In a senate inquiry report, the Greens and high-profile crossbencher David Pocock have called for an investigation into the federal government’s $1.5 billion commitment to the Middle Arm Industrial Precinct and recommended funds be directed away from supporting fossil fuel projects.
A Central Coast landowner is awarded significant damages after petroleum and diesel from a neighbouring service station contaminates his property.
The remote icy wilderness at the bottom of the world is exposed to pollution and foreign organisms on floating ocean debris.
Recognising the threat to Antarctica’s remote coastline and unique marine ecosystems, we wanted to find out where this material is coming from. It turns out it’s travelling further than you might think.
Using ocean modelling techniques, we show floating objects such as kelp, plastic and other debris can drift to Antarctica from South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Our new research shows Antarctica’s coastlines more connected to land in the Southern Hemisphere than previously thought. Cold and icy conditions may have prevented foreign organisms from colonising Antarctic waters to date. But these conditions are changing rapidly.
Antarctica’s coastal waters are extremely cold and mostly covered by sea ice. Yet these waters are also home to a surprisingly wide range of unique species found nowhere else on Earth.
In recent years, some non-native species have been found in Antarctic waters. They can arrive on ships, either in ballast water or encrusted onto ship hulls, or on drifting ocean debris.
Some of these species, including kelp, are known to drift from islands just north of the Antarctic continent. But it’s been unclear whether species can reach Antarctica from further afield, until now.
In a warming world, Antarctica is one of the few refuges for slow-growing, cold-water specialist species. If foreign species were to successfully establish in the cold polar waters, they could compete with native species and dramatically change marine ecosystems.
Aside from a small number of research stations and tourist hotspots, much of Antarctica’s coastline remains untouched. The arrival of foreign species and other human-made debris threatens this unique wilderness.
The amount of plastic and other debris in the ocean is increasing each year. This could mean more non-native species are finding ways to hitch a ride to the icy continent.
Identifying the sources of drift objects rafting to Antarctica helps us better understand the risks to native species.
Antarctica is encircled by a giant ocean current – the Antarctic Circumpolar Current – which flows eastward around the icy continent, separating it from warmer waters to the north.
The strength of this strong eastward flow and the associated sharp oceanographic fronts was previously thought to isolate the polar continent from drifting objects to the north. Yet the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is also eddy-rich and subject to powerful storm systems. Both provide possible pathways for these objects to cross.
Previously, rafts reaching Antarctic waters have been genetically tested to reveal their source location. These analyses confirmed kelp could drift from sub-Antarctic islands including South Georgia and the Kerguelen Islands.
But not all objects can be tested this way, and only a small fraction of the Antarctic coastline is visited by scientists each year. Scaling up such an approach to determine all possible source locations is not feasible.
Instead, we turned to ocean modelling. We considered the known source locations around the Southern Ocean islands and also landmasses further north, such as Australia, New Zealand, South America and South Africa.
Both ocean currents and surface waves control the drift of objects across the Southern Ocean towards Antarctica. So both of these influences were factored in to our model.
In our virtual world, we released millions of drift objects into the ocean and watched them move around the globe.
We tracked these objects for three model years or until they arrived at the Antarctic coastline – whichever came first.
These simulations revealed floating objects can drift to Antarctica not only from the sub-Antarctic islands, but also from New Zealand, Tasmania, South America and South Africa.
Only a tiny fraction of the simulated particles actually make it to Antarctica, but they do so every year. This suggests floating objects are regularly arriving at Antarctic coastlines, and have done for some time.
But as the world warms and ice melts, any invasion of foreign organisms may be more successful.
The modelling allows us to assess which regions of the Antarctic coastline are most at risk from these rafting non-native species.
Concerningly, most of the simulated rafts arrive at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. This region has relatively warm ocean temperatures where the coastline is ice-free for long periods each year.
Cold ocean temperatures and abrasive sea ice present a natural barrier to foreign invaders seeking homes around Antarctica. But with little sea ice at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, there’s a greater chance non-native species will settle in.
Antarctic sea ice has shown a dramatic decline in recent years. In addition, the Antarctic Peninsula has already warmed more rapidly than most places around Antarctica, with record high temperatures in recent years.
Dwindling sea ice and a warming Antarctic coastline means remote species could have more opportunities to colonise the icy continent. If this were to happen, we could see dramatic shifts in some Antarctic coastal ecosystems.
Hannah Dawson receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).
Adele Morrison receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).
Ceridwen Fraser receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Matthew England receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).
Japan has a very clear vision of what the Asia-Pacific’s clean energy future looks like – decarbonisation, but done slowly and with a longer role for coal, oil and gas.
It was on full display this week as energy ministers from nine South-East Asian nations, Japan and Australia gathered in Jakarta to hash out a shared vision for Asia’s energy future, under Japan’s Asian Zero Emissions Community (AZEC) initiative launched last year.
But there’s a clear problem here. Japan’s vision clashes directly with Australia’s efforts to become a green export superpower. And worse, Japanese investment is a key reason why Australia has emerged as an unlikely gas export giant.
Energy security is front of mind for Japanese policymakers worried about keeping the lights on across their import-dependent archipelago. While Tokyo does have green energy plans, its short-term push is all about prolonging the life of fossil fuels – coupled with carbon capture.
Labor came to power promising to act faster on climate change. By decade’s end, Australia should be largely run on renewables, and Canberra wants to make clean exports a reality.
But Japan is making that harder by financing gas exploitation in Australia. This could lock our fast-growing and energy-hungry region into much longer reliance on dirty fossil fuels and questionable carbon capture plans.
There’s a real danger Australia’s green export plans could be washed away by a tide of new fossil fuels.
In 2022, the Japanese Prime Minister Kishido Fumio began promoting a triple breakthrough – efforts combining decarbonisation, economic growth and energy security. Fumio launched the Asian Zero Emissions Community to encourage the idea.
While these goals sound reasonable, the devil is in the detail. The world’s fourth-largest economy, Japan has long been dependent on imported coal, oil and gas – and more so after the 2011 Fukushima disaster forced nuclear plant shutdowns. Even as the world belatedly scrambles to tackle climate change, Japanese policymakers are still focused on keeping fossil fuels flowing. Many AZEC projects aim to use fossil fuels for electricity.
The government’s energy policies explicitly aim to secure long-term supplies of fossil fuels and encourage Japanese firms to be involved. Japan is now the world’s second-largest public financier of international fossil fuel projects, spending more than A$7 billion every year.
How does this align with net zero? Japan claims new fossil fuel plants can slash emissions by burning ammonia in coal plants, blending hydrogen with fossil gas in gas plants and ramping up carbon capture and storage.
Each of these technologies is expensive and largely unproven. They cannot cut emissions at anywhere near the scale or speed needed. And every million spent on propping up fossil fuels is a million not spent on renewables and storage.
Japan sees Australia as a friendly nation with huge fossil fuel resources and longstanding trade links.
Any changes to coal and gas extraction have been met with Japanese lobbying. When Queensland hiked coal royalties in 2022, Japan’s ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, pushed back hard. The move, he warned, could have “widespread effects on Japanese investment beyond the coal industry”.
When the federal government strengthened the Safeguard Mechanism, our main industrial emissions policy, costs increased for some gas projects. In response, Yamagami dialed up his rhetoric, warning the neon lights of Tokyo would go out without Australian energy exports.
Japan isn’t burning it all at home. It on-sells more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to other Asian nations than it imports from Australia.
Without Japan’s funding on favourable terms, our LNG producers would not be able to compete with lower-cost producers such as Qatar.
Given a global gas glut is now forecast to arrive by 2026, Australia should be looking to dial down LNG. But Japan won’t let that happen.
Just this year, Japan loaned $2.5 billion to help Woodside develop Western Australia’s massive Scarborough gas field.
Domestically, Australia is greening. Coal is retiring as renewables and storage rush in. Last year, 40% of the power in our main grid came from clean energy and more than 80% of Australia’s total power needs should be provided by renewables by 2030. But internationally, we’re now the second-largest exporter of carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
With major reserves of critical minerals (essential for renewables and batteries) and world class renewable resources, Australia is ideally placed to export green commodities to the region.
The Albanese government is promoting Australia as a “renewable energy superpower” and will invest public money through the Future Made in Australia plan to give local green industries a chance of global success.
But Japan has a different vision. Funding flows from Tokyo have already distorted Australia’s energy market and boosted demand for gas in the region. Worse, it has made it harder for Australian leaders to create future-focused industries. New gas projects pull investment, workers and supply-chain capacity away from clean energy industries.
It’s not that Japan is anti-renewable. It’s just slow to move. Tokyo has ambitious plans to become the world’s top producer of energy from offshore wind.
Recent modelling shows Japan could achieve 90% clean energy by 2035, gaining far greater energy independence and slashing reliance on expensive fossil fuels. If Japan took this route, we would likely see its Australian investments shift from gas to green exports.
But right now, Japan’s focus is on keeping fossil fuels flowing.
Australia has to help shape Asia’s energy transition. If we don’t, we risk our future being made in Tokyo.
Wesley Morgan is a research fellow with the Griffith Asia Institute and a fellow with the Climate Council of Australia.
Zoo staff brought Magic to Sphen’s side to process the loss, and the penguin colony joined in his mournful call
Sydney gentoo penguin Sphen, whose same-sex love story made him and partner Magic an equality symbol worldwide, has died.
The couple shot to fame in 2018 when news of their same-sex male relationship in a Sydney aquarium made global headlines.