Climate

Patricia Gill. Forests and reserves around Denmark have been hit by a ‘forest collapse’ event as the region struggles through a dry six months and feed for farms is depleting. Murdoch University fire and plant ecologist Dr Joe Fontaine says Denmark and South Coast regions may not be having the driest spell on record but the ecology was suffering due to an unusually long summer.

Ian Hutton. It depends on how you read the Bureau of Meteorology data - maximums, minimums, average daily etc ... However, if we take a simple measure of the number of days with maximums over 28 degrees C, then summer of 2023/2024, was Lord Howe’s hottest on record.

Mount Alexander Shire Council is proud to be one of the supporters of a new resource to help people learn how to make their home or property ready for extreme weather events. The Castlemaine Institute and Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance, in partnership with ADAPT Loddon Mallee, have developed the ‘Home Upgrades for Climate Resilience Workbook,’...

In relation to the discontinuation of the case brought by the Nature Conservation Council (NCC) of New South Wales (NSW) against the NSW Water Minister and NSW Environment Minister in 2021 to challenge the validity of the Border Rivers Water Sharing Plan, media releases have been issued by the Ministers and the NCC.

Understanding climate indicators was a key message from BCG’s Climate Expert Kate Finger, who presented BCG’s Trials Review Day ... The senior researcher explained to the 170 plus farmers and advisers in attendance that a declaration of an El Niño, as happened last year, “did not always equal drought.”

Cattle Australia has urged the federal government to rethink the role of methane in the beef industry in its decisions on how Australia will tackle climate change in the future. CA, which is the peak council for the grassed beef sector, said a single focus on absolute emissions reduction under current carbon dioxide-equivalent accounting frameworks was detrimental for the beef industry.

This week I thought I would join the lack of EV charging stations across regional WA together with the Australian government's adoption of the strict new Euro 6d emissions standards and give you my views on what this is likely to mean politically and its potential to redefine Australia.

The GRDC has partnered with the Australian National University (ANU) and industry partners to invest in research to accelerate the development of climate-resilient crops … investment will focus on the development of heat tolerant wheat genetics, as well as determining what makes a wheat crop able to survive, grow and produce yields under high-temperature conditions.

Did anyone notice the announcement dropped just before Christmas of the new emissions rules that will impact sales of most of the popular utes SUVs and 4WDs farmers and tradies rely on? ... For those who know their cars, the days are numbered for the number series 75s, 80s, 300s, 150s,   300s, not to mention the Raptors, Rams or even the bog standard Hilux, Triton and Nivara.

Wilya Ajjul Janta Aboriginal Corporation held an exhibition last Friday at Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Cultural Centre to unveil its housing model that is more environmentally and culturally appropriate for Warumungu country. CEO Simon Quilty was ecstatic with the turnout and the community’s interest in changing the Territory’s housing models to suit its searing heat, especially in light of climate change.

With global sea surface temperatures being warmest on record for the past nine months consecutively, there is potential for marine heat stress impacts this summer including in the Lord Howe Island Marine Park. In anticipation, monitoring is underway throughout the Lord Howe Island lagoon to detect signs of disturbance from elevated water temperatures.

Why do we have sacred topics? Ideas, theories or policies that appear to be off limits ... Three sacred topics of late have been Covid-19, climate and carbon. What happens when ‘misinformation’ actually is proven correct?

Summer 2023/4 has proven to be volatile for Queensland growers ... Growcom, the project delivery arm of the Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Growers (QFVG), in conjunction with the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority (QRIDA), will host a webinar this coming Friday, 19 January to help primary producers recover from these events.

The draft legislation amends the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act 2001 and the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) to introduce standardised, internationally-aligned reporting requirements for businesses, to ensure they are making high quality climate-related financial disclosures ... Consultation for the draft legislation released today [12 January 2024] is now open and submissions will close 9 February 2024.

For an organisation that invests a considerable portion of their half a billion dollar budget predicting what’s going to happen in 100 years’ time, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has fallen short on the all-important, short term forecasts ... Farmers want less climate change lecturing on the doomsday predictions of global warming, and more lectures on the complexity of the dynamic system that actually influences the day to day, week to week, and month to month rain and temperature that impacts their annual production.

Predictions of the nation’s weather holds tremendous weight. In September, the BOM’s El Nino predictions and the subsequent media hysteria saw cattle and sheep markets collapse as growers responded to the best available computer modelling ... the monthly rainfall predictions took until January 3 to predict a wetter than average month.

Is this really how harvested forests are left? Australian Rural & Regional News looks into recent statements that highlight continuing conflicting and confusing information in the public domain about connections between forestry operations and bushfires and whether prescribed burns reduce bushfire risk.

The thing that should be worrying farmers is not just the fact that the government has claimed the credit (and credits) for itself of not allowing landholders to clear land to help make the 2030 target, but they are now banking on farmers burying the emissions of the rest of the nation in their soil to help reach the unachievable 2050 target ... don’t sign up to any soil carbon contract until you are sure you won’t need those credits yourself when the inevitable carbon taxes arrive.

Jack Bradshaw. Australia, along with 16 other countries, has recently committed to the “Initiative for Greening Construction with Sustainable Wood” at COP28 in Dubai ... How will Australia support this initiative with insufficient forest resources to service even the present demand?

Most Aussie farmers say climate change is the single greatest threat to their business, according to Farmers for Climate Action’s online survey on the Net Zero Sector Plan for Agriculture and Land. Farmers for Climate Action created the survey to make sure farmers … could easily have their say as part of the Federal Government’s Sector Plan consultations.

Andrew Smith, Rural Bank Head of Agribusiness Development said: “As was the case for 2023, the three key themes that will impact Australian agriculture in the first half of 2024 continue to be seasonal conditions, trade conditions and economic headwinds, but looking to the upside, a more favourable economic environment is expected to begin supporting agricultural markets in the back half of 2024."