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Australia bets on coal as climate policy crumbles

Sydney Morning Herald: Victoria, Australia. Drought, fierce winds and 47 degree C temperatures led to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, which killed over 170 people and millions of animals and plants. The intensity and frequency of bushfire conditions is rising in south-eastern Australia. Michael Hall, Victoria, Australia, 2009. Photo: Michael Hall/The Climate Institute When the Senate voted on July 17 to axe the carbon tax, Australia became the first country to reverse course on pricing greenhouse gas emissions. ...

Climate angst rises in Australia with record temperatures

Sydney Morning Herald: It`s official Just after midday on Saturday, the mercury reached 23 degrees - 25 is forecast - as Sydney posted its longest warm spell in records going back to 1910, says Sarah Perkins, a leading heatwave expert at the University of NSW. Sydney's 25.1 degrees on Friday matched the previous longest heatwave - defined as at least three consecutive days in the warmest 10 per cent for each date - of seven days set in August 1995. Including Saturday, that burst could stretch to at least 14 days....

US will keep pushing nations like Australia on climate change action, says former adviser

Sydney Morning Herald: The Obama administration will closely monitor how nations such as Australia tackle climate change, as the US President makes greenhouse gas emission cuts one of his signature policies, according to the White House's former top climate adviser. Heather Zichal, who worked with Barack Obama from his 2008 election campaign until late last year when she resigned as chief climate and energy adviser, said the president viewed action to curb global warming as ''key to his legacy in his second term''....

Australia: Farmers feel the heat as drought advances

Sydney Morning Herald: "The burning heat has just scorched everything off right back to the ground and then these hot winds have just blown it all away": Rod Barnes. Photo: Paul Mathews Sydney has recorded its lowest summer rainfall to date in more than 70 years, as the state swelters through its driest January in more than a decade. Since December, the city has had just 48.4 millimetres of rain, a little more than a quarter of the usual amount, and the lowest since 1941-42, said Acacia Pepler, a climatologist at the...

2013 confirmed as Australia’s hottest year on record

Sydney Morning Herald: Australia smashed its previous annual heat record in 2013, with a summer heatwave and spring hot spell among the outstanding periods of unusual warmth. The Bureau of Meteorology on Friday confirmed that last year was the hottest nationwide in more than a century of standardised records, with mean temperatures 1.2 degrees above the 1961-90 average. This event could not have happened without increasing greenhouse gases, without climate change The 12 months easily eclipsed the previous annual...

Climate change: Planet to warm by 4 degrees by 2100

Sydney Morning Herald: Climate models: New research suggests that temperatures will rise between 1.5 degrees and 5 degrees. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones Temperatures are on course to rise at least 4 degrees by the end of the century, according to research that finds earlier climate models projecting smaller increases are likely to be wrong. The research, by a team led by the University of NSW, says a 4-degree rise in temperature would be potentially catastrophic for agriculture in warm regions of the world, including...

Australia: 2013 Australia’s hottest year on record

Sydney Morning Herald: 2013 is the year Australia marked its hottest day, month, season, 12-month period and, by December 31, hottest calendar year. "We're smashing the records," said Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of NSW. "We're not tinkering away at them, they're being absolutely blitzed." Global interest in Australia's weather flared early. In January, when models predicted heat that was literally off the charts, the Bureau of Meteorology added...

Australia: ‘Pool of hot air’ fans the flames

Sydney Morning Herald: Weather patterns creating a ''pool of hot air'' over central Australia continue to set new temperature records for the country and foster unseasonably warm conditions over many regions of the nation's south-east, meteorologists say. Winter ended with a record national average maximum - at 29.92 degrees - on August 31. September 1 then averaged 31.45 degrees, beating the previous earliest day above 31 degrees by 15 days, the Bureau of Meteorology said in a special climate statement highlighting...

An Australian summer that refuses to throw in the towel

Sydney Morning Herald: This summer has been called everything from "extreme" to "angry" and for large swathes of the country those adjectives still apply. Cities such as Melbourne and Adelaide are midway through long heatwaves with no relief expected until Thursday. Nationally, summer was the hottest since consistent records began in 1910. The big dry now extends across much of southern Australia and even the Top End is looking at its driest "wet" season in two decades. Along the east coast, communities from the...

Australia: Walls keep water out and flood bills down

Sydney Morning Herald: GRAFTON narrowly escaped a major flood this week to the reported delight of the NSW Premier, Barry O'Farrell, and no doubt the town's 18,000 or so residents. The northern New South Wales town averted disaster thanks to an 8.1 metre levee which held - just. The Clarence River, swollen by rain from the powerful remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Oswald, rose to 8.08 metres. ''It was very close,'' Scott Greensill, the general manager for the Clarence Valley shire, said. The river ''was the highest...