Solar panels in Sahara could boost renewable energy but damage the global climate – here’s why
The world’s most forbidding deserts could be the best places on Earth for harvesting solar power – the most abundant and clean source of energy we have.
The world’s most forbidding deserts could be the best places on Earth for harvesting solar power – the most abundant and clean source of energy we have.
Most Australians know all too well how precious water is. Sydney just experienced a severe drought, while towns across New South Wales and Queensland ran out of drinking water. Under climate change, the situation will become more dire, and more common.
An independent expert panel today rejected a proposal to expand the operations of the Dendrobium coal mine under Sydney’s drinking water catchment.
February has already been a bad month for Perth. Bushfire has destroyed 81 homes and burned more than 10,000 hectares northeast of the city. Residents in the midst of a COVID-19 lockdown were told to abandon their homes and seek shelter as the bushfire raged.
In May 2020, the international mining giant Rio Tinto made a calculated and informed decision to drill 382 blast holes in an area of its Brockman 4 mining lease that encompassed the ancient rock shelter formations at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
Australians are five times more likely to be displaced by a climate change-fuelled disaster than someone living in Europe, new study finds.
Heatwaves, floods, bushfires: disaster season is upon us again. We can’t prevent hazards or climate change-related extreme weather events but we can prepare for them — not just as individuals but as a community.
The world watched with a sense of dread in 2018 as Cape Town, South Africa, counted down the days until the city would run out of water. The region’s surface reservoirs were going dry amid its worst drought on record, and the public countdown was a plea for help.
In developing countries, each person produces, on average, six litres of toilet wastewater each day. Based on the number of people who don’t have access to safe sanitation, that equates to nearly 14 billion litres of untreated faecally contaminated wastewater created each day. That’s the same as 5,600 Olympic-sized swimming ...
The year 2020 broke disaster records across the country in destructive and expensive ways. The Atlantic had so many hurricanes, meteorologists ran out of tropical storm names for only the second time. Across the Midwest, extreme storms flattened crops and tore up buildings. Western states repeatedly broke records for their ...
Grants are intended to support the next steps in the region’s long-term economic recovery after last season’s bushfires.
The year 2020 will no doubt go down in history for other reasons, but it is also on target to be one of the warmest on record. And as the climate warms, natural hazards will happen more frequently – and be ever more lethal.
After eight months of drought rules, Auckland finally relaxed water restrictions last week, but as New Zealand heads into another La Niña summer, other cities can expect serious water shortages both now and in the future.
Forecast of a 7% rise in agricultural production in 2020-21 is due to resilience of farmers, better seasonal conditions and support measures.
Australia’s latest emissions data, released this week, contained one particularly startling, and unjustifiable, fact. Against all odds, in a year when emissions fell in almost every sector, Australia’s export gas industry still managed to do more climate damage.
Just as writers and artists today are responding to the Anthropocene through climate fiction and eco art, earlier generations chronicled an environmental crisis that presaged humanity’s global impact.
Climate change is resulting in profound, immediate and worsening health impacts, and no country is immune, a major new report from more than 120 researchers has declared.
Experts in cultural preservation worldwide agree that it is impossible to protect all of these places forever. Many would require constant restoration. Others will need defenses like sea walls and flood gates – but those defenses might not be effective for long.
State of the Climate 2020 puts all these events into the longer-term context of climate change trends and key climate drivers.
Last summer’s horror bushfire season claimed 33 lives, although the real cost in human life might have been greater when smoke-related health issues are taken into account. More than 3,000 houses were destroyed in the 24 million hectares that burned.
This round of project funding will benefit over 75 priority plant species and almost 100 priority invertebrate species identified as urgent.
Second group of seasonal workers from the Pacific island arrived in the NT yesterday as government continues easing entry restrictions.
Every year, sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean shrinks to a low point in mid-September. This year it measures just 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers) – the second-lowest value in the 42 years since satellites began taking measurements.
The decision to suspend aid to Ethiopia comes after almost 10 years of regional and international efforts to mediate the dam dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia. Almost 60% of Ethiopians do not have access to electricity.
Giant meat processor is to close the night-shift operation at its Dismore plant in Queensland. JobKeeper is said to be a factor.
The Paris climate agreement seeks to limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century. A new report by the World Meteorological Organisation warns this limit may be exceeded by 2024.
Drones have changed how we see the world. Even more profoundly, drones have transformed how we witness the world.
The Morrison government today declared it will axe buybacks of water entitlements from irrigators.
Coronavirus restrictions have significantly reduced our fossil fuel usage. But this will only be short term.
Young people are increasingly frightened by the spectre of natural hazards and disasters, but they see schools as failing to equip them with the skills.
The Australian Alps in southeast New South Wales is the traditional home of three Aboriginal groups: the Ngarigo, Walgalu and Djilamatang people. It is home to Australia’s highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko.
For a long time, richer developed countries have been underwriting the costs of climate change in poorer developing countries, leaving them reliant on Western solutions to their climate-related issues.
The many manifestations of climate change — including heat waves, droughts, water stress, more intense storms, wildfires, mass extinction and warming oceans — all get progressively worse as the temperature rises.
A major new assessment has now calculated a range of 2.6–3.9℃. This implies that alarmingly high estimates from some recent climate models are unlikely.
As the global climate shifts, it’s important to know which species have adaptations to survive.
The best way to achieve supply chain robustness is to build supply chains involving more than one supplier, located in more than one national territory.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the hope of a growing space industry was palpable.
Wildlife sightings are increasing, air quality is improving and carbon emissions are dropping.
The Australian government’s investment roadmap for low-emissions technologies promises more taxpayers’ money to the gas industry.
Damage to rivers and wetlands, including fish kills and algal blooms, has featured prominently in the news.
So will the 2020 fire season kick off this month
Lessons should be learned from what’s happening in New Zealand
Australia’s experience of this pandemic has opened a door to the past
Poor March quarter figures and expected larger contraction in June pushes the economy into recession for first time in nearly three decades.
Experts say our fire season is up to four months longer in many regions.
The last bushfire season showed Australians they can no longer pretend climate change will not affect them
Up to 1 300 jobs could go and around 75 stores will close. Minister says company doesn’t “give a rat’s about us”.
Bat experts in Australia are appealing to the public to be tolerant of bats, as the numbers of the creatures continue to swell in the urban night skies. For many reasons, bats are not popular creatures. Be it with farmers who suffer crop loss from the nocturnal feasting of these ...
Freshwater flows are vital to maintaining the health of the Murray River’s lower lakes
Australia’s surprising call for an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus in China has provoked escalating threats of retaliation by China