Rarely have politicians demonstrated their ignorance of the real risks and opportunities confronting Australia than with the recent utterances of Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan and other ministers promoting development of Adani and Galilee Basin coal generally, along with their petulant foot-stamping over Westpac’s decision to restrict funding to new coal projects. Likewise, Bill Shorten sees […]
Submission to the Review of Climate Change Policies 2017
Contents: Preamble The Key Issue – Existential Risk The Rapidly Changing Context of Global Climate Change Practical Implications The Australian Context Existential Risk Management Reframing Australia’s Climate Change & Energy Policies Author: Ian Dunlop Ian Dunlop has wide experience in energy resources, infrastructure, and international business, for many years on the international staff of […]
Submission to the Finkel Review of the National Energy Market
Contents: Preamble The Key Issue – Existential Risk The Rapidly Changing Context of Global Climate Change Practical Implications The Australian Context Existential Risk Management Request to Expert Panel Preamble Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Preliminary Report into the Future Security of the National Energy Market. I congratulate the Expert Panel […]
Energy Security from Clean Coal, CCS & CSG – What could possibly go wrong ?
Every few years the fossil fuel industry pressures politicians to force “clean coal”, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and more recently coal seam gas (CSG) on an increasingly sceptical community to justify their continued expansion. This cycle started with promotion of Adani’s massive Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, for coal export to India. The South […]
Coal Industry – Wrong Way, Go Back!
Coal producers and lobbyists are yet again promoting “clean coal” as the justification for continued expansion of energy coal as we make the inevitable transition to the low-carbon economy. Conscious that they can no longer credibly reject the evidence of accelerating climate change, the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) and the World Coal Association (WCA) […]
The Australian Elites Have Failed Us On Climate Change
The recent utterances of Maurice Newman, Chair of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, suggesting that climate change is nothing more than an attempt to establish “a new world order under the UN”, engendered some hilarity. They should not, because his comments highlight a fundamental failure of leadership on the part of Australia’s elites which […]
Burning the Science Books
Didn’t work then, won’t work now Australia has an enviable reputation for scientific research, extending long before the hey-day of the CSIRO in the 1950s under the visionary leadership of Sir Robert Menzies and Sir Ian Clunies-Ross. On the hottest and driest continent on Earth, our prosperity would be non-existent had it not been for […]
Implications of Arctic Permafrost Thaw
Of the many “Elephants in the Room” in the climate change debate, none are larger than the potential release to atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane contained in the Arctic permafrost. Preliminary findings from the latest research, discussed at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) annual conference in San Francisco in December 2011, highlighted the extreme […]
Ian Dunlop at Amplify Festival 2011
The end is nigh! Or is it? Can the carbon tax save us, is there life after oil, what can we do as businesses and individuals to help the cause? A collection of insights from an energy expert with a 30 year career in gas and coal.
Trigger For Global Sustainability
From ABC radio’s Ockham’s Razor, 27 July 2008 … http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2313512.htm Ian Dunlop is Deputy Convener of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and warns that the oil supply will eventually run out and with that and the global warming issue in mind, we need to look for alternatives.