The Australian authority that regulates pesticides has finally released its long-delayed review of the rodenticide poisons used by millions of Australians to combat rat and mice infestations.

As researchers who study Australia’s amazing native owls (and more recently, the rodenticide poisoning of wildlife), we were extremely hopeful about its findings. We thought this review would make world-leading recommendations that would protect wildlife and set the global standard for regulating these toxic compounds.

Instead, the recommendations from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) leave Australians still reliant on rodent poisons that are responsible for most of the documented impacts on wildlife globally.

Why these poisons are a wildlife problem

Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) which include brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone, difenacoum and flocoumafen, are the core problem. These extremely potent poisons prevent normal blood clotting processes and ultimately lead to death, often via uncontrollable internal bleeding.

When a rat or mouse eats a SGAR-based bait, the poison remains in its body for up to a year. This is how it ultimately passes to predators and scavengers such as owls, frogmouths, raptors, quolls and goannas that eat the poisoned animal.

These native animals die slowly and painfully. This process, known as secondary poisoning, is well documented in predators in Australia and globally.

What the review found

The review acknowledges the science and highlights the risks that SGARs pose, not only to our wildlife and fragile ecosystems but also potentially to humans.

However, despite the risks and advice from scientists to ban SGARs, the review proposes keeping SGARs as the primary tool for Australia’s war on rodents. It described them as an “unacceptable risk”, but stopped short of recommending a blanket ban.

The review argues SGARs remain essential for rodent control, especially with rodents developing some resistance to older poisons. The proposed changes focus on mitigating exposure risk to non-rodents. These include changes to labels and the way bait is delivered, and packaging controls. Under these changes, SGARs will remain widely available to the public.

Ultimately the real difficulty – not adequately addressed – is broader than simply preventing non-rodents from consuming baits. The real issue lies with the nature of the toxins themselves.

These poisons are highly effective at killing rodents, but they do not kill them quickly. After eating poisoned bait, a doomed “zombie” rodent will remain alive for several days, potentially up to a week. During this time, their behaviour changes. Normally cautious, these nocturnal animals become slower, disoriented and far more likely to be eaten by predators such as owls (or even your pet cat or dog).

Crucially, these poisoned “zombie” rodents can continue to eat more poisoned bait. By the time they die, they may contain very high concentrations of rodenticide.

Secondary poisoning is a predictable outcome

When a predator eats a poisoned rodent (or any other poisoned species), it also ingests its poison. This is unlikely to cause immediate death, but SGARs accumulate in the liver and remain there for up to a year. With repeated consumption of poisoned animals, the predator reaches a toxic threshold and dies.

Unfortunately, secondary poisoning is not an accidental or a misuse scenario. It is a highly predictable outcome of allowing the use of poisons in our ecosystems that accumulate in the body.

Paradoxically, the animals most affected by SGARs are the very species that help control mice and rat populations naturally. Predators such as owls breed more slowly than rodents. When rodenticides kill predators in urban and agricultural landscapes, rodent problems often worsen and spur further reliance on poisons. This creates a damaging feedback loop that Australia has been reinforcing for decades, one not addressed by the proposed changes.

Many researchers, including our colleagues and ourselves, argued during this review that meaningful reform requires either banning SGARs in Australia completely or severely restricting access so they are not available to the public. Other countries such as Switzerland and Canada have reached similar conclusions, and responded by significantly limiting access to these compounds with the intent of banning them.

Australia’s proposed changes move in the wrong direction, and leave us considerably behind much of the developed world. Australia will continue using rodenticides that cause the greatest harm, such as SGARs. And lower-risk alternatives that use the First Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticide (FGAR), such as Warfarin, face cancellation because they do not contain chemicals that make them bitter – an aspect to try and make them less attractive to non-rodent species.

Warfarin-based baits are safer as they do not accumulate in the body of poisoned animals to the same extent and they are expelled from the body more quickly, reducing the risk of secondary poisoning.

Restriction will protect wildlife

This review could have broken the cycle of poisoning native Australian predators in the name of rodent control. Instead, it preserves a system that does not work here, or anywhere else in the world.

If Australia is serious about protecting its wildlife while managing rodents effectively, it must confront the role of SGARs directly. Adjusting labels and packaging cannot solve a problem driven by the chemistry of the poisons themselves.

We simply must do better. Until access to these compounds is meaningfully restricted, secondary poisoning will remain an inevitable – and entirely preventable – outcome. Many native animals will continue to die slow and painful deaths.

John White, Associate Professor in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Deakin University and Raylene Cooke, Professor in wildlife and conservation biology, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

There’s a reason political commentators refer to Australia’s “climate wars”. Every time a climate policy is put on the table, supporters and opponents come out in force and duke it out.

Last year, debates over Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions target led to a heated contest between various groups such as the Climate Council — arguing for strong action — and others such as the Business Council of Australia, which commissioned modelling to highlight the economic costs of a strong target.

This was not a one-off. Since at least the 1990s, emissions-intensive industries such as coal and gas and their lobby groups have had an outsized influence on climate policy. This includes groups such as the Minerals Council of Australia, which represents BHP, Rio Tinto and Whitehaven Coal, and Australian Energy Producers, which lobbies on behalf of BP, Shell and Woodside, among others.

Until now, we did not have a good understanding of who mobilises on climate policy in Australia, what side of the issue they fall on, and in which arenas they mobilise. In our new research, we found a core set of only 20 groups dominating climate policy debate in Australia, including gas corporations, industry lobby groups, environmental NGOs, and think tanks.

Who are these groups?

To find out which groups are most influential, we collected data on all organisations active on climate policy in Australia between 2017 and 2022. This included examining the number of groups as well as their volume of activity in the executive branch of government (responsible for implementing and enforcing laws, managing day-to-day administration and setting policy), the parliament and the media.

For example, we identified 700,000 mentions of groups in articles about climate change from 13 media outlets, including The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald.

As well as media records, we also built a database of organisations who actively consulted with government departments and provided evidence to parliamentary inquiries.

We found 20 groups accounted for more than half (52%) of all activity.

They included a mix of mining and energy firms, such as AGL, BHP and Rio Tinto and their lobby groups, such as the Minerals Council of Australia. It also included high-profile NGOs, such as the Climate Council, and think tanks active on climate policy, including the Australia Institute and the Grattan Institute.

It’s important to note we didn’t look at the content of the messages in the media, the parliament or in departmental consultations, just the number of organisations and the frequency of their activity.

Where do these groups stand on climate action? tweaked

Among the 20 groups, some are strong supporters of climate action, such as the Climate Council. By contrast, the Minerals Council of Australia has a long history of opposing climate policies dating back to the Kyoto Protocol in the 2000s and the short-lived carbon price in the 2010s.

Interestingly, there are more pro-climate groups than anti-climate groups. Most NGOs in our study tended to support action on climate change, including the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace and WWF.

Many of the business groups do not. But it’s not as black and white as this might suggest. Firms and business advocacy groups are not unified. A growing number of renewable energy companies now mobilise in support of climate policy, often through advocacy groups such as the Smart Energy Council.

Interestingly, many industries active on climate policy don’t have a hardwired position. Rather, they sometimes support and sometimes oppose climate policy. This is often because their commercial interests are only indirectly impacted by climate policies, such as firms in the technology or finance industries.

These somewhat “neutral” groups actually account for the majority of groups active on climate policy in Australia.

Does this vary by arena?

We also explored whether some groups dominate the media more than the parliament, or the parliament more than the executive. For example, are environmental NGOs more active in the media than in Senate hearings? Are business groups more active in consultations with the government departments that make up the executive branch of government?

Interestingly, we found the media is the only arena where fossil fuel interests dominate. For example, groups typically opposed to climate action represent 43% of all media mentions, compared to 20% in support and 36% neutral.

This begs the question – why does the media appear to have a strong bias for reporting pro-fossil fuel messages?

One explanation consistent with overseas studies is simply that messages from business coalitions and very large businesses are more likely to receive media coverage than other types of organisations, such as environmental NGOs.

These organisations are likely to have high standing in the media because they are viewed as key players in policy debates with inside knowledge. Certainly in Australia, the largest firms and lobby groups mobilised on climate change are tied to? fossil fuel industries.

Do these groups matter?

As we sweat through another of the hottest summers on record, the federal government will rightly remain under pressure to put in place further policies to cut carbon pollution. In fact, recent polling shows one in two Australians want action on climate change “even if this involves significant costs”.

Who mobilises to support or oppose climate policies will likely have a big influence on policy outcomes such as increasing renewable electricity in the grid, phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles or stopping new coal and gas projects

Our research shows a core set of groups, including firms in the coal and gas industries, that are likely to have an outsized voice in such policy debates.

While this does not always equate to influence, it is an important precondition. In the media in particular, it appears fossil fuel interests have the loudest voice.

Christian Downie, Professor of Political Science, School of Regulation and Global Governance, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.

On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.

Australia’s long, complicated and difficult energy transition is finally working. As our recent research suggests, if these trends continue – and nothing new goes wrong – we should begin to see lower retail electricity bills by mid-2026. As more coal plants close and new transmission and storage infrastructure is delivered, electricity prices could rise again. But overall, shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.

It’s not yet job done and challenges remain, but the immediate trends are positive.

Renewables and batteries up, wholesale prices down

Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.

Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.

That doesn’t mean consumers will see immediate benefit, as wholesale prices are only about 40% of a power bill and most retailers move prices once a year. But if lower wholesale prices are sustained, it should begin to bring relief to consumers.

Power system holding up under strain

Last quarter was unusually good for the system. In recent years, many ageing coal plants have become less reliable. But the old plants held up at critical times. Rain filled Snowy Hydro’s reservoirs, giving hydro power a boost, while solar and wind produced well.

In early January, intense bushfires ripped through grasslands, forests and several Victorian towns. Some areas lost power when timber power poles burned or when trees fell on transmission lines. Sustained heat can cause power substations or transformers to fail more often. But these issues were mostly localised.

Until recently, summer heatwaves put real strain on the power grid, as millions of people fired up their air conditioners at once. But this summer, the system largely dealt fine. Not only were most fossil generators available most of the time, but high output from rooftop solar pairs exceptionally well with demand for air-conditioning.

Electricity storage expanding

Until very recently, electricity had to be made immediately before use. Storing it was only possible in expensive and uncommon pumped hydro facilities. This is why batteries are proving revolutionary. For the first time, power can be made and easily stored for later use.

Plummeting battery prices have led to a surge in installations in Australia. Since 2024, close to 4,000 megawatts of grid storage has come online. Until recently, grid batteries found more use stabilising the grid than powering it. But the growing fleet of grid-scale batteries is now beginning to outcompete gas by soaking up surplus solar and wind and releasing it during evening peaks.

At smaller scale, the government’s home battery rebate has been hugely popular, leading to cost blowouts and very rapid uptake. Many householders have found them a lifeline during power outages.

In the future, medium-scale community batteries able to power towns or suburbs could help boost grid resilience.

Transmission delays mean coal is needed longer

Hitting higher levels of renewables will require new transmission lines. Some of these are on track, but others are well behind.

This is one reason NSW’s Eraring coal plant will sensibly keep running until 2029. Delays completing the new NSW-South Australia transmission line, EnergyConnect, also pushed back the planned closure of the Torrens Island gas power plant near Adelaide.

Gas plays an important role

Gas will be needed for longer than coal, given it can fire up quickly and fill gaps when wind and sun aren’t abundant. It won’t be used much, but will be an essential backup.

The role of gas is changing, but the gas market has its own challenges. Governments are trying to address longstanding gas market problems. Late last year, the federal government flagged a mandatory east coast gas reservation scheme.

Victoria at the pointy end

There are problems looming for Victoria, Australia’s most gas-dependent state. Bass Strait wells are running dry and most of Queensland and WA’s gas is exported as liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Victorian government recently opened up new areas for gas exploration after previously rejecting the idea.

A new plan by federal, state and territory energy ministers may see the Australian Energy Market Operator gain more power to intervene in the gas market, potentially through contracting for new infrastructure such as pipelines and import terminals.

The state government is trying to shift away from gas, but it’s a slow process.

The Victorian government has high hopes for offshore wind farms to take advantage of the stronger and more reliable winds whipping across Bass Strait. But progress towards the goal of 2 gigawatts by 2032 has been slow and no turbines have yet been installed.

Some developers have withdrawn applications amid global uncertainty and delays to the auction process. Last week, Victoria announced the process would finally begin in August. The question is whether there’s enough time left to replace retiring coal plants with new offshore wind.

Yes, it’s progress

It wasn’t so long ago it was popular to claim Australia’s grid could never accommodate more than 20% renewables. Now we’re at 50%.

That’s not to say it will be smooth sailing. The government’s goal of 82% renewables in four years looks to be a stretch. But it’s clear real progress is being made – and not a moment too soon.

Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is an energy superpower. We have abundant natural resources, high average incomes and one of the highest per-capita rates of rooftop solar uptake in the world.

Yet every summer, many households across the country skimp on cooling, fear their next energy bill, or risk disconnection during extreme heat. Economists call this phenomenon “summer energy poverty” which can force households to make impossible choices between staying cool or putting food on the table.

Australia’s January heatwave broke multiple temperature records and led to significant spikes in emergency room visits. Climate change means such extreme weather events are likely to become more common in future.

Energy stress is often framed as an affordability problem, driven by electricity prices that are too high or incomes that are too low. But it both reflects and drives wider social and economic inequality, extending well beyond the simple cost of power bills.

Our research shows key drivers of energy stress are differences in wealth, a lack of emergency savings and whether people are renters. This is the case even comparing people with similar income.

More than an affordability issue

First, it’s important to understand the difference between income and wealth, which are related but not the same thing. Broadly speaking, income is the money you earn from work, benefits or investments. Wealth is the total value of what you own – your savings, property or other assets – minus any debts.

Importantly, income fluctuates. Wealth reflects a household’s ability to absorb shocks.

Our research suggests wealth matters more than income in energy hardship. Households without savings or emergency funds of a few thousand dollars are far more exposed to energy stress.

Even small shocks, such as hotter summers, rent increases and unexpected expenses can lock households into repeated bill arrears. Those who previously struggled to pay bills were 47% more likely to face similar struggles next year.

Energy stress can be less a temporary setback and more a poverty trap.

A system built for households with buffers

Energy systems work best for households with secure housing, financial buffers and control over their energy choices. Time-of-use pricing is one example. It charges more for electricity during peak hours and less when demand is lower.

This is designed to shift demand away from peak periods, improving efficiency. But peaks often coincide with essential needs: cooling during heatwaves, cooking after work or running medical equipment.

For households with caring responsibilities, chronic illness or inflexible work hours, it can be very difficult to move their power use without real harm.

What is often presented as “smart” market design can impose higher costs on those with the least flexibility and higher needs for cooling or heating.

In Australia, dynamic tariffs are being rolled out, particularly in states with high solar uptake, because electricity is cheapest when the sun is shining and more expensive at other times.

However, wealthier households can much more easily respond to dynamic tariffs, by investing in rooftop solar, battery storage, electric vehicles and automated energy management systems.

Owners and renters

A further divide appears between those who own their own homes and those who rent.

Solar panels and batteries mostly benefit households that can afford upfront investment and own their homes. Government incentives have boosted uptake, but mainly help those who are already wealthy.

This leaves renters, lower-income households and those in public housing behind.

Housing quality matters too. Poor insulation and inefficient appliances increase energy vulnerability. Renters, particularly in social housing and Indigenous households are most exposed.

The problem of prepaid power

Our research also found Indigenous households are at least 14% more likely to experience energy stress through being unable to pay bills on time.

Energy stress is even worse in remote Australia. Around 65,000 Indigenous Australians rely on prepayment systems and experience an average of 49 disconnections a year. These systems, meant to help households budget better by requiring payment in advance, often worsen energy insecurity because power is automatically cut off when credit runs out.

As heatwaves become the norm, is energy a basic right?

Affordable energy for everyday needs is central to health and wellbeing. However, what looks efficient for the energy system can leave some households worse off – with the benefits flowing mostly to those who are already well-off.

An energy-just system treats energy as essential infrastructure, not a market luxury. Equity will not emerge automatically from markets or technology.

Recent electricity rebates went to all households, but arguably would have helped more if targeted to those in greatest need. Our research suggests policy responses need to go beyond short-term fixes.

As parts of Australia may become “unliveable” under extreme heat, improving housing standards is a must. Seven-star energy efficiency standards and large-scale retrofits in low-income housing can reduce energy stress for all households, including renters.

Access to clean energy should also expand beyond the reach of wealth and homeowners, through subsidised solar in public housing and shared programs such as community solar banks, which let renters and apartment residents benefit from solar power and battery storage.

Ultimately, policy should tackle the deeper drivers of energy stress, inequalities in wealth and housing, while helping households build financial resilience, for example through access to emergency funds for bills.

Duygu Yengin, Associate Professor of Economics, Adelaide University ; Andrew Taylor, Associate Professor in Demography, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University; Maneka Jayasinghe, Professor of Economics, Charles Darwin University, and Rohan Best, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

There has been much global discussion about the best ways to manage Earth’s forests in an era of climate change and more frequent bushfires.

Some foresters and forest managers support and recommend large-scale industrial thinning of forests, where a proportion of the trees are removed (thinned) with machines to increase the size of the remaining trees. Thinning is commonly used in timber plantations, as it accelerates the development of timber trees.

In its new forest plan, the Victorian government has funded a “healthy forests” program. This will likely entail reducing the number of trees in the forest and increasing the space between trees. This plan could lead to extensive mechanical thinning in the state’s forests. Large-scale mechanical thinning has already been used in native forests in western Victoria.

Plans for mechanical thinning of forests raises important questions: what effect will this have? Could it be harmful? And is it necessary for forest health?

In our new study, we describe how mountain ash forests naturally change over time, from young, dense and uniform forests 15 years after wildfire, to forests with lower densities of large trees (and smaller trees) in older age. Our work suggests human intervention is not needed to reduce the density of trees or create a diversity of tree sizes needed for wildlife.

What we know about thinning

Some research suggests thinning can reduce the risk of severe wildfires in some forests (such as some pine forests in the United States). But in other types of forests, including in some of Australia’s eucalypt forests, thinning either has no effect on fire or can even make fires worse. Indeed, Australian forestry management manuals clearly warn of increased fire risks from thinning.

Thinning has also been shown to increase water yield and drought resilience in some forests (including tall eucalypt forest), but these benefits are short-lived as plants quickly regenerate in the new gaps formed by thinning.

Last October, the Victorian government released its Future of State Forests report. It describes a “healthy forests” program in which widespread mechanical thinning is very likely to be employed. Large-scale mechanical thinning has already been used in native forests in western Victoria, such as the Wombat State Forest, to reduce trunk density and increase space between trees. Current government policy will likely see it applied in the state’s Central Highlands and East Gippsland.

Using mechanical thinning can be counterproductive. For example, thinning with large machines can compact soils, increase the risk of bushfire, degrade habitat for wildlife, and produce carbon emissions. It’s also expensive (in the US, it costs about $US1270 ($A1830) per hectare, with the costs likely to significantly outweigh the short-term benefits.

What many people might not realise is forest trees naturally reduce and “thin” over time. This reduction happens as the size of the remaining trunks increase, a process of natural “self thinning”. In fact, natural self-thinning is a key ecological principle that shapes almost all forests and woodlands globally.

What we found in Victorian forests

In our new study, we describe the process of natural self-thinning in Victorian forests of mountain ash, the tallest flowering plants in the world.

Our work quantifies how these forests naturally reduce the numbers of trees by 50 to 60%, from young forests regenerating from fires in 2009, through to old growth forests (greater than 120 years). This natural self-thinning occurs because less competitive trees lose the race for light and other resources and die.

As mountain ash forests matured, the number of trees declined naturally and markedly. In young forests (15 years old) tree densities were high (7000 trees per hectare), but in old forests (120 years old) tree densities were much lower (1450 trees per hectare). Not all tree species reduced at the same magnitude as others. For example, young forests were dominated by thousands of wattles and eucalypts per hectare. This profile changed significantly in old growth forests to less than 100 eucalypt trees and about 20 wattle trees per hectare on average.

In a mountain ash forest, the number of trees on a given site also varied if it was on a steep slope or flat area, and at different elevations. This variation is likely to be the result of light, moisture and soil properties.

Importantly, as the number of trees in mountain ash forests reduce naturally over time, trees become larger and more varied in size. This is because older forests contain trees of different ages, some shorter and smaller, and others larger and taller. Other studies have shown forests with a diversity of tree sizes are important for animals such as arboreal marsupials and birds.

What forests look like without intervention

Our new study of natural self-thinning is significant for many reasons. First, it sets the benchmark for how large trees will grow in mountain ash forests over time, and what these forests look like without human intervention. This can be used to guide restoration practices. Second, it demonstrates mechanical thinning is not needed to help these forests to develop into older stages.

Getting forest management right is critical — under the current climate, forests face a hotter and more uncertain future. Evidence-based ecological management is essential in forests and we must aim to avoid risky management, such as the use of widespread mechanical thinning in these forests.

Instead, the limited funding available for forest management should be employed to support other restoration activities with a higher chance of success. These could include targeting areas of forest where restoration has failed after past logging operations. Logging has devastated Victoria’s native forests, and new research shows 20% has failed to grow back.

Forest managers and policymakers need to understand mountain ash forests naturally self-thin and interventions like mechanical thinning are not needed. At best, large-scale mechanical thinning operations are essentially a waste of money. At worst, they degrade forests, making them more flammable, eroding habitat, compromising water security and compacting soils.

Elle Bowd, Research Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University and David Lindenmayer, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In the 1960s, major oil-producing nations formed a cartel to drive up the price of oil. It worked. For decades, nations in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have agreed to manage supply and raise prices.

Economists have long recognised cartel market power can bring accidental environmental benefits. By driving up prices, demand for polluting products drops. One recent analysis found OPEC’s actions had avoided 67 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions between 1971 and 2021 – equivalent to around three years of global oil consumption.

There’s no OPEC for thermal coal. However, Australia and Indonesia together account for around two thirds of seaborne thermal coal exports. If these two nations began acting in tandem to end the approval of new mines, falling future supply would gradually increase prices.

Our recent research points out that a formal treaty to phase out new thermal coal mine approvals would not only bring climate benefits, but could also benefit national budgets, state royalties and regional jobs.

What we’re proposing blends climate action and self-interest. If restricting coal supply boosted prices, producer states would benefit from increased royalties. Owners and workers at existing mines would benefit from stabilising prices. Finally, the green energy transition would be protected from being undermined by a race to consume ultra-cheap coal.

In the 1970s, OPEC’s engineering of higher oil prices drove a shift to more fuel-efficient cars and triggered intense interest in alternative energy sources such as solar. In our time, solar, wind and energy storage have come of age. A treaty to end new coal mines would make the shift even more appealing.

What would this look like?

If Australia, Indonesia and others formed a new “Organisation for Coal Transition”, the environmental motivation wouldn’t be the only difference with OPEC. For a start, a much high share of oil is traded internationally than coal, as more countries have their own coal supplies.

But major coal importers such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan now depend on seaborne coal. These nations are committed to accelerating climate action overall and have shown signs of structural demand decline already. Stronger coal prices would spur on the change.

The limited number of major coal exporters also creates potential for cooperation. In 2024, Indonesia controlled almost half of global exports, while Australia’s share was nearly 20%. Projections. If South Africa and Colombia joined a treaty alongside Australia and Indonesia, they would together account for 80% of seaborne exports.

What’s more, a thermal coal export treaty would not be easy to undermine. It takes years to get new mines producing, and deepwater ports able to take coal carriers are limited.

Coal importers could reinforce this treaty, pledging to buy from treaty members alone. Japan and South Korea (which account for 20% of global coal imports) are both seeking a predictable energy transition. These countries have shown willingness to pay a green premium and are investors in existing mines.

Australia has no exit strategy

Despite efforts to close domestic coal plants, Australian policymakers have done nothing to limit coal mining and exports.

New South Wales and Queensland state governments still benefit significantly through royalties and regional jobs. Australia’s coal exports, mine expansion approvals and new applications show little sign of slowing.

This is an increasingly risky strategy. With profit margins falling from recent highs and shifting demand in key markets, the thermal coal industry risks a chaotic future for mining towns.

While policymakers are beginning to focus on transition challenges for a small number of coal mines slated to close, they have largely avoided active intervention. After the NSW Productivity Commission and Net Zero Commission recommended limiting new coal mine approvals, Premier Chris Minns described the idea as “irresponsible”.

A ban backed by industry?

For operators of existing mines, agreeing to limit expansion opportunities is a challenging proposition. But the longer-term benefits would be much clearer if it was coordinated with international competitors and supported by buyers.

The coal export sector is showing signs of shifting to a buyers’ market, as long-term demand plateaus and then declines. This puts exporters such as Australia, Colombia, Indonesia and South Africa at a clear disadvantage.

We’ve already seen the fallout of coal’s market-driven decline in the United States’ Appalachian region Repeating the same mistake would undermine regional communities.

If, however, the shift was well managed, it would be a crucial step towards a coordinated just transition.

Japanese, Chinese, South Korean, Indian and Singaporean firms hold major stakes in Australian and Indonesian coal projects. These investors would benefit if existing assets are safeguarded from oversupply. These same investors would likely rally against more forceful interventions to close existing mines or raise mining taxes.

Climate action for pragmatists

Thermal coal is still mined in almost 60 countries. But only 11 have new mines seeking approval. At the same time, key international importers such as China, India, the European Union, Japan and South Korea are actively aiming to cut coal imports. A no-new-mines treaty would meet countries where they are.

What we are proposing is a pragmatic way to advance climate action. Rather than shuttering existing mines and risking blowback, the treaty and its cartel logic would align Australia’s economic self-interest and its climate goals.

At the United Nations climate talks last year, federal Minister for Climate and Energy Chris Bowen supported efforts to map a fossil fuel phase-out. To date, there’s no clarity on how Australia, a fossil fuel export giant, could do that.

Firmly closing the door to new mines alongside other exporters could offer a way to do this while giving policymakers agency.

The approach we’re proposing wouldn’t end coal use. But it would solve several problems at a stroke – and take a big step forward in the energy transition.

Jonathan Symons, Director of Research and Innovation, School of International Studies, Macquarie University and Chris Wright, PhD Candidate in Environmental Policy, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In early January, authorities from South Australia’s Department of Primary Industries took to the streets of Adelaide on the hunt for a suspicious individual.

This individual had been spotted several times in the preceding weeks: they had red cheeks, brown wings and a black crest. It was a red-whiskered bulbul — a non-native bird, often seen around Sydney and Wollongong but not normally present in SA. Most Australians have likely never heard of a red-whiskered bulbul, much less seen one. But these birds have been living here since the First World War.

A spokesperson for the state explained why one little bird was causing such a fuss:

the red-whiskered bulbul is a high-risk pest bird that can damage SA’s vineyards and orchards by eating soft fruit, flower buds and insects, potentially reducing yields or causing crop failure

Is this bulbul really a harbinger of catastrophe for SA’s fruitgrowers? As a historian who researches introduced species in Australia, I suspect there is more at stake here than a few grapes and cherries.

Australia is a country forged through suspicion and fear of outsiders – a theme still prevalent in politics today. The bulbul first arrived here in the heyday of the White Australia Policy, and at the time, its Asian origin influenced the way Australians reacted to it. Could this history still influence attitudes towards it today?

First bulbuls were likely escapees

The red-whiskered bulbul’s “natural range” — where it lived before humans transported it elsewhere — includes much of India, southern China and Southeast Asia. But humans have brought it to places as far apart as Mauritius, Hawaii and Florida, as well as Australia.

Many of the birds Australians see every day have been introduced since the beginning of colonisation. This is true of domesticated birds such as chickens and pigeons, brought here on the First Fleet in 1788. In the 19th century, “acclimatisers” — naturalists who made it their mission to move species of animal and plant across the globe — successfully introduced several species of wild bird, such as blackbirds and common (or “Indian”) mynas.

Bulbul populations appeared almost simultaneously in both Sydney and Melbourne in the late 1910s. The bulbul was a popular pet at the time, and it’s probable these populations arose from aviary escapees. (This seems to be how the bird became established in the wild in other regions such as Florida.)

At first, the bird prompted not much more than curiosity. Some warned its penchant for fruit would lead it to becoming a pest; others praised it for eating troublesome insects such as aphids.

Bulbul scrutinised in era of xenophobia

The bulbul arrived during the zenith of the White Australia Policy, and its Asian origin meant it received extra scrutiny. As early as 1922, commentators wrote about the bird under headlines like “Another Asiatic Menace”, “Asiatic Settler” and “Immigrant Bird”. A 1926 headline in the Melbourne Herald was even more explicit: “Mr. Bulbul: Asiatic Bird That Has Beaten the Migration Laws”. Farmers and gardeners wrote to newspapers to complain of bulbuls eating their fruit, calling the birds “undesirables” and “foreigners in feathers”.

Some people thought these responses were prejudiced, and said so. One correspondent of Sydney’s Evening News called on readers to give “the bul-bul a fair go”. There was no denying that the bird was charming and had a beautiful song, even if it did eat fruit and flowers. Some commentators argued the bulbul had become “naturalised” – that it had earned a right to belong in Australia, regardless of origin.

There is something hopeful in all this. Even at a time of intense and wide-ranging racism and xenophobia, an Asian bird could still “become Australian”.

But these voices were always a minority. As the species was never protected by law, orchardists and gardeners encouraged each other to shoot and trap bulbuls whenever possible. By 1935, an employee of the Sydney Botanic Gardens was shooting up to six bulbuls a day.

Much ado about nothing?

Today, bulbuls still thrive around Greater Sydney, their range stretching north to Newcastle and south to Nowra. But Melburnians rarely see them, according to publicly accessible data on the Birdata and Ebird platforms. Perhaps they have been muscled out by growing numbers of aggressive and adaptable native birds such as noisy miners and pied currawongs.

Like the recent visitor to Adelaide, bulbuls have been spotted occasionally in SA since the 1940s, but decades can pass without a single bulbul being seen in the state. Whether or not bulbuls someday form a viable population in SA remains to be seen. But if they did, would it really be so bad?

We know that some non-native birds, like starlings, cause immense problems for farmers and do compete with native birds for nesting sites. However, there is very little peer-reviewed research on the red-whiskered bulbul in Australia. In 2014, ecologist Matthew Mo wrote there was no evidence that competition between bulbuls and native birds is “ecologically significant”. Even the evidence for its impact on fruit crops and role in spreading weeds remains scant. At best, we have a deficiency of research. At worst, we’re getting worked up about a relatively harmless bird, just because it’s not native.

White Australians of the interwar period let their xenophobic attitudes towards Asian humans distort their view of an Asian bird. I’m not arguing those worried about the bulbul today are doing so because they are personally racist. But today’s anxieties about the bulbul do seem acute, given the lack of any hard evidence. After all, native birds can do enormous damage to fruit crops, too.

In many cases, we’re right to be concerned about the ecological and agricultural impacts of non-native wildlife — I’m not here to defend rabbits, brumbies or feral cats. But that doesn’t mean every introduced species is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The story of the bulbul in Australia should give us pause. During more than a century on this continent it has been, at worst, a minor nuisance. When the intensity of our emotions does not match the evidence, we need to ask ourselves why.

Simon Farley, Assistant Lecturer, History, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Think truffles and you’ll probably think of France. But Australia is actually a global hotspot for truffle-like fungi, boasting hundreds of different species. Like culinary truffles, these truffle-like fungi produce underground sporing bodies rather than send up mushrooms.

Living underground has its challenges. Fungi which form mushrooms above ground can easily disperse their spores (the fungal equivalent to a plant’s seed) on the wind. But truffle-like fungi can’t do this. Instead, they rely on native mammals to follow their pungent smells, dig up the underground sporing body, eat it and disperse their spores in their scat.

Many native mammals eat fungi when they are easily available, including common brushtail possums (Trichosurus vulpecula), swamp wallabies (Wallabia bicolor), bush rats (Rattus fuscipes), and greater bilbies (Macrotis lagotis), but they generally don’t rely on them for a large part of their diet in the same way as potoroos and bettongs do. Among these fungi fans, there’s one species which stands out.

Australia’s most specialised fungi-eater is the long-footed potoroo (Potorous longipes), which relies on these fungi for over 90% of its diet. It’s likely to be one of the most fungi-dependent mammals in the world. Their nocturnal work digging up and eating fungi supports forests in southeastern Australia by helping to maintain the fungi-tree symbiosis.

The long-footed potoroo has long been rare due to habitat loss and fox predation. It’s been endangered for decades. Once considered more widespread, their range is now restricted to two regions between Victoria and New South Wales, much of which burned during the 2019-2020 megafires.

But there’s a newer threat: climate change.

In our new research, we analyse a rare long-term collection of potoroo scats. We found that as conditions get hotter, these potoroos are eating a much smaller range of fungi. This has significant implications for potoroo diets, fungal dispersal, and the health of our forests.

What’s in that scat?

Many truffle-like fungi live in ectomycorrhizal symbiosis with native trees such as eucalypts. This means they trade nutrients between their threadlike hyphae and the tree’s root system, a remarkably ancient relationship which supports tree growth and health and provides their fungal partners with a source of energy.

To explore whether climate change has been affecting the truffle-like fungi consumed by the long-footed potoroo, we partnered with colleagues at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, CSIRO and the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. We then turned to an extensive and extremely rare collection of potoroo scats.

These scats have been painstakingly collected over 23 years (1993-2016) by department staff. Collections of scats are enormously valuable to researchers, as they give us clear evidence of what an animal has been eating – and if their diets have changed over time.

We used DNA analysis to track which species of truffle-like fungi these potoroos had eaten over time. This process involved sequencing fungal DNA present in potoroo scats, and matching these DNA sequences to a fungal species database. This left us with a list of fungal species that were present in each potoroo scat.

Overall, we found potoroos ate fewer species of truffle-like fungi in warmer conditions. This trend was visible from season to season, as well as between years. As temperatures continue to increase due to climate change, we expect that long-footed potoroos will continue to consume fewer species of truffle-like fungi.

More heat, less fungal variety

During warm conditions, potoroos ate less of some genera of truffle-like fungi and more of others such as Mesophellia, a genus of truffle-like fungi producing hard-cased sporing bodies between five and 40 cm underground.

We already know these fungi are eaten in abundance by hungry bettongs after a bushfire. As climate change brings warmer temperatures, we expect Mesophellia may increasingly act as an important food source for long-footed potoroos when other resources are scarce.

Overall, our findings suggest climate change may make it harder for potoroos to get as wide a range of fungi to eat, which might make it harder for these marsupials to get the nutrients they need. The nutrition in sporing bodies varies widely between species, so eating a narrower fungal diet may mean less diverse nutrients.

If this happens, it’s possible potoroos could shift their diets and eat more insects or plants. But it’s not a guarantee, given these animals are such specialised fungi-eaters.

This, in turn, could have wider flow-on effects. If potoroos consume fewer species of truffle-like fungi, some species may have fewer chances to spread around landscapes. If they become rarer, it could disrupt the long symbiosis between fungi and ectomycorrhizal forest trees in lowland coastal forests through to tall mountain forests.

This three-way relationship benefits long-footed potoroos, truffle-like fungi, and the native trees that form ectomycorrhizal partnerships with these fungi. Each member of this relationship depends on the others.

Ripple effects

Not many people have seen these shy potoroos. But they have an importance far beyond their modest size. The simple act of digging up and eating truffle-like fungi is vital for the potoroo, the fungi and the forests around them.

Many of Australia’s once-common digging marsupials have become rare or been driven to extinction since European colonisation. The long-footed potoroo, too, is endangered by historic and ongoing threats, ranging from habitat loss to fox predation to climate change.

We don’t know yet how climate change will affect the complex relationship between potoroo, fungi, and the forests around them. Understanding these complex relationships is essential if we are to protect them against an uncertain future.

Emily McIntyre, PhD candidate in Ecology, The University of Melbourne and Craig Nitschke, Professor in Forest and Landscape Dynamics, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In Sturt National Park, near Tibooburra in central Australia where temperatures can range from freezing to nearly 50°C, there lives a small bird with a white back, forked tail and – as we’ve just discovered – a very clever strategy to survive its extreme environment.

The white-backed swallow (Cheramoeca leucosterna) is a type of passerine – the largest group of birds, comprising 60% of all bird species.

Scientists have long thought these birds incapable of deep torpor – a controlled state of reduced body temperature that saves energy and has been found in many animals in the northern hemisphere, where winters are more severe.

But our new paper, published today in the journal Current Biology, shows otherwise.

Understanding how animals cope with extreme conditions

Animal physiologists have long seen the value of studying animals in extreme conditions to understand their survival strategies.

In the past, however, field instruments were cumbersome or delicate and studies were mostly limited to artificial conditions in the laboratory.

This was a problem for several reasons.

First, in captivity wild animals are often stressed and don’t tend to exhibit their full capabilities. Exposing captive wild animals to extreme conditions is also logistically difficult and an animal welfare concern.

But more recently, technological advances allow us to measure the physiological responses of animals when they are exposed to extreme conditions in the wild.

Tracking birds to their burrows

Biologging involves attaching electronic devices to animals that can record key traits such as movement, body temperature and energy expenditure. It is providing a fascinating window into the natural lives of animals.

Technological advances have meant these devices have become miniature in recent years. This has greatly expanded the species scientists can study in the wild and provides an exciting opportunity to challenge long held assumptions based on lab-based studies – including about torpor.

Our team set out to investigate the white-backed swallow, which has been the subject of some intriguing reports over the years.

For example, during cold and wet winter periods, observations as old as 1936 have reported finding the birds in their sandy burrows during the daytime that appeared in a torpor-like state: “inert, nestling into each other as if to escape from the bleak winter’s day”.

Over the winters of 2023 and 2024, we used miniature (400 milligrams) temperature sensing radio transmitters to study the thermal physiology of these swallows in Sturt National Park – the traditional lands of the Wongkumara, Wadigali, and Malyangapa peoples.

We tracked tagged birds to their burrows at night and set up autonomous data logging units nearby to record their body temperature data.

Following a tenuous radio signal on foot across the desert was spectacular on a clear starry night. But sometimes it was also tiring and intimidating.

After that, we trusted our data logging units to collect the steady radio pulses emanating from the resting birds. From these we obtained their body temperature, and therefore their potential use of torpor.

We had two major inland rain events in winter 2024, leading to local flooding. This meant we were unable to access our field site. So we waited it out in the local campground, hoping our trusty loggers were still recording data while enduring the unusually chilly nights.

An extraordinary discovery

As the land dried out, we returned to find something extraordinary.

During and after these extreme rain events, the birds remained in their burrows even during the daytime. And they entered deep and long bouts of torpor – far exceeding what passerine birds were thought capable of.

Such torpor is presumably crucial for these in-flight foragers to survive when wet and cold conditions suppress the activity of flying insects.

More generally, our discovery of torpor use by a passerine bird suggests that this strategy is not limited to hummingbirds, nightjars and their relatives.

Instead, it could be a more widespread adaptation for survival across the diversity of birds.

A new wave of discoveries

Our finding adds to a growing number of recent discoveries revealed by biologging about the thermal adaptations of birds and mammals when faced with extreme conditions.

In 2024, for example, we found that even the largest of bats, the flying foxes (Pteropus species), are capable of using torpor during cold winter conditions that pose a risk of starvation.

In contrast, during summer, when flying foxes can be exposed to extreme heat events, our biologging data has shown they employ controlled increases in body temperature. This adaptation reduces the costs of shedding heat and helps to avoid lethal dehydration.

These data are essential for us to understand how animals survive extreme weather events, which are becoming increasingly common and severe with a warming climate.

The authors would like to acknowledge Justin Welbergen, Ben Moore and Anthony Hunt for their contribution to the research.

Alice Barratt, PhD Candidate, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University and Christopher Turbill, Associate Professor, School of Science and the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Less than a year ago, United States company Colossal Biosciences announced it had “resurrected” the dire wolf, a megafauna-hunting wolf species that had been extinct for 10,000 years.

Within two days of Colossal’s announcement, the Interior Secretary of the US, Doug Burgum, used the idea of resurrection to justify weakening environmental protection laws: “pick your favourite species and call up Colossal”.

His reasoning appeared to confirm critics’ fears about de-extinction technology. If we can bring any species back, why protect them to begin with?

In a new study published in Biological Conservation, we put this idea to the test. We found no evidence people will accept extinction more readily if they’re promised de-extinction. But it’s important to communicate about de-extinction efforts with care.

The ‘moral hazard’ of de-extinction

Since the emergence of de-extinction technology, critics have argued it potentially undermines support for conserving existing species.

In other words, de-extinction technology poses a “moral hazard”. This is a situation in which someone is willing to behave in riskier ways than they would otherwise, because someone or something else will bear the cost or deal with the consequences. Behaving recklessly because you have health insurance is a classic example.

The moral hazard of de-extinction technology is that if we believe extinct species can be brought back, we may be more willing to let species go extinct in the first place.

This concern mirrors debates in other areas of environmental policy. For example, critics of carbon capture and solar radiation modification worry that believing we can later fix climate change may weaken the incentive to reduce emissions now. However, most studies investigating this claim found these technologies don’t reduce people’s support for also cutting back carbon emissions.

Our study is the first to investigate whether de-extinction technology reduces people’s concern about the extinction of existing species.

What we found

We presented 363 people from a wide range of backgrounds with several scenarios. These described a company doing something that yields an economic or public benefit, but results in the extinction of an existing endangered species.

For example, in one scenario a company intended to build a highway for a new port through the last habitat of the dusky gopher frog, a critically endangered species. The construction would lead to the frog’s extinction.

There were two versions of each scenario, differing in how the company would compensate for the species’ extinction.

In the “environmental compensation” version, a large investment would be made to preserve other species. In the “de-extinction” version, de-extinction technology would be used to reintroduce the DNA of the extinct species into a related species at a later date.

For each scenario, people were asked: did they think the project was good for the public? Was the species extinction justified? Did compensation make the company less blameworthy for causing the species extinction? Should we allow projects like this one in the future?

Finally, in cases where de-extinction was proposed, we asked if the respondent believed the companies’ claims that genetic engineering could be used to successfully recreate the extinct species.

A warning against spin

We found no evidence that proposing de-extinction makes people more accepting of extinction than compensation for environmental destruction would.

Therefore, moral hazard alone is not a reason to outright reject the ethical deployment of de-extinction technology. Further, overemphasising potential but unsubstantiated hazards of de-extinction research may undermine the development of effective tools for preserving current species.

We did, however, find one reason for caution.

There was a correlation between a person’s belief that de-extinction could resurrect the species and the belief that causing its extinction would be acceptable.

This is a correlation, so we can’t tell which belief comes first. It could be that these people already think extinction is justified to gain access to economic benefits, and then adopt the view that de-extinction is possible to excuse that belief.

A more worrying possibility is the reverse: believing that de-extinction is possible could have led to these individuals viewing extinction as acceptable. A strong belief in de-extinction’s success could either act as an excuse for extinction, or a reason for extinction.

This creates a major risk if those who develop de-extinction technology overstate or mislead the public about what this tech can achieve.

Avoid misleading claims

It’s crucial the companies and scientists working on de-extinction efforts communicate accurately and without hype. Claims that de-extinction can reverse extinction are misleading. Genetic engineering can introduce lost traits from an extinct species into a closely related living species and restore lost ecological functions, but it can’t re-create the extinct species.

Problems arise when companies present these limits cautiously within the scientific community but make stronger claims in public-facing communication.

Doing so encourages the false belief that extinction is fully reversible. This risks undermining the ethical justification for any de-extinction efforts.

This risk can be avoided. For example, the de-extinction project attempting to restore aurochs (ancient cattle) to Europe clearly states it’s creating aurochs 2.0. It’s an ecological proxy for the extinct species, not the species itself.

Colossal Biosciences attracts widespread controversy for publicising its projects, which include “resurrection” of the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine.

Our results show claims that de-extinction will necessarily create a moral hazard are unjustified.

However, de-extinction advocates bear a burden to be cautious and clear in their communication about what their technology offers – and what it can’t do.

Christopher Lean, Research Fellow in Philosophy, Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Macquarie University; Andrew James Latham, Postdoctoral Fellow, Philosophy, Aarhus University; Annie Sandrussi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Macquarie University, and Wendy Rogers, Professor in Clinical Ethics, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.