Gore and IPCC share Nobel Peace Prize (with video); Turnbull names Gunns mill expert panel; Woodside gets clearance for Pluto LNG plant on Burrup; NSW seeks comment on Gosford alternative waste treatment plan.
Al Gore and IPCC share Nobel Peace Prize
Al Gore says he is “deeply honoured” to have received this year’s Nobel Peace Prize and to be sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Gore also referred to new scientific findings indicating “the entire north polar ice cap could be gone in less than 23 years” unless the world takes urgent action.
Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Professor Ole Danbolt Mjøs, said the award recognised the efforts of the IPCC and Gore “to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to conquer such change”.
Turnbull names Gunns mill expert panel
Professor Frank Larkins, deputy vice-chancellor and professor of chemistry at Melbourne University, will head an independent expert group established by federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull to advise Gunns on the development of its environmental impact management plan.
Other members include Dr Graeme Batley, co-director of CSIRO’s Centre for Environmental Contaminants Research and Professor Helene Marsh of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at James Cook University.
Woodside gets clearance for Pluto LNG plant on Burrup
Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull has given EPBC Act approval for Woodside Energy to develop the Pluto gas field off the coat of WA and build an LNG plant on the Burrup Peninsula.
Burrup is home to an estimated one million Aboriginal rock art engravings and the company says it will remove no more than 200 of these.
Conditions of approval require Woodside to prepare for ministerial approval a dredging and dredge spoil management plan, an oil spill contingency plan and plans for managing impacts on the olive python, sea turtles and marine mammals.
The $12 billion project will see Woodside initially build a single 4.3 million tonnes per annum train on Burrup to liquefy the gas, but the company is investigating construction of two more trains.
Federal approval follows the granting of state environmental approval in August. State approval followed a WA Appeals Convenor finding that air pollutants “should not result in impacts on rock art”.
NSW seeks comments on plans for alternative waste technology facility
The NSW Government has put on public exhibition a proposal by Gosford City Council to establish an alternative waste technology facility capable of processing up to 70,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste a year and a co-located composting facility with processing capacity of up to 30,000 tonnes of green waste a year and 15,000 tonnes of biosolids.
The facility would be built at the site of an existing landfill in Woy Woy and could reduce the amount of waste going to landfill each year in the Gosford local government area by about 50% to 65%, says the environmental assessment prepared for Gosford council.
Subject to environmental approval, the council will invite tenders to provide a suitable alternative waste technology and composting operation. Public comment closes November 15.
