International: Australia
This week in Australia energy and climate collided; it’s a global story
28 May 2024
The announcement that the NSW government would extend the life of Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station was neither a surprise to energy observers in this country nor unique in a world struggling to at once battle climate change and keep pace with soaring energy demand.
More desalination is coming to Australia’s driest states – but super-salty outflows could trash ecosystems and fisheries
15 May 2024
From around 1996 to 2010, Australia was gripped by the millennium drought and as water shortages bit hard, most capital cities built large seawater desalination plants.
Australia’s PM faces internal revolt from inner-city Labor MPs over gas strategy
14 May 2024
Resources minister Madeleine King released party’s future gas strategy, which says new sources will be needed ‘to 2050 and beyond’.
Climate risks ignored in National Defence Strategy, Australian former defence chief says
6 May 2024
A former chief of Australia's defence force says the federal government has failed to understand the risk climate change poses to the nation's security.
Torres Strait Islanders in landmark Australian federal court case
1 May 2024
Uncle Paul Kabai and Pabai Pabai are suing the Australian government for "failing its duty of care" to protect their ancestral lands from the impacts of climate change.
Australia could reach an ‘ambitious’ emissions cut of up to 75% by 2035, advisers tell Labor
17 Apr 2024
Climate Change Authority says goal could be achievable if more action is taken by governments, business, investors and households.
Scientists warn Australians to prepare for megadroughts lasting more than 20 years
5 Apr 2024
New research shows megadroughts lasting up to 20 years or more have occurred in Australia in the past and could happen again.
Australia’s carbon credits system a failure on global scale, study finds
28 Mar 2024
Researchers find carbon offsets approach, which is supposed to regenerate scrubby outback forests, was not reducing emissions as promised.
Australia's New Vehicle Efficiency Standard weakened
27 Mar 2024
The Australian government will loosen fuel economy standards for utes and vans in its proposed climate laws for cars.
Climate-conscious investors put nuclear dead last on list of desirable Australian ventures
26 Mar 2024
Nuclear energy ranks last on the list of climate technologies that big institutional investors want exposure to, according to a survey of climate conscious investors with $37tn under management.
A role for nuclear in Australia’s climate response?
7 Mar 2024
In the facts-lite political debate, the opportunities and comparative advantages of solar are being sidelined.
Melbourne Extinction Rebellion climate activists jailed for disrupting traffic
6 Mar 2024
Two environmental activists have been jailed for causing major traffic disruptions in Melbourne, after they used a rental truck to block the West Gate Bridge.
Australia's capital cities will see number of hot days double by 2050 without urgent climate change action
29 Feb 2024
By the time today's children reach retirement, Australia's capital cities will swelter through at least twice as many days over 35 degrees and large swathes of the country will be all but uninhabitable for much of the year.
‘They ain’t seen nothing yet’: UN boss names climate change impacts coming to Australia
27 Feb 2024
Top UN climate official Simon Stiell says Australia will be “front and centre in resettling entire national populations” if climate targets are not met.
Australian Prime Minister vows full support amidst wildfires destroying homes
26 Feb 2024
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledges immediate assistance to Victoria amid wildfire crisis, emphasising urgency in addressing climate change.
Pressure from young people for Anthony Albanese to consider duty of care over climate harm
23 Feb 2024
A group of young Aussies fronted up to demand Anthony Albanese do more to protect them from one issue.
Australia’s best known carbon-neutral farm can no longer offset its emissions
21 Feb 2024
Trees and soil on Jigsaw Farms in western Victoria have now passed peak sequestration – reflecting the challenge for the broader red meat industry.
Climate change is forcing Australians to weigh up relocating
19 Feb 2024
Big environmental changes mean ever more Australians will confront the tough choice of whether to move home or risk staying put.
Veteran economists say a carbon levy would cut emissions, cut inflation and raise billions, but see little prospect of adoption
16 Feb 2024
Two of Australia’s most respected economists have put forward a bold plan to lower global carbon emissions by at least 6 per cent, super-charge a new green export industry, deliver much cheaper power bills and dramatically cut the rate of inflation.
Climate change ambassador explains why Australia won't back Pacific's calls to urgently phase out fossil fuels
1 Dec 2023
Australia's climate change ambassador says the federal government cannot yet back the Pacific's call to rapidly phase out fossil fuels because it's grappling with "complex" and "difficult" issues thrown up by decarbonisation.
Australia climate change activists disrupt shipping at coal port
27 Nov 2023
A climate change protest off Australia's east coast disrupted operations at the country's biggest coal export port on Saturday.
World’s biggest carbon storage project off WA coast burying only a third of what it promised
15 Nov 2023
After seven years of operation US giant Chevron is burying just a third of the carbon pollution it committed to burying at its Gorgon gas export project.
We are looking for a transformational roadmap to transform our energy sectors: German envoy
8 Nov 2023
With less than four weeks until the next UN climate conference COP-28, Germany's special envoy for climate diplomacy, Jennifer Morgan, is in Australia for a series of meetings with key climate players.
The Beetaloo gas field is a climate bomb. How did CSIRO modelling make it look otherwise?
1 Nov 2023
As Australia braces for a summer of projected extreme heatwaves and bushfires, the fossil gas industry is gearing up for a truly enormous new fracking project in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin.
Australia’s compromised climate negotiators
10 Oct 2023
Sitting in a bar in Manhattan recently, there for Climate Week NYC and the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, I watched as Australians from both government and the private sector worked the room.
Sydney smashes 1 October heat record as Victoria fights bushfires
4 Oct 2023
The previous hottest start to October in Sydney was 33.1C but Sunday’s mercury peaked at 35.6C.
Queensland carbon-negative soil project issued record number of credit units
29 Sep 2023
They look like any other cattle strolling through a grassy paddock in Queensland, but beneath their hooves the soil is doing more than producing feed. It is helping to fight climate change.
Australia would be raising $70 billion a year from the carbon price if it wasn't dismantled
19 Sep 2023
The problems at Qantas, and the explosion in executive remuneration this century, reflect a much more general problem in the Australian economy.
Australia braces for bushfire season
13 Sep 2023
Smoke sweeps through the treetops as a fire consumes the dense undergrowth of the Australian winter bush.
Canberra could protect decarbonising industries from unfair competition
8 Sep 2023
The Australian government has engaged an eminent academic to study the need for a carbon tariff to protect local manufacturers from unfair competition from imports which are not subject to restrictions on emissions of CO2.
Eco-anxiety looms as headspace survey reveals young people want climate change action
8 Sep 2023
An Australian survey of young people shows more than half fear for the future due to climate change.
Sydney is running out of water while facing climate change and a population boom
5 Sep 2023
Experts are getting increasingly nervous about a problem that’s been lying dormant for years: Sydney’s water supply is running out.
Aus govt acknowledges risk of climate change to bonds after court case
1 Sep 2023
The federal government has agreed to settle a world-first court case accusing it of misleading investors by failing to disclose the risk climate change poses to its bonds.
Australia's most popular carbon credit scheme questioned by experts
22 Aug 2023
Deep in the Australian outback, there are billions of dollars being made from carbon farming.
Australia weighs up green imports tariffs for steel, cement
18 Aug 2023
Imported steel and cement could face a tariff to ensure Australian producers seeking to reduce carbon emissions are not disadvantaged.
Santos’s deep-sea carbon capture fantasy
16 Aug 2023
New laws will allow a notorious gas field project to dump carbon dioxide in Timor-Leste waters – using a process that has not worked anywhere in the world – so it can meet its net-zero requirements.
Fossil fuel sites in Australia releasing climate-damaging methane into atmosphere
11 Aug 2023
An investigative report published by a global nonprofit has made worrying revelations about methane leaks from as many as 35 fossil fuel sites located in Australia.
Australian aid policy to focus on climate — and countering China
10 Aug 2023
Australia has put the climate and job creation in the Pacific at the centre of its new foreign aid policy, part of an effort to woo back island nations that have fallen under China’s deep-pocketed influence.
Climate crisis: Australia must ready for ‘devastating’ regional disruption, MPs told
4 Aug 2023
Failed states, a rise in authoritarian politics and heightened risks of conflict among potential threats outlined in thinktank’s assessment.
Australian doctors want urgent action on climate threats
2 Aug 2023
Medical colleges representing over 100,000 doctors, physicians and medical experts say Australia's healthcare system is unprepared for the next disaster.
Australia's kelp forests an underwater 'Amazon' could help climate change
17 Jul 2023
To most people, the word "forest" would conjure images of vast tree communities, like the towering karri forests of WA's South West.
Asparagopsis seaweed: scientists call for stricter oversight in livestock sector
4 Jul 2023
Safety concerns have been raised about the native seaweed asparagopsis, which is now being commercialised to help farmers reduce methane emissions in sheep and cattle.
Aus sides with China, Russia in bid to sink Pacific nations’ climate plan
4 Jul 2023
Australia has been criticised for siding with China and Russia to oppose a popular plan from a group of Pacific Island nations to tackle carbon emissions from the shipping industry.
Scientists researching cloud brightening in bid to cool Great Barrier Reef
28 Jun 2023
Queensland scientists who have been altering clouds with tiny particles to try and limit the effects of global warming are presenting their findings for the first time this week.
Australia commits to build $34 million renewable hydrogen plant
27 Jun 2023
Australia has green-lit plans to build a A$51 million (US$34 million) renewable hydrogen plant in Victoria state, as the country moves to cut carbon emissions and boost alternative power resources.
Farmers lead climate change adjustment in Victoria, Australia
22 Jun 2023
Information that is relevant, accessible and trusted is critical for farmers seeking to adapt their agricultural business amid changes in climate, according to analysis of surveys conducted by the North East Catchment Management Authority (NECMA).
Climate change threatens all island life, hearing told
14 Jun 2023
When Paul Kabai was growing up on Saibai he was taught how, when and where to plant food, such as the root vegetable cassava, by his Aunties and Uncles.
New plan to manage health impacts of climate change
9 Jun 2023
Australians have been asked to have their say on a new plan to ensure the nation's health care system can respond to the impacts of climate change.
Conservationists file complaint with ASIC over fertiliser producer's climate marketing
8 Jun 2023
South Australia's peak environment group has called on the corporate watchdog to investigate accusations a Leigh Creek fertiliser company's marketing is misleading about the climate impacts of its processing plant – an allegation the company strenuously denies.
Companies ‘greenhushing’ to avoid scrutiny of climate goals, Asic says
7 Jun 2023
Practice allows companies to claim to have good environmental policies without having them tested, according to Australia’s corporate watchdog
Inside the campaign to discredit a key climate science report
Fri 12 Jun 2026
An emerging field of research that can measure how much climate change has worsened individual disasters is under attack by friends of the fossil fuel industry.
China warns of risk of 'extreme floods' in desert regions
Mon 15 Jun 2026
China warned communities in its northwestern Xinjiang and nearby regions on Friday to prepare for "extreme floods" this summer, driven by abnormally high temperatures, heavy rainfall, and rapid glacier melt.
EU agrees stronger price controls for new carbon market
Fri 12 Jun 2026
The European Union agreed stronger measures to control prices in its new carbon market early on Thursday, responding to governments' concerns that the emissions-cutting initiative could increase fuel bills.
Millions of UK homes at risk of sinking as climate crisis worsens
Fri 12 Jun 2026
Millions of homes are at risk from climate-related subsidence, according to an analysis by the British Geological Survey.
Canada signs landmark LNG energy deal with Germany
29 May 2026
Canada has announced a landmark energy agreement with Germany that will see the first-ever long-term shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Canada to Europe in the coming years.
Solar overtakes gas power in Asia for first time ever
Mon 15 Jun 2026
Solar has overtaken gas power in Asia to become the continent’s third-largest source of electricity, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
The Pacific made history in the courts – now we must do it in the negotiations
Fri 12 Jun 2026
Legal clarity alone will not lead to reduced emissions, more finance or stronger national climate plans – political will is key to meeting states’ obligations.
‘Triple whammy of climate chaos’: Why Antarctica's sea ice collapse is no longer a mystery
11 May 2026
Scientists have finally identified the ‘triple whammy’ behind Antarctica’s dramatic collapse, shedding new light on the chain reaction that has pushed its sea ice to record lows.
Aid cuts and climate change drive deadly malaria surge in Zimbabwe
29 May 2026
A surge in malaria cases in Zimbabwe is exposing fragile health systems and growing treatment shortages in rural areas.
Colombia’s climate crossroads: Trumpism casts shadow over presidential battle
26 May 2026
Colombia is a global leader in climate activism. Could US influence drag country to a future of mining and fracking?
Bonn Bulletin: Tackling climate crisis is “hardest” challenge ever, Stiell says
9 Jun 2026
The June Climate Meetings open with a reminder to delegates of the tough but ever-clearer imperative of shifting away from fossil fuels to clean energy.
