In the news

Demand for coal and gas in light of the Paris Agreement – what this means for Australia | Grattan Institute

Australia signed up to the Paris Agreement in December 2015 that committed to holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. The USA and China have ratified the Agreement. Australia signed the Agreement in April and is committed to ratifying by the close of 2016. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook report indicated that if the world’s governments meet this commitment, then the global demand for coal and gas follows a very different path from that contemplated in the 2015 Energy White Paper and in the planning of many Australian resource and energy companies.

In this State of Affairs event co-hosted by UQ Energy Initiative and Grattan Institute, a panel of experts will present and discuss with the audience a range of perspectives on what this means for Australia’s economy, its businesses and policy makers.

Australia must join gobal effort to meet climate budget | The Saturday Paper

What do you call a planet where the temperature sets a new record every month, where the northern ice cap is melting at disastrous pace, where drought and flood have begun to alternate with devastating relentlessness? You call it Earth, in 2016.

Australians have had a front row seat to the carnage. The oceans have warmed so much that only 7 per cent of the coral reefs across the Great Barrier Reef have completely avoided bleaching, and experts are saying the northern hemisphere is set for its worst reef-bleaching events this summer. In Tasmania, bushfires have ravaged more than 1000-year-old forests. In Sydney and the Pacific region, fierce storms have lashed the coast.

Dear Minister Frydenberg | Geoff Cousins, The Saturday Paper

Letter to the Minister
Congratulations on your appointment as minister for the environment and energy. The bringing together of these two portfolios for the first time could present a substantial opportunity for sound policy development in Australia.  More ..
 

The Economics of the Saudi’s “take-the-money-and-run” Strategy | Huffington Post

As the Financial Times reported on 12 July, Saudi Arabia’s oil-output reached record highs in June 2016. Increasing production 280,000 barrels/day to 10.6m b/d, Saudi Arabia has once again waved off OPEC’s request not to glut the market with oil. 

As it turns out, economic principles explain why the Saudis began, in late 2014, to pump crude as fast as they could - or close to as fast as possible. In fact, there is a good reason why the Saudi princes are panicked and pumping.