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Climate crisis

This Month

The Coalition’s nuclear power policy is light on detail.

No election road out of Australia’s energy perdition

The election contest between Labor’s faltering subsided renewables policy and the Coalition’s nationalised nuclear pipedream does not inspire confidence.

Matt Kean, photographed in Berowra Valley National Park.

Matt Kean has ‘material interests’ in carbon credit schemes

The Climate Change Authority chairman is a green investment adviser on the side. Experts say it’s above board despite “tremendous advantage” to Wollemi Capital.

March

Cyclone Alfred hands Chalmers $1.2b clean-up bill plus hit to GDP

The Treasurer will on Tuesday tell the Queensland Media Club there will also be a $1.2 billion hit to gross domestic product in the March quarter, thanks to the wild weather.

Cannon-Brookes opens with the classic move of acknowledging the apparent contradiction so that critics can’t weaponise it.

Private jets and public virtue: unspinning Cannon-Brookes on climate

The MCB playbook is clear: acknowledge contradictions before critics turn them into weapons, overwhelm with technical solutions, reframe luxury as sacrifice, and wealth as the solution.

Mike Cannon-Brookes says he intends to fully offset the carbon emissions from his new private jet.

‘Don’t create a problem’: Advice for private jet owner Cannon-Brookes

Tech entrepreneur and clean energy evangelist Mike Cannon-Brookes has bought a private jet. Is it possible to travel in style and save the planet at the same time?

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Don’t want another Cyclone Alfred? This data says one’s coming

Hot temperatures in the world’s oceans are making storms and cyclones more destructive. Australia is uniquely vulnerable.

Some fund managers will argue Australia’s three big insurers have had a lost two decades. Now they’re tempted back by premium increases.

Alfred highlights need to fix insurance industry

Readers’ letters on the insurance industry after Cyclone Alfred, Peter Dutton’s nuclear power policy, attacks against Australian Muslims, Donald Trump’s policy and the share market slump.

February

Investors pulled a record $20.1 billion from sustainable-investment funds in 2024.

‘Sustainable’ investors flee references to climate change

Even the small activist firm that led the shake-up of ExxonMobil’s board in 2021 is distancing itself from ESG.

Incoming Aurecon chief executive Louise Adams says the country is now in the ‘age of the engineer’.

Climate change means Australia has entered the ‘age of the engineer’

Increasing bouts of extreme weather have turbocharged already high demand for engineers across Australia, the incoming head of Aurecon says.

Investor Daniel Besen has run into a little strife with the neighbour’s renovations.

Billionaire investor Daniel Besen tips into Sydney’s Climate Tech

The venture capital newcomer, founded by Patrick Sieb and Tom Kline, matches companies with large corporates’ specific decarbonisation needs to derisk investments. 

The Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia.

The secret history of the Arctic and Antarctica

When polar regions melt, the vaults are thrown open – “ancient water, carbon, and microbial life return to the surface to shape and change the world.”

January

Johanna Nalau, the program director of the Master of Climate Change Adaptation at Griffith University.

Postgrads enter climate workforce looking for a clean start

Demand for workers with climate skills is already increasing, as more job postings specifically cover adapting to the green transition.

Allegra Spender at Pina Cafe: “I didn’t expect to get so much joy from being the local member and seeing the world through other people’s eyes.”

Meet the McKinsey analyst turned teal powerbroker

Allegra Spender, who could hold the balance of power after the next federal election, grew up in privilege but prides herself on being able to talk to anyone.

Banks should face penalties for restricting loans under ESG

Readers’ letters on who banks should lend to, election promises, the ESG pushback, Star Entertainment’s bid for tax relief and Taiwan.

The world’s biggest asset management firm, BlackRock is the latest in a spate of companies to quit the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.

Why the ESG pushback isn’t about Trump

Large parts of the world want access to the things we take for granted, and that means large amounts of reliable and affordable energy.

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Dutton was not being divisive by opposing the Voice

Readers’ letters on the opposition leader, campaign finance laws, Liberal Party preselections, climate change, Georgina Downer, Tasmanian forests, and smartphones.

1 Shelley Street is an 11-storey premium office tower that is being transformed into a fully electric building over the next two years.

Just 28pc of offices will meet major tenants’ climate needs

Government and blue-chip private sector tenants are pushing to move into green offices, but they are in short supply.

ESG is out of favour as Donald Trump returns to the presidency.

Macquarie, IFM-backed net zero group suspends itself as Trump looms

The world’s biggest climate finance alliance cited “different regulatory and client expectations” in starting a review and making its membership list secret.

Sunrise over Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro with Sugarloaf Mountain in the Horizon. It’s light very early at some times of the year.

Why this country thinks it will have to bring back daylight saving

Authorities in Brazil nearly brought back daylight saving late last year to conserve energy amid a historic drought that had threatened hydroelectric power generation.

A fire crew in the Pacific Palisades as they move on to their next assignment. The fire has caused significant damage and will push up the cost of insurance policies around the world.

Californian fires to push premiums higher, worsening poor policy cover

The rising cost of insurance policies has already meant a third of about $60 billion in natural disaster damage over the past decade was left uninsured.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/climate-crisis-6g9x