One Degree Matters
The Federal Government’s 2010 Intergenerational Report highlights the crucial need to act now towards a sustainable future, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said today.
“While Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan rightly acknowledged that climate change is one of the most significant challenges to economic sustainability, the long-term budgetary implications of environmental loss must be made clear,” said ACF Director of Strategic Ideas, Chuck Berger.
“ACF projects that resource depletion, land degradation, exotic species, greenhouse pollution and fossil fuel subsidies will cost Australia over $1 trillion dollars by 2050, unless we act now to avoid these losses,” said Mr Berger.
The projections are based on ABS statistics released last week, including the following:
Resource depletion: $4 billion per year
Cumulative cost to 2050: $160 billion
Land degradation: $395 million per year
Cumulative cost to 2050: $15.8 billion
Exotic species: $1.57 billion per year
Cumulative cost to 2050: $62 billion
In addition, greenhouse pollution is costing us $18 billion per year already, based on the $31/tonne cost of carbon used by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE). Unless pollution is reduced, climate change will cost at least $720 billion through to 2050.
Further, the cumulative cost through to 2050 of Commonwealth budget revenue foregone on fossil fuel subsidies is at last count $212 billion ($5.3 billion per year). That includes money spent on FBT concessions for company cars, fuel rebates to mining and transport companies, depreciation rorts for aircraft and oil and gas machinery, and low tax rates for aviation fuels.
ACF further rejected the suggestion that population growth is needed to care for an ageing population. “Many other countries enjoy thriving economies with stable populations. This should be Australia’s aspiration as well,” said Mr Berger.
Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/4039375152/in/photostream/
I like this photo from the Kiwis, Christchurch NZ. www.350.org
Data came from samples brought up by the drilling ship Joides Resolution
Researchers used ocean sediments to plot CO2 levels back 20 million years.
Levels similar to those now commonly regarded as adequate to tackle climate change were associated with sea levels 25-40m (80-130 ft) higher than today.
Scientists write in the journal Science that this extends knowledge of the link between CO2 and climate back in time.
The last 800,000 years have been mapped relatively well from ice cores drilled in Antarctica, where historical temperatures and atmospheric content have left a series of chemical clues in the layers of ice.
But looking back further has been more problematic; and the new record contains much more precise estimates of historical records than have been available before for the 20 million year timeframe.
Sustained levels
Full storey: news.bbc.co.uk
The recession-driven fall could lead to CO2 emissions in 2020 being 5 per cent lower than the IEA forecast from just a year ago. (freefoto.uk)
This would be the steepest drop in CO2 emissions for 40 years, chief IEA economist Fatih Birol said at a press conference in Bangkok, adding that the average annual growth in global carbon output until now has been 3 per cent.
Dr Birol said this silver-lining drop in carbon pollution was a “unique window of opportunity” for the world to put itself on a path to limit the increase in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius, the scientific threshold for dangerous global warming.
The recession-driven fall would lead to CO2 emissions in 2020 being 5 per cent lower than the IEA forecast from just a year ago, even if no further action is taken to curb global warming, he added.
The IEA estimate is part of its World Energy Outlook report, an excerpt of which was released at UN climate talks underway in the Thai capital. Read the rest of this entry »
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