How we can save ourselves
THE release of the CSIRO's report on Australia's climate future brings a sharp focus on what is at stake as we evaluate Liberal and Labor policies on climate change. Among the most alarming projections is that just 60 years from now Australia could be up to five degrees hotter and 40 to 80 per cent drier.
In the same week we learned that Australia's population will reach 33 million by 2050 just 40 years from now. Put the projections together and you can see the future shape of our cities. By 2050, for example, Melbourne will have 6 million inhabitants (up from 3.6 million now), far greater heat-stress and bushfire threat, and far less water.
Even with our current level of population and water availability, much of Australia is struggling. Our lower Murray wine industry is facing collapse and Adelaide is our most water-stressed capital. If the water crisis continues into this summer the region faces a full-blown disaster.
Never has the case for sustainability been more evident, or more ignored by our political leaders. Peter Costello is a great population booster, yet we have heard nothing from him about where the water will come from for our increased population. And it's now self-evident that the climate problem requires urgent action. We must remember that the CSIRO projections are not a fait accompli but a call to action.
Australia can do much to reduce its own emissions, and I believe it has enormous potential to impact on global emissions. Doing so could avoid the worse-case scenarios: our future need not be a train wreck of unsustainability, but the time left within which to act is limited indeed.
After two decades of dithering, the conditions for developing a global treaty limiting greenhouse gas pollution has never looked more promising. Only Australia and the US which remain adamantly opposed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol stand in the way of concerted global action. Even China has said that it will join the developed world in reducing emissions if we act in concert.
The governments of both Australia and the US are still trying to promote alternative approaches, by holding meetings outside the UN process that rely on voluntary measures. But as the CSIRO report makes clear, we are well and truly out of time to pursue such means. The reality is that the Kyoto negotiations are the only negotiations with a hope of creating a global treaty, and a global treaty is indispensable for combating a global pollution problem. If the CSIRO's report is not to become Australia's epitaph, our country must live up to its global climate responsibilities. The following actions are required and this year, not next.
1. Immediate ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. In light of the building climate disaster, I respectfully ask our Prime Minister to recognise the true urgency of the climate situation and announce ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, and to talk to our American allies about the reason for that decision. Because President George Bush holds John Howard in such high regard, our Prime Minister is in a position to do far greater good for Earth's climate than the Labor Party could ever contemplate.
2. Swift and dramatic reduction of Australia's emissions. Australia must be set on a trajectory of emissions reduction that will see us play our part in keeping humanity safe from dangerous climate change. To achieve climate stability, actions taken at this late date will be arduous and difficult. In effect we will need to cease greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels altogether within the next 40 years. This means rapid development of alternative energy sources, mandated phase-outs of coal-fired power plants and mandated switching to biofuels. None of this will be achieved without a cost of carbon pollution less than $70 per tonne. But this will not be sufficient. In addition, stretch mandated renewable energy targets will be required, as will greatly enhanced funds to emerging renewable energy technologies.
3. Restore the world's tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests play a uniquely important role in the Earth's climate system, yet half are already gone and the remainder under threat. Australia can play a leading role in restoring the world's tropical forests, but funding and planned action will have to be greatly enhanced. As the eighth richest country, Australia should lead a global initiative aimed at sequestering 10 gigatonnes of carbon in regrowing tropical forests, per year, by 2030. This could be done directly, at the village level using technologies such as Google Earth and EBay, if a computer were placed in each village school in the tropics.
4. Reform agriculture to store carbon. New advances in biomass-based technologies indicate that the potential to generate electricity and biofuel, and to sequester carbon in soils, is enormous. Brown-coal-fired power plants should be immediately converted to biomass combustion. Pyrolysis machines need to be subsidised and installed on all Australian farms, and the electricity and biofuel they generate become integrated into our energy systems.
Australia again could lead a global initiative here, with the aim of drawing down a further 10 gigatonnes of carbon, per year, by 2030. Were all of these initiatives successful, amazing things could be achieved. By 2030 Australia's emissions could stand at just 40 per cent of those of 1990, and globally we could be drawing down 20 gigatonnes of carbon pollution per year from our atmosphere. That's 10 per cent of the total burden of human-made carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere. Consequently, dangerous climate change could become a receding spectre. But only if we act fast.
Tim Flannery is Australian of the Year 2007, chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council and a professor at Macquarie University.