Until now, Victorians believed their state was the sole home for Leadbeater’s possum, their critically endangered state faunal emblem. This tiny marsupial is clinging to life in a few pockets of mountain ash and snow gum habitat in the Central Highlands of Victoria.

But a few days ago, seven grainy photos taken by a trail camera in New South Wales revealed something very unexpected: a Leadbeater’s possum hundreds of kilometres away in the wet forests of Kosciuszko National Park.

For decades, we and other researchers have sought proof this possum existed in these forests. Now we have it. This is a moment of celebration. But it also signals the importance of well-resourced biodiversity surveys in uncovering our most threatened species and large national parks for conserving them.

While this newly discovered population reduces the risk of extinction, it doesn’t change the decline and risk of extinction of its Victorian relatives – or the steps needed to safeguard them.

Detected entirely by chance

In 2024, New South Wales threatened species ecologists Fred Ford and Martin Schulz set about looking for an entirely different species, the endangered smoky mouse. To find it, they set up a wide array of camera traps throughout wet forest areas of Kosciuszko National Park. A year later, they collected them and trawled through millions of photos.

Among all these images (including of smoky mice), there were seven which stunned them. A camera deployed near Yarrangobilly Caves captured a tiny possum scampering through leaf litter, holding its distinctive club-shaped tail erect. The possum looks around the monitoring site, showing its back and face stripes and heart-shaped face.

Experts at The Australian National University and Zoos Victoria verified the photos, setting the ecology world abuzz.

A hunch confirmed

While we are delighted at this remarkable discovery, the detection is not a complete surprise.

Over three decades ago, this article’s lead author searched for Leadbeater’s possum around Yarrangobilly and many other parts of Kosciuszko National Park, guided by a bioclimatic model suggesting the cool wet forests in Kosciuszko National Park should suit the possum.

But detection cameras were not available then, and this possum is notoriously hard to spot. It’s tiny, nocturnal and spends its waking hours dashing through the dense understory of some of the world’s tallest forests looking for nectar, sap and insects.

Species experts from Zoos Victoria and Deakin University have also scouted parts of Kosciuszko National Park over the past decade, identifying potentially promising habitat.

In 2010 we got confirmation the possum had once occurred in the area, when jaw bones were identified among bones regurgitated by owls on the floor of a nearby cave.

But other bones from the cave floor date back an estimated 140–200 years. The bones were far from proof of a living population.

The possum’s existence remained an open question until these photos.

What does this mean for this possum?

We don’t know anything about this newly discovered Leadbeater’s possum population in NSW, other than the fact that it exists. Given the distance from the Victorian populations, we suspect that they may be genetically distinct.

In theory, the existence of a separate population 250 km away from the Victorian populations cuts the risk a single megafire or other catastrophe could push the species to extinction.

But while welcome, the discovery doesn’t reduce the need to urgently protect surviving Victorian populations, which remain highly threatened by bushfire, climate change, predation by cats, and the legacy of logging and land clearing.

In Victoria, some populations have dwindled as low as 40 animals and inbreeding is now a concern.

The possum typically relies on large old trees with hollows where it can breed and den. But these trees have substantially declined in Victoria over the past 150 years. Leadbeater’s possum also needs smaller trees for feeding and movement.

Surveys across the historical range of the species in Victoria since 2017 have failed to find any other hidden populations. Most surveys have found the habitat highly degraded from logging and fire.

The discovery won’t alter the possum’s critically endangered status at this stage, nor the ongoing work to support it.

In welcome news, the NSW Environment Minister announced the possum’s state conservation listing will be fast-tracked.

Of surveys and parks

Why did it take so long to find the possum? The main reason: a lack of resources preventing targeted investigations.

Even basic inventories of species have not been done across many of Australia’s important conservation areas.

Without well conducted surveys and monitoring, we are left overly reliant on chance detections for critical information. There could be other populations of imperilled species waiting to be rediscovered.

Properly managing our growing number of threatened species shouldn’t be based on luck. It should be enabled by adequate resources for threatened species recovery teams to discover, map, protect and manage threatened species and their habitat.

Increasing federal spending on the care of nature to 1% of the budget would go a very long way to closing these gaps.

Trail cameras, call playback and environmental DNA sampling mean we can now survey large and remote natural areas with relatively little effort for long periods of time.

Big parks are essential

Kosciuszko National Park supports much more than Australia’s highest mountains. The huge park spans 690,000 hectares, much of it forest.

Many of our most imperilled species are hard to detect. Protecting extensive areas of good-quality habitat boosts the survival chances for these species, even if we don’t yet have proof of life.

With so little high-quality habitat left in Australia, proper protection through new national parks (including in Victoria) is vitally important for the possum and many other species.

Passive protection isn’t enough either – adequate funding is critical to stop the environmental condition of parks from declining, due to threats like invasive species and extreme fires.

The world still contains wonder

These seven photos have given ecologists and nature lovers a real boost to their spirits. As detection techniques improve, what else is out there waiting to be found?

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Leadbeater’s possum experts Dan Harley, Arabella Eyre, John Woinarski and Brendan Wintle to this article.

David Lindenmayer, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University; Darcy Watchorn, Threatened Species Biologist, Wildlife Conservation & Science Department, Zoos Victoria, and Visiting Scholar, School of Life & Environmental Science, Deakin University, 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.

Big animals of the ocean go about their days mostly hidden from view. Scientists know this marine megafauna – such as whales, sharks, seal, turtles and birds – travel vast distances to feed and breed.

But almost a third are now at risk of extinction due largely to fishing, shipping, pollution and global warming.

Protecting them can be difficult, because we don’t often know where these animals are.

New research I led sought to shed light on the issue. My colleagues and I gathered 30 years of satellite tracking data to map hotspots of megafauna activity around the globe.

We tracked 12,794 animals from 111 species to find out where they go. The results reveal underwater “highways” where megafauna crisscross the global Ocean. They also show where megafauna dwell for feeding and breeding. Now we know where these special places are, we have a better chance of protecting them.

Pulling all the data together: a mega task

For more than 30 years, marine biologists have tagged large animals in the sea with electronic devices and tracked their movements via satellite. The trackers capture data on everything from speed of travel, to direction of movement and where the animals spend most of their time.

I put a call out to the global research community to bring together the tracking data. I hoped it would help scientists better understand the animals’ movements and identify their favourite places.

Some 378 scientists from 50 countries responded. We assembled the world’s largest tracking dataset of marine megafauna. It includes species of flying birds, whales, fishes (mostly sharks), penguins, polar bears, seals, dugongs, manatees and turtles. They were tracked between 1985 and 2018, throughout the world’s oceans.

Mapping reveals a lack of protection

When we started analysing the data, it showed the tagged animals used some parts of the ocean more frequently than others. Most of them travelled to the central Indian Ocean, northeast Pacific Ocean, Atlantic north, and waters around Mozambique and South Africa.

It’s likely this reflects a lack of data from elsewhere. However, these species are known to go to places where they are most likely to find food, so we expect some areas to be used more than others (including the areas we detected).

Then we were able to identify the world’s most “ecologically and biologically significant areas” for the tracked animals.

Currently only about 8% of the global ocean is protected. And only 5% of the important marine megafauna areas we identified occur within these existing marine protected areas.

This leaves all of the other important marine megafauna areas we identified unprotected. In other words, the species using those areas are likely to suffer harm from human activities taking place at sea.

More than 90% of the important marine megafauna areas we identified are exposed to high plastic pollution, shipping traffic or to intensifying global warming. And about 75% are exposed to industrial fishing.

We also found marine megafauna tend to spend most of their time within exclusive economic zones. This area lies beyond the territorial sea or belt of water 12 nautical miles from the coast of each country, extending 200 nautical miles from shore. The presence of megafauna in these exclusive economic zones means individual countries could increase the protection afforded within their jurisdictions.

About 40% of the important marine megafauna areas were located in these zones. But about 60% were on the high seas.

The future of marine megafauna conservation

The High Seas Treaty, recently adopted by the United Nations and signed by 115 countries, governs the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological biodiversity on the open ocean.

Working alongside this treaty, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aims to protect 30% of the global ocean by 2030. This presents an opportunity to ensure important marine megafauna areas are well represented.

We used an optimisation algorithm to identify the best areas to protect, when it comes to marine megafauna. We gave priority to areas that are potentially used for feeding, breeding, resting and migrating across all the different species.

But even if important marine megafauna areas are selected when 30% of the ocean is protected, about 60% of these areas would still stay unprotected.

Significant risks from human activities will remain. Management efforts must also focus on reducing harm from fishing and shipping. Fighting climate change and cutting down noise and plastic pollution should also be key priorities.

Like for most megafauna on land, the reign of marine megafauna might come to an end if humanity does not afford these species greater protection.

Ana M. M. Sequeira, Associate Professor, Research School of Biology, Australian National University

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

Robert Macfarlane is not easy to pin down – song writer, nature writer, children’s author, environmental activist, documentary film maker, mountain climber and restless adventurer, spoken word performer, literary historian, librettist, linguist and researcher. Likewise, his books are so various and yet so much themselves, it seems he has forged his own genre.

Review: Is a River Alive? – Robert Macfarlane (Penguin Random House)

He has won many kinds of prizes for his books, so many that he has been spoken of as a likely Nobel Prize winner several times over the past few years. Each of his books changes the world a little, possibly sometimes profoundly.

His latest takes as its title and starting point a question his young son once put to him, “Is a River Alive?” If we can talk of rivers dying (and we do), then isn’t there an assumption somewhere along that line of thought that a river does indeed constitute a life?

MacFarlane lives south of Cambridge, England, not far from a rare chalk stream spring that feeds the early reaches of the River Cam, which flows through the town. This is one of the four troubled rivers he explores across the pages of his book.

In England, climate change will put such springs at risk not too far into the future. He reports in his brief inter-chapters on the River Cam that the nationwide privatisation of riverways has put the health of England’s rivers at risk of dying as viable natural ecosystems.

His book takes us across the globe. To the Ecuadorian cloud-forest named Los Cedros, where the “river of the Cedars” is under threat from gold-mining.

Then to Chennai in south-east India, a city of three rivers and a surrounding marshland. All three rivers have been declared “dead” due to a total lack of dissolved oxygen in their waters as they pass through this city of three million people, taking up raw sewage and industrial waste in huge quantities.

The final journey is into Quebec’s wild Magpie River, named Muteshekau-Shipu by the Innu people who have lived for 8,000 years with this river. Its flow, he writes, is now threatened by a hydro scheme that would transform it into a series of chained reservoirs – an incursion into one of the largest intact ecosystems in the world. Already, power lines from a just-completed hydro scheme that has drowned a nearby river are crossing the Muteshekau.

We visit, alongside Macfarlane, each of these rivers, and encounter with him the characters entangled with them. Often these individuals are quixotically heroic, damaged by their tilting against governments and corporations, deeply insightful, determinedly optimistic, and always (in his appreciative hands) articulate.

Each river is at the forefront of the emergence of what Macfarlane calls a new-old idea. This idea has been newly pioneered in recent years by the ecologist, historian and theologian-turned-geologian Thomas Berry, one of the philosophical fathers of the Rights of Nature Movement.

Berry has coined the phrase “Earth Jurisprudence” to recognise and uphold the idea of earth as “a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects”. Under this juridical philosophy, “trees have tree rights, insects have insect rights, rivers have river rights, and mountains have mountain rights”.

An idea beginning to happen

Towards the end of Macfarlane’s book, the Innu poet, artist, therapist, river guide and mystic Lydia Mestokosho-Paradis declares,

It seems crazy that we give a corporation that’s ten years old rights, but we won’t give rights to a ten-thousand-year-old river.

How to bring such an imagined and imaginative, partly spiritual idea into the realm of law? It has begun to happen, perhaps most strikingly in 2008 when Ecuador under the guidance of the socialist government of Rafael Correa passed into existence a new constitution that recognised the Rights of Nature alongside those of humanity and its corporations.

The major article of the new constitution stated,

Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.

It is possible this declaration in their constitution will in time close the gold mines in the cloud-forest of Los Cedros.

In 2017, extraordinarily, New Zealand passed legislation called the Te Awa Tupua Act, which recognises the Whanganui River in the North Island is alive, is an ancestor to the Whanganui iwi (tribe), and is itself a spiritual and physical entity, “an indivisible and living whole”.

This legislation has encouraged individuals and groups around the world to agitate for their rivers’ lives to be recognised and respected in law.

“There are few things as powerful as an idea whose time has come,” Macfarlane writes, certainly more in hope than hubris at this tipping point for the world’s climate and its climate politics.

Many difficult questions connected to these ideas must be raised, and they have no easy answers. To what, exactly, does a river have a right? Who can speak for a river? What might be the reasonable consequences or compensations to be made when a river’s rights are compromised or denied? Can a river sue a corporation? Can a river act purposefully? What do sciences have to say about the idea of a river being an entity?

And so the conversation goes, on into the night, by riverbanks, around small camp fires, often among people who feel connected to their rivers, responsible for them, or just lucky to have a chance to kayak them before they disappear.

This book will in part be a test of whether this idea’s time has indeed come, and of how urgent we feel it is to find legal, actionable answers to the many claims and consequences it gives rise to. That is the great gift Macfarlane’s “future-dreaming” has given to the world.

Kevin John Brophy, Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne

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

Australia’s economy slowed sharply in the March quarter, growing by just 0.2% as government spending slowed and extreme weather events dampened demand. That followed an increase of 0.6% in the previous quarter.

The national accounts report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed annual growth steady at 1.3%, below market forecasts for an improvement to 1.5%.

The result is also weaker than the Reserve Bank of Australia’s forecasts.

The ABS said: “Extreme weather events further dampened domestic demand and reduced exports”, with the impact particularly evident in mining, tourism and shipping.

This report on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be a key consideration for the Reserve Bank’s next meeting on July 7–8, helping shape its decision on whether to cut rates again. In May, the central bank cut the cash rate by 0.25% to 3.85%.

On balance, the softer than expected pace of growth makes another rate cut in July a bit more likely.

Private demand drives growth as public spending slumps

Household spending slowed to 0.4% in the quarter from 0.7%. Essential spending led the way, with a sharp 10.2% rise in electricity costs due to a warmer-than-usual summer and reduced electricity bill rebates. Food spending also increased as Queenslanders stocked up ahead of Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

Investment also contributed to growth, though its composition shifted. Private investment rose 0.7%, driven by a rebound in house building and strong non-dwelling construction, particularly in mining and electricity projects. But business investment in equipment and machinery slumped.

Public investment fell 2.0%, ending a run of positive growth since September 2024. This decline, which detracted 0.1 percentage points from GDP, reflected the completion or delay of energy, rail and road projects.

“Public spending recorded the largest detraction from growth since the September quarter 2017”, the ABS said.

Disappointing trade performance

Exports unexpectedly became the main drag on growth in the March quarter, marking a sharp turnaround from December 2024.

Total exports fell 0.8%, led by a drop in services – particularly travel – due to weaker foreign student arrivals and lower spending. Goods exports also declined as bad weather disrupted coal and natural gas shipments, and demand from key markets like China and Japan softened.

The growth outlook is soft

Given the weaker-than-expected growth in the March quarter, Australia’s economic outlook remains soft.

A disappointing sign in the report was another fall in GDP per head of population, known as GDP per capita. This measure declined by 0.2%, after just one quarterly rise and seven previous quarters of a “per capita recession”, when population growth outpaces economic growth.

The household saving rate continue to rise in the March quarter, back to pre-COVID levels at 5.2%. This is because income grew faster than spending, and households remain cautious amid economic uncertainty. Additional government support also boosted savings.

The economic slowdown reflects weak household spending and a notable pullback in public sector investment. With domestic demand under strain, short-term growth prospects appear limited as the economy continues to adjust to past interest rate hikes and the early effects of the recent cuts.

The Reserve Bank began cutting official rates in February – its first move after 13 consecutive hikes between May 2022 and November 2023 – but the impact has yet to flow through. The next GDP figures, due on September 3, will offer a clearer picture of how the February and May rate cuts are shaping the recovery.

Trade tensions add uncertainty

Global conditions have become more unsettled, with rising trade tensions and shifting geopolitical alliances putting pressure on international trade. Renewed tariff threats – particularly from the US – are disrupting global supply chains. For export-reliant Australia, this increases the risk of weaker trade volumes and greater exposure to external shocks.

At the same time, China’s post-pandemic recovery is losing momentum, dragged down by weak consumer demand and a struggling property sector.

Given Australia’s close trade ties with China, any sustained slowdown there poses a clear threat to export earnings and broader economic growth. Together, these global headwinds are adding to the uncertainty surrounding Australia’s economic outlook.

A balancing act on rates

With demand soft and the economy losing momentum, the Reserve Bank may cut interest rates again at its July meeting to help boost growth. Key sectors like household spending, public services and mining have been under pressure. A further rate cut could support confidence and encourage more spending.

However, the monthly inflation report for April adds uncertainty. While headline inflation held steady at 2.4% over the year to April, underlying measures ticked higher. The monthly rate excluding volatile items such as fuel and fresh food rose to 2.8%, up from 2.6%. That suggests price pressures are becoming more widespread.

These mixed signals leave the RBA facing a delicate balancing act. Upcoming data, particularly the employment report on June 19 and the May monthly inflation indicator on June 25, will be critical in determining whether inflation is easing enough to justify another cut or showing signs of persistence that call for caution.

Stella Huangfu, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

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

“I wish adults knew that I really care about the environment and want to help, but I sometimes feel like my ideas don’t matter because I’m just a kid.”

This is what a nine-year-old respondent told us when we asked how they feel about the environment.

In today’s current political climate, many adults seem resigned to climate catastrophe and even dabble in climate change denialism. However, our survey of 1,000 youth aged eight to 14 from Canada and the United States found that children care deeply about the planet and are ready to take action.

The findings from our report were produced as part of an ongoing study with the Humanity in Motion Society, a Canadian non-profit organization focused on engaging youth as key stakeholders in advancing environmental stewardship.

Almost 90 per cent of the kids we spoke to recognize climate change as a real and urgent problem, calling for intergenerational collaboration and bolder environmental mitigation and adaptation commitments.

It turns out that our nine-year-old respondent speaks for many children. Kids know what’s at stake, want a seat at the table and need adults to act with them.

What kids told us

Many of the kids told us they regularly take action to mitigate their carbon footprint, including recycling, embracing reusable items and conserving energy. Their accounts are consistent with numerous academic studies on youth involvement in environmental citizenship.

However, many understand individual action alone is not enough. In fact, most kids recognize that systemic accountability is necessary to tackle the climate crisis. As one kid in Grade 6 shared:

“I wish big industry and governments would stop asking us to do something when they continue to fly in private jets [and] drill for oil and more; we are asked to recycle.”

Kids have a deep understanding of current political issues, including the cost-of-living crisis and the harmful “drill baby drill” sentiments, but also underscore a stark disconnect: while we instil environmentally responsible values in our children, elected leaders remain consistently inactive on these very same issues.

Kids play active roles in knowledge sharing

The kids in this study display impressive knowledge about the steps that need to be taken to address the climate crisis. Our findings demonstrate that youth are not just passive recipients of knowledge but, rather, play an active role in being climate communicators.

For example, two thirds of our respondents say their friends learn about climate change directly from them. Even though many children note that they do not have climate clubs at school, they are curious about the role of big oil, deforestation and corporate greed in the ongoing climate crisis.

In addition to teachers and parents being the most influential sources of knowledge for children, social media content has an impact on kids’ environmental behaviour and feelings of empowerment.

Specifically, our data shows that talking to others online has a significant positive relationship with reported sustainable behaviour, and that watching videos has a significant positive relationship with how much kids feel they can make a difference. One young girl reflected on using Tiktok for insights on climate change while also capturing an awareness among her generation:

“I would say if there’s a really big issue, like, I know there’s something called the Climate Clock in New York…I mean, the thing with social media, you never know what’s true and untrue, but that thing [Climate Clock] came on my ‘For You’ page…and everybody in the comments, they were saying ‘this is very real, we have to do something about it.’”

This shows that kids would benefit greatly from spaces to continue in-person environmental discussions with adults in the room. One young respondent captured the potential for meaningful engagement:

“There are a lot of things that can be done, curriculum integrations…sustainable skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and maybe explore the ecosystems and biodiversities and actually encourage students to design and implement climate-friendly projects and carry out field trips and organize visits to renewable energy sites or environmental organizations and sometimes, maybe occasionally, the school can invite climate experts, activists or scientists.”

These ideas were shared by others who called on adults to lead more experiential approaches to climate education inside the classroom and beyond.

Five calls to action

Here are five ways to help bring about change:

1. Adults need to step up. Adults play a critical role in shaping how youth engage in climate action. Our report found that teachers and parents, in addition to the internet, are among the most influential learning sources for youth today. Kids often take pro-environmental values, actions and cues from their parents.

2. Apathy is not an option if we want change. Youth are looking to leaders and elected officials to invest heavily in infrastructure and education to improve our environment.

3. Intergenerational collaboration promotes better environmental values. Despite the consequences of climate change, youth share a sense of optimism and emphasize the need for intergenerational responsibility.

4. Provide spaces for youth to take leadership roles and engage in climate dialogue. Kids want to do more to build a sustainable future, but don’t know where to begin. Providing opportunities in the classroom and beyond are critical next steps to raise the next generation of climate leaders.

5. Promote bold action. Kids should be able to answer the call of many climate activists who recognize the need to pursue a greener economy by working together.

Our survey findings highlight a hopeful message about young people’s engagement in climate action, underscoring their impressive knowledge of the systemic changes required to address the crisis.

As adults across the political spectrum bicker about climate policy, young people are growing impatient and hoping to lead the way. Our results refocus attention on the future we’re creating and challenge us to listen seriously to children when they seek to address what may be their generation’s greatest crisis.

Jen Kostuchuk, PhD Candidate, Sociology, University of Victoria; Erik Steiner, Ph.D. Student, Marketing, York University, Canada, and Sean Lyons, Professor, Leadership and Management, University of Guelph

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

The Top End of Australia’s Northern Territory contains an extensive, awe-inspiring expanse of tropical savanna landscapes. It includes well-known and much-loved regions such as Darwin, Kakadu National Park, Arnhem Land and Nitmiluk Gorge.

These tropical savannas feature open forests and woodlands dominated by eucalypts and a diverse grassy understorey. They experience an intense monsoon-driven wet season and long dry season during which fire is common.

The area is home to a spectacular range of plants and animals, including crocodiles, barramundi, speartooth sharks, the spectacularly coloured Leichhardt’s grasshopper and flocks of magpie geese. Some groups are extraordinarily diverse. Several thousand ant species are thought to live there – compared to just 1,000 species in South America’s Amazon basin.

Yet, despite their immense ecological and cultural significance, the NT’s tropical savannas face an uncertain future. The landscape is under increasing pressure from invasive species, more frequent and severe fires, climate change, mining, agriculture and development – including water extraction.

Our new report outlines what should be done to ensure conservation and sustainable management of this unique and special region.

A region in trouble

As ecologists, we share a deep passion for tropical Northern Australia but fear for its future. To aid environmental policy and decision-making, we set out to describe the current condition and likely future of the NT’s tropical savannas. This involved identifying existing, emerging and possible future threats.

We found biodiversity in decline. Many species, particularly mammals that were once common and widespread, have disappeared from much of the region. These include the northern quoll, brush-tailed rabbit-rat and black-footed tree-rat.

Habitats are degraded and ecosystems are showing signs of collapse. Feral animals are widespread. Cats prey on native wildlife. Feral pigs feast on turtle nests and trash plants in and around waterways, reducing water quality. Cattle, water buffalo, horses and donkeys eat their way through native plants, reducing habitat structure and complexity, aiding the establishment and spread of weeds.

In many parts of the Top End, fires are becoming more frequent and severe. This is in part due to the increasing dominance of invasive grasses, particularly Gamba and buffel grass. Both grasses are highly flammable, increasing the risk and harm of fires.

Longer and hotter dry seasons also increase fire risk and severity, as well as making water less available to wildlife due to higher rates of evaporation. Plants and animals also face greater heat stress and risk of dying during extended periods of extreme temperatures.

The changing nature of land-clearing

Land-clearing is increasing in the Top End, too. We estimate about 45,000 hectares of savanna habitat was destroyed between 2000 and 2020. That’s equivalent to an area roughly the size of 22,500 Melbourne Cricket Grounds.

Another 146,000 hectares have approval to be cleared, and an additional 100,000 hectares could be cleared for an expanded cotton industry.

It is not just the amount of clearing that matters, but where it occurs. The habitat mainly destroyed to date has been in higher rainfall areas between Darwin and Katherine. This is where most threatened species live. On average, the cleared areas overlapped with more than 12 nationally listed threatened species.

What should be done?

Our report shows current laws are insufficient to protect the Northern Territory’s tropical savannas. Evidence-based law reform is urgently needed.

Decision-making must be collaborative, not controlled by individuals, based on sound science. It must also actively support and involve First Nations peoples and their goals.

The situation in the NT reflects broader calls to strengthen national environmental laws as a matter of urgency and greatly boost investment in conservation to achieve positive results for nature.

Nature is the lynchpin of northern Australia. It characterises and nurtures the place, underpins and embraces Indigenous culture, is a major tourist attraction and helps make our country healthy. We need to recognise its value, and guard against its ongoing loss.

Our report was independently reviewed by experts in the ecology and conservation of Northern Australia, Professors Richard Williams and Christopher Johnson.

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University; Brett Murphy, Professor of Ecology, Charles Darwin University, and John Woinarski, Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University

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

According to Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, the latest emissions data show “we are on track to reach our 2030 targets” under the Paris Agreement. In 2024, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions were “27% below 2005 levels”. That’s great news, right?

Well, yes and no. Australia continues to rely on changes in land use to compensate for emissions released into the atmosphere.

In other words, Australia’s plants are considered to be taking more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere now than in 2005. Their efforts are captured in the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, which is the single largest reason for the significant reduction in Australian emissions.

Without accounting for land use, Australia’s emissions have only decreased 3% since 2005, not 27%.

If Australia is serious about reducing emissions and tracking towards net zero by 2050, we need to tackle a series of inconvenient truths about fossil fuels. Fossil fuels feed into almost every aspect of our lives, not just cars and power plants. There are substitutes, but they are not easy to source – and they don’t come cheap.

How fossil fuel exports drive up emissions here and overseas

Australia is one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporters. The coal, oil and natural gas we export is either burnt or combined with our sizeable iron ore exports to produce iron. But the greenhouse gases are released overseas, so they don’t count in Australia’s emissions data.

This is in line with our international commitments under the Paris agreement. But there is an argument to be made that even though Australia doesn’t burn those exports, we should acknowledge our central role in contributing to global emissions. We may need to account for these in future reporting.

Australia’s export emissions are likely to be triple that of our domestic emissions. These emissions have been increasing consistently over the last decade.

But the process of extracting fossil fuels and preparing them for export does show up in Australia’s domestic emission figures, through what’s called “fugitive emissions”. These fugitive emissions are the unavoidable leaks that occur when we pull fossil fuels out of the ground, store, transport and process them.

In the year to 2024, fugitive emissions accounted for 10.6% of our emissions, which is far greater than emissions from industrial processes (6.8%).

Disturbingly, recent analysis suggests fugitive emissions could be drastically underreported. Because these emissions are tricky to measure, they are often estimated on an average basis. This means reported values do not accurately reflect true releases.

When it comes to fugitive and export emissions, Australia is not on track to meet 2030 targets. Recent export-focused fossil project approvals such as the North West Shelf gas project suggest we might even be backtracking.

The transition to renewables

Closing dirty old coal-fired power stations and replacing them with renewable energy such as solar and wind power does cut emissions. The reduction in emissions from the electricity sector, down 23.7% on 2005 levels, is good news. But the difference is still small enough that seasonal variations from Tasmania’s hydro power plants can distort the annual figures.

At least there is a plan in place for the energy transition. Big, slow wheels are in motion.

Unfortunately the reality is we will need much, much more renewable energy in the future. Up to three times the current capacity of the National Electricity Market will be needed to cover future domestic energy requirements across electricity and other sectors out to 2050.

Significantly more would be required to generate enough additional green energy to also produce green value-added commodities.

Australia’s clean energy challenge

Discussions around transitioning from fossil fuels typically overlook how deeply they are embedded in our everyday lives.

Not just the fuel we use in our cars, but the roads we drive on. Not just the electricity we use to power our hospitals, but the steel used to build them and the pharmaceuticals we rely on.

Globally, around 13% of fossil fuels are not burned but used to make these key chemicals. What’s the alternative?

Clean electricity is the key.

Electricity can be used to make hydrogen from water through electrolysis. This hydrogen can then replace fossil fuels in manufacturing – making products such as green steel and ammonia for fertiliser.

When combined with non-fossil sources of carbon, hydrogen can also be turned into renewable fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuel. It can be used to synthesise green versions of petrochemicals used in industrial processes such as ethanol, propylene and ethylene, which are currently sourced from fossil fuels.

This takes energy. Lots of it. Fortunately Australia has all the ingredients needed for a booming green industry – one that’s much broader than just renewable electricity.

Currently, it costs more to produce these chemicals without using fossil fuels. That’s why some companies and state governments have been pulling back from their investments in green hydrogen.

Most people talk about green hydrogen in the context of energy storage or export. But it can also enable the transition away from fossil fuels in other sectors. The technology exists to make these chemicals and products, without the emissions and it’s slowly but steadily moving closer toward price parity.

If we can nail this switch to fossil-free alternatives to petrochemicals, Australia would be able to add value onshore, rather than exporting raw materials. For example, we could export iron, not iron ore. Methanol or ammonia, not hydrogen. Export the jumper, not the wool.

Heavy industry driven by renewables?

On Sunday, Bowen said he found some areas of the 2024 emissions figures “encouraging, like industrial emissions, way down and lower than 2021”.

Unfortunately, this result was partly due to a decline in manufacturing. Onshore manufacturing capability has been steadily decreasing, despite increased fossil fuel extraction.

Unless we ramp up green manufacturing – replacing fossil fuel exports with much needed renewable products and fuels – we will continue to bear responsibility, if not direct accountability, for large, exported emissions as well as onshore fugitive emissions.

And no amount of changes to land use can account for that.

Emma Lovell, Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney and Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle

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In June 2023, a record-breaking marine heatwave swept across the North Atlantic Ocean, smashing previous temperature records.

Soon after, deadly heatwaves broke out across large areas of Europe, and torrential rains and flash flooding devastated parts of Spain and Eastern Europe. That year Switzerland lost more than 4% of its total glacier volume, and severe bushfires broke out around the Mediterranean.

It wasn’t just Europe that was impacted. The coral reefs of the Caribbean were bleaching under severe heat stress. And hurricanes, fuelled by ocean heat, intensified into disasters. For example, Hurricane Idalia hit Florida in August 2023 – causing 12 deaths and an estimated US$3.6 billion in damages.

Today, in a paper published in Nature, we uncover what drove this unprecedented marine heatwave.

A strange discovery

In a strange twist to the global warming story, there is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean to the southeast of Greenland that has been cooling over the last 50 to 100 years.

This so-called “cold blob” or “warming hole” has been linked to the weakening of what’s known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation – a system of ocean currents that conveys warm water from the equator towards the poles.

During July 2023 we met as a team to analyse this cold blob – how deep it reaches and how robust it is as a measure of the strength of the Atlantic overturning circulation – when it became clear there was a strong reversal of the historical cooling trend. The cold blob had warmed to 2°C above average.

But was that a sign the overturning circulation had been reinvigorated? Or was something else going on?

A layered story

It soon became clear the anomalous warm temperatures southeast of Greenland were part of an unprecedented marine heatwave that had developed across much of the North Atlantic Ocean. By July, basin-averaged warming in the North Atlantic reached 1.4°C above normal, almost double the previous record set in 2010.

To uncover what was behind these record breaking temperatures, we combined estimates of the atmospheric conditions that prevailed during the heatwave, such as winds and cloud cover, with ocean observations and model simulations.

We were especially interested in understanding what was happening in the mixed upper layer of water of the ocean, which is strongly affected by the atmosphere.

Distinct from the deeper layer of cold water, the ocean’s surface mixed layer warms as it’s exposed to more sunlight during spring and summer. But the rate at which this warming happens depends on its thickness. If it’s thick, it will warm more gradually; if it’s thin, rapid warming can ensue.

During summer the thickness of this surface mixed layer is largely set by winds. Winds churn up the surface ocean and the stronger they are the deeper the mixing penetrates, so strong winds create a thick upper layer and weak winds generate a shallower layer.

Thinning at the surface

Our new research indicates that the primary driver of the marine heatwave was record-breaking weak winds across much of the basin. The winds were at their weakest measured levels during June and July, possibly linked to a developing El Niño in the east Pacific Ocean.

This led to by far the shallowest upper layer on record. Data from the Argo Program – a global array of nearly 4,000 robotic floats that measure the temperature and salinity in the upper 2,000 metres of the ocean – showed in some areas this layer was only ten metres deep, compared to the usual 20 to 40 metres deep.

This caused the sun to heat the thin surface layer far more rapidly than usual.

In addition to these short term changes in 2023, previous research has shown long-term warming associated with anthropogenic climate change is reducing the ability of winds to mix the upper ocean, causing it to gradually thin.

We also identified a possible secondary driver of more localised warming during the 2023 marine heatwave: above-average solar radiation hitting the ocean. This could be linked in part with the introduction of new international rules in 2020 to reduce sulfate emissions from ships.

The aim of these rules was to reduce air pollution from ship’s exhaust systems. But sulfate aerosols also reflect solar radiation and can lead to cloud formation. The resultant clearer skies can then lead to more ocean warming.

Early warning signs

The extreme 2023 heatwave provides a preview of the future. Marine heatwaves are expected to worsen as Earth continues to warm due to greenhouse gas emissions, with devastating impacts on marine ecosystems such as coral reefs and fisheries. This also means more intense hurricanes – and more intense land-based heatwaves.

Right now, although the “cold blob” to the southeast of Greenland has returned, parts of the North Atlantic remain significantly warmer than the average. There is a particularly warm patch of water off the coast of the United Kingdom, with temperatures up to 4°C above normal. And this is likely priming Europe for extreme land-based heatwaves this summer.

To better understand, forecast and plan for the impacts of marine heatwaves, long-term ocean and atmospheric data and models, including those provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States, are crucial. In fact, without these data and models, our new study would not have been possible.

Despite this, NOAA faces an uncertain future. A proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year released by the White House last month could mean devastating funding cuts of more than US$1.5 billion – mostly targeting climate-based research and data collection.

This would be a disaster for monitoring our oceans and climate system, right at a time when change is severe, unprecedented, and proving very costly.

Matthew England, Scientia Professor and Deputy Director of the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, UNSW Sydney; Alex Sen Gupta, Associate professor, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW, UNSW Sydney; Andrew Kiss, Fellow, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, and Zhi Li, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Centre for Marine Science & Innovation, UNSW Sydney

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The UK government recently announced plans to fund five small-scale trials related to geoengineering. It’s the first time a state research funding body has put serious money into what’s known as solar radiation management, or SRM, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting more of the Sun’s energy back into space.

It’s easy to see why countries have been so hesitant to proceed with projects of this nature: SRM is highly controversial, even among scientists.

Deliberately altering the atmosphere, a shared global resource, is fraught with ethical, geopolitical and practical problems. It is and always has been a crazy idea.

However, many consider the failure to control carbon emissions means not intervening in this way is an even crazier idea. They consider it necessary to avert the collapse of ecosystems and society. Perhaps solar geoengineering is the price we must pay for our wholly inadequate climate change response to date.

The good news is that SRM may be able to deliver some progress relatively quickly. Earth has become slightly less reflective over the past few decades. That’s mostly thanks to reduced cloud cover (warmer oceans cause clouds above them to evaporate), but also thanks to less snow and ice, and a significant reduction in nasty-but-reflective shipping fuel pollutants.

By my calculations (based on data from US climate scientist James Hansen), this reduction in the reflectivity of Earth has caused as much warming as the 750 gigatonnes of CO₂ emitted since 2005. And while it will take decades to achieve significant global cooling through decarbonisation, it can be achieved relatively quickly by small increases in reflectivity.

Of the 21 projects being funded by Aria, the UK government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, five are likely to involve small-scale outdoor experiments. They account for about half the £57 million programme.

Three of the projects concern brightening clouds over the ocean, one explores a method of refreezing the Arctic and the fifth looks at a specific detail of injecting reflective aerosols into the stratosphere.

The other projects concern how to govern these technologies and model and monitor their effects. They could also yield insights vital for securing the public and governmental support necessary if these technologies are ever to be deployed on a much larger scale.

Marine cloud brightening

Marine cloud brightening seeks to make clouds over the ocean more reflective. This is done by turning seawater into an aerosol spray and allowing air currents to loft salt crystals into the clouds, where they enhance the creation of reflective water droplets.

The greatest challenge with this method is making enough seawater mist in which the droplets are of a uniform size, about 1 micron in diameter. The Reflect project led by the University of Manchester has received £6.1 million to explore “the technical feasibility and optimal methods” for generating these droplets.

A team from the University of Reading has developed a process using drones to fire electric charges through fog to alter the size of its water droplets. Their Brightspark project has been awarded £2 million to determine whether this process would be viable and safe if applied to clouds. A second phase involving small-scale testing in the UK is contingent on further approval by Aria.

Daniel Harrison, an oceanographer at Southern Cross University in Australia, has been researching marine cloud brightening for several years for the limited purpose of protecting the corals of the Great Barrier Reef. Preliminary results are positive.

His previous work will be extended to assess if, and how, marine cloud brightening could work safely and effectively, but still only as a regional intermittent intervention to protect coral from marine heatwaves.

This will also be a two-phase project (£1 million and £5 million respectively) in which the research will initially deal with modelling and spray design. Subject to further approvals, it will then test the newfound knowledge over the Great Barrier Reef.

The remaining two projects are both from teams led by the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University (I’m an associate researcher of the centre but I have no involvement in either of these projects).

Arctic refreezing

Engineer Shaun Fitzgerald has been awarded £9.9 million to extend an existing research project to examine the feasibility of thickening Arctic sea ice by pumping seawater from below the ice on to the surface, where it freezes. The idea is to increase the extent and thickness of sea ice in winter so that it endures longer through the summer.

The project also includes modelling to assess the impact this would have on a range of climate phenomena. Most significantly, this includes the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, an ocean current that some fear is in imminent danger of weakening sufficiently to bring Siberian winters to north-west Europe.

Stratospheric aerosol injection

The final project being funded looks at the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere – higher than clouds – where they would reflect a little of the Sun’s energy back to space.

Many regard this as the form of geoengineering most likely to happen. It is the most studied, as it replicates the natural cooling effect of certain big volcanic eruptions that put massive amounts of sulphate-based aerosols into the stratosphere. Scaling it to be climatically significant is thought to be relatively straightforward, and would probably be the cheapest cooling option.

One significant concern is the health and environmental impact of these aerosols as they fall back to the planet’s surface. Hugh Hunt, also an engineering professor at Cambridge, has been awarded £5.5 million to examine a range of alternative aerosol compounds. The plan is to send tiny samples into the stratosphere in specially designed gondolas attached to balloons. The gondolas will later be recovered, so that the effect of the stratosphere on the samples can be examined. Nothing will be released into the atmosphere.

A small step towards something much bigger

Aria is treading a fine line with this programme.

On the one hand, the organisation recognises that further interventions might be needed to mitigate the harm from the continuing failure to phase out fossil fuels. On the other, it recognises how controversial such interventions are. It is clearly anxious not to provoke a public furore that could undermine the research effort.

In isolation, it is unlikely that this programme will fill any knowledge gaps that might encourage policymakers to push climate intervention up the international agenda. What it could demonstrate, however, is that with appropriate controls in place, it is safe to test these options.

Perhaps the next funding round will support bigger outdoor experiments. These would help determine which technologies can eventually become the safe and effective climate interventions we desperately need.

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Robert Chris, Honorary Associate, Geography, The Open University

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In humans, it’s very common for the traditional family structure of two parents raising children to change abruptly. Usually, this happens when the parents decide to separate.

Many separated couples are able to navigate this change well to ensure their children are not overly affected. But this isn’t guaranteed. Parental separation can lead to behavioural, developmental and health issues in children. The effect can be long-lasting.

That’s humans. But many other species have a similar arrangement in choosing a long-term mate to raise offspring. What effect does it have when these couples split up?

In our new research, we examine what happens after a family split in a tropical bird species known for its long-lasting partnerships. To our surprise, we found the separation had no long term effect on the health of their offspring.

Family drama on a tropical island

Most birds form strong partnerships to raise offspring as a couple. Raising baby birds is an intense job. Having two parents at the nest is often essential for the survival of the chicks.

The Seychelles warbler is no exception. These small songbirds live only on the Seychelles, northeast of Madagascar.

They often pair for life and defend a territory together. The longest documented partnership is 15 years.

Still, family life is not always perfect for these warblers. Of all warbler couples, about one in seven (14%) end in a separation.

In these cases, one of the parents leaves their territory and finds a new mate elsewhere when there is still an egg, young chick or fledgling in their original nest.

How do you know if a bird is stressed?

For decades, a team of international researchers has studied the population of warblers on Cousin Island nature reserve. The dataset they have gathered includes information about the relationship status of all birds, as well as measures of their wellbeing, lifespan and how many offspring they produce.

Using this data, we looked at what happened to the offspring of partners who had split up.

We measured the stress levels of chicks who hatched just before the ending of their parents’ relationship up to the moment they reached adolescence.

In humans, it’s common to measure stress by looking at the levels of cortisol in saliva and hair. But measuring stress in birds is a little different. To do this, we used three biomarkers which indicate physiological stress experienced by animals.

The first is telomere length, the protective “caps” on the end of chromosomes which protect DNA against damage. The shorter the telomeres, the higher the stress.

The second is the percentage of red blood cells in blood, which shows how well a warbler chick can use oxygen. The third is body condition, which indicates a bird’s fat reserves. These three markers let us gauge the stress levels and health of young warblers.

We also wanted to know whether parental separation would have lifelong consequences for the chicks. To find this out, we compared chicks from separated parents to those with more stable nests and assessed how long they lived and how many offspring they produced.

Warbler separation doesn’t stress chicks

What we found was surprising. There was no evidence the separation of parents affected the stress levels of chicks or their long-term survival and breeding success.

Why might this be?

One reason is that these birds don’t linger on the past. They move on very quickly.

When a partnership ends through separation or death, it opens up a vacancy – which can be quickly filled.

When separation happens, one bird leaves. The remaining partner can find themselves left with offspring to take care of themselves.

But parenting chicks is only half the story – nesting is also about territory. Cousin is a very small island of just 0.3 square kilometres with over 300 Seychelles warblers living on it.

That means the space to breed is very limited. As a result, when vacancies arise they’re often filled just hours after separation.

For the chicks, this means they now have a step-parent who can help raise them almost immediately. This means they don’t face a future with less parental care.

That’s not all. The Seychelles warbler is known for an unusual arrangement in which breeding couples sometimes receive help from other warblers, known as cooperative breeding.

On Cousin Island, there are more Seychelles warblers than there are breeding vacancies, meaning many adults can’t secure a partner and territory. These adults can join couples in established territories and help raise the offspring. This extra help may offset any reduced parental care after the ending of a partnership, meaning the offspring are still well off.

What we can learn from this

Our research shows Seychelles warbler chicks are better able to weather their parents separating than we expected.

Importantly, this humble bird is just one of a huge group of species who form socially monogamous partnerships where both parents raise the offspring.

Whether a parental relationship ending affects other species remains to be seen.

Frigg Janne Daan Speelman, PhD Candidate in Behavioural Ecology, Macquarie University

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

On the surface, Queensland’s new government is doing exactly what it pledged before winning office in October – repealing the state’s ambitious renewable energy targets and cancelling a huge pumped hydro project near Mackay.

But since the start of the year, the Crisafulli LNP government has gone further, and it’s less clear where it’s heading.

Last week, the government abruptly cancelled the A$1 billion Moonlight Ridge wind farm proposal, citing insufficient consultation and a lack of community support.

At the same time, the government announced it would open another 16,000 square kilometres of the state for gas exploration. The government is also planning to open new gas peaking plants and keep its coal plants open longer.

So, is the Queensland government backsliding on renewables and climate change?

The Crisafulli government is still committed to net zero by 2050. Because Queensland still owns its own transmission infrastructure and power plants, the state could shift to clean energy faster than other states. But at present, they don’t appear to be in a rush.

Slowdown under way

Previous Labor governments in Queensland announced plans for large pumped hydro installations as a way to store energy to be available when intermittent wind and solar are not. The largest of these pumped hydro projects was the Pioneer-Burdekin proposal near Mackay, which the government has now canned.

The Crisafulli government has also asked the Queensland Investment Corporation to examine the financial viability of two other major proposals, the Borumba pumped hydro scheme inland from the Sunshine Coast and the Copperstring transmission project linking Townsville and Mount Isa. This isn’t unusual – new governments often review projects announced by their predecessors.

Another recent announcement is drawing stronger criticism, however. In April, the Crisafulli government announced plans to make sure large solar and wind farms have the social licence to operate. This, the government announced, would bring the “same rigorous approval processes as other major developments” to bear on renewables.

If these plans become law, they are likely to make it substantially harder and slower to build large renewables projects.

The cancellation of the Moonlight Ridge wind farm proposal is instructive. Of the 508 individuals who wrote in response to the development, only 142 were local. In his decision, planning minister Jarrod Bleijie noted: “the representations that I received evidence that the project has not acquired overriding community acceptance”.

What’s being proposed looks messy. The peak body for renewables in Queensland is highly sceptical, while miners and farmers have also signalled concern.

But while the Moonlight Ridge cancellation drew headlines, two other wind farm proposals have been approved after being asked to show they had consulted adequately.

No is easy, yes is hard

It’s easy to take office and reject the work of predecessors. It’s far harder to outline what will replace it.

In contrast to other east coast states, Queensland has largely kept control of its sprawling electricity system. The government owns most large coal and gas power plants and all the transmission infrastructure.

While the new government has indicated renewed support for private sector energy investment, it has provided support for government-owned corporations to develop new gas peaker plants. By contrast, there are very few proposals for new gas plants further south.

In one sense, it’s no surprise Queensland’s new government has eased off on renewables. Its coal plants are relatively new, and largely owned by the government. This may reduce the urgency for developing a new energy plan, but only for a few years. Planning for a smooth energy transition is a major task, as demonstrated by southern states.

The state has also profited hugely from gas exported from Gladstone. The government now receives around $1 billion from oil and gas royalties a year.

Go-fast federally, go-slow at state?

The thumping Labor majority at this year’s federal election means, at a national level, work on the clean energy transition will accelerate. But this transition is only possible if state and federal governments coordinate well.

The responsibility for building and maintaining electricity systems in Australia largely falls to the states and territories. But managing large power grids on the east and west coasts requires national-level coordination.

What the federal government can do, by and large, is set a goal and stump up the cash. As former Labor prime minister Paul Keating once quipped, “never get between a state premier and a bucket of money”.

The federal government is running a funding program to support renewable generation and storage projects across the country. Three Queensland renewable projects have been approved under this program, including solar farms with battery storage.

It’s hard to see the state government moving to block these projects.

Where does this leave us?

Queensland is signalling it’s not enthused about having an open gate for new renewable projects. Adding time consuming and expensive new consultation hurdles may cause prospective renewable developers to pack up and head south or west.

Yet the policy’s strategic intent is unclear and is not necessarily against clean energy for the state. Many projects are already under way. The Crisafulli government has shown interest in smaller scale pumped hydro schemes as a way to store energy. And gas peaking plants will be a necessary evil in a high-renewables grid, acting like an emergency diesel generator for the rare periods without enough wind, sun or water.

The big test will come later this year in the form of the state government’s five year energy plan. Will it deliver the investment to meet the net zero objective while maintaining affordable and reliable power? Right now, many in the clean energy industry are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute

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We all want homes that keep us warm in winter and cool in summer, without breaking the bank. However, Australian homes built before 2003 have a low average energy rating of 1.8 stars out of 10. This means they’re often uncomfortable to live in and expensive to run.

There’s a strong case for a “renovation wave” of home energy upgrades across Australia. Reducing the use of fossil gas and improving the energy efficiency of existing housing by nearly 50% is also central to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Energy-saving upgrades such as solar panels, batteries, insulation, draught-proofing and hot water heat pumps also reduce the cost of energy bills. So while there’s an upfront cost, upgrades can reduce household expenses in the long run.

We wanted to find out what’s holding people back from getting energy-saving upgrades. We surveyed 100 Australian households and interviewed 19 people about their experiences. Our new research revealed five major barriers that stop these upgrades from being accessible to most households. Suppliers, governments and community organisations can all help overcome these barriers.

1. Information about upgrades is confusing and overwhelming

Households told us the amount of information out there about energy saving upgrades is overwhelming and sometimes conflicting. There are many different types of upgrades and product choices, making it challenging to identify which options provide the best value and what to do first. People found it difficult to know what information and which suppliers to trust.

Households need clear information from a trusted source about what their homes need. Many governments internationally, such as Scotland, provide online resources and tools to provide tailored advice to help with this.

Energy upgrade programs run by neutral community organisations and councils can also help, such as Rewiring Australia’s Electrify 2515 or Geelong Sustainability’s Electric Homes Program. These programs use their expertise to vet suppliers and ensure households receive good deals and high quality products.

2. Homes need to engage multiple suppliers and tradespeople

Many households worked on their home gradually, one upgrade at a time. Each upgrade involved a labour-intensive process of researching products, selecting companies, getting quotes and managing the disruptions caused by the installation. One Sydney homeowner told us:

The process of needing both a plumber and an electrician to change to induction cooking was frustrating. [We had to] to coordinate availability times and appliance delivery.

Australians need companies that can do multiple upgrades at once, to simplify and streamline the process. In Ireland, the government helped stimulate a market for organisations that can cover all the upgrades needed by a household.

3. Households are losing opportunities for straightforward upgrades

Every year, Australians invest billions in home renovations. They spent more than A$3 billion in the December 2024 quarter alone.

One of the best times to improve your home is during major renovations or when old appliances, such as hot water systems, break down. If you’re already facing disruptions and need to spend money, it can be an easy and more cost-effective way to increase your home’s energy efficiency at the same time.

Yet our research found advice on energy-saving upgrades was rarely provided to people undertaking major renovations or emergency replacements unless they asked for it. Households needed to seek out builders, architects and tradespeople who specialised in sustainability to get advice on an energy-saving renovation.

Providing energy upgrades to homes should be a standard component of modern renovations. Otherwise, households are missing out on easy and more affordable opportunities to get these upgrades.

4. Many tradespeople lack knowledge of energy-saving upgrades

Our research found tradespeople are the most common point of contact for households. They can be a valuable source of information and advice to facilitate upgrades. However, many households reported difficulty finding tradespeople knowledgeable about – and willing to install – energy-saving upgrades.

Some upgrades, such as solar panels, require specialised workforces. Others, such as hot water heat pumps are usually installed by regular plumbers and electricians.

Some tradespeople lack the knowledge to advise on energy-saving upgrades or need training to install new technologies to a high standard. This situation leaves households vulnerable to misinformation, with a shortage of skilled workers to do their upgrades.

Tradespeople require increased support and incentives to make energy-saving measures part of their skill set. This is especially true in regional areas, where there are fewer products and workers available.

5. The costs are too high for many households

A final, significant barrier was the cost of home upgrades, which often caused households to drop out early in the process. Australian households, particularly those with less disposable income, need more help with the upfront cost.

One way to do this is through targeted government rebates, which are currently only available in some regions. Another is affordable and accessible financing, like that available in Tasmania and the ACT. The national Home Energy Upgrades Fund could also be extended to make sure available finance matches the scale of the challenge.

Also needed are long-term reforms such as mandatory disclosure of energy performance when homes are sold and minimum energy standards for rental properties, which are currently only required in some jurisdictions in Australia. When these are both addressed we can make comfortable, and affordable homes the norm rather than the exception.

A worthwhile journey

Roadblocks aside, households also shared the joy and satisfaction of completing home energy upgrades. While the journey was often difficult, those who reached the end of the road were overwhelmingly pleased with the results. A homeowner who had installed solar panels and undertaken draught-proofing and insulation in Adelaide said:

It’s nice not to have huge electricity bills, and but I find it’s that day to day stuff of actually being comfortable that makes the biggest difference.

This research was undertaken by Jaime Comber, Kamyar Soleimani, Ed Langham, Nimish Biloria, Leena Thomas and Kerryn Wilmot from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Jaime Comber, Senior Research Consultant in Energy Futures, University of Technology Sydney; Ed Langham, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, and Nimish Biloria, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Technology Sydney

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