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Record rainfall hits parts of Toronto – video
Footage shows severe flooding across Toronto after the Canadian city was hit by three big storms in recent days. The Canadian rapper Drake shared a video on Instagram appearing to show parts of his home submerged in flood water. Authorities say the storm left 167,000 people without power and several flights were delayed or cancelled. At least 14 people were rescued
Continue reading...Londoners should be charged for paving gardens, says climate resilience report
Review says capital needs new reservoir, better flood defences and ‘heat plan’ for vulnerable people
Londoners who concrete over their gardens should be charged for doing so and given incentives to remove paving, a report to the mayor has recommended.
The city also needs a new reservoir, improved flood defences, and a “heat plan” to protect vulnerable residents from the increased risk of heatwaves, the report on the impact of the climate crisis has found.
Continue reading...Australia news live: Tony Burke announces independent administrator of CFMEU
Fair Work Commission’s Murray Furlong appointed as administrator of construction union. Follow the day’s news live
Tim Ayres flags ‘proportionate’ federal response to CFMEU
A Labor senator says that federal intervention into alleged criminal behaviour within the CFMEU will be effective and proportionate, AAP reports.
Tony and the team in there are doing the careful work of making sure that the government’s response is effective, well-weighted and effective.
While I don’t forecast the debates in terms of the national executive, we have received these requests from the premiers, we will act upon them, and we’ll act in accordance with the requests from the premiers.
We’re very blessed in this country. We don’t have a gun culture, we don’t have a history of political violence, we don’t at this point in time – thank God – have the fragmentation and polarisation that sadly exists in America to quite the same extent.
So look, can you rule these things out? Of course not. Do I expect it? Well, maybe some time in the next 100 or 200 years, sure. Almost anything could happen in that period of time. But is is imminent? I doubt it very much.
Continue reading...El cambio climático no es prioritario en la Convención Nacional Republicana
Vineyard Wind Turbine Breaks a Blade, Sending Pieces Ashore on Nantucket
Fact-Checking the Republican National Convention on Energy Claims
Firefighters contain wildfire threatening 200 homes on Hawaiian island of Kauai
Authorities asked residents of small, rural community to leave, nearly a year after deadliest US wildfire struck in Maui
Firefighters have contained a wind-swept wildfire that was threatening about 200 homes on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, nearly a year after an explosive blaze killed more than a hundred people on nearby Maui.
Residents of about 200 homes in a small, rural community on Kauai were told to evacuate on Monday, as firefighters worked to stop the spread of a fire between Hanapepe and Kaumakani.
Continue reading...Climate and the Republican Convention
‘This Storm Has Broken People’: After Beryl, Some Consider Leaving
Buses, trains and bicycle paths: Labour’s mission to decarbonise UK transport
Environment experts call for bold action as party attempts to revamp creaking infrastructure to hit net zero
Bolster bus services, build cycle paths, impose frequent flyer levies and reopen old railway lines to decarbonise the UK transport system, environment experts are urging, as the Labour party begins to lay out its plans.
The government’s proposals for rail nationalisation are likely to feature in the king’s speech on Wednesday – but experts warn far bolder steps will be needed to overhaul the UK’s creaking infrastructure to meet the net zero carbon goal.
Continue reading...Ask a Scientist: What Happens When Sea Level Rise Comes for Public Housing?
Rising seas threaten the viability of thousands of coastal communities in the US. Encroaching water means higher high tides that seep into streets and first floors, sunny-day flooding, and more water to fuel dangerous and destructive storm surges. So many buildings—homes, schools, hospitals, parks, fire stations—are clustered on our coasts, at risk of being regularly inundated with seawater, and built for a climate that no longer exists.
In some communities, disruptive flooding is already affecting necessary infrastructure, especially housing. This crisis converges with the US housing crisis.
Millions of people in the US already struggle to find adequate and affordable housing, to pay bills and expenses while also paying exorbitant rents or mortgages. They are a personal calamity away from losing their homes. For those with low incomes who rely on public and affordable housing, there’s far more demand than supply: according to the U.S. nonprofit National Low-Income Housing Coalition, there’s a national shortage of more than seven million affordable homes for nearly eleven million extremely low-income families.
The UCS report Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience, which predicts risks across a range of infrastructure such as schools, power stations, and hospitals, finds that public and affordable housing represent the largest category of assets at risk of regular inundation.
Report co-author Rachel Cleetus, Policy Director, and Zoe Middleton, Associate Director of Just Climate Resilience—both for the UCS Climate and Energy Program—took the time to expand on the implications of their findings for public and affordable housing and sound the alarm for policymakers about the waning time to meaningfully address these concurrent crises.
AAS: In your opinion, what’s the worst-case scenario for this intersection of increased coastal flooding and public housing in harm’s way?
Zoe Middleton: We know what happens when public housing is lost, right? We’ve seen it in disasters already. It takes a very, very long time to rebuild. People are frequently displaced from their communities of origin and their support networks. There’s this great family-level disruption, but there’s also a large cultural disruption. And the issue of recovery gets incredibly politicized.
For example, in Galveston, Texas, where most public housing was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008, the reconstruction of units was delayed by more than a decade. And our report found public housing on the island—which has a severe shortage of affordable housing—is at risk again due to high tides and extreme weather.
Rachel Cleetus: The context here is that as a nation, we’ve significantly under-invested in affordable housing. We are in an acute affordable housing crisis across the board, and it has a disproportionate impact on low-income families.
Not only has there been an under-investment in building enough housing, there’s also been a backlog of maintenance that’s been deferred, and a lot of these houses are not in great repair. And so, this is intersecting with the climate crisis and making everything worse because as our study is showing, a lot of this housing is now going to be vulnerable to high tide flooding—even without storms.
In the middle of what’s already an affordable housing crisis, losing any units will be devastating. And just the regular flooding itself can impose further deterioration on this housing stock, along with issues like mold and power outages. All those kinds of things start to have ripple effects.
AAS: Why is it so difficult to build new affordable housing, and make existing public and affordable housing climate-resilient?
Zoe Middleton: It’s very hard to build new public housing because of the 1998 Faircloth Amendment [which caps the number of units that any public housing authority can build]. Instead, there are set-asides for affordable units in developments, and tax credit programs—which are now the biggest vehicle for developing affordable housing. It will take massive investment by the federal government to build the amount of affordable housing we need, and further government action to strengthen housing rights in this country.
Rachel Cleetus: As Zoe is saying, we’ve shifted to this model where affordable housing units are often privately owned, and there’s a contract with the local municipality or the state that they’re providing some units at an affordable rate. There isn’t a lot of ability to ensure that enough high-quality affordable housing is being provided. And there’s a lot of land zoning that is contrary to providing more space for this—many communities that require single-family zoning and don’t allow multifamily units. And that’s one way of just creating and reinforcing enclaves of privilege. I live in Massachusetts, and even in a forward-looking, fairly liberal blue state, I’m seeing these dynamics of NIMBYism.
You can’t think about housing on its own. We’re talking about a continuum, and it’s part of the system that’s delivering very inequitable outcomes. Housing is connected to transit. It’s connected to jobs. People need opportunities to get jobs easily, to be able to afford to live in the places where they work. And right now, as a nation, we’re creating a society where the people who are doing some of the most critical work cannot live in the communities in which they’re delivering those services, whether it’s teaching our children in schools, or fighting fires, or day laborers who are doing outdoor construction work in our neighborhoods.
With climate risks accelerating, these issues are going to become more and more acute. And it’s important when we think about resources and policies that can help, to not just focus them on people who have political power and relatively more resources. For example, in disaster recovery, often the focus is on single-family homes and homeowners. So, folks who are renters often get left out of critical programs to get back on their feet after disasters. They are subject to the whims of whoever the developers or the landlords are.
AAS: People living in public and affordable housing are often among millions in communities designated by the federal government as “disadvantaged,” overburdened and underserved. Your report found that these communities contain nearly twice as many at-risk assets per capita as non-disadvantaged communities. It’s difficult enough to fund climate resilience measures for privileged communities—what are the challenges for communities with fewer resources?
Rachel Cleetus: In our report, we find that there’s a lot of co-location of affordable and public housing in places that are overburdened with pollution, including in places that were formerly redlined. And this is no accident. The fact that they’re also exposed to flooding is just sadly unsurprising. It’s basically a series of cumulative harms that communities are being exposed to. I think it’s crucial for us to convey that this is not a new problem. There’s now a new risk, and it’s compounding and making worse a system that was already not delivering the needed outcomes.
One other fact in the report, which our colleagues at the National Low Income Housing Coalition flagged for us: that a number of households in public and affordable housing have a member of the household who is mobility impaired in some way. And that can make it even more challenging to prepare for flooding-related disasters. Some people seem to think it’s easy to evacuate, or even move—that you just get up and go. It’s important to recognize who is being served by this housing, and what their needs are.
So how can we now get back to root causes? Why have we as a nation not invested in affordable housing? And as we build climate resilience, we must be mindful of not reinforcing the current crisis of affordability. Climate resilience shouldn’t be the latest frontier of gentrification.
AAS: What are some of the solutions you identify in your report that can help people living in affordable and public housing?
Zoe Middleton: One of the most immediate things we can do is protect and improve existing public and affordable housing. That could look like weatherizing properties for added climate resilience, and investing in clean energy upgrades. Given the dire shortage of affordable housing, governments have an obligation to make sure that resilience measures are accessible and affordable.
Rachel Cleetus: There is an acute affordable housing crisis right now that everyone in the nation recognizes, and it’s time for Congress to put more investment into solving this problem. And as we do it, let’s make sure that we’re targeting resources specifically to the lowest-income households, and those on fixed incomes—the whole range of folks who often are left behind in these conversations. There’s a lot of talk about revitalizing urban spaces, which has often translated into gentrification. Certain policies can sound good, but it’s important to figure out who they’re serving, and who’s benefiting.
As you see in the report, there’s a twin imperative: we also must cut heat-trapping emissions. Let’s not continue to put more and more people in harm’s way.
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Citizens’ assemblies could work wonders for Labour and Britain – but only if they’re more than a talking shop | Richard Wilson
In France and Ireland, assemblies are laboratories of democracy. They can be here too, if politicians commit to adopting their ideas
Keir Starmer has made it clear he will govern for everyone, “country first, party second”. This is the kind of thing all new prime ministers say on the steps of Downing Street, but I sense that with Starmer it’s different. At some point in Labour’s first 100 days, I think the leadership will announce a major citizens’ assembly for the UK. His staff have been visiting the team behind the Irish citizens’ assembly, which created new political mandates on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. If Labour gets this right, it could be the key to galvanising the nation around its manifesto commitments.
Citizens’ assemblies are groups of people selected by lottery, much like jury service. They are demographically representative of the place in question, and they can help build consensus around divisive issues, and inform the public of policy nuances in areas where there is likely to be resistance and misinformation. They can also build solidarity between people, and give citizens a stake in political change. This is particularly relevant in areas such as health and net zero, on which communities can become divided at implementation. Just look at the conversation around vaccines, for instance, or the anti-Ulez protests.
Richard Wilson is the CEO of Iswe Foundation
Continue reading...It May Feel Like 100 Degrees in New York on Tuesday
Matt Kean tells clean energy industry to speak out against vested interests ‘undermining the transition’
Former NSW Liberal minister calls on renewables sector to ‘put your mouth where your money is’ in first speech as incoming Climate Change Authority chair
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The incoming Climate Change Authority chair Matt Kean has issued a call to arms for the clean energy industry to “enter the arena” and push back against vested interests seeking to erode public confidence in renewable energy.
Kean, a former energy minister in New South Wales and Liberal MP for another three weeks, told the Australian Clean Energy Summit 2024 in Sydney the industry had the science and the financial heft to counter the “propaganda” of vested fossil fuel interests.
Continue reading...Can the climate survive AI’s thirst for energy? – podcast
Artificial intelligence companies have lofty ambitions for what the technology could achieve, from curing diseases to eliminating poverty. But the energy required to power these innovations is threatening critical environmental targets.
Madeleine Finlay hears from the Guardian’s energy correspondent, Jillian Ambrose, and UK technology editor, Alex Hern, to find out how big AI’s energy problem is, and whether it can be solved before it is too late
Continue reading...Queensland climate protester fined $5,000 under laws last used during Bjelke-Petersen era
The 71-year-old Dr Lee Coaldrake pleaded guilty to disturbing the legislature, an offence that dates back to the ‘pineapple rebellion’ of 1939
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A 71-year-old retired anaesthetist fined $5,000 for “disturbing” Queensland parliament has avoided jail for her role in a brief but raucous climate demonstration 20 months ago.
On Tuesday, Dr Lee Coaldrake pleaded guilty to disturbing the legislature, an offence created in response to the “pineapple rebellion” of 1939 in which a group of disgruntled farmers armed with barbed wire and batons tried to hold the government hostage – and one last used more than 30 years ago under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government.
Continue reading...Australia news live: review recommends overhaul of road tolls across Sydney; clean energy head blasts ‘bad-faith actors’ stoking renewables opposition
Report led by Allan Fels suggests tolls could be reduced overall and made fairer by unifying the city’s paid roads under a consistent rate. Follow today’s news headlines live
Weather update for Victoria and New South Wales: rain, floods, gusts and snow
Angus Hines, a senior meteorologist from the Bureau of Meteorology, spoke with ABC News Breakfast earlier to provide an update on the rainfall across Victoria.
That has given us minor to moderate flood warnings including in parts of the Yarra River this morning, as all of the rain from last night and yesterday evening drains out through the river network and out towards the ocean.
Take actions to protect your life and property against potential hazards caused by flooding.
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