Global Climate Change Science News

[pErvinalia]

Yeah I'm there too. The only hope is that AI solves fusion.

[macdoc]

Well actually we are....several significant areas around the planet have decoupled growth from energy use by way of electrification....that includes Australia.

Electrification decouples economic growth from traditional energy use by drastically cutting waste heat through superior thermodynamic efficiency.
How Electrification Drives Efficiency
• Thermodynamic Advantage: Internal combustion engines waste roughly 80% of their energy as heat (only 20% efficient), whereas electric motors operate at 80% to 90% efficiency.
• Heat Pump Multiplication: Heat pumps deliver three to five units of heat energy for every single unit of electricity consumed by harvesting ambient or waste heat, shrinking total final energy demand.
• The "Primary Energy Fallacy": Measuring progress by raw primary energy inputs is misleading because most fossil fuel energy is lost as waste heat. Shifting to useful electric energy shrinks the size of the total energy system required to power economic output.
Real-World Proof
• Declining Demand: Australia's total energy consumption fell by nearly 5% over less than a decade (from its 2019 peak) even as electric vehicle adoption and economic activity surged, driven by rooftop solar, batteries, and efficiency gains.
• Global Output vs. Emissions: Advanced economies have expanded their cumulative GDP significantly while lowering carbon emissions and reducing energy intensity per unit of economic output

and that is accelerating
.....
Politically globally we are in for a rough ride but the tipping point for climate has been reached in many significant areas.
The effects of the existing climate changes underway will be rather spectacular from a doom scroller view

Like the death row woman ....we may survive our misguided actions

[Brian Peacock]

I have got to the point where I think that we are simply totally fucked, and there is nothing we can do to change it - or at least we could in theory, but the political reality is that we won't...

I think the political reality is that we've been primed to believe that there's nothing we can do collectively; as communities and societies.

[macdoc]

I dunno about that.....seems the insane uptake on EV cars world wide put's paid to that notion.

. The bottom line is that in September, 2026, there were 99,199 electric cars sold in the UK — up a whopping 36 percent from September of last year — and more than double the rate of sales from three years ago.

British news service GBN reports sales of battery electric cars in the UK in September claimed a 28.3 percent market share, which is within striking distance of the 37.6 percent share attributable to gasoline powered cars.

Now that may not be virtue driven as much as the glaring economics but still.

Australia it's in full swing with petrol prices so high and unrestricted imports.

EV sales have more than doubled year-on-year
One in four new vehicles sold is now electric
More than 600,000 EVs are currently on Australian roads
Tarneit in Melbourne's west recorded Australia's highest EV uptake

Still waiting on my EV two wheeler but one is coming close.

https://benzinazero.com/products/benzin ... ic+scooter
There is one used for $1,000 and a local dealer here for service. Features okay and removable battery a plus - would like more range but would serve local use.

[pErvinalia]

The EV boom is largely economic. It's coincided with the Iran war.

[macdoc]

The point is people ARE doing something about it regardless of the motivation.

Post by JimC » Thu Oct 01, 2026 7:15 pm

I have got to the point where I think that we are simply totally fucked, and there is nothing we can do to change it - or at least we could in theory, but the political reality is that we won't...

and I think we are

[Brian Peacock]

I dunno about that.....seems the insane uptake on EV cars world wide put's paid to that notion.

<snip>

Yeah. I already know you believe The Invisible Hand of the Free Market (Allahu alayhi wa-sallam!) will eventually develop a salve for all our climate and related ills. How's that gone so far?

Even given the unprecedented rise in the uptake of renewable energy sources (most notably in solar) the UN Environment Programme, US Energy Information Administration, UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, European Environment Agency, and the International Energy Agency, along with a plethora of independent analysts, all agree that aggregate energy demand through to 2050 is going to outstrip global renewable capacity many times over due to the predicted growing incomes of rapidly growing populations - particularly in the global South. As populations and incomes grow so do fossil fuel consumption and emissions, particularly in the industrial and electrical power sectors.

Why is that relevant? When it comes to the electrification of domestic transport the projected increase in liquid fuel consumption in the industrial sector is partially offset by declining liquid fuels consumption in the transportation sector, but but the use of liquid fuels in industry still grows, as does the consumption of coal to service the electric power sector. An electric scooter, for example, may become carbon neutral relatively quickly after it's purchase but on a global scale it matters little if the use of liquid and solid carbon fuels (along with their concomitant emissions) continues to grow.

Australia's plans to reduce national CO₂ and other GHG emissions to 55% of 2007 levels by 2050 is highly commendable, even if they do exclude air, shipping, and agriculture and even if the numbers are c.10 years behind their target pathways at the moment. Nonetheless, it's far easier to keep moving in that direction, and even to accelerate, than to begin from a standing start or throwing the gears into reverse. How do your right-wing parties feel about Net-Zero though? Whatever, what you've done is, once again, individualise the issue, both in terms of personal transport as well as on an individual national scale. it's a parochial outlook that does not account for aggregate emissions globally, and that's important because Global Heating has global consequences and impacts (the clue is in the name I guess).

And yet, when it comes to my broader point, about how societies have been primed to believe that there's nothing their populations can do collectively to change our political and economic structures in the face of climate change, nothing in your post actually touches on that. In fact, your inclination to foward a faith-base belief in the free market's ability to solve the very issues it has, and will continue to cause, looks like a complete non-sequitur to me.

[macdoc]

Fuck Brian - quit talking shite ...I have ZERO belief in invisible hand crap
Nash discredited it thoroughly ....read up on your game theory and shut the fuck up about what I believe.

Getting awfully tired of correcting your misconceptions.
I've never voted for a right wing party in my life.
I have no truck with market forces to solve climate change and have NEVER advocated that.
Tired of your doom mongering and wringing hands.

I'm not looking for an EV scooter to virtue signal but to save fuel costs and have a quieter ride that costs less to own and easier on my aches and pains as I turn 80 in a year.
FFS a casual ride costs $30 in petrol.

[Brian Peacock]

Fuck Brian - quit talking shite ...I have ZERO belief in invisible hand crap
Nash discredited it thoroughly ....read up on your game theory and shut the fuck up about what I believe.

Getting awfully tired of correcting your misconceptions.
I've never voted for a right wing party in my life.
I have no truck with market forces to solve climate change and have NEVER advocated that.
Tired of your doom mongering and wringing hands.

I'm not looking for an EV scooter to virtue signal but to save fuel costs and have a quieter ride that costs less to own and easier on my aches and pains as I turn 80 in a year.
FFS a casual ride costs $30 in petrol.

You really should try and not read my posts in your angry voice.

Still. Your response to me posting "I think the political reality is that we've been primed to believe that there's nothing we can do collectively; as communities and societies." was to applaud a market solution and a growing market in EVs on the grounds of cost to the consumer. That's an apt enough description of The Invisible Hand or Rational Self-Interest as there could be. You just don't see it - most likely because you have the economic capacity to be able to make those kinds of personal choices in the first place. In other words, you're not accounting for the wider picture. As I've noted before, we're not going to consume our way to a better environment unless we restructure and democratise those sectors which are polluting the atmosphere along with the technologies you hope are going to ameliorate the deleterious effects of said pollution.

If you disagree with me, then make a case against democratising those sectors. If you agree with me, then why are you taking issue?

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-07/ ... /107233650

A landmark ruling in the High Court has found planning authorities are required to consider the emissions caused by burning fossil fuels overseas when approving projects.

Three of the five judges found in favour of a Hunter Valley residents' group, which halted the Mount Pleasant mine expansion last year in the New South Wales Court of Appeal.

The High Court case centred around the open-cut coalmine near Muswellbrook, which was approved for expansion by NSW planning authorities in 2022, before being halted through the community-led court battle last year.

[Brian Peacock]

Yes!

[JimC]

I expect the coal companies to fight back hard, their legal teams have deep pockets...

[macdoc]

There is still a strong demand for coal for steel making ( metallurgical coal) and there is little choice for alternatives other than hydrogen which is not practical.

Getting off thermal coal for power is a done deal in many jurisdictions - it's no longer profitable against renewables.
With 1/6 of the worlds coal reserves there will be lots of km long trains in Australia carrying coal for the forseeable future....more's the pity. Some don't even have a driver.....

As China’s steel industry faces up to declining demand and growing pressure to decarbonise, its massive steel market is “Australia’s game to lose,” a top analyst says.

For decades, Australia has shipped iron ore to China, accounting for around three-fifths of its partner’s supply of this key input for blast-furnace steelmaking. Some Australian miners have racked up profit margins of 60% on this dependable trade.

But China is getting serious about achieving net zero nationally before 2060 and 15% of its carbon emissions come from steel. This puts Australia at a fork in the road. It can risk losing its main buyer by continuing to sell its raw iron ore, which is potentially of lesser use in a future of lower demand and fewer blast furnaces in China. Or, it could harness its mineral reserves and renewable energy potential to produce “green iron”, a form of the metal processed using renewables that could be vital to near-zero emissions steelmaking, in China and beyond.

more https://dialogue.earth/en/business/chin ... re-behind/

[Brian Peacock]

I expect the coal companies to fight back hard, their legal teams have deep pockets...

We had a similar high court challenge to the licences for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields which agreed the companies hadn't provided, and thus the govt had broken the law by not assessing, the lifetime emissions from burning the extracted oil and gas - they'd only accounted for the emissions directly associated with extraction.

Though the govt had broken the law the remedy was only for them to ask the companies to provide the figures, which they duly did. Now with the paperwork in order there's nothing to stop the govt approving the extraction licences. The exploration and development licences were already approved, which allowed the companies to build the platforms and lay the pipes. The last stage is the minister approving turning the platforms on, which they're likely to do any day now.

[macdoc]

Some positive news on the bio-diversity front for once


and at least the global population of hairless apes is on a somewhat better trajectory

Demographic “doomsday” misses the mark
A dire prediction published in Science in 1960 anticipated a population singularity in 2026—we are not even close

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sci ... gle.com%2F

however we are STILL a global pest and have at least 60 years of rising temps built in even if we stopped fossil fuels cold

Have to be careful to distinguish thermal coal - which is starting to decline and can be replaced and in some cases being eliminated...... from metallurgical coal which is in growing demand and has no easy replacement.

Global Share: Coal-based steel production accounts for approximately 11% of total global CO₂ emissions.

That's a nasty number and no easy path to reduce ....in fact it is growing like crazy as developing economies build and developed economies require replacement of failing infrastructure like bridges and aging high rises to name just two.

The road to net zero runs through the resources sector’: Metallurgical coal and the changing politics of climate in Australia

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9625001288