The Guardian • climate change
Issue #2004
Fighter jets or green electricity
On 28th March, the government came clean on one of its’ worst kept secrets of the decade when it announced its decision (again) to purchase...
Read moreXi calls for stronger global actions on climate change
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called on all parties to take stronger actions to jointly tackle the climate challenge ...
Read moreWorld on the edge of an abyss: UN Secretary-General
“I am here to sound the alarm: the world must wake up. We are on the edge of an abyss – and moving in the wrong direction.”
Read moreWe need a working class climate plan, not capitalist greenwashing
Based on his government’s shiny new climate plan, it doesn’t seem like Justin Trudeau gets irony.
Read moreXi calls for “unprecedented ambition, action” to build community of life
We should protect nature and preserve the environment like we protect our eyes.
Read more
Issue #2069
Activists gather as African Climate Summit opens
Hundreds of people gathered for a people’s march on climate in Nairobi on Monday, 4th September, as the first African Climate Summit opened its doors...
Read moreTackling the slow death of Mother Earth
Over the period 2010 - 19 the expansion in the dairy industry in the 26-Country state, thanks to the quota restrictions being lifted by the business organisation known as the EU, has resulted in an increase in the land area allocated to dairy farming.
Read more
Issue #2061
WEASEL WORDS
Vicious No, not the old Lou Reed song. “Vicious” is how how 9 Newspapers describe Paul Keating’s description of Jens Stoltenberg the secretary general of...
Read moreChina is a responsible major country in addressing climate change
Human beings share a common future in the face of the challenges presented by global climate change, and no country can make itself immune from the impact.
Read moreWill we follow our allies this time?
It might be a good idea to return – in January 2022 – to the promises that Joe Biden made on his first day as President of the United States of America on the 20th of January 2021.
Read moreA Cohesive Society After Capitalism
It seems that the capitalist way of living has been with us forever, but it has only come about since early global trading developed around the sixteenth century.
Read more
Issue #2054
Wildfires hit Canada
Nearly a million acres have been destroyed in wildfires across the western Canadian province of Alberta, with more than 30,000 people forced to evacuate, and...
Read moreThe legacy hanging over Fukushima ten years on from disaster
Japan entered into a state of emergency when the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami swept across the country in 2011.
Read moreAustralian-UK-US nuclear submarine deal exposes civilian-military links
Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone, writing for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, highlighted several salient points in their paper, telling us a lot about the thinking of those pushing nuclear energy.
Read more
Issue #1954
Rallies in Perth push for climate action
The WA Forest Alliance had a busy week, holding their Grand Postcard Delivery Rally in West Perth on Wednesday 10th March.
Read moreNauru invokes the Law of the Sea to begin deep seabed mining by 2022
At the 76th meeting of the UN General Assembly last week, a controversial move by the states of Micronesia was on the agenda.
Read more
Issue #2014
Flood, fire and famine
The 2022 Eastern Australian floods were one of the nation’s worst recorded flood disasters, destroying large parts of Southeastern Queensland and Northeastern NSW. The flooding...
Read more
Issue #1983
Conservation, climate and communities
The Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA) held its Annual Conference.
Read more
Issue #2064
What is to be done, and how not to do it
I have been inspired to write this by reading Amitav Ghosh’s brilliant novel The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, which ends: “Much,...
Read moreCoalition presses the UK to remove climate targets from trade deal
Scott Morrison has confirmed that the Coalition government pressed the UK to remove climate targets from the post-Brexit Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement
Read more
Issue #1952
“Fighting for the future – class and climate”
On Thursday the 25th of February 2021, Politics in the Pub (Perth) discussed Climate Change and the environment – the pressing issue of our times, and how we deal with it will determine humankind’s future.
Read more
Issue #2066
Capitalism’s Global Food Crisis
The world is suffering from a dire food crisis. On 20 July India, the world’s leading rice exporter, supplying 40 per cent of the global...
Read more
Issue #1984
School strike for climate change
The School Strike 4 Climate Change (SS4CC) was called around the world in the lead up to the critical COP 26 climate change conference.
Read moreUN IPCC Report: Australia’s role
Australia has already warmed by an alarming 1.4°C since 1910.
Read moreDeath knell for fossil fuels
On the 12th of November, the Coalition released its long-awaited plan to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Read moreThe farce of BHP turning away from fossil fuels
BHP, the world’s second largest mining company, is selling off a lot of its global gas and oil assets to Australian outfit Woodside Petroleum.
Read moreClimate activist pays the price for government inaction
A climate activist who climbed on top of a coal train, which led to a five-hour delay of fifteen coal trains between Newcastle and Maitland,...
Read moreClimate change: false promises & false hope
One of Joe Biden’s first actions as President was to return the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement, from which the US withdrew under Donald Trump.
Read more
Issue #2037
The great carbon fraud
Earlier this month Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen released a consultation paper proposing a carbon credit scheme for Australia’s largest greenhouse gas emitters...
Read moreMorrison’s devious campaigning on climate change (amongst other things)
Most people are bewailing the lack of leadership we’re experiencing at the moment, with many believing our politicians are “thick.” I prefer the word “devious,”...
Read more
Issue #2052
GREEN NOTES
Anna Pha If you think the transition to renewables and following what the climate science dictates means phasing out fossil fuels, that’s not what the...
Read more
Issue #2001
A reflection on climate change in Western Australia and New South Wales
On the 4th of March 2022, West Australian Premier Mark McGowan finally relented on his state’s “hard border” which protected its residents from COVID, and...
Read more
Issue #2003
Sham carbon projects have cost taxpayers $1 billion
The Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) has spent more than one billion dollars of public money on projects which do not have a chance in hell...
Read more
Issue #2044
School strike for action on climate change
On 3rd March, about 100 mostly school children rallied in the Supreme Gardens in Perth directly opposite one of the principal corporate emitters of carbon...
Read more
Issue #2025
Diversity – sustainability – socialism
Cuba is one of the world’s most sustainable economies despite the six decades’ long illegal and economically crippling US blockade. Since the 1960s, the Cuban...
Read moreUN IPCC Report
“Climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe with human influence contributing to many observed changes in weather and climate extremes.”
Read more
Issue #2033
DINGO
In a massive escalation of the simmering industrial conflict being waged by Svitzer Towage’s Australian management against local tugboat crew, the company gave notice that...
Read more
Issue #2062
Fossil fuels to the bitter end
If the massive amounts of undergrowth resulting from record rainfalls and flooding during La Niña dry out with an El Niño, Australia is set for...
Read moreGreenwashing dirty investments
Is there a company that doesn’t claim to support the Paris Agreement on climate change? The agreement was signed in 2015 and since then the...
Read more
Issue #2021
Energy transition authority critical to creating secure jobs for a safer climate
The ACTU calls on the Albanese Government to quickly establish a national Energy Transition Authority tasked with ensuring that workers and their communities affected by...
Read more
Issue #2069
GLOBAL BRIEFS
JAPAN: Japanese retailer Seven & i Holdings Co is selling department store chain Sogo & Seibu Co to a US investment fund, even as the...
Read more
Issue #2028
Coal industry workers in Australia are taking their destiny into their own hands
The coal industry is to Australia what the Second Amendment of the US Constitution (granting citizens the right to bear arms) is to the United...
Read moreAustralia fails the Pacific islands
The small, low-lying Pacific islands are often described as “the canary in the coalmine.” The very existence and lives of their people are threatened by climate change.
Read more
Issue #2015
DINGO
Amid attempts to drag Australia into the nuclear cycle, news from France casts yet another pall over the non-future of nuclear fission. France gets about...
Read moreClimate change: Capitalism killing the earth
“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health.”
Read more
Issue #2018
Listen to the science! State of the environment report
During the 2019-2020 bushfires thirty-three lives were lost, more than seven million hectares were burnt, more than 3,000 home destroyed. In the most recent floods,...
Read more
Issue #2007
Keep money out of politics
Climate action has been at the centre of the 2022 Australian Federal Election. The two major parties are flexing their climate credentials, with the Coalition...
Read more
Issue #1977
Renewable energy to meet 100% consumer demand at certain times of the day by 2025
Renewable energy is proving its reliability in serving Australia’s east coast, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
Read more
Issue #2012
Open letter to the Prime Minister of Australia
The Hon Anthony Albanese MP Prime Minister Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600 21 June 2022 Dear Prime Minister Albanese, The Communist Party of Australia wishes...
Read more
Issue #2032
A peace & peoples’ budget
Annual budgets are a mirror held up to the class divide. The income and expenditure sides of the budget come down to priorities. The budget...
Read more
Issue #2016
Climate action looming as first Parliamentary sitting approaches
Parliament is meeting at the end of this month for the first time since the 2022 Federal Election with promises of significant reforms, including climate...
Read moreCOP26: Colonial plunder
As the COP26 climate change meeting entered its second week, the divide between developing and developed countries and their colonial history has been laid bare.
Read more
Issue #1997
Are we really at the forefront on renewable energy?
“Australia is at the forefront of a global experiment on how to shift an electricity grid built on coal to one dominated by renewables.” So...
Read more
Issue #1998
The floods are rising and so are we
While thousands of people across South-East Queensland and northern New South Wales have been left devastated by the unanticipated extreme flooding event, which has destroyed...
Read more
Issue #2052
New Net Zero Authority “a game-changer” for workers
The Communist Party of Australia has long supported a just transition to a sustainable future. The CPA political resolution, adopted at the 14th Congress in...
Read more
Issue #1999
Climate change – ACT NOW!
Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the floods along the east coast of Australia as a “one-in-a-100-year event”; NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet called them a “one-in-1000-year...
Read more
Issue #2039
PEACE NOTES
Hannah Middleton We face two crises which could ultimately destroy humanity and our planet – nuclear and climate Armageddon. A report – Climate Collateral –...
Read more
Issue #2017
State of the Environment report
“Overall, the state and trend of the environment of Australia are poor and deteriorating as a result of increasing pressures from climate change, habitat loss,...
Read more
Issue #2040
GREEN NOTES
Anna Pha Welcome to Green Notes, a fortnightly column which will cover climate change, environmental issues and biodiversity and their impact on humanity including indigenous...
Read more
Issue #2044
Bird vagrancy: an indicator of global climatic changes
In October 2022 a young Bar-Tailed Godwit broke a world record by flying non-stop from Alaska to Ansons Bay, Tasmania, 13,560 km in 11 days....
Read more
Issue #2046
GREEN NOTES
Anna Pha Humanity faces two major existential threats: climate change and nuclear war. The doomsday clock is ticking on both these threats. Ironically, the US...
Read more
Issue #2069
WORTH READING
Big Bad Fix: The Case Against Climate Geoengineering A report by ETC Group, BiofuelWatch and Heinrich Böll Foundation Available at etcgroup.org As this report details,...
Read more
Issue #2007
Who rules Australia?
One of the striking features of federal elections is their increasingly undemocratic nature and Americanisation. Much of the electioneering by major parties has been short...
Read more
Issue #2060
GREEN NOTES
Chevron’s website sings the praises of carbon capture and storage: “Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a proven technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG)....
Read more
Issue #2050
GREEN NOTES
Anna Pha Australians spend more than $570 and consume around 500 litres per person on bottled water per annum – second only to Singapore. The...
Read moreReef policy is all bark no bite
For the past year, the Australian government has been waging a concerted battle against UNESCO to stop the Great Barrier Reef from being added to...
Read more
Issue #2068
GREEN NOTES
Anna Pha Australia is a contracting party to the Convention on the Prevention of Maritime Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and other Matter, or London...
Read more
Issue #1959
Morrison’s hydrogen scheme another marketing ploy
Yet again, the Morrison government is trying to pull the wool over Australia’s eyes. This time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is attempting to sell the...
Read moreIncompetent: Scott Morrison at the COP26 Summit
Prime Minister Scott Morrison was initially hesitant to personally represent Australia at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP26.
Read moreLimiting global warming to 1.5° “on life support”
The United Nations Climate Change Conference – dubbed COP26 – has recently ended in Glasgow after two busy weeks in which 120 heads of state,...
Read more
Issue #2050
Wong’s “reality check” ignores reality
When Penny Wong took over as Foreign Minister from Marise Payne last year, she was surfing the wave of approval that brought the Albanese Labor...
Read more
Issue #2044
GREEN NOTES
Anna Pha Last month Labor’s minister for environmental destruction, Tanya Plibersek, quietly granted Santos a licence to open 116 new coal seam gas wells in...
Read moreClimate Summit: “THE WORLD IS ON RED ALERT”
The growing recognition of the urgency by world leaders was reflected at the virtual climate summit called by US President Joe Biden from 22nd to 23rd April.
Read more
Issue #2054
GREEN NOTES
Anna Pha “If emissions follow the trajectory set by current NDCs, there is a less than five per cent chance of keeping temperatures well below...
Read more
Issue #2060
Survivors take on big coal
Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action have praised environmental justice groups for launching a fresh Federal Court challenge, arguing that the Environment Minister can and must...
Read more
Issue #2029
End fossil fuels!
It appears as though climate action has a new, unlikely support from Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher! Speaking to an Australian business community event in London,...
Read more
Issue #2031
Class war budget
The budget, delivered on 25th October, is set in the context of a looming global recession, ongoing wars, rocketing prices, extreme weather events, famine, and...
Read more
Issue #2070
GREEN NOTES
The last thing we need Anna Pha Oceans are increasingly being seen as tools against global warming while offering tremendous business opportunities through the use...
Read more
Issue #2013
Anti-protest laws affect us all
Earlier this month, NSW police bungled a raid on Blockade Australia activists in the Colo Valley, in Sydney’s north-west. Activists at the remote camp noticed...
Read more
Issue #2034
Climate change wreaks havoc
Lives have been lost and thousands of homes have been flooded and destroyed as the floods continue to hit eastern Australia. People have lost their...
Read more
Issue #2002
Budget 2022-23 – CLASS WAR
The budget announced by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is a pre-election, last ditch, vote-buying exercise from the Morrison government. Voters struggling with rising prices and falling...
Read more
Issue #2025
Good planets are hard to find
La Niña event is under way for the third year in a row according to the Bureau of Meteorology. The Pacific, including Australia, can expect...
Read more
Issue #2006
VOTE THEM OUT
The Coalition Morrison government has got to go. On Saturday 21st May vote them out! The Communist Party of Australia rejects the undemocratic electoral system...
Read more
Issue #2027
Landmark UN decision highlights Australia’s climate injustice
In news that will surprise no one, a United Nations Committee has found the former Coalition government to have violated the human rights of Torres...
Read more
Issue #2056
Fight Climate Change Not War speak out and march Fremantle
On Saturday 27th May, several anti-war, anti-nuclear and climate activist groups held a speak-out on the AUKUS Agreement signed in September 2021 between Australia, the...
Read more
Issue #2009
Feet on the ground
After nine years of corrupt, anti-people, climate deniers in office, the newly elected Albanese Labor government faces many challenges. Expectations of real change are high,...
Read more
Issue #2029
Australia: The big polluter
Australia is the world’s largest gas and coal exporter. There are currently 114 new or expanded fossil fuel projects awaiting approval. In 2021-22, governments in...
Read moreWollongong joins in Global Climate Strike
Despite the weather, plans went ahead on Friday, 19 March, for a demonstration in Illawarra’s CBD.
Read more
Issue #2062
Climate crisis intensifies
On four consecutive days, the earth has reached its hottest day on record, culminating in a global average temperature of 17.23 degrees Celsius on 4th...
Read more
Issue #1986
“Code red for humanity”: Glasgow Climate Summit
The rich G20 countries, responsible for more than eighty per cent of human-made emissions.
Read more
Issue #2069
DINGO
The Climate Council has labelled the decision to approve an extension to the Gregory Crinum coal mine in Queensland’s Bowen Basin until 2073 as “stunning...
Read more
Issue #2010
Energy prices explode: capitalism in crisis
Consumers face soaring energy costs as Australia’s gas and thermal coal exporters rake in windfall profits. The incoming Labor government has inherited the legacy of...
Read moreNSW floods not a single story
In late March, floods covered 600 km along the NSW coast with tens of thousands of people evacuated from their homes. This event has been referred to in the media as a once in a 100-year event.
Read more
Issue #2063
Mega-fracker now on site
Water is life. But right now, Tamboran Resources is on the fast track to frack the Northern Territory, and water is at risk of being...
Read more
Issue #2056
DINGO
British PM Rishi Sunak has announced that two further barges will house around 1000 asylum-seekers off Britain’s coast. In a speech in Dover, Kent, Sunak...
Read more
Issue #2060
Electric vehicles
Individually, Australians hold the dubious distinction of being the world’s biggest polluters, on a per capita basis, among nations of the OECD (Organisation for Economic...
Read more
Issue #2070
DINGO
As temperatures climb, and heatwaves become more common, it’s worth remembering that unions achieve and enforce protection against heat. As a comrade in the Rail...
Read more
Issue #2012
The sun will shine, the wind will blow
Australia is on the brink of a total collapse of its domestic energy market amid a crisis that has been decades in the making. If...
Read more
Issue #2019
“CLIMATE WARS”
As of writing, a bill placing into law Labor’s forty-three per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 has passed the lower house. The bill also...
Read more
Issue #2067
DINGO
The increasing concentration of wealth and power among mega-corporations, facilitated in no small part by rigged rules of the global economy, is undermining democracy, economic...
Read more
Issue #2047
Background to IPCC report
The production of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports by consensus, by scientists and governments means that statements that appear in the report summaries...
Read more
Issue #2063
Resist the anti-China scare campaign
Australians have real problems, problems that can’t be wished away. Climate change is happening now, and our ALP government is making it worse. There is...
Read more
Issue #2053
NT: Gas industry gets biggest slice
The Territory and Federal governments appear to have prioritised spending on roads that will benefit the fracking industry at a time when many of the...
Read more
Issue #2046
Illawarra renewable energy zone to deliver long-term work
Maritime workers living and working in the Illawarra are excited by the opportunities and long-term industry development that will come from the declaration by the...
Read more
Issue #2052
In their words: “No fracking”
Amid opposition from Indigenous owners and in the face of a growing environmental crisis, the NT government has given the go-ahead for fracking in the...
Read more
Issue #2049
MAY DAY
The international working class continues to commemorate the struggles and gains achieved over 134 years since the first May Day commemoration in 1889 which remembered...
Read more
Issue #2052
Not a People’s Budget
Budgets involve a redistribution of wealth reflecting government priorities and serving class interests. The 2023-24 federal budget has clear priorities. The big winners are the...
Read more
Issue #2053
“Vastly out of line with the science”
The Climate Council has slammed Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s decision to ignore the climate risk of four polluting coal projects as “reckless” and “out of...
Read more
Issue #2047
“Defuse climate time-bomb”
“This is the earth’s last chance to avoid climate disaster,” warns the Intergovernmental UN Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC in its latest report...
Read more
Issue #2070
Speeding up
Things are speeding up. Climate change has gone from causing the cliched reaction ‘I’m worried about my grandchildren,’ to ‘I worry about my children,’ to...
Read more
Issue #2050
May Day 2023: What do we march for?
1889 is a long way behind us, and the first May Day commemoration honouring the workers killed and wounded in the Haymarket confrontation in Chicago...
Read more
Issue #2064
End the rule of fossil fuel
“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling...
Read more
Issue #2054
Time for action
“Are we there yet?” This is the perennial question of bored children in the family car on a long trip. For some time now, humanity...
Read more