The NASA image above reveals a rather worrying 177 kilometre crack in the Antarctica ice shelf which, when it splits, will form the world’s largest ever iceberg. The inevitable impact on sea levels across the globe is described as “a catastrophe that we can witness unfolding but are utterly powerless to stop”. Given global warming presents the biggest long-term economic threat it’s not overly encouraging that last week’s federal budget failed to mention any new measures to mitigate climate change and instead plans to ditch the Climate Change Authority.

The budget did however allocate many millions of dollars to projects designed to shore up gas supplies: $19.6 million for COAG Gas Market Reform Group; $28.7 for East Coast Gas Development Program; and $30.4 million for bio-regional assessments.

The budget also included $110 million for a solar thermal plant at Port Augusta based on provisos. But as the Climate Council notes, hidden deep within the budget papers was the revelation that the Climate Change Authority – which provides independent advice to the government on how to tackle climate change effectively and presents detailed analysis on what Australia’s emissions reductions should be and pathways for how to meet those targets such as increased use of renewable energy – had been stripped of almost two-thirds of its funding and confirmation that it will be wound up.

“The disappearing Climate Change Authority means there will be one less group conducting vital research in Australia,” said Climate Council chief executive Amanda McKenzie. “We can’t accurately or effectively mitigate or adapt to climate change without the most up-to-date climate and energy analysis.

“This continues the Federal government’s pattern of cutting funding to climate research. First it was the Climate Commission, then it was CSIRO, and now the Climate Change Authority is on the cutting block.”

The Council notes that community concern about climate change is now at the highest levels since 2008 as revealed by polls conducted across Australia, which is why opposition to the coalition’s plans to spend $1 billion in taxpayer dollars for a railway linking the Adani coal mine proposed for Queensland’s Galilee Basin continues to grow. Rallies protesting the development have been staged across the country.

If the mega-mine goes ahead “it will ignite a carbon bomb of global scale, making it difficult to near impossible to avoid catastrophic climate change,” said Greens MP Justin Field who joined a south coast NSW rally.

“The mining, burning and transport of coal from Adani’s Carmichael mine will fast-track global warming, threaten the Great Barrier Reef, rob billions of litres of groundwater from farmers and communities and ride roughshod over Indigenous rights.

“It’s Adani’s coal mine versus a safe climate for all of us – we can’t have both.”

Ironically the federal government has provided $9 million to the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility to develop and deliver practical information, guidance and tools like CoastAdapt to help Coastal communities around Australia face the challenge of managing the effects of changes in the sea-level, such as flooding, erosion and shoreline recession. (How about prevention rather than cure?)

Despite the government’s fondness for gas and coal power, when it comes to an appetite for investments in clean energy Australia sits well within the top ten globally. This week Ernst & Young released its bi-annual Renewable Energy Attractiveness Index which reveals that Australia has jumped up from 11th  spot (last October) to be declared fifth most attractive country for renewable energy investment.

The rise in ranking is credited to the $7.5 billion channeled toward large-scale solar and wind (see next feature detailing the $90 million in ARENA funding for large-scale solar farms). Australia sits behind China and India, the US and Germany, and ahead of Chile, Japan, France, Mexico and the UK.

The small-scale solar and storage ‘revolution’ is also underway, aided and abetted by the rise in electricity prices and the reducing costs of technology, and the Solar Council continues to promote benefits of solar power to the community at every opportunity.

Early on Friday morning chief executive John Grimes participated in a lengthy talkback segment on ABC Radio, covering the full scope of the industry from the science of solar cells to concentrated solar thermal and the storage revolution underway. Worth tuning in to http://www.abc.net.au/radio/sydney/