The Week That Was - November 8 2012

Obama is back and in charge, businesses are accounting for their emissions, the White Paper is in and plenty of exciting things are happening in Europe.

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“We don’t have the luxury of a climate-change debate in this country. If we make the wrong decision, we are finished.”
- Peter Glas, chairman of The Netherlands’ national water authority

The big news is that Barack Obama has been re-elected as the leader of the free world. Despite Sandy, as Peter Boyer tells us, doing all it can to stop a presidential election. So now it’s time for Obama to talk turkey about climate change.

Speaking of talking turkey about carbon emissions, here in Australia, the Carbon Disclosure Project has requested that ASX 200 and NZX50 account for their emissions. And a new report published in the International Journal of Climatology shows that firestorm risk near cities is growing. And that our iconic gum trees may well be a casualty of this trend.

And in a recently released White Paper, we are told that Australia could source more than 85 per cent of its energy sources from renewables by 2050.  Maybe the new set up might look something like this?? And as we have heard this year, if Australia is to become the Switzerland of the region, maybe we could borrow this breakthrough which would solve some of the logistical issues around supplying renewable energy over long distances.

In tandem, we are being told that interestingly it is not the well heeled middle classes that have installed solar arrays on their rooves… the uptake is in other postcodes. Meanwhile, the electricity retailers are copping a bashing for reasons to do with the way they do business.

At the same time, Clean Energy Regulator chair Chloe Munro says most of her business customers want to comply with the requirements of the price on carbon. And the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency emission figures are being scrutinised by pundits, who are trying to find the time that emission will fall.

Poster boy for the climate change sceptic, Lord Christopher Monkton has been invited to gigs at Wagga Wagga and Ballarat. We will keep you posted on that.

Internationally, the pragmatic Dutch tell us the reason why they have no space for a debate about climate change. And exciting news about the Desertec super grid project, where the ample sun from North Africa could power often grey Northern Europe.

Back in Melbourne, Ross Garnaut tells those who count on China as the way forward for Australia’s mineral assets that they have underestimated China’s commitment to lowering emissions. And Australia’s Energy Market Operator details what we can really look forward to in wind farm terms…

Two Australian brothers might just have stumbled across the break through needed to tap biofuel assets, by using sugar cane.

And even though I didn’t predict it – or put a bob on Green Moon, wasn’t it really important and reassuring that the Minister Combet went so far as to reassure us the carbon price would not stop the Melbourne Cup. Sigh. See you next week.