You can’t have your yellow cake and eat it too

To give all people on the planet an equal right to emit plus halving emissions globally, Australians would need to reduce their emissions by 90 per cent, down from 26 tonnes to 2.5 tonnes.

In their submission to the IPCC, the Brazilian Government holds the view that the problem we are now facing is the result of 100 years of economic development by the developed world. The 20th century saw major developments such as motor cars, aeroplanes, refrigeration and television, but it has left a legacy. This legacy is our accumulated effect on the climate over the last 100 years.

According to the 2002 Long-term Greenhouse Gas Scenarios report from the Australian Institute, energy efficiency measures and renewable energy can achieve greenhouse emissions reductions of up to 60 per cent by 2050. However, these emissions reductions are not enough nor, more importantly, will they occur soon enough.

The IPCC says that the earlier and the quicker emissions are reduced now, the better we can avert potentially dangerous climates a few generations down the track.

Researchers have calculated that over the past 15 years alone, Europe and North America have incurred an “emissions debt” of more than 400 billion tonnes of CO2, while the developing world has an “emissions credit” of 100 billion tonnes of CO2.

It would be hard to imagine that if Australia halved emissions, as well as giving each person an equal right to emit, while also repaying our emissions debt, we would be able to do so without nuclear energy.

Therefore there is a “Sophie’s choice” to be made between nuclear energy and fossil fuels. One risks damages from dangerous climate change and one risks damages from radioactivity. While there is no 100 per cent objective and scientific comparative assessment of these risks, which stretch many generations into the future, results of a study by the European Commission and the US Department of Energy indicate that the damages to be expected from fossil fuels are likely to exceed those from nuclear energy by an order of magnitude.

This means there is a clear trade-off between nuclear energy and fossil fuels and this is why an increasing number of scientists are realising that the real question in the debate about nuclear energy is what role our affluent lifestyles and our energy needs will play in the future.

The difficult questions to answer are: is our level of affluence non-negotiable, and if yes, what is the lesser of two undesirable outcomes - the management of the disadvantages of nuclear power (which tend to be concentrated but local) or the dispersed and global consequences of climatic disruption, with even greater unknowns.

Nuclear electricity for Australia has to be considered in this light. By changing our lifestyles and resorting to more humble needs will we be able to evade this Sophie’s choice altogether.