Here’s how a 100% renewable energy future can create jobs and even save the gas industry

The gas industry of the future could manufacture and deliver renewable fuels, rather than mining and processing natural gas.
Shutterstock.com

Sven Teske, University of Technology Sydney

The world can limit global warming to 1.5℃ and move to 100% renewable energy while still preserving a role for the gas industry, and without relying on technological fixes such as carbon capture and storage, according to our new analysis.

The One Earth Climate Model – a collaboration between researchers at the University of Technology Sydney, the German Aerospace Center and the University of Melbourne, and financed by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation – sets out how the global energy supply can move to 100% renewable energy by 2050, while creating jobs along the way.

It also envisions how the gas industry can fulfil its role as a “transition fuel” in the energy transition without its infrastructure becoming obsolete once natural gas is phased out.

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Our scenario, which will be published in detail as an open access book in February 2019, sets out how the world’s energy can go fully renewable by:

• increasing electrification in the heating and transport sector

• significant increase in “energy productivity” – the amount of economic output per unit of energy use

• the phase-out of all fossil fuels, and the conversion of the gas industry to synthetic fuels and hydrogen over the coming decades.

Our model also explains how to deliver the “negative emissions” necessary to stay within the world’s carbon budget, without relying on unproven technology such as carbon capture and storage.

If the renewable energy transition is accompanied by a worldwide moratorium on deforestation and a major land restoration effort, we can remove the equiavalent of 159 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (2015-2100).

Combining models

We compiled our scenario by combining various computer models. We used three climate models to calculate the impacts of specific greenhouse gas emission pathways. We then used another model to analyse the potential contributions of solar and wind energy – including factoring in the space constraints for their installation.

We also used a long-term energy model to calculate future energy demand, broken down by sector (power, heat, industry, transport) for 10 world regions in five-year steps. We then further divided these 10 world regions into 72 subregions, and simulated their electricity systems on an hourly basis. This allowed us to determine the precise requirements in terms of grid infrastructure and energy demand.

Interactions between the models used for the One Earth Model.
One Earth Model, Author provided

‘Recycling’ the gas industry

Unlike many other 1.5℃ and/or 100% renewable energy scenarios, our analysis deliberately integrates the existing infrastructure of the global gas industry, rather than requiring that these expensive investments be phased out in a relatively short time.

Natural gas will be increasingly replaced by hydrogen and/or renewable methane produced by solar power and wind turbines. While most scenarios rely on batteries and pumped hydro as main storage technologies, these renewable forms of gas can also play a significant role in the energy mix.

In our scenario, the conversion of gas infrastructure from natural gas to hydrogen and synthetic fuels will start slowly between 2020 and 2030, with the conversion of power plants with annual capacities of around 2 gigawatts. However, after 2030, this transition will accelerate significantly, with the conversion of a total of 197GW gas power plants and gas co-generation facilities each year.

Along the way the gas industry will have to redefine its business model from a supply-driven mining industry, to a synthetic gas or hydrogen fuel production industry that provides renewable fuels for the electricity, industry and transport sectors. In the electricity sector, these fuels can be used to help smooth out supply and demand in networks with significant amounts of variable renewable generation.

A just transition for the fossil fuel industry

The implementation of the 1.5℃ scenario will have a significant impact on the global fossil fuel industry. While this may seem to be stating the obvious, there has so far been little rational and open debate about how to make an orderly withdrawal from the coal, oil, and gas extraction industries. Instead, the political debate has been focused on prices and security of supply. Yet limiting climate change is only possible when fossil fuels are phased out.

Under our scenario, gas production will only decrease by 0.2% per year until 2025, and thereafter by an average of 4% a year until 2040. This represents a rather slow phase-out, and will allow the gas industry to transfer gradually to hydrogen.

Our scenario will generate more energy-sector jobs in the world as a whole. By 2050 there would be 46.3 million jobs in the global energy sector – 16.4 million more than under existing forecasts.

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Our analysis also investigated the specific occupations that will be required for a renewables-based energy industry. The global number of jobs would increase across all of these occupations between 2015 and 2025, with the exception of metal trades which would decline by 2%, as shown below.

Division of occupations between fossil fuel and renewable energy industries in 2015 and 2025.
One Earth Model, Author provided

However, these results are not uniform across regions. China and India, for example, will both experience a reduction in the number of jobs for managers and clerical and administrative workers between 2015 and 2025.

Our analysis shows how the various technical and economic barriers to implementing the Paris Agreement can be overcome. The remaining hurdles are purely political.

Sven Teske, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Coastal seas around New Zealand are heading into a marine heatwave, again

This summer, coastal seas to the north and east of New Zealand are even warmer than during last year’s marine heat wave.
from http://www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

Craig Stevens, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and Ben Noll, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

As New Zealanders are enjoying their days at the beach, unusually warm ocean temperatures look to be a harbinger of another marine heatwave.

Despite the exceptional conditions during last year’s heatwave in the Tasman Sea, this summer’s sea surface temperatures to the north and east of New Zealand are even warmer.

The latest NIWA climate assessment shows that sea surface temperatures in coastal waters around New Zealand are well above average. Marine heatwave conditions are already occurring in parts of the Tasman Sea and the ocean around New Zealand and looking to become the new normal.

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Changing sea surface temperature anomalies (conditions compared to average) in the oceans around New Zealand during the first two weeks of January – comparing 2009 to 2019. Source: NIWA

What’s in a name

Currently, marine heatwaves are defined as periods that last for five or more days with temperatures warmer than the 90th percentile based on a 30-year historical baseline. Given we are likely to experience many more such events as the oceans continue to warm, it is time to understand and categorise the intensity of marine heat.

The names Hurricane Katrina, tropical cyclone Giselle (which sank the ferry Wahine 50 years ago), tropical cyclone Winston give a malevolent personality to geophysical phenomena. Importantly they get graded into categories, so we can rapidly assess their potential impact.

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An Australian team has developed a classification scheme for marine heatwaves. The team used an approach similar to that used for hurricanes and cyclones – changing conditions can be slotted into to a sequence of categories. At the moment it looks like we are in marine heat wave category one conditions, but potentially entering category two if it continues to warm.

Turning the heat up on marine life

A marine heatwave is potentially devastating for marine ecosystems. It is also an indication that the hidden buffer in the climate system – the fact that the oceans have absorbed 93% of the excess heat – is starting to change. Individual warm seasons have always occurred, but in future there will be more of them and they will keep getting warmer.

The Great Barrier Reef has already been hit hard by a succession of marine heatwave events, bleaching the iconic corals and changing the structure of the ecosystem it supports.

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The 2016 Great Barrier Reef heatwave caused widespread changes to fish populations

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Further south, off Tasmania’s east coast, a number of species that normally occur in tropical waters have extended their range further south. A number of fish species, lobster and octopus species have also taken up residence along the Tasmanian coast, displacing some of the species that call this coast home. Mobile species can escape the warmer temperatures, but sedentary plants and animals are hardest hit.

In New Zealand, aquaculture industries will find it more difficult to grow fish or mussels as coastal waters continue to warm. If the same trends seen off Tasmania occur here, areas with substantial kelp canopies will struggle and start to be replaced by species normally seen further north. But the impacts will likely be very variable because the warming will be heavily influenced by wind and ocean currents and different locations will feel changes to a greater or lesser extent.

NIWA’s research vessel Kaharoa has deployed Argo floats in the Southern Ocean and in waters around New Zealand.
NIWA, CC BY-ND

Predicting the seasons

As important as it is to identify a marine heatwave at the time, reliable predictions of developing conditions would help fishers, aquaculture companies and local authorities – and in fact anyone living and working around the ocean.

Seasonal forecasting a few months ahead is difficult. It falls between weather and climate predictions. In a collaboration between the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, we are examining how well long-term forecasts of ocean conditions around New Zealand stack up. Early forecasts suggested this summer would not be as warm as last year. But it now looks like this summer will again be very warm in the ocean.

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One of the important points to keep in mind is that when we are at the beach, we are sampling only the surface temperature. The same is true of satellites – they monitor less than the top millimetre of the ocean.

Sea surface temperatures are several degrees above normal at the moment. But in deeper waters, because of the high heat content of water, even a tenth of a degree is significant. Temperature in the deeper ocean is monitored by a network of moored buoys on and off the continental shelf along the Australian coast. New Zealand has almost nothing that would be comparable.

Measuring temperature in real time

What we can look to, in the absence of moored buoys, is a fleet of ocean robots that monitor temperature in real time. Argo floats drift with ocean currents, sink to two kilometres every ten days and then collect data as they return to the surface.

These data allowed us to identify that the 2017/18 marine heatwave around New Zealand remained shallow. Most of the warmer water was in the upper 30 metres. Looking at the present summer conditions, one Argo robot off New Zealand’s west coast shows it is almost four degrees above normal in the upper 40 metres of the ocean. On the east coast, near the Chatham Islands, another float shows warmed layers to 20 metres deep. To the south, the warming goes deeper, down to almost 80 metres.

Our work using the Australian Bureau of Meteorology forecast model highlights how variable the ocean around New Zealand is. Different issues emerge in different regions, even if they are geographically close.

The research on categories of marine heatwaves shows we will have to keep shifting what we regard as a heat wave as the ocean continues to warm. None of this should come as a surprise. We have known for some time that the world’s oceans are storing most of the additional heat and the impacts of a warming ocean will be serious.

Craig Stevens, Associate Professor in Ocean Physics, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and Ben Noll, Meteorologist/forecaster, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why we don’t know if Irukandji jellyfish are moving south

Kylie Pitt, Griffith University and Dean Jerry, James Cook University

Reports that Irukandji jellyfish might be moving south may be panicking people unnecessarily. It’s almost impossible to tell where the tiny jellyfish are along our coast, but that could change with new technology that can “sweep” the ocean for traces of DNA.

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Since the Christmas period nearly twice the usual number of people have suffered the excruciating consequences of being stung by Irukandji. The stings are rarely fatal, but can require medical evacuation and hospitalisation.

These reports of southward movement are almost a yearly tradition, often sensational, and accompanied by varying expert opinions about whether climate change is driving these dangerous tropical animals south, towards the lucrative beach tourism destinations of southeast Queensland.

But simply counting the number of Irukandji found, or the number of reported stings, tells us very little about where the species can be found.

A simple question but difficult answer

“Where are Irukandji located, and is that changing?”, might seem like a straightforward question. Unfortunately, finding the answer is not easy. The only definitive way to determine where they are is to catch them – but that poses many challenges.

Irukandji are tiny (most are about 1cm in diameter) and transparent. Along beaches they are usually sampled by a person wading through shallow water towing a fine net. This is often done by lifeguards at beaches in northern Queensland to help manage risk.

Irukandji are also attracted to light, so further offshore they can be concentrated by deploying lights over the sides of boats and then scooped up in nets. The problem is they’re are often very sparsely scattered, even in places we know they regularly occur, such as Queensland’s north. As with any rare species, catching them can confirm their presence, but failure to catch them does not guarantee their absence. Collecting Irukandji in an ocean environment is truly like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Another method is to infer their presence from hospital records and media reports of Irukandji syndrome, the suite of symptoms caused by their sting, but this method has major pitfalls. There is often a delay of around 30 minutes between the initial sting, which is usually mild, and the onset of Irukandji syndrome. Hence the animal that caused the symptoms is almost never caught and we cannot verify the species responsible.

Indeed, we do not know whether Irukandji are the only marine organisms to cause Irukandji syndrome. For example, the Moreton Bay Fire Jelly, a species of jellyfish related to Irukandji only found in southeast Queensland, and even bluebottles, which in the past couple of weeks have stung more than 10,000 people along Australia’s east coast, have also been suggested to occasionally cause Irukandji-like symptoms.

eDNA to save the day

Emerging technology may be the key to properly mapping Irukandji distribution. All animals shed DNA in large quantities into their environment (for example, skin cells and hair by humans). This DNA is called environmental DNA) (or eDNA) and genetic techniques are now so powerful that they can detect even trace amounts.

In the sea, this means we can determine whether an animal has been in an area by collecting water samples and testing them for the presence of the target species’ DNA. This technology is exciting because it provides a major upgrade in our ability to detect rare species. Moreover, it is relatively simple to train people to collect and process water samples, the results can be available within hours, and the equipment needed to analyse the samples is becoming increasingly affordable.

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This means an eDNA monitoring program could be easily established in Southeast Queensland to monitor the occurrence and, importantly, changes in the distribution of Irukandji jellyfish. This is because Irukandji leave traces of their genetic code in the water as they swim.

Developing the eDNA technology for use with Irukandji would cost a few hundred thousand dollars – a relatively small price to pay to improve public safety, to provide stakeholders with some control over their ability to detect Irukandji, and to create some certainty around the long-term distribution of these animals.

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The authors would like to acknowledge the significant contribution to this article by Professor Mike Kingsford (James Cook University).

Kylie Pitt, Professor, Griffith University and Dean Jerry, Associate Professor of Marine Biology and Aquaculture, James Cook University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Forest soil needs decades or centuries to recover from fires and logging

David Blair, Author provided

Elle Bowd, Australian National University and David Lindenmayer, Australian National University

The 2009 Black Saturday fires burned 437,000 hectares of Victoria, including tens of thousands of hectares of Mountain Ash forest.

As we approach the tenth anniversary of these fires, we are reminded of their legacy by the thousands of tall Mountain ash “skeletons” still standing across the landscape. Most of them are scattered amid a mosaic of regenerating forest, including areas regrowing after logging.

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But while we can track the obvious visible destruction of fire and logging, we know very little about what’s happening beneath the ground.

In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, we investigated how forest soils were impacted by fire and logging. To our surprise, we found it can take up to 80 years for soils to recover.

Logging among the charred remains of Mountain ash after the 2009 fires.
David Blair, Author provided

Decades of damage

Soils have crucial roles in forests. They are the basis for almost all terrestrial life and influence plant growth and survival, communities of beneficial fungi and bacteria, and cycles of key nutrients (including storing massive amounts of carbon).

To test the influence of severe and intensive disturbances like fire and logging, we compared key soil measures (such as the nutrients that plants need for growth) in forests with different histories. This included old forests that have been undisturbed since the 1850s, forests burned by major fires in 1939, 1983 and 2009, forests that were clearfell-logged in the 1980s or 2009-10, or salvage-logged in 2009-10 after being burned in the Black Saturday fires.

We found major impacts on forest soils, with pronounced reductions of key soil nutrients like available phosphorus and nitrate.

A shock finding was how long these impacts lasted: at least 80 years after fire, and at least 30 years after clearfell logging (which removes all vegetation in an area using heavy machinery).

However, the effects of disturbance on soils may persist for much longer than 80 years. During a fire, soil temperatures can exceed 500℃, which can result in soil nutrient loss and long-lasting structural changes to the soil.

We found the frequency of fires was also a key factor. For instance, forests that have burned twice since 1850 had significantly lower measures of organic carbon, available phosphorus, sulfur and nitrate, relative to forests that had been burned once.

Sites subject to clearfell logging also had significantly lower levels of organic carbon, nitrate and available phosphorus, relative to unlogged areas. Clearfell logging involves removing all commercially valuable trees from a site – most of which are used to make paper. The debris remaining after logging (tree heads, lateral branches, understorey trees) is then burned and the cut site is aerially sewn with Mountain Ash seed to start the process of regeneration.

Fire is important to natural growth cycles in our forests, but it changes the soil composition.
David Lindenmayer, Author provided

Logging compounds the damage

The impacts of logging on forest soils differs from that of fire because of the high-intensity combination of clearing the forest with machinery and post-logging “slash” burning of debris left on the ground. This can expose the forest floor, compact the soil, deplete soil nutrients, and release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Predicted future increases in the number, frequency, intensity and extent of fires in Mountain Ash forests, coupled with ongoing logging, will likely result in further declines in soil nutrients in the long term. These kinds of effects on soils matter in Mountain Ash forests because 98.8% of the forest have already been burned or logged and are 80 years old or younger.

To maintain the vital roles that soils play in ecosystems, such as carbon storage and supporting plant growth, land managers must consider the repercussions of current and future disturbances on forest soils when planning how to use or protect land. Indeed, a critical part of long-term sustainable forest management must be to create more undisturbed areas, to conserve soil conditions.

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Specifically, clearfell logging should be limited wherever possible, especially in areas that have been subject to previous fire and logging.

Ecologically vital, large old trees in Mountain Ash forests may take over a century to recover from fire or logging. Our new findings indicate that forest soils may take a similar amount of time to recover.

Elle Bowd, PhD scholar, Australian National University and David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why Antarctica’s sea ice cover is so low (and no, it’s not just about climate change)

Sea ice responds to changes in winds and ocean currents, sometimes with origins thousands of kilometres away.
NASA/Nathan Kurtz

Julie Arblaster, Monash University; Gerald A Meehl, National Center for Atmospheric Research , and Guomin Wang, Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Sea ice cover in Antarctica shrank rapidly to a record low in late 2016 and has remained well below average. But what’s behind this dramatic melting and low ice cover since?

Our two articles published earlier this month suggest that a combination of natural variability in the atmosphere and ocean were to blame, though human-induced climate change may also play a role.

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Record high to record low: what on earth is happening to Antarctica’s sea ice?

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What happened to Antarctic sea ice in 2016?

Antarctic sea ice is frozen seawater, usually less than a few metres thick. It differs from ice shelves, which are formed by glaciers, float in the sea, and are up to a kilometre thick.

Sea ice cover in Antarctica is crucial to the global climate and marine ecosystems and satellites have been monitoring it since the late 1970s. In contrast to the Arctic, sea ice around Antarctica had been slowly expanding (see figure below).

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However, in late 2016 Antarctic sea ice dramatically and rapidly melted reaching a record low. This piqued the interest of climate scientists because such large, unexpected and rapid changes are rare. Sea ice coverage is still well below average now.

We wanted to know what caused this unprecedented decline of Antarctic sea ice and what changes in the system have sustained those declines. We also wanted to know if this was a temporary shift or the beginning of a longer-term decline, as predicted by climate models. Finally, we wanted to know whether human-induced climate change contributed to these record lows.

Hunting for clues

Sea ice cover around Antarctica varies a lot from one year or decade to the next. In fact, Antarctic sea ice cover had reached a record high as recently as 2014.

Antarctic and Arctic sea ice cover (shown as the net anomaly from the 1981–2010 average) for January 1979 to May 2018. Thin lines are monthly averages and indicate the variability at shorter time-scales. Thick lines are 11-month running averages.
Bureau of Meteorology, Author provided

That provided a clue. As year-to-year and decade-to-decade sea ice cover varies so much, this can mask longer-term melting of sea ice due to anthropogenic warming.

The next clue was in records broken far away from Antarctica. In the spring of 2016 sea surface temperatures and rainfall in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean were at record highs. This was in association with a strongly negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) event, which brought warmer waters to the northwest of Australia.

While IOD events influence rainfall in south-eastern Australia, we found (using both statistical analysis and climate model experiments) that it promoted a pattern in the winds over the Southern Ocean that was particularly conducive to decreasing sea ice.

These surface winds blowing from the north not only pushed the sea ice back towards the Antarctic continent, they were also warmer, helping to melt the sea ice.

These northerly winds almost perfectly matched the main regions where sea ice declined.

Atmospheric circulation and sea ice concentration during September to October 2016. The top figure shows the Sep–Oct wind anomaly (vectors, scale in upper right, m/s) in the lower part of the atmosphere; red shading shows warmer, northerly airflow, and blue shading represents southerly flow. The bottom figure shows sea ice extent: green represents more sea ice than average, and purple shows regions of a reduction in sea ice (Figure 2a of Wang, et al 2019.
Author provided

Though previous studies had linked this wind pattern to the sea ice decline, our studies are the first to argue for the dominant role of the tropical eastern Indian Ocean in driving it.

But this wasn’t the only factor.

Later in 2016 the typical westerly winds that surround Antarctica weakened to record lows. This caused the ocean surface to warm up, promoting less sea ice cover.

The weaker winds started at the top of the atmosphere over Antarctica, in the region known as the stratospheric polar vortex. We think this sequential occurrence of tropical and then stratospheric influences contributed to the record declines in 2016.

Taken together, the evidence we present supports the idea that the rapid Antarctic sea ice decline in late 2016 was largely due to natural climate variability.

The current state of Antarctic sea ice

Since then, sea ice has remained mostly well below average in association with warmer upper ocean temperatures around Antarctica.

We argue these are the product of stronger than normal westerly winds in the previous 15 or so years around Antarctica, driven again from the tropics. These stronger westerlies induced a response in the ocean, with warmer subsurface water moving towards the surface over time.

The combination of record tropical sea surface temperatures and weakened westerly winds in 2016 warmed the entire upper 600m of water in most regions of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. These warmer ocean temperatures have maintained the reduced extent of sea ice.

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Antarctic sea ice extent is seeing a record low start to the New Year. It suggests the initial rapid decline seen in late 2016 was not an isolated event and, when combined with the decadal-timescale warming of the upper Southern Ocean, could mean reduced sea ice extent for some time.

We argue what we are seeing so far can be understood in terms of natural variability superimposed on a long-term human-induced warming signal.

This is because the rainfall and ocean temperature records seen in the tropical eastern Indian Ocean that led to the initial sea ice decline in 2016 likely have some climate change contribution.

This warming and the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole may also impact the surface wind patterns over coming decades.

Such changes could be driving climate change effects that are starting to emerge in the Antarctic region. However the limited data record and large variability indicate it’s still too early to tell.

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We would like to acknowledge the role of our co-authors S Abhik, Cecilia M Bitz, Christine TY Chung, Alice DuVivier, Harry H Hendon, Marika M Holland, Eun-Pa Lim, LuAnne Thompson, Peter van Rensch and Dongxia Yang in contributing to the research discussed in this article.

Julie Arblaster, Associate Professor, Monash University; Gerald A Meehl, Senior scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research , and Guomin Wang, Research scientist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How to feed a growing population healthy food without ruining the planet

For many of us, a better diet means eating more fruit and vegetables.
iStock, CC BY-NC

Alessandro R Demaio, University of Copenhagen; Jessica Fanzo, Johns Hopkins University, and Mario Herrero, CSIRO

If we’re serious about feeding the world’s growing population healthy food, and not ruining the planet, we need to get used to a new style of eating. This includes cutting our Western meat and sugar intakes by around 50%, and doubling the amount of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes we consume.

These are the findings our the EAT-Lancet Commission, released today. The Commission brought together 37 leading experts in nutrition, agriculture, ecology, political sciences and environmental sustainability, from 16 countries.

Over two years, we mapped the links between food, health and the environment and formulated global targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production. This includes five specific strategies to achieve them through global cooperation.

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Right now, we produce, ship, eat and waste food in a way that is a lose-lose for both people and planet – but we can flip this trend.

What’s going wrong with our food supply?

Almost one billion people lack sufficient food, yet more than two billion suffer from obesity and food-related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

The foods causing these health epidemics – combined with the way we produce our food – are pushing our planet to the brink.

One-third of the greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change come from food production. Our global food system leads to extensive deforestation and species extinction, while depleting our oceans, and fresh water resources.

To make matters worse, we lose or throw away around one-third of all food produced. That’s enough to feed the world’s hungry four times over, every year.

At the same time, our food systems are at risk due to environmental degradation and climate change. These food systems are essential to providing the diverse, high-quality foods we all consume every day.

A radical new approach

To improve the health of people and the planet, we’ve developed a “planetary health diet” which is globally applicable – irrespective of your geographic, economic or cultural background – and locally adaptable.

The diet is a “flexitarian” approach to eating. It’s largely composed of vegetables and fruits, wholegrains, legumes, nuts and unsaturated oils. It includes high-quality meat, dairy and sugar, but in quantities far lower than are consumed in many wealthier societies.

Many of us need to eat more veggies and less red meat.
Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock

The planetary health diet consists of:

• vegetables and fruit (550g per day per day)
• wholegrains (230 grams per day)
• dairy products such as milk and cheese (250g per day)
• protein sourced from plants, such as lentils, peas, nuts and soy foods (100 grams per day)
• small quantities of fish (28 grams per day), chicken (25 grams per day) and red meat (14 grams per day)
• eggs (1.5 per week)
• small quantities of fats (50g per day) and sugar (30g per day).

Of course, some populations don’t get nearly enough animal-source foods necessary for growth, cognitive development and optimal nutrition. Food systems in these regions need to improve access to healthy, high-quality diets for all.

The shift is radical but achievable – and is possible without any expansion in land use for agriculture. Such a shift will also see us reduce the amount of water used during production, while reducing nitrogen and phosphorous usage and runoff. This is critical to safeguarding land and ocean resources.

By 2040, our food systems should begin soaking up greenhouse emissions – rather than being a net emitter. Carbon dioxide emissions must be down to zero, while methane and nitrous oxide emissions be kept in close check.

How to get there

The commission outlines five implementable strategies for a food transformation:

1. Make healthy diets the new normal – leaving no-one behind

Shift the world to healthy, tasty and sustainable diets by investing in better public health information and implementing supportive policies. Start with kids – much can happen by changing school meals to form healthy and sustainable habits, early on.

Unhealthy food outlets and their marketing must be restricted. Informal markets and street vendors should also be encouraged to sell healthier and more sustainable food.

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2. Grow what’s best for both people and planet

Realign food system priorities for people and planet so agriculture becomes a leading contributor to sustainable development rather than the largest driver of environmental change. Examples include:

• incorporating organic farm waste into soils
• drastically reducing tillage where soil is turned and churned to prepare for growing crops
• investing more in agroforestry, where trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland to increase biodiversity and reduce erosion
• producing a more diverse range of foods in circular farming systems that protect and enhance biodiversity, rather than farming single crops or livestock.

The measure of success in this area is that agriculture one day becomes a carbon sink, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Technology can help us make better use of our farmlands.
Shutterstock

3. Produce more of the right food, from less

Move away from producing “more” food towards producing “better food”.

This means using sustainable “agroecological” practices and emerging technologies, such as applying micro doses of fertiliser via GPS-guided tractors, or improving drip irrigation and using drought-resistant food sources to get more “crop per drop” of water.

In animal production, reformulating feed to make it more nutritious would allow us to reduce the amount of grain and therefore land needed for food. Feed additives such as algae are also being developed. Tests show these can reduce methane emissions by up to 30%.

We also need to redirect subsidies and other incentives to currently under-produced crops that underpin healthy diets – notably, fruits, vegetables and nuts – rather than crops whose overconsumption drives poor health.

4. Safeguard our land and oceans

There is essentially no additional land to spare for further agricultural expansion. Degraded land must be restored or reforested. Specific strategies for curbing biodiversity loss include keeping half of the current global land area for nature, while sharing space on cultivated lands.

The same applies for our oceans. We need to protect the marine ecosystems fisheries depend on. Fish stocks must be kept at sustainable levels, while aquaculture – which currently provides more than 40% of all fish consumed – must incorporate “circular production”. This includes strategies such as sourcing protein-rich feeds from insects grown on food waste.

5. Radically reduce food losses and waste

We need to more than halve our food losses and waste.

Poor harvest scheduling, careless handling of produce and inadequate cooling and storage are some of the reasons why food is lost. Similarly, consumers must start throwing less food away. This means being more conscious about portions, better consumer understanding of “best before” and “use by” labels, and embracing the opportunities that lie in leftovers.

Circular food systems that innovate new ways to reduce or eliminate waste through reuse will also play a significant role and will additionally open new business opportunities.

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Australian communities are fighting food waste with circular economies

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For significant transformation to happen, all levels of society must be engaged, from individual consumers to policymakers and everybody along the food supply chain. These changes will not happen overnight, and they are not the responsibility of a handful of stakeholders. When it comes to food and sustainability, we are all at the decision dining table.

The EAT-Lancet Commission’s Australian launch is in Melbourne on February 1. Limited free tickets are available.

Alessandro R Demaio, Australian Medical Doctor; Fellow in Global Health & NCDs, University of Copenhagen; Jessica Fanzo, Bloomberg Distinguished Associate Professor of Global Food and Agriculture Policy and Ethics, Johns Hopkins University, and Mario Herrero, Chief Research Scientist, Food Systems and the Environment, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

35 degree days make blackouts more likely, but new power stations won’t help

Whether your energy comes from coal or renewable sources isn’t likely to make a difference to your risk of a blackout this summer.
yellowbkpk/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Guy Dundas, Grattan Institute and Lucy Percival, Grattan Institute

Summer is here with a vengeance. On hot days it’s very likely something in the power system will break and cause someone to lose power. And the weather bureau expects this summer to be hotter and drier than average – so your chances of losing power will be higher than normal.

We’ve analysed outage data from the electricity distribution networks over the past nine years and linked it to Bureau of Meteorology maximum daily temperature data for each distribution network. The findings are stark: customers are without power for 3.5 times longer on days over 35 degrees than on days below 35.

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Read more:
Amid blackout scare stories, remember that a grid without power cuts is impossible… and expensive

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Grattan Institute

What causes outages on hot days?

Hot weather puts more stress on all parts of the power system. Wires sag and short, fuses blow, transformers overheat, and fires and storms damage power lines. And demand spikes when people get home from work and turn on the air-conditioner.

When the air-conditioner doesn’t work during a heat wave, people get upset and politicians rush to assign blame. They often point the finger at a lack of electricity generation capacity – just ask the current federal energy minister, who responded to a report forecasting supply shortages in Victoria this summer by saying:

This is a direct result of Victorian government policies forcing out reliable 24/7 power, and a failure to prioritise firming of heavily subsidised intermittent wind and solar generation.

Media reports highlight this risk, too. But the truth is, if you do lose power it’s much more likely to be because of problems in your local network.

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Read more:
FactCheck: does South Australia have the ‘highest energy prices’ in the nation and ‘the least reliable grid’?

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There have been generation shortfalls in Australia on only three days in the past fourteen years, whereas there are network failures every summer all around the country, every year.

The last time a lack of generation affected large numbers of customers was in Victoria and South Australia in January 2009. But even on very hot days that summer, Victorians and South Australians lost 14 times more power because of network failures and weather damage than generation shortfalls.

Outages caused by generation shortfalls are also easier to manage than network problems. Power can be restored at a flick of a switch, as soon as demand falls or supply increases. And the blacked-out areas can be rotated, to reduce the impact on any individual customer. By contrast, if your power goes out because of a network failure or storm damage, you’re stuck with the problem until a crew can come out and fix it.

Our analysis of outages shows almost all customers affected by generation shortfalls in 2009 were back on line in less than an hour. By contrast, if your power goes out for other reasons, you will normally be waiting more than an hour to get back on line. In the worst cases, you can be left waiting for more than five hours.

Grattan Institute

What should we do (or not) about summer blackouts?

The main thing governments should to address summer blackouts is… nothing, just sweat it out. If governments over-react to newspaper headlines about blackouts, customers will pay more in the long run. Power failures on a hot day are unpleasant, but the bill to avoid them entirely would almost certainly be worse.

Blackouts in 2004 prompted the New South Wales and Queensland state governments to tighten network reliability standards. This caused over $18 billion of network over-spending and delivered only modest improvements in reliability. Network costs were the largest cause of increasing residential electricity prices in those states over the past decade, which increased more than 50% above inflation in New South Wales, and more than 70% in south-east Queensland.

Customers are unlikely to be willing to pay for more network “gold-plating”. Research by Energy Consumers Australia shows more customers are satisfied with the reliability of their power supply than with the price they pay.

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Read more:
Energy prices are high because consumers are paying for useless, profit-boosting infrastructure

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Customers can also play an important role. If your power does go out, don’t buy into the political blame game. Contrary to the impression the politicians and media might give, it’s very unlikely the outage will have been caused by a lack of power supply – whether coal, gas or renewable.

So be sceptical when a hot-headed politician tells you the solution is their preferred energy generation technology. Neither a new coal-fired power station nor a giant solar-fed battery will keep the power on if your local network fails.

Guy Dundas, Energy Fellow, Grattan Institute and Lucy Percival, Senior Associate, Grattan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A current affair: the movement of ocean waters around Australia

Where do the ocean waters that wash the Gold Coast come from?
Flickr/LJ Mears , CC BY-NC-SA

Charitha Pattiaratchi, University of Western Australia; Ems Wijeratne, University of Western Australia, and Roger Proctor, University of Tasmania

Many people in Australia will head to the beach this summer and that’ll most likely include a dip or a plunge into the sea. But have you ever wondered where those ocean waters come from, and what influence they may have?

Australia is surrounded by ocean currents that have a strong controlling influence on things such as climate, ecosystems, fish migrations, the transport of ocean debris and on water quality.

We did a study, published in April 2018, that helps to give us a better understanding of those ocean currents.

Surface currents around the Australian continent.
Ems Wijeratne/Charitha Pattiaratchi/Roger Proctor

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Read more:
New map shows that only 13% of the oceans are still truly wild

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Go with the flow: Indian Ocean

Our 15 year simulation indicates that water from the Pacific Ocean enters the Indonesian Archipelago through the Mindanao current (north) and Halmahera Sea (south).

It then enters the Indian ocean as the Indonesian Throughflow between many Indonesian Islands, with flow through the Timor Passage being the most dominant.

Most of this water flows west as the South Equatorial Current. Re-circulation of the SEC creates the Eastern Gyre that contributes to the Holloway Current. This in turn feeds the Leeuwin Current – the longest boundary current in the world (Ocean currents that flow adjacent to a coastline are called boundary currents)

The Leeuwin Current is the major boundary current along the west coast and as it moves southward. Indian Ocean water is supplied by the South Indian Counter Current increasing the Leeuwin Current transport by 60%.

The Leeuwin Current turns east at Cape Leeuwin, in Western Australia’s south-west, and continues to Tasmania as the South Australian and Zeehan Currents.

The Leeuwin Current passes the lighthouse at the Cape Leeuwin in WA.
Flickr/Cheng, CC BY-NC-ND

There is a strong seasonal variation in the strength of the boundary currents in the Indian Ocean with a progression southwards of the peak transport along the coast.

The Holloway Current peaks in April/May (coinciding with changes in the monsoon winds), the Leeuwin Current reaches a maximum along the west and south coasts in June and August.

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Read more:
Climate change is slowing Atlantic currents that help keep Europe warm

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Go with the flow: Pacific Ocean

In the Pacific Ocean, the northern branches of the South Equatorial Current are the main inputs initiating the Hiri Current and East Australian Current.

At around latitude 15 degrees south the currents split in two: southward to form the East Australian Current, and northward to form the Hiri Current which contributes to a clockwise gyre in the Gulf of Papua.

The East Australian Current is the dominant current in the region transporting 33 million cubic metres of water per second southward.

At around 32S, the East Australian Current separates from the coast and 60% of the water flows eastward to New Zealand as the Tasman Front. The remaining 40% flows southward as the East Australian Current extension and contributes to the Tasman Outflow.

The Tasman outflow is the major conduit of water from the Pacific to Indian Ocean and contributes to the Flinders Current, flowing westward from Tasmania and past Cape Leeuwin into the Indian Ocean.

Along the southern continental slope, the Flinders Current appears as an undercurrent beneath the Leeuwin Current and a surface current further offshore. The Flinders Current contributes to the Leeuwin Undercurrent directly as a northward flow, flowing to the north-west of Australia in water depths 300 metres to 800 metres.

Impact of the currents

Understanding ocean circulation is a fundamental tenet of physical oceanography and scientists have been charting the pathways of ocean currents since the American hydrographer Matthew Maury, one of the founders of oceanography, who first charted the Gulf Stream in 1855.

One of the first maps of circulation around Australia was by Halliday (1921) who showed the movement of “warm” and “cold” waters around Australia. Although some of the major features (such as the East Australian Current) were correctly identified, a more fine scale description is now available.

Ocean surface currents around Australia by Halliday 1921.

The unique feature of ocean currents around Australia is that along both east and west coasts they transport warmer water southwards and influence the local climate, particularly air temperature and rainfall, as well as species distribution.

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Explainer: how the Antarctic Circumpolar Current helps keep Antarctica frozen

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For example, the south west of Australia is up to 5C warmer in winter and receives more than double the rainfall compared to regions located on similar latitudes along western coastlines of other continents.

Similarly many tropical species of fish are found in the southwest of Australia that hitch a ride on the ocean currents.

The Pacific Ocean is the origin of waters around Australia with a direct link to the east and an indirect link to west.

Ocean water from the Pacific Ocean flows through the Indonesian Archipelago, a region subject to high solar heating and rainfall runoff, creating lower density water. This water, augmented by water from the Indian Ocean, flows around the western and southern coasts, converging along the southern coast of Tasmania.

So next time you head for a dip in the coastal waters around Australian, spare a thought for where that water has come from and where it may be going next.

Time for a plunge in the water at Bondi Beach, NSW.
Flickr/Roderick Eime, CC BY-ND

Charitha Pattiaratchi, Professor of Coastal Oceanography, University of Western Australia; Ems Wijeratne, Assistant Professor, UWA Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, and Roger Proctor, Director, Australian Ocean Data Network, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We’re in the era of overtourism but there is a more sustainable way forward

Many European holiday destinations now struggle with overcrowding and pollution.
from http://www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

Regina Scheyvens, Massey University

If you live in a tourist destination, you might dread the holiday invasion. Likewise, disgruntled tourists complain about crowded and polluted beaches, national parks or attractions.

Graffiti in Oviedo, northern Spain, following a spate of attacks on tourism facilities in Barcelona.
EPA/ALBERTO MORANTE, CC BY-ND

Overtourism is now a serious issue in many parts of the world. A good visitor experience may not be a finite resource in the same way as oil, but many popular destinations in Europe are reaching what could be termed “peak tourism”.

Concerns have been raised from Amsterdam to Dubrovnik about noise pollution, crowded parks, pressure on public facilities and rising rents. And in what is depicted as a “global battle” between travellers and locals, anti-tourism street marches have occurred in Barcelona and Venice.

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Read more:
Anti-tourism attacks in Spain: who is behind them and what do they want?

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Unsustainable tourism growth

Tucked away in a seemingly idyllic spot in the South Pacific, New Zealand is not immune to such concerns, which is why Massey University is hosting the world’s first research conference on tourism and the sustainable development goals this month.

Between 2013 and 2018, international tourist arrivals in New Zealand grew by 1.2 million to a total of 3.8 million. During the 12 months to March last year, tourists spent almost $40 billion, and the industry now provides one in every 12 jobs.

Economists see this growth as very positive for the country’s development, but many New Zealanders are ambivalent: 39% have expressed concern over the negative impacts of the growth in international visitors. The pressure on some destinations is particularly intense. For example, the 20,000 permanent residents of the summer and winter playground of Queenstown play host to around three million visitors a year.

Tourists digging holes in the vulcanic sand of a hot water beach in New Zealand.
from http://www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

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Rethinking tourism and its contribution to conservation in New Zealand

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Meanwhile local government bodies lament the pressure on public infrastructure and demands for waste disposal from freedom campers. Contractors at four Central Otago freedom camping sites have struggled to clear 16 tonnes of rubbish accumulated over the last two months.

A test case for concerns about the promise versus the pitfalls of tourism is the case of cruise tourism in Akaroa Harbour. The battle line lies between some business owners whose livelihoods depend on cruise tourists and local residents who feel their beautiful harbour and quaint town are marred by air and noise pollution and congestion associated with hundreds of tourists dropping in on their town with each cruise.

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Read more:
Why Australia might be at risk of ‘overtourism’

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In Australia, the Guinness World Record-certified whitest sand beach in the world – Hyams Beach – has turned away thousands of potential visitors during the Christmas and New Year period. There are only 110 permanent residents and 400 parking spaces, but up to 5000 tourists wanting to visit the beach each day during summer.

These experiences reflect the pressures and tensions tourism brings to many parts of the world, and the need for better ways of regulating tourist activity and capturing the gains from tourism.

A more sustainable way forward

It is clear that most people do not wish to see an end to tourism. But they do want the industry to be far more sustainable. While the term “sustainable tourism” has long been criticised for its lack of clout – and the way it can be seen as merely “sustaining tourism”, there is a way forward. We can look to the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), ratified in 2015 by 193 countries and set to guide global development through to 2030.

The SDGs require governments, civil society and business interests to play their parts in creating a more sustainable world. Furthermore, they are multi-faceted, considering social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability.

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Read more:
‘Sustainable tourism’ is not working – here’s how we can change that

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The SDGs can help to guide the tourism industry to make more sustainable choices. For example, a strategy by hotels, cruise ships and restaurants to buy as much fresh produce from local farmers as possible would shorten the supply chain and save food miles (thus contributing to SDG 13 on combating climate change). It would also enhance local development (SDG 1 on eliminating poverty).

Tourist resorts in the Pacific could tackle the sexual harrassment from guests that many resort employees experience to show they care about SDG 8 on “decent work for all” and SDG 5 on “empowering all women and girls”.

Tourism trades in luxury products and indulgent experiences, and as such it places a heavy burden on the natural environment and results in waste management issues. SDG 12 on sustainable production and consumption can encourage companies to offer tourists more sustainable products and to reduce wastage of energy, fresh water and food.

Efforts to capture the benefits of tourism while preventing overtourism should pay careful attention to the SDGs.

Regina Scheyvens, Professor of Development Studies, Massey University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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