Australia

To most of us, what is hidden beneath the waves of our coastal environment remains invisible and is little thought about or cared about. Yet seagrass meadows, though hidden from our direct view, contribute valuable ecological services supporting valuable fish nurseries, as food for dugongs and turtles, and as a highly efficient blue carbon sink sequestering carbon. 

A new study of the seagrass meadows in Moreton Bay, Queensland found that a significant proportion of valuable seagrass habitats would be lost without action to offset the affects of climate change. "The area of seagrass habitat was predicted to decline by 17% by 2100 under a scenario of SLR of 1.1 m." said the study. 

Lead author Dr Megan Saunders from UQ's Global Change Institute said "Seagrass meadows not only help to slow climate change by sucking up a large portion of the world's plant-stored carbon, but they also benefit livelihoods, food security, fisheries, biodiversity, shoreline protection and other ecosystem services,"

Greenpeace activists board coal ship on Great Barrier ReefIn a climate change protest over Australian coal exports, Greenpeace activists boarded a bulk coal carrier while navigating through the Great Barrier Reef on 23 April 2013. The ship, the MV Meister, had just loaded coal from Abbot Point, located 25km north of the town of Bowen on the central Queensland coast. Abbot Point coal loading facility is being expanded, with four new coal terminals proposed to be built, part of the development of 9 new coal terminals for the Great Barrier Reef Coast.

Related: Greenpeace petition - We stand in solidarity for action against coal | Queensland's Coal addiction - talk by Guy Pearse | Greenpeace activists say Coal ship highlights 'Reef in Danger' | Global Warming imperils coral reefs: 2 degrees warming is too hot say scientists

Stop T4 march, Newcastle, Australia: Photo by Lucy Alcorn / Coal Mine Action GroupUp to 1500 people attended a rally in Newcastle today in opposition to a fourth coal loading terminal being built, nicknamed T4. Gathering at Customs house at 10am, people marched to Civic Park, chanting 'our water, our health, more precious than your wealth' and 'one two three four, no to T4'. Protestors are concerned with the impact of coal mining on agriculture and water resources, coal dust pollution risks to public health, environmental concerns, and contribution to global climate change. Newcastle is the world's largest coal export port.

My favourite photo from the protest (see Photos on Flickr) is a placard saying "The reason you want another coal terminal is that you are fucking Greedy" which perhaps states the obvious...but sometimes the obvious needs to be put in such blunt terms. Already China is indicating it wants to cap it's coal consumption to 4 billion tonnes per year, not much higher than it's current consumption. Much of the recent coal expansion in NSW and Queensland, and the development of other unconventional fossil fuels like CSG, has been driven by the increasing prospect of restrictions placed on fossil fuel extraction due to carbon emissions and the threat of global warming. These companies want to rip as much as they can out to make their profits before community outrage forces them to stop.

Angry Summer - 123 records broken: Image by Australian Climate Commission, 1 March 2013Melbourne is setting another temperature record: the longest number of days of any month where the maximum temperature exceeds 30 degrees Celsius.

Frontline Action on Coal in the Leard State Forest claimed today that production at Whitehaven's Tarrawonga coal mine was disrupted due to a protester sitting on a tree platform with ropes attached to the front gate. Another twenty people supported the protestor.

The person up the tree was Jonathon Moylan who issued the ANZ hoax letter in January to garner attention on ANZ Bank financing to the tune of $1.2billion the Maule Creek coal mine.

Original article from Australia Indymedia.

Jonathon Moylan: Image Courtesy ABC 7.30 ReportJonathon Moylan's ANZ Bank hoax letter over the Maule's Creek Project open cut coalmine continues to produce reverberations. Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne has now come out in his support arguing that we are in a climate emergency and we need to have a very serious 'Look at the damage to humanity being caused by people who bankroll coalmines'. Independent Economist Rod Campbell implies that the real hoax being perpetrated on small and institutional investors in Whitehaven coal is by Gillespie Economics and NSW Planning Department who massively overestimated the benefits and underestimated the social, environmental, health and climate costs of the project.

Take Action: Sign the ANZ Stop the Loan e-petition

For a moment farmers, conservationists and climate campaigners in the north west of New South Wales thought one of the big four Australian banks - the ANZ Bank - was living up to it's sustainability charter and taking a lead: acting ethically with regard to not destroying agricultural land, maintaining biodiversity and preventing climate change.

A media release purportedly from the bank said it was withdrawing it's $1.2 billion loan for Whitehaven for development of a new coal mine at Maule's Creek on agricultural and forested land near Narrabri, New South Wales. Further, the letter said that "ANZ is currently undertaking a review of coal and gas investments on productive agricultural lands and areas of high biodiversity."

But it was not to be.

Image courtesy Australian Bureau of MeteorologyA heatwave covering 70 per cent of Australia that started on January 3 has sparked catastrophic bushfires. Tasmania has so far been the most devastated by fire with more than 100 houses and businesses razed, the Tasman peninsula cutoff, without power, and thousands evacuated by boat to Hobart. The Temperature soared in Hobart setting new records for highest daily minimum overnight temperature of 23.4C and a new maximum temperature of 41.3C.

Update Jan 8: Climate Change: Records tumble in extreme heatwave as temperature scale adjusted upwards while Prime Minister Julia Gillard links intensity of bushfires with climate change as NSW survives catastrophic fire conditions. Other states are also experiencing bushfires, but have so far brought the fires mostly under control. The heatwave is expected to last over a week with elevated temperatures particularly in inland areas. It is very unusual that a heat wave covers such a large area of the continent at one time, according to Karl Braganza, manager of climate monitoring at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Australia's weather has switched to hot and dry after one of the wettest two year periods in Australia's history influenced by an extremely strong La Nina event.

Related: Youtube animation of forecast heatwave temperatures | Scientists outline human health limits of heat stress with Climate Change (May 2010) | Flooding rains now burning plains - Bushfire risk and climate change (Oct 2011) | Logging of Victorian mountain ash forests increases bushfire risk (Oct 2011) | Intact native Forests mitigate bushfire in a warming climate (Nov 2011) | CSIRO - Climate change impacts on fire weather

Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly for Australia 28 December 2012High sea surface temperatures (SST) of up to five degrees above normal are currently being experienced off the north-western Australian coast in a marine heatwave event. Like the extreme marine heatwave event in 2011 this will change marine ecosystems causing coral bleaching and fish mortality and impact on fisheries management and biodiversity.

A similar event occurred over several weeks during the 2010/2011 summer which impacted seafood stocks and marine ecosystems and was associated with an extremely strong La Niña event and a record strength Leeuwin Current down the Western Australian coast.