Coal generates less than 50% of Australian electricity for first time

Good news! Still a long way to go, but keep up the good work Australia!

Australia remains one of the world's leading exporters of coal and gas and has relied heavily on fossil fuels to keep the lights on.

But climate finance expert Tim Buckley said August's record figures were caused by wild weather and a warm start to the spring which had reduced demand on the grid by up to 20 percent.

Winds exceeding 150 kilometers per hour in the southeast of the country had also almost doubled the usual wind generation.

So, it was extreme events that made these renewables look good temporarily. That doesn't change the fact that the national and state governments' mindless rush toward wind and solar is driving up the cost of power for industry and retail customers and increasing the risk of blackouts due to less and less base-load power.

But who cares when a country that produces a tiny proportion of the world's CO2 output, and has minimal if any influence at all on the global or local climate, has governments that crow about their commitment to net zero? That is, net zero per-capita economic growth, net zero energy security, net zero bright future.

the national and state governments' mindless rush toward wind and solar is driving up the cost of power

Solar Energy is now cheaper than energy produced from burning carbon. Also, when the planet burns down due to the greenhouse effect, this will entail a cost - the loss of our civilization.

Your thinking is stuck in the 1970s.

But who cares when a country that produces a tiny proportion of the world's CO2 output, and has minimal if any influence at all on the global or local climate, has governments that crow about their commitment to net zero? That is, net zero per-capita economic growth, net zero energy security, net zero bright future.

fallaffelToday  02:57 pm JST

Your thinking is stuck in the 1970s.

I'll take that as a compliment. Back in the 70s they weren't caught up in today's utter insanity.

a country that produces a tiny proportion of the world's CO2 output

Australia produces aorund 1.3% of the world's CO2 emissions. Internationally that puts it at #16 when ranked by absolute amounts, or at #12 when ranked per capita; comfortably within the top 10% of all countries in both metrics.

Australia produces aorund 1.3% of the world's CO2 emissions. Internationally that puts it at #16 when ranked by absolute amounts, or at #12 when ranked per capita; comfortably within the top 10% of all countries in both metrics.

So, can you actually measure the extent to which Australia affects the global climate?

So, can you actually measure the extent to which Australia affects the global climate?

Logic would suggest the extent to be 1.3% of the effect of all anthropogenic emissions.

So, it was extreme events that made these renewables look good temporarily. 

No that is not what the text you quoted says, the expected effect of climate change both increased production of renewables and reduced demand.

But who cares when a country that produces a tiny proportion of the world's CO2 output, and has minimal if any influence at all on the global or local climate, has governments that crow about their commitment to net zero?

The citizens of that country, that understandable put a lot of importance to cooperate with the solutions instead of the problem, specially when the effects of climate change are being already experienced and are predicted to become much worse.

I'll take that as a compliment. Back in the 70s they weren't caught up in today's utter insanity.

Taking pride in a retrograde attitude is not the strong point you think it is.

Logic would suggest the extent to be 1.3% of the effect of all anthropogenic emissions.

Can you put a temperature value on it? Nobody knows how much humans are affecting the climate in comparison to nature (including the Sun, volcanic activity, etc.), so concluding that Australia's emissions affect 1.3% of climate change is complete nonsense.

so concluding that Australia's emissions affect 1.3% of climate change is complete nonsense.

Data said the effects would be 1.3% of anthropogenic emissions. You can argue that there are other factors involved in climate change, but his/her statement seemed accurate to me.

Can you put a temperature value on it?

No. Why would that be necessary to counter your claim that "Australia produces a tiny proportion of the world's CO2 output"?

Nobody knows how much humans are affecting the climate in comparison to nature (including the Sun, volcanic activity, etc.)

That's not entirely true. Climate models have been surprisingly accurate over the last 50-odd years (we know that because we can, you know, compare them to what actually happened) and are still getting better and more sophisticated. We may not have exact numbers, mainly because climate models are exceedingly complex and predictions are notoriously difficult, but we have a pretty good general idea which factor has which effect.

We know, for example, that the sun has no direct effect on global warming. We are going through a period of lower sun activity. Were the sun the only factor, the earth would actually be cooling.

concluding that Australia's emissions affect 1.3% of climate change is complete nonsense

Just as well I did not say that. Feel free to re-read my reply, look up the difficult words if you need to.

Data said the effects would be 1.3% of anthropogenic emissions. You can argue that there are other factors involved in climate change, but his/her statement seemed accurate to me.

Thing is, nobody can ascertain the extent to which humans are affecting the climate, and all these proclamations about humans being responsible being responsible for the bulk of the change are dubious at best. Moreover, while Australia might produce 1.3% of the CO2, etc. emissions, it's quite a stretch to conclude that this would contribute to 1.3% of the effect, if any, given the country's geographic location well away from most of the world's industrial centres.

virusrexToday  05:03 pm JST

So, it was extreme events that made these renewables look good temporarily. 

No that is not what the text you quoted says, the expected effect of climate change both increased production of renewables and reduced demand.

But who cares when a country that produces a tiny proportion of the world's CO2 output, and has minimal if any influence at all on the global or local climate, has governments that crow about their commitment to net zero?

The citizens of that country, that understandable put a lot of importance to cooperate with the solutions instead of the problem, specially when the effects of climate change are being already experienced and are predicted to become much worse.

I'll take that as a compliment. Back in the 70s they weren't caught up in today's utter insanity.

Taking pride in a retrograde attitude is not the strong point you think it is.

LOL. Nothing else needs to be said.

Not too long ago catastrophic global climate change had been predicted if we didn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically to a certain level before a certain period.

The end of the world was coming and it was coming fast.

Fast forward to now and not only did we fail to reduce emissions significantly, we actually failed to reduce emissions totally because instead of decreasing, the rate of emissions had been increasing.

This means the deadline had been pushed forward. The end of the world should be coming sooner now especially since some time had already passed since the prediction.

Why has there been seemingly a total absence of urgency? We should have been hearing louder and more urgent cries of alarm and warning now, but nothing. 

What changed?

And the US, which has the leading institutions establishing the dangers and gives the dire warnings about climate change has still been increasing and leading in emissions.

What is going on?

Not too long ago catastrophic global climate change had been predicted if we didn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically

By whom? You need to distinguish where the message is coming from: is it activists (whose goal is attention), is it news media (whose goal is viewer retention), or is it scientists (whose goal is accuracy)? The latter, I'm fairly confident to say, do not dabble in doomsday scenarios.

To quote Emmett Fitzgerald from the excellent "Not built for this" podcast series (https://99percentinvisible.org/nbft/):

"We are not hurtling towards a cliff. There is no date after which we all die. We are in a race against time to stop climate change. But no matter what we do from here on out, we will be dealing with its impacts for the rest of our lives."

Good for Australia!

We managed to make "Don't Look Up" a silly joke. Reality is even worst! There's no one behind the wheel and we have to put an end to all this madness. Listen to what the scientists have to say and have been saying for the last 75 years. You and I might die in relative peace. But will our children? There's not much time left.

Where there is a will, there is a way, as they say.

Back in 2000, about 20% of our in-state electricity generation in California came from burning coal. Today that figure is about 0.2%, soon to be zero, for the state with the 5th largest gdp in the world. Most days, more than 50% of our state's electricity is produced by sources that do not depend on polluting the atmosphere, and the percentage of electricity produced without CO2 dumping increases every year.

In terms of CO2 emissions per person, Australia is among the highest in the world. Some of the countries that are even worse than Australia?

Saudi Arabia

UAE

Kuwait

Qatar

Oman

Bahrain

Trinidad and Tobago.

In fairness, the CO2 emissions per person for the USA as a whole are only slightly better than Australia's, while the CO2 emissions per person here in California are only about half as much as Australia's.

What is going on?

What is going on is that the denialists prevent us from solving the problem. They intimidate even the scientists.

Funny that NSW are finally hooking Sydney and rural areas up with another LPG. pipline 1300 km long Moomba - Sydney . Those 16 coal power station won't be closed to too long. They have not been sold, just sitting there idle. They will be fitted out to burn gas. So why isn't this bad news aired. Only given out half the news again and only the good news. Was this new source fossil fuel considered when calculating these forward percentages ???

Bad Haircut: You forgot to mention the pot of funding put in front of these alarmism. Like linking whale beaching to climate change with no data yet be gathered. But soon they will get the funding to gather the data to link it. It all about securing more funding for their future for the science community by fear. A use car salesman could sell these blokes a Ice car claiming its a EV because they believe him without checking out under the hood.

Funding is the worst possible excuse to pretend the scientists are lying, that is because the biggest source of funding is extremely interested in refuting climate change, and any scientists that could demonstrate human activity is not causing the chaos would be instantly drowned in more money than what any university or country could possibly give.

The strongest economic incentive is for climate change to be disproved, that this is not happening is because the data clearly and unequivocally say human activity is completely responsible, so anybody that would try to lie about it would be immediately disproved by the rest of the scientific community.

In fairness, the CO2 emissions per person for the USA as a whole are only slightly better than Australia's, while the CO2 emissions per person here in California are only about half as much as Australia's.

I believe the military contribution is not included in the US CO2 emissions. If they did include it...