Carbon emission reduction: News and technology

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/ ... /106300776

Australian households installed as many batteries in the final six months of 2025 as they did in the entire preceding five years, according to figures showing the boom in demand for storage devices.

Amid generous federal government subsidies that slash the up-front cost of batteries, a report from the Clean Energy Council found customers were taking up the offers at a breakneck pace.

More than 183,000 units were sold in the six months to December 31, the Clean Energy Council found, a "fourfold" increase on the same time in 2024.

It was also equivalent to the combined battery sales for 2020 and 2024.

But as battery demand surged, the council noted that Australians may have reached a tipping point in their uptake of rooftop solar, which had long been an engine of the country's energy transition.

Installations of rooftop photovoltaic, or PV, cells dropped 20 per cent in 2025 compared with the previous year to 254,664.

The council said about 4.3 million households now have solar, and demand may have reached a saturation point.

"This was the first time since 2020 that total annual rooftop PV installations did not surpass 300,000," the council noted in the report.

"(It) suggests we have now passed the peak of rooftop PV installations as consumers turn their demand towards small-scale batteries."
The extraordinary growth in demand for batteries has been boosted by taxpayer-funded incentives that reduce battery costs by about 30 per cent, or $4,000 for a typical system with 10 kilowatt-hours of storage.

Amid the clamour for subsidies, federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen acknowledged in December that the entire $2.3 billion budget would have been spent by mid-year.

Under its original design, the funds were intended to last until 2030.

The government has also faced criticism for its handling of the scheme, which experts said had been exploited by companies selling consumers super-sized systems of up to 50 kilowatt-hours.

In a shake-up announced before Christmas, Mr Bowen said the government would tip in an extra $5 billion to keep the scheme going.

At the same time, it tightened the eligibility criteria to guard against the over-selling of super-sized systems.

Demand 'like a rocket'

Jackie Trad, the Clean Energy Council's chief executive, said there were now more than 450,000 batteries installed on homes and businesses across the country.

"We know Australians have long had an appetite for energy independence to drive down bills and as a result have been adopting solar and battery technology at a record pace for the last several years," Ms Trad said.

Certainly the subsidies were a big part our our decision to get a battery, although we also got a much better solar array as well.

[Brian Peacock]

UK to cut climate finance to poor countries by a fifth despite promising more help

The UK plans to slash its aid to poor countries stricken by the climate crisis by more than a fifth, the Guardian has learned, despite promises to increase assistance and warnings from campaigners that the move will cost lives and livelihoods.

Ministers plan to cut climate finance for the developing world from £11.6bn over the past five years to £9bn in the next five. In real terms, accounting for inflation, this would represent a cut of about 40% in spending power since 2021, when the £11.6bn budget was agreed.

The slashing of climate aid, imposed by the Treasury, is planned despite recent warnings from the UK’s spy chiefs that the collapse of ecosystems such as the Amazon or the Congo would inflict serious damage on the UK’s national security, including soaring food prices and the risk of war.

It comes just a year after the UK and other rich countries promised to triple global climate finance to the poor world to $300bn (£220bn) a year by 2035, in recognition of the disasters countries are already experiencing...

[Brian Peacock]

Should we hail Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu as global climate champions for demonstrating a better case for shifting our reliance away from fossil energy and toward renewables than XR ever did?

[pErvinalia]

More war!

[Brian Peacock]

Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought

The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system and was already known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Scientists spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021 and know that the Amoc has collapsed in the Earth’s past.

Climate scientists use dozens of different computer models to assess the future climate. However, for the complex Amoc system, these produce widely varying results, ranging from some that indicate no further slowdown by 2100 to those suggesting a huge deceleration of about 65%, even when carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are gradually cut to net zero.

The research combined real-world ocean observations with the models to determine the most reliable, and this hugely reduced the spread of uncertainty. They found an estimated slowdown of 42% to 58% in 2100, a level almost certain to end in collapse.

The Amoc is a major part of the global climate system and brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. A collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50-100cm to already rising sea levels around the Atlantic...

Sounds pretty dire, but at least the fossil fuel sector is making an extra $7 billion a week out of the middle east crisis, so it's not all bad news.

[aufbahrung]

Doesn't matter if they adhere to targets or not, population is dying away and so too the issue with CO2

[pErvinalia]

Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought

The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system and was already known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Scientists spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021 and know that the Amoc has collapsed in the Earth’s past.

Climate scientists use dozens of different computer models to assess the future climate. However, for the complex Amoc system, these produce widely varying results, ranging from some that indicate no further slowdown by 2100 to those suggesting a huge deceleration of about 65%, even when carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are gradually cut to net zero.

The research combined real-world ocean observations with the models to determine the most reliable, and this hugely reduced the spread of uncertainty. They found an estimated slowdown of 42% to 58% in 2100, a level almost certain to end in collapse.

The Amoc is a major part of the global climate system and brings sun-warmed tropical water to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and sinks to form a deep return current. A collapse would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50-100cm to already rising sea levels around the Atlantic...

Sounds pretty dire, but at least the fossil fuel sector is making an extra $7 billion a week out of the middle east crisis, so it's not all bad news.

Saw this article on Facebook. Always fascinated by the laughing emotes on posts. There's people out there who think this is funny, presumably because they think it's bullshit. Recall the movie "Don't Look Up".

[Brian Peacock]

Recall the movie "Don't Look Up".

To wit...

Doesn't matter if they adhere to targets or not, population is dying away and so too the issue with CO2

Nah. Your confusing your personal circumstances for the state of the world, again. The population is ageing - not the same thing.

[aufbahrung]

less babies being born - ageing is a consequence of a life well lived - you think folks are ageeing but less babies being born, so many under the radar conagious diseases could even be a undetected STD causing it

[Brian Peacock]

Look up 'population momentum'.