CLIMATE CHANGE & POPULATION Ian Lowe

GEO4: “Unprecedented environmental change at global and regional levels” Increasing global average temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, rising global average sea level Unsustainable land use and climate change driving land degradation Aquatic ecosystems heavily exploited Water availability declining globally Almost all well-studied species declining in distribution, abundance or both 8 January 2016Ian Lowe2

8 January 20163Ian Lowe

8 January 2016Ian Lowe4 Earth is overheating

8 January 2016Ian Lowe5 Earth is overheating

8 January 2016Ian Lowe6 Global warming is affecting Australia today

8 January 2016Ian Lowe7

Global Temperature Change 1980s: warmest decade ever 1990s: even warmer. Every year above 1980s average 2000s: warmer yet. Every year above 1990s average.

Ian Lowe9

8 January Ian Lowe

To have a better than even chance of keeping global average temperature rise below 2°C, the world would need to be emitting less than half the 2000 amount of CO 2 by So global emissions need to peak by 2020 and then decline rapidly. 8 January Ian Lowe

IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report The window for action is rapidly closing 65% of our carbon budget compatible with a 2°C goal already used Amount Used : 515 GtC Amount Remaining: 275 GtC Total Carbon Budget: 790 GtC AR5 WGI SPM ‘Cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond’

8 January 2016Ian Lowe EnergyTransportFugitive, waste and industrial processes) AgricultureLand clearing Kyoto target % reductions Business As Usual Source: Adapted from the Australian Greenhouse Gas Inventory and ABARE projections Australia’s Emissions (Mt) Where we are going What we need to achieve

8 January 2016Ian Lowe14 Current strategy Billions for public subsidies of fossil fuel use [car production & use, aviation, road freight, aluminium…] Export of fossil fuels on huge scale [with further expansion plans] Large costs of climate change [drought, cyclones, bushfires, water…] Little serious spending on solutions superficial talk of nuclear power or “clean coal”

8 January 2016Ian Lowe15

IEA World Energy Outlook 2008 “nothing short of an energy revolution” 8 January Ian Lowe

8 January 2016Ian Lowe17 Sustainable energy future Improve efficiency of turning energy into services [transport, cooling, lighting, motive power etc] Phase out supply technologies based on problematic resources Eliminate technologies imposing unacceptable environmental costs

Overseas trends Solar is now the cheapest power in the USA: 3.87 c / kWh Renewables half of all new power installed globally in 2014 ~ 30% power now from renewables Gas replacing coal Total coal use declining 8 January 2016Ian Lowe18

8 January 2016Ian Lowe19

Cost of new power (Bloomberg New Energy Finance 7/15) Wind farm $74 / MWh Baseload gas 92 Large scale solar 105 New coal-fired 119 “Wind is already the cheapest… solar PV will be cheaper than gas in 2017” 8 January 2016Ian Lowe20

Renewables can’t supply our needs ? Wind power supplied over 50 % of total power consumption of South Australia for August 2014 On one September day it met 100 % of demand [& exported] Ellison, McGill & Diesendorf: all power needs now can be met from a mix of renewables 8 January 2016Ian Lowe21

Population Impact SoE 1 (1996): cause of problems Australia’s Kyoto argument ACF EPBC Act submission Environmental impact I = P. A. T, so proportional to P unless Affluence declines or Technology improves faster than population grows

The numbers are: “natural increase” ~ 150,000 per year Birthrate ~ 1.9 per adult woman, but number adult women increasing Net migration ~ 250,000 per year Refugee quota ~ 20,000 Population growing > 1 million every 3 yrs Would be growing 1 million every 7 yrs if zero net migration now

Projections Population stabilises in 2030s at ~ 28 million if zero net migration Stabilises later at higher level with net migration < 70,000 At current migration rates and birthrate, 2050 population > 40 million, 2100 > 60 million