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Captain Paul Watson accuses ‘hostile governments’ in the US, Australia and New Zealand of being in league with Tokyo

The anti-whaling vessel Sea Shepherd will not contest the Southern Ocean against Japanese whalers this season, Captain Paul Watson has announced, accusing “hostile governments” in the US, Australia and New Zealand of acting “in league with Japan” against the protest vessel.

Sea Shepherd has been obstructing Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean each year since 2005, but Watson said the cost of sending vessels south, Japan’s increased use of military technology to track them, and new anti-terrorism laws passed specifically to thwart Sea Shepherd’s activities made physically tracking the ships impossible.

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Tesla and LG Chem are leading the battery storage market in terms of brand recognition, but the issue of quality throws up some other names.

"Australia's pretty much in league with Japan on allowing this to continue."

The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world. Author provided

The Amazon, often described as the “lungs of the Earth”, is the largest rainforest in the world. Its extraordinary biodiversity and sheer scale has made it a globally significant resource in the fight against climate change.

But last week the Brazilian president Michel Temer removed the protected status of the National Reserve of Copper and Associates, a national reserve larger than Denmark.

The reserve, known as “Renca”, covers 46,000 square kilometres and is thought to contain huge amounts of copper, as well as gold, iron ore and other minerals. Roughly 30% of Renca will now be open to mining exploration. Renca also includes indigenous reserves inhabited by various ethnic communities living in relative isolation.

The decision, which has been denounced by conservation groups and governments around the world, comes as the unpopular Temer struggles with a crushing political and economic crisis that has seen unemployment rise above 12%.

Read more: With Dilma Rousseff impeached, Brazil is set for years of political turmoil

Political and economic turbulence

Brazil is currently in the middle of the largest corruption scandals in its history. Since 2014, an ongoing federal investigation called Operation Car Wash has implicated elite businesspeople and high-ranking politicians, uncovering bribes worth millions of dollars exchanged for deals with the state oil company Petrobas. According to the BBC, almost a third of President Temer’s cabinet is under investigation for alleged corruption.

There is no doubt that Brazil needs to find ways out of recession and unemployment. As the minister of mining and energy has said, “the objective of the measure [to allow mining] is to attract new investments, generating wealth for the country and employment and income for society.”

However it’s not clear that this move will benefit ordinary Brazilians. This is not the first gold rush into this area, and the Amazon still has high indices of poverty and many other challenges.

During the 1980s and 90s tens of thousands of miners flocked to gold deposits in the Amazon, driven by high international prices. One of the most famous examples, “Serra Pelada,” saw 60,000 men dig a massive crater in the Amazon Basin.

These mining operations typically provided little economic benefits to the local populations. Instead, they attracted thousands of people, which led to deforestation, violent land conflicts and mercury pollution in the rivers.

In reality the Amazon and its people deserve a sustainable model of development, which takes advantage of the outstanding biodiversity and beauty of its standing forests. The historical record shows mining is likely to lead to a demographic explosion, and further deforestation, pollution and land conflicts.

The principle of non-regression

One important aspect of international environmental law is called the “principle of non-regression”. The principle states that some legal rules should be non-revokable in the name of the common interest of humankind. Essentially, once a level of protection has been granted there is no coming back.

This principle is reflected in article 225 of the Brazilian constitution, which lays out the right to a healthy environment:

All have the right to an ecologically balanced environment […] and both the Government and the community shall have the duty to defend and preserve it for present and future generations.

The Brazilian constitution also describes the Amazon forest as a “national heritage”. It must then be treated accordingly.

Read more: Deep in the Amazon jungle, Brazil’s ‘hidden cities’ are in crisis

While the Amazon is a fundamental part of Brazil’s history, it’s also an essential part of the global battle against climate change. The Amazon contains half the worlds’ tropical rainforests, and its trees absorb and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, land use, including deforestation and forest degradation, is the second-largest source of global emissions after the energy sector.

Developed countries around the world have committed resources to help Brazil offset the costs of safeguarding their forests. One example is the Amazon Fund, created in 2008. It has received billions of dollars from foreign governments such as Norway and Germany, to combat deforestation and to promote sustainable practices in the Brazilian Amazon.

But with 14 million Brazilians unemployed, further assistance is required to ensure that they can protect their forests.

As well as governments, companies have also committed billions of dollars to fight climate change and support projects that reduce carbon emissions and promote energy efficiency. Most businesses have also created self-regulatory standards to ensure compliance with international laws and ethical standards.

The decision of the Brazilian government leaves us with two questions. How will the international community honour their commitments to keep global warming below 2℃, if countries begin rolling back their environmental protections? And how will companies involved in mining projects in the Amazon honour their social responsibility commitments and moral obligation towards present and future generations?

The degradation of the Amazon will affect the entire world. The clearing of the Amazon for mining will lead to the emissions of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases, furthering global warming and causing the irreversible loss of biodiversity, and water resources, as well as damage to local and indigenous communities.

Let us not take a step back towards more destruction. Rather, let us strengthen the protection of our remaining forests.

I have previously received funding from Swiss Foundations to conduct my Masters, PhD and book publication. Recently, I received funding from the School of Law, Western Sydney University, to conduct research on illegal logging. I am a Member of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Commission on Environmental Law

Study predicts power consumption to rise with hotter temperatures, increasing need for renewable sources, while northern Europe’s demand may fall

Demand for electricity is set to soar in southern Europe as climate change takes hold, research has revealed, with the effect likely to be down to a boom in the use of air conditioning.

By contrast, electricity demand is expected to drop in northern countries, leading to an increasingly polarised pattern across the continent – a situation, the researchers say, that bolsters the case for greater integration of electricity supplies across Europe, particularly given the shift to renewable energies.

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Producing, selling and using plastic bags becomes illegal as officials say they want to target manufacturers and sellers first

Kenyans producing, selling or even using plastic bags will risk imprisonment of up to four years or fines of $40,000 (£31,000) from Monday, as the world’s toughest law aimed at reducing plastic pollution came into effect.

The east African nation joins more than 40 other countries that have banned, partly banned or taxed single use plastic bags, including China, France, Rwanda, and Italy.

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30,000 people are expected to need emergency shelter after tropical storm Harvey caused ‘landmark’ flooding in Houston, Texas. Brock Long, administrator of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), held a press conference on Monday alongside the acting secretary of homeland security and the director of the National Weather Service, who said the city would experience more heavy rainfall in the coming days

• Tropical storm Harvey – live updates

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A selection of the day’s best images, including kite-flying in Moscow, a sea of red umbrellas in China and a Valentine’s Day group wedding in China

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Birling Gap, a popular tourist spot close to Eastbourne, was evacuated on Sunday after a ‘chemical haze’ descended on the area. People complained of breathing difficulties and irritation in their eyes and throats, and over 100 people were treated at the local hospital overnight. The cause of the incident is still unknown

• Sussex chemical cloud unlikely to have come from France, say police

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A 200-million-year-old fossil 're-discovered' in a museum is something special, say scientists.

Songbirds are disappearing from the forests of Indonesia to become pet birds in gilded cages.

A new study finds that a lecture from evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe successfully educates evangelical college students, validating the “trusted sources” approach

Approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, and that group also tends to be more resistant to the reality of human-caused global warming. As a new paper by Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe notes:

a 2008 study found that just 44% of evangelicals believed global warming to be caused mostly by human activities, compared to 64% of nonevangelicals (Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013) while, a 2011 survey found that only 27% of white evangelicals believed there to be a scientific consensus on climate change, compared to 40% of the American public (Public Religion Research Institute, 2011).

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The Snowy 2.0 scheme will now benefit from an extra $8 million for planning, but how soon will it affect power prices?

An exhibition of cycling helmets designed by artists will be on show at London bike shop and cafe Look Mum No Hands! from 1 September. Helmets will be auctioned online to raise money for the brain injury charity Headway

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The Victorian government is aiming to boost renewable energy to 40%. Changyang1230/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The Victorian government’s intention, announced last week, to legislate its own state-based renewable energy target is the latest example of a state pursuing its own clean energy goals after expressing frustration with the pace of federal action.

The Andrews government has now confirmed its plan for 40% renewable energy by 2025, as well as an intermediate target of 25% clean energy by 2020. The policy, first flagged last year and now introduced as a bill in the state parliament, seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 16% by 2035.

At a general level, these actions are reflective of the increasing frustration states and territories have experienced at perceived inaction at the federal and even international levels. Neighbouring South Australia has also been pursuing clean energy, this month announcing plans to develop one of the world’s biggest concentrated solar plants in Port Augusta.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has remarked that “it up to states like Victoria to fill that void”.

Read more: Victoria’s renewables target joins an impressive shift towards clean energy.

It is also, of course, a product of growing concerns regarding domestic energy security and investment confidence. Victoria’s climate and energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio said: “The renewable energy sector will now have the confidence to invest in renewable energy projects and the jobs that are crucial to Victoria’s future.”

National plans?

The Andrews government’s underlying objective is to reinforce, rather than undermine, federal initiatives such as the national Renewable Energy Target and any future implementation of the Clean Energy Target recommended by the Finkel Review.

But federal Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has apparently rejected this view, claiming that the new Victorian proposals run counter to the development of nationally consistent energy policy. “National problems require national solutions and by going it alone with a legislated state-based renewable energy target Daniel Andrews is setting Victoria on the South Australian Labor path for higher prices and a less stable system,” Frydenberg said.

Read more: Finkel’s Clean Energy Target plan ‘better than nothing’: economists poll.

A nationally consistent plan is somewhat unrealistic in view of the current fragmented, partisan framework in which energy policy is being developed. The federal government’s apparent reluctance to accept Finkel’s recommendation for a Clean Energy Target is generating uncertainty and unrest.

In this context, actions taken by states such as Victoria and South Australia can help to encourage renewable energy investment. Given that Australia has promised to reduce greenhouse emissions by 26-28% (on 2005 levels) by 2030 under the Paris Climate Agreement, it is hard to see how boosting renewable energy production is inconsistent with broader national objectives.

The renewables target rationale

Mandating a certain amount of renewable energy, as Victoria is aiming to do, helps to push clean energy projects beyond the innovation stage and into commercial development. It also helps more established technologies such as wind and solar to move further along the cost curve and become more economically competitive.

Renewable energy targets aim to stimulate demand for clean energy, thereby ensuring that these technologies have better economy of scale. Under both the federal and Victorian frameworks, electricity utilities must source a portion of their power from renewable sources. They can comply with these requirements with the help of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), of which they receive one for every megawatt hour of clean energy generated.

Independent power producers can sell their RECs to utilities to earn a premium on top of their income from power sales in the wholesale electricity market. As well as buying RECs, utilities can also invest in their own renewable generation facilities, thus earning more RECs themselves.

Victoria’s situation

Victoria’s proposed new legislation will serve an important purpose following the retirement of the Hazelwood coal-fired power plant. Renewable energy currently represents about 17% of the state’s electricity generation, and the Andrews government is aiming to more than double this figure by 2025.

This year alone, Victoria has added an extra 685MW of renewable generation capacity, creating more than A$1.2 billion worth of investment in the process. If the new legislation succeeds in its aims, this level of investment will be sustained well into the next decade.

Under the bill’s proposals, D'Ambrosio will be required to determine by the end of this year the minimum renewables capacity needed to hit the 25% by 2020 target, and to make a similar decision by the end of 2019 regarding the 40% by 2025 target.

In mandating these milestones, the state is aiming to set out the exact size of the state’s transitioning energy market, in turn giving greater investment certainty to the renewable energy industry.

Read more: Closing Victoria’s Hazelwood power station is no threat to electricity supply.

Victoria’s renewable energy scheme is designed to work coherently with the federal Renewable Energy Target, which given current usage projections is aiming to source 23.5% of national electricity consumption from renewables by 2020.

The federal government is yet to decide on any clean energy policy beyond the end of the decade, whether that be a Finkel-recommended Clean Energy Target or something else. In the absence of confirmed federal policy, the states have assumed the responsibility of accelerating renewable energy production through legislative initiatives designed to sustain and progress market development. This is consistent with federal commitments to global climate change imperatives.

It is hoped that these initiatives will act as a stepping stone for the eventual introduction of comprehensive state and federal clean energy regulation, and the advent of some much-needed national cohesion.

Samantha Hepburn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Over the past week we have seen two major tropical storms devastate different parts of the world. First Typhoon Hato struck Hong Kong and Southern China killing at least a dozen people. And over the weekend Hurricane Harvey made landfall from the Gulf of Mexico, bringing extremely heavy rain to southern Texas and causing devastating floods in Houston.

Tropical cyclones are, of course, a natural feature of our climate. But the extreme impacts of these recent storms, especially in Houston, has understandably led to questions over whether climate change is to blame.

How are tropical cyclones changing?

Tropical cyclones, called typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and hurricanes in the North Atlantic, are major storm systems that initiate near the Equator and can hit locations in the tropics and subtropics around the world.

When we look at the Atlantic Basin we see increases in tropical storm numbers over the past century, although there is high year-to-year variability. The year 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, marks the high point.

There is a trend towards more tropical storms and hurricanes in the North Atlantic. US National Hurricane Center

We can be confident that we’re seeing more severe tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic than we did a few decades ago. It is likely that climate change has contributed to this trend, although there is low statistical confidence associated with this statement. What that means is that this observed increase in hurricane frequency is more likely than not linked with climate change, but the increase may also be linked to decadal variability.

Has Harvey been enhanced by climate change?

Unlike other types of extreme weather such as heatwaves, the influence of climate change on tropical cyclones is hard to pin down. This is because tropical cyclones form as a result of many factors coming together, including high sea surface temperatures, and weak changes in wind strength through the depth of the atmosphere.

These storms are also difficult to simulate using climate models. To study changes in tropical cyclones we need to run our models at high resolution and with interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean being represented.

It’s much easier to study heat extremes, because we can do this by looking at a single, continuous variable: temperature. Tropical cyclones, on the other hand, are not a continuous variable; they either form or they don’t. This makes them much harder to model and study.

Tropical cyclones also have many different characteristics that might change in unpredictable ways as they develop, including their track, their overall size, and their strength. Different aspects of the cyclones are likely to change in different ways, and no two cyclones are the same. Compare that with a heatwave, which often have similar spatial features.

For all these reasons, it is very hard to say exactly how climate change has affected Hurricane Harvey.

So what can we say?

While it’s hard to pin the blame for Hurricane Harvey directly on climate change, we can say this: human-caused climate change has enhanced some of the impacts of the storm.

Fortunately, in Harvey’s case, the storm surge hasn’t been too bad, unlike for Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, for example. This is because Harvey did not travel as far, and weakened rapidly when it made landfall.

We know that storm surges due to tropical cyclones have been enhanced by climate change. This is because the background sea level has increased, making it more likely that storm surges will inundate larger unprotected coastal regions.

Building levees and sea walls can alleviate some of these impacts, although these barriers will need to be higher (and therefore more expensive) in the future to keep out the rising seas.

Deluge danger

Harvey’s biggest effect is through its intense and prolonged rainfall. A low pressure system to the north is keeping Harvey over southern Texas, resulting in greater rainfall totals.

The rainfall totals are already remarkable and are only going to get worse.

We know that climate change is enhancing extreme rainfall. As the atmosphere is getting warmer it can hold more moisture (roughly 7% more for every 1℃ rise in temperature). This means that when we get the right circumstances for very extreme rainfall to occur, climate change is likely to make these events even worse than they would have been otherwise. Without a full analysis it is hard to put exact numbers on this effect, but on a basic level, wetter skies mean more intense rain.

Houston, we have a problem

There are other factors that are making this storm worse than others in terms of its impact. Houston is the second-fastest growing city in the US, and the fourth most populous overall.

As the region’s population grows, more and more of southern Texas is being paved with impermeable surfaces. This means that when there is extreme rainfall the water takes longer to drain away, prolonging and intensifying the floods.

Hurricane Harvey is likely to end up being one of the most costly disasters in US history. It is also likely that climate change and population growth in the region have worsened the effects of this major storm.

Disclosure

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

The storm has hurled record rainfall at Houston, forcing thousands to flee their homes and testing flood-control systems to their limits. Parts of the city area saw more than 22in (55cm) of rain in a 24-hour period to Sunday evening; too much for the bayous to handle, too much for roads to remain passable and threatening to overwhelm emergency teams

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Green Energy Markets Renewable Energy Index shows an industry delivering on its promise: fulfilling a large and growing part of Australia's energy needs while also providing meaningful employment.

Sapphire Wind Farm developer calls on community investors to take shares in what will be NSW biggest wind farm.

Wothorpe-on-the-Hill, Cambridgeshire The air is awash with noise, a roar that wavers only slightly, and never below uncomfortable

The road climbs and thins with each turn. Where it reaches a little fist of cottages it doesn’t stop but instead, strangely, has its way blocked from waist height up by low branches. A dead road, leading to the old reservoir. I walk a footpath bordered by stone walls, then over a stile and here it is, a sweep of miniature country. A rumpled slope, trees fat with summer, a little pond catching the sky. August dew sits on everything, and early sun lights every drop to a shimmer. I see rabbits, molehills, every bush twitching with life.

I live less than a mile from here and would come to this meadow more, but for one thing. The air is awash with it, a roar that wavers only slightly, and never below uncomfortable. It’s rush hour now, so maybe this is as bad as it gets. But it never goes away.

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