Australia’s oversized footprint

For a country of just 21 million, Australia has a huge impact on the global ecosphere. Domestically, the CSIRO have just estimated that our less than one third of a per cent of the world's population produces 1.43 per cent of its CO2 (more than 4½ times our share proportionally) and there is much we could and should be doing to address that. Unfortunately, our government has been a standard bearer for the “business as usual” lobby - preferring to deny, delay and dodge any movement to address the issues.

With so many of our exports being used in industries around the world and directly contributing to global emissions, it is criminal for our government to be actively sabotaging international efforts to combat climate change.

I am not advocating a withdrawal from the export market, but if we continue to go down that path, then we must take some moral responsibility for it and be a global leader, not a spoiler, in tackling climate change.

Australia should be leading the way in shifting our economy to a sustainable footing, rather than dragging our heels, waiting for other nations to do the heavy lifting with regards to researching and implementing more responsible technologies and practices.

Suggestions by Treasurer Peter Costello that our economy will crash if we take serious action on greenhouse are as misguided as they are erroneous. There is no doubt that failure to combat and compensate for climate change will result in dire economic consequences. With rapidly changing weather patterns and unusual weather events we are leaving ourselves open to serious economic consequences in the wake of rising sea levels, droughts or floods.

These consequences of inaction would be far worse economically than any short-term pain associated with action to address human-made climate change.

However, suggestions that it will be relatively easy to adapt to the changes required to arrest or slow this environmental disaster, and that alternative jobs will just appear to replace the old ones lost in industries such as mining and logging are equally blinkered.

We cannot kid ourselves that the problem will be solved only by the application of appropriate technology and a carbon pricing mechanism. In order to have any sustainable impact we need to significantly change our behaviour. This will take some effort and some sacrifices, but with reasonable planning and good leadership, these required changes need not cause major upheavals or disadvantages.

Australia’s reliance on coal for our nation’s energy and its unwillingness to adopt alternative energy sources has contributed greatly to our status as a high carbon emitter.

As a nation we have lagged in the use of alternative energy sources despite plenty of expertise and resources. We have failed to fully embrace wind, solar, geothermal or wave power in any significant way, largely for fear of the impact this will have on our mining industry - the new “sheep’s back” we precariously live off.

Our fossil-fuel dependence and the relatively low cost of this form of energy has made it much harder to adopt alternative energy models due to lack of strong political leadership in this area. It also makes it much harder to adapt to changes in fuel reliance in the short-term.

The inevitable increase in the cost of carbon along with the abundance of fossil fuel gives Australia’s federal government much greater long-term incentives to develop alternative energy technologies. Australia cannot continue to generate high emissions and expect this to be accepted internationally. As countries examine their rate of carbon emissions and take steps to make significant reductions, Australia must not expect to receive special treatment by the virtue of our primary industry strengths. These strengths are rapidly becoming weaknesses and we are not doing enough to counter them.

Australia is also in the unenviable position of being geographically isolated both internationally and domestically. As a result, we rely heavily on high carbon emitting air transport for travel both intra and interstate as well as internationally.

The Australia Institute published a study earlier this year (see On Line Opinion article)predicting that the aviation industry could account for more than half of all carbon emissions by 2050 and advocating a reduction target of 60 per cent. This study also called for the introduction of a $30 greenhouse levy on ticket prices for domestic to discourage consumers from flying unnecessarily. Virgin Blue has introduced a voluntary carbon offset payment on their domestic flights: a tiny start but unlikely to have much impact on its own.

Our relative isolation will bite us as the cost of travel and exporting goods by air becomes more expensive. We already suffer higher air travel costs in comparison to other nations and we risk having them inflate much higher than more densely populated regions near each other.

It is not just our heavy reliance on fossil-fuel that is a problem, but also our heavy reliance on livestock both domestically and for export. The impact of livestock in terms of carbon dioxide and methane is something that has received little attention to date but it impacts more on greenhouse gas emissions than travel.

In 2003 the then Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting indicated that dairy livestock contributed about 30 per cent of all agricultural emissions and all agricultural emissions contributed approximately 18 per cent of Australia’s total carbon emissions. In 2005 the total figure was 16 per cent.

Behavioural changes such as making alterations to farming practices, or preferably by a change in human behaviour that resulted in less reliance on livestock would effectively reduce greenhouse emissions. Small changes already made have had an impact but overall there is still more to be done, starting with giving greater recognition of the fact that we need to act in this area.

Australia’s intransigence and calculated delays over the last decade has had two negative effects. It has discouraged other nations, especially less wealthy nations in our Asia-Pacific region, from bothering to engage with the issue and generally helped to scuttle efforts to get global co-operation. It also means that Australia is much further behind with the economic opportunities that will occur as economies and demands change in a highly greenhouse conscious world.

Australia’s excessively high per capita greenhouse gas emission rates must end as soon as possible. We may be a small nation but this does not mean that we have to be ineffective.

Our inaction and lack of leadership continues to harm the global ecosystem, global co-operation and action. We must not continue to use other nation’s lack of action or vastly different circumstances as an excuse not to change our behaviour. By introducing emissions targets along with developing and implementing strategies and technologies to achieve them, we can show leadership in our region. It makes economic and environmental sense.

There is no single strategy that will address all the challenges of climate change, but to have no strategy, is a betrayal of our children and future generations - it is their future we are trashing through our inability or unwillingness to act now.