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When Australia’s east coast is caught in the grip of a heatwave, relief can come in the form of abrupt, often gale-force wind changes known as “southerly busters”.

For Sydneysiders, the arrival of the southerly buster is a hot topic right up there with property prices. But in recent years, talk has turned to where southerly busters have gone. The feeling is, they’re not what they used to be.

Our new research shows southerly busters have become more frequent but less intense over the past 25 years. Global warming is to blame.

As the warming trend continues, we can expect more southerly busters to roll in. These winds can damage property, worsen bushfires, and endanger both aviation and marine activities. Unfortunately, we may witness more of these unwelcome effects in the future.

What are southerly busters?

During the warmer months, from October to March, Australia’s southeastern seaboard can experience sudden wind changes known to locals as southerly busters. This is when a hot northwesterly wind turns southerly, with wind gusts exceeding 15 metres per second. A severe southerly buster has gusts of at least 21m/s.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Southerly busters can drop temperatures by up to 20°C within minutes, providing instant relief from oppressively hot days.

But they also produce severe thunderstorms, low cloud, fog and destructive winds. Consequently, they threaten human life and property.

Powerful near-surface wind gusts and associated turbulence disrupt the aviation industry. Takeoff and landing become particularly challenging, as southerly busters can create sudden increases or reductions in aircraft speed and drift.

Large waves and rough seas are hazardous for surfcraft, boats and rock fishers. Marine rescue organisations know and fear southerly busters as they respond to thousands of related emergency requests annually.

What we did and what we found

News reports suggest southerly busters have become far less frequent and weaker in recent decades. Some say southerly busters no longer pose the dangers they once did. But they have not disappeared entirely.

In our new research, we used observational data from 1970 to 2023 to analyse trends in southerly buster frequency and intensity. We were especially interested in the period of accelerated global warming from the early to mid-1990s.

Our statistical analysis considered changes from year to year, from 1970 through to 2023. Then we compared two consecutive time periods, 1970–96 and 1996–2023.

We looked at maximum wind gusts, frequencies of southerly busters compared to severe southerly busters, and the influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

We found severe southerly busters dominated from 1970 to 1995.

After that, both southerly busters and severe southerly busters gradually increased in number, but the lower wind speed southerly busters became more common overall. So the combined annual total of southerly busters and severe southerly busters increased over time.

From 1996 to 2023, the number of southerly busters each year approached or exceeded the number of severe southerly busters.

The annual frequency of southerly busters increased dramatically in 2017–18 and shot up further still in 2018–22, far exceeding severe southerly busters.

Changing atmospheric circulation patterns

In the Southern Hemisphere, global warming has changed atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface just south of Australia. We suspect these changes in cold frontal systems affect both the number and strength of southerly busters and severe southerly busters.

Unusually high pressures just south of the continent push cold frontal systems away from Australia, but the persistent high pressure favours more frequent, though weaker, southerly winds along the NSW coast. That persistent Southern Hemisphere circulation feature has generated more southerly busters during 1996–2023, relative to 1970–95.

On weather charts, the typical sequence is for high pressures over the Tasman Sea to direct hot north-northwesterly winds over the southeast Australian coast, ahead of the Southern Ocean cold frontal system. At the leading edge of the front is the southerly buster, travelling northwards from the southern NSW coast.

Southerly busters in a future warming climate

Global warming-induced large-scale atmospheric circulation changes are responsible for the annual increases of southerly buster frequencies experienced to date.

However, assuming continued global warming, it is unclear how much southern busters will continue to increase. Known southeast Australian climate drivers (El Niño or La Niña) can amplify or reduce the effects of global warming, so any projection of future of southerly busters will benefit from climate modelling studies that focus on atmospheric circulation changes.

With maximum gust speeds significantly decreasing and becoming highly variable since 1996, it is possible southerly busters are becoming shallower. This means they are bringing smaller temperature drops following their passage along the NSW coast.

Implications of more southerly busters

As more people flock to the beaches for relief in a warming climate, they will be increasingly exposed to southerly busters in dangerous surf. Having more frequent southerly busters also raises the risk of wind damage to property and coastal infrastructure.

Coastal airports will need to contend with increased danger to aircraft during take-off and landing. And sudden changes in wind strength and direction will increase bushfire fire danger.

Our research shows southeastern Australia is experiencing more, not less, southerly busters. So we need to prepare for the wide-ranging consequences.

Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney and Lance M Leslie, Professor, School of Mathematical And Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Over the past few decades, animal sounds have seen a huge surge in research. Advances in recording equipment and analysis techniques have driven new insights into animal behaviour, population distribution, taxonomy and anatomy.

In a new study published in Ecology and Evolution, we show the limitations of one of the most common methods used to analyse animal sounds. These limitations may have caused disagreements about a whale song in the Indian Ocean, and about animal calls on land, too.

We demonstrate a new method that can overcome this problem. It reveals previously hidden details of animal calls, providing a basis for future advances in animal sound research.

The importance of whale song

More than a quarter of whale species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. Understanding whale behaviour, population distribution and the impact of human-made noise is key to successful conservation efforts.

For creatures that spend nearly all their time hidden in the vast open ocean, these are difficult things to study, but analysis of whale songs can give us vital clues.

However, we can’t just analyse whale songs by listening to them – we need ways to measure them in more detail than the human ear can provide.

For this reason, often a first step in studying an animal sound is to generate a visualisation called a spectrogram. It can give us a better idea of a sound’s character. Specifically, it shows when the energy in the sound occurs (temporal details), and at what frequency (spectral details).

We can learn about the sound’s structure in terms of time, frequency and intensity by carefully inspecting these spectrograms and measuring them with other algorithms, allowing for a deeper analysis. They are also key tools in communicating findings when we publish our work.

Why spectrograms have limitations

The most common method for generating spectrograms is known as the STFT. It’s used in many fields, including mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering and experimental physics.

However, it’s acknowledged to have a fundamental limitation – it can’t accurately visualise all the sound’s temporal and spectral details at the same time. This means every STFT spectrogram sacrifices either some temporal or spectral information.

This problem is more pronounced at lower frequencies. So it’s especially problematic when analysing sounds made by animals like the pygmy blue whale, whose song is so low, it approaches the lower limit of human hearing.

Before my PhD, I worked in acoustics and audio signal processing, where I became all too familiar with the STFT spectrogram and its shortcomings.

But there are different methods for generating spectrograms. It occurred to me the STFTs used in whale song studies might be hiding some details, and there could be other methods more suited to the task.

In our study, my co-author Tracey Rogers and I compared the STFT to newer visualisation methods. We used made-up (synthetic) test signals, as well as recordings of pygmy blue whales, Asian elephants and other animals, such as cassowaries and American crocodiles.

The methods we tested included a new algorithm called the Superlet transform, which we adapted from its original use in brain wave analysis. We found this method produced visualisations of our synthetic test signal with up to 28% fewer errors than the others we tested.

A better way to visualise animal sounds

This result was promising, but the Superlet revealed its full potential when we applied it to animal sounds.

Recently, there’s been some disagreement around the Chagos pygmy blue whale song: whether its first sound is “pulsed” or “tonal”. These two terms refer to having extra frequencies in the sound, but produced in two distinct ways.

STFT spectrograms can’t resolve this debate, because they can show this sound as either pulsed or tonal, depending on how they’re configured. Our Superlet visualisation shows the sound as pulsed and agrees with most studies that describe this song.

When visualising Asian elephant rumbles, the Superlet showed pulsing that was mentioned in the original description of this sound, but has been absent from all later descriptions. It’s also never been shown in a spectrogram.

Our Superlet visualisations of the southern cassowary call and the American crocodile roar both showed previously unreported temporal details that were not shown by the spectrograms in previous studies.

These are only preliminary findings, each based on a single recording. To confirm these observations, more sounds will need to be analysed. Even so, this is fertile ground for future work.

Ease of use may be Superlet’s greatest strength, even beyond improved accuracy. Many researchers using sound to study animals have backgrounds in ecology, biology and veterinary science. They learn audio signal analysis only as a means to an end.

To improve accessibility of the Superlet transform to these researchers, we implemented it in a free, easy to use, open-source software app. We look forward to seeing what new discoveries they might make using this exciting new method.

Benjamin A. Jancovich, PhD Candidate in Behavioural Ecology and Bioacoustics, Casual Academic, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australian mining and energy giant Fortescue announced late on Wednesday that its ambitious green energy goal – to produce 15 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen annually by 2030 – will be placed on hold.

As part of a broader restructure, the company will also merge its mining and energy divisions, and slash 700 jobs across its business.

The news will disappoint those who’ve eagerly awaited the emergence of a green hydrogen sector in Australia. Fortescue’s executive chairman and founder, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, has been an outspoken supporter of the technology.

But since the announcement, Forrest has been quick to reject claims the company is walking back from its green hydrogen dreams more broadly, telling Nine Radio in Perth on Thursday:

We just have to work out now how to produce it cheaply enough.

Fortescue’s announcement reinforces the fact that one company can’t do it alone – Australia needs a coordinated approach to supporting future green industries – including renewable hydrogen.

Developing renewable hydrogen at scale - like any industry - will require both national and global action to build demand, by supporting new technologies and lowering the risk of investing in early projects. Over time, this will bring prices down.

Hydrogen has a role to play – if we can make it cheaply

Green or renewable hydrogen is produced by “electrolysing” or splitting water into its component elements hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity.

This is in contrast to non-renewable “blue hydrogen” which is extracted from natural gas using steam in a process called “steam methane reforming”.

Renewable hydrogen’s current high cost of production has been a key element of the industry’s sluggish start.

At Climateworks Centre, we’ve modelled a range of different scenarios across the whole economy to work out how Australia can best reduce its emissions at the lowest cost.

Our modelling shows renewable hydrogen can indeed play a lead role in Australia’s energy future. It becomes particularly important for transitioning industries that can’t be electrified, such as ammonia and alumina production, and heavy transport. But only if it becomes commercially viable to produce.

Hydrogen production for domestic use in 1.5⁰C scenario

This is where the Future Made in Australia policy will serve as an important “net-zero” filter by setting out tests which must be passed to unlock targeted government investment.

The policy includes an economy-wide framework to determine which industries need government support to incentivise private investment at scale. But it acknowledges we can’t do everything, everywhere, all at once – we must prioritise our actions.

Renewable hydrogen has already been assessed by Treasury as an industry that requires support under the policy. This is because it meets two key net zero “tests” – it offers Australia a sustained comparative advantage in a future net zero global economy, and needs significant public investment to reduce emissions at an efficient cost.

This should come as no surprise. Australia has a clear comparative advantage in the production of renewable hydrogen, with a skilled workforce and abundant renewable resources and land.

Renewable hydrogen is also a foundational requirement for other products we can produce and export. Modelling by CSIRO and Climateworks for the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative has explored these uses.

It found that in the short term, hydrogen could help decarbonise ammonia production (used for fertiliser and explosives), and potentially also mining haulage and alumina calcination – an important step in refining aluminium. Longer term, steelmaking and freight could also require significant volumes of hydrogen.

Slow out the gate

Despite this potential, the market for hydrogen has been slow to get started.

A number of factors have made private investment challenging. Limited data from current large scale green hydrogen projects means there’s some uncertainty on how quickly the cost of producing renewable hydrogen will come down.

Currently, there’s also limited access to the large amounts of low-cost renewable energy required to make hydrogen projects commercially viable.

Without established local and global demand, public investment is needed to kick start this industry at scale.

Fortescue’s announcement indicates it is likely experiencing some of these challenges. But the supports contained in the Future Made in Australia policy may eventually help alleviate some of these pressures on it and other companies in the emerging industry.

A$4 billion to bridge the cost of producing renewable hydrogen and the market price with a hydrogen production credit via Hydrogen Headstart, plus a $2 per kilo hydrogen production tax incentive both aim to improve the investment outlook for green hydrogen projects.

By providing some price certainty for each kilo of renewable hydrogen produced, the government will share the risk with potential investors, making the projects more bankable. Both of these supports will be paid over a ten-year period.

Fortescue’s setbacks reinforce the need for support

Getting to net zero is complex and will require ambitious, coordinated action from government, industry, and finance.

Bold action on climate isn’t a choice, it’s an imperative. To do challenging things quickly, each part of the economy must step up. If we get this right, generations of Australians can work in and benefit from a net-zero nation run on renewable energy, with a thriving renewable hydrogen industry.

Fortescue has long taken much-needed first mover risks to drive attention and action in the global and Australian renewable hydrogen market. This week’s news is a setback, but shouldn’t be seen as a death knell for the nascent industry or for the government’s bold ambitions.

Rather, it highlights the gap that government support aims to fill by coordinating and unlocking finance, and funnelling it in the right direction.

Kylie Turner, System Lead, Sustainable Economies, Climateworks Centre and Luke Brown, Head of Policy and Engagement, Climateworks Centre

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.