The Conversation

Federal, state and territory energy ministers are gathering today in Brisbane for the tenth meeting of the COAG Energy Council. In the wake of the Finkel Review, and against a backdrop of rising electricity and gas prices, they have much to discuss.

Some of the focus will certainly be on gas policy and prices. Earlier this week, the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, argued that state governments should develop their onshore gas reserves to relieve pressure on the gas market.

Victoria and the Northern Territory both have bans on onshore gas development, introduced partly to protect prime farming land.

Controversially, federal Liberal MP Craig Kelly suggested on Thursday that pressure from renewable resources on energy prices meant that “people will die” this winter if they’re afraid to turn on their heating.

Yet it is gas generation, not renewables, that typically sets the price in the electricity market. As Fairfax reported yesterday, electricity prices move up and down with the gas price, almost exactly in tandem.

What’s more, the reality is that Australia has enough existing gas reserves to keep producing at current rates, including exports to the international LNG market, for at least the next 25 years. Developing extra onshore gas potentially risks harming valuable agricultural land for little gain – and certainly won’t bring energy prices down by the end of this winter.

How much gas does Australia have?

In March this year, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) published its Gas Statement of Opportunities. This reports forecasts, among other things, maximum demand and annual consumption over a 20-year period, and the ability of the eastern Australian gas market to supply this demand.

The report also highlights locations where new infrastructure or developments may be needed. Gas resources are categorised into levels, according to how difficult and expensive it will be to access and process.

It’s worth taking a moment to define what’s meant by reserves and resources, as this makes a big difference to the cost and feasibility of development.

• Reserves. These are volumes of gas that are expected to be commercially viable. The category of proved and probable reserves is considered the best estimate of commercially recoverable reserves. These are often used as the basis for economic assessments, or in reports to the share market.

• Resources. These are broken down into “contingent” and “prospective” resources, depending on how much is known about them. Contingent resources are one step down from proved and probable reserves, and are upgraded once any uncertainty about their development has been resolved. Prospective resources are estimates of gas volumes from reservoirs that have not been drilled. These estimates are based on much less direct evidence than the other categories and, as the name suggests, are more dubious.

So how much gas reserves and resources did this year’s Gas Statement of Opportunities report? A lot.

Gas extraction is forecast to be about 2,000 petajoules (PJ) per year for the next 20 years, to meet both domestic and export demand. The table below, which shows the reserves and resources as published in the latest Gas Statement of Opportunity, shows we are in no danger of running short any time soon.

The proved and probable reserves alone are large enough to support another two-and-a-half decades of gas production. Notably, those reserves do not include gas from the Northern Territory, onshore gas from Victoria, or the controversial Narrabri onshore gas project in New South Wales.

Prices

Developing new sources of gas in eastern Australian is not cheap, particularly when compared to historical prices of A$3-4 per gigajoule (GJ). The Gas Statement of Opportunities includes the development costs of proved and probable reserves and contingent resources. (Prospective resources are not published, but are assumed to be above A$10 per GJ.)

The figure below, derived from the report, shows the cost curve of development. It indicates that at the low-cost end, some proved and probable coal seam gas and conventional gas reserves have development costs around A$2 per GJ.

Gas development cost curve for reserves and resources. There are currenly no onshore reserves or contingent resources in Victoria. AEMO, Gas Statement of Opportunities.

It also shows that about 40,000 petajoules (40 billion GJ) of gas – enough to supply 20 years of domestic and LNG export demand – is available at production costs of less than A$5.50 per GJ.

That gas prices are currently well above this points to the impact of the LNG export industry and internationally linked pricing in a sellers’ market.

As can be seen in the cost curve, Narrabri is the only onshore resource in NSW and Victoria that scores above the somewhat dubious prospective category. The Narrabri coal seam gas project is listed as a contingent resource, and is estimated by AEMO to cost A$7.25 per GJ to produce.

To put it another way, this gas is estimated to be more expensive to produce than 58,000PJ of other gas reserves and resources in eastern Australia.

Lifting the ban?

Given the volume of cheaper gas available offshore and in states without bans, it is unclear how lifting bans or placing additional pressure on states to develop onshore resources will have a material effect on gas prices.

This sentiment was reflected by the NSW energy minister, Don Harwin, who recently pointed out that “the idea that NSW’s gas sector was supposed to save the nation from the way the LNG sector grew is curious”.

Given the availability of other reserves, the potential impacts on agricultural land and the need to dramatically reduce our emissions, the expansion of the onshore gas sector is indeed a curious idea.

Dylan McConnell has received funding from the AEMC's Consumer Advocacy Panel and Energy Consumers Australia.

Birdwatchers are keeping the location of the newly rediscovered night parrot a closely guarded secret. Adventure Australia, Author provided

Highly collectable species, especially those that are rare and threatened, can potentially be put at risk from poaching if information describing where they can be found is published. But rather than withholding this information, as has been recently recommended, scientists should publish such information through secure data repositories so that this knowledge can continue to be used to help conserve and manage the world’s most threatened species.

Scientists are encouraged to publish data so their discoveries can be shared and scrutinised. However, a recent article has identified the risks of publishing the locations of rare, endangered or newly described species.

The example of the Chinese cave gecko shows that these concerns may be warranted. The species went extinct at the location where it was discovered, potentially at the hands of scientifically literate poachers.

But instead of withholding such information, we suggest (in a letter published today in Science) that scientists can publish sensitive data securely, while minimising the risk of misuse, by using one of a range of currently available tools.

A little knowledge

Typically, the problem for threatened species is not that too much information is available on their population and location, but rather quite the opposite. For example, in New South Wales more than 150 species have missed out on conservation funding because of a lack of such information.

On the flip side, there is little evidence that encouraging researchers to withhold this information will thwart people who are determined to find specific species. Collectors who specialise in highly collectable species can get location information from a variety of sources such as wildlife trade websites, pet and naturalist clubs, social media, and the popular press. This is despite the range of laws, regulations (such as scientific and collecting permits) and community reporting aimed at restricting the collection and trade of endangered species.

Grove of Wollemi pine, the location of which has been kept secret for more than 25 years. Jaimie Plaza How to publish sensitive data

Many governments have implemented sensitive data policies to protect ecological and species data, based on their own lists of sensitive species. Many of these policies have been in place for almost a decade and have kept secure the locations of hundreds of highly collectable species such as Australia’s Wollemi pine.

These policies are practised by numerous data portals worldwide, including DataONE, South Africa’s National Biodiversity Institute, Australia’s Virtual Herbarium, Australia’s Department of Environment, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, and the Atlas for Living Australia.

A wealth of advice is also available to researchers and data managers on how to manage sensitive species information, such as the guidance provided by Science International and the Australian National Data Service. Science journals also work closely with open data repositories to ensure that sensitive species information is securely published – see, for example, the policies of leading journals Science and Nature.

Information entropy - why it’s a good idea to publish data before they are lost in the mists of time. Michener (2006) Ecol. Informatics

One example of good data management is the AEKOS data portal run by Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN). AEKOS contains data from different government monitoring surveys covering almost 100,000 sites across the country. Its default position is to make ecological data and information freely available for land-management or wildlife research.

However, sensitive data are flagged during the early stages of the publishing process. The data are then secured in one of three ways:

• masking sensitive information by giving only approximate locations or non-specific species names

• making data available only after approval by the legal owners

• embargoing the data for a maximum of two years.

To ensure data trustworthiness, TERN’s data reviewers further check for any data sensitivities that may have been overlooked during submission.

What’s the alternative?

We recognise the importance of keeping the locations of highly collectable species secure, and the need for caution in publishing precise site locations. But despite recent concerns, the examples given above show how online scientific data publishing practices have sufficiently matured to minimise misuses such as illegal or excessive collection, disturbance risk, and landholder privacy issues.

The alternative is not to deposit these valuable data at all. But this risks the loss of vital knowledge in the quest to protect wildlife.

In tackling poaching, we should perhaps seek to motivate poachers to help protect our most endangered wildlife. Such tactics are thought by some to have contributed to the discovery of several endangered bird species populations, and potentially the recent rediscovery of the night parrot, after a century of elusiveness in Australia. If poachers are willing to turn gamekeeper, getting them to share their rare species knowledge securely would certainly improve conservation outcomes.

The authors acknowledge their co-signatories of the letter published in Science: Ken Atkins (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Ron Avery (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage), Lee Belbin (Atlas of Living Australia), Noleen Brown (Qld Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation), Amber E. Budden (DataONE, University of New Mexico), Paul Gioia (WA Department of Parks and Wildlife), Siddeswara Guru (TERN, University of Queensland), Mel Hardie (Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning), Tim Hirsch (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), Donald Hobern (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), John La Salle (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Scott R. Loarie (California Academy of Sciences), Matt Miles (SA Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources), Damian Milne (NT Department of Environment and Natural Resources), Miles Nicholls (Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO), Maurizio Rossetto (National Herbarium of NSW), Jennifer Smits (ACT Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate), Gregston Terrill (ACT Department of Environment and Energy), and David Turner (University of Adelaide).

Andrew Lowe receives funding from the Australian Government, and has previously received funding through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), for which he was Associate Science Director until 2016, and is currently serving on the TERN advisory board.

Anita Smyth receives funding from Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) which is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. She is a member of The Ecological Society of Australia and coordinates the Ecosystem Science Council's Data Resources working Group.

Ben Sparrow receives funding from the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) where he directs the AusPlots and Eco-informatics programs.

Glenda Wardle receives funding from from the Australian Research Council, the Long Term Ecological Research Network, and The University of Sydney. She is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, the Rangeland Society, the American and British Ecological Societies, American Geophysical Union, Society for Conservation Biology, INTECOL, ILTER, and is Chair of the Ecosystem Science Council. 

These migratory pied imperial-pigeons in Far North Queensland, like many of Australia's 22 species of native pigeons and doves, play an important role in our ecosystems but may be at risk from emerging viruses in domestic pigeons. Dejan Stojanovic, CC BY-SA

The word “pigeon” evokes thoughts of gentle cooing, fluttering in rafters, and poo-encrusted statues. The species responsible for the encrustation is deeply familiar to us, having ridden waves of European expansionism to inhabit every continent, including Australia. First domesticated thousands of years ago, urban pigeons have turned feral again.

Less familiar are the native species that are not your stereotypical pigeons: a posse of pointy-headed crested pigeons in a suburban park, or a flock of topknot pigeons feeding in a camphor laurel.

Crested pigeons (left), brush bronzewings (centre) and pied imperial-pigeons (right) are amongst the 22 species of native pigeons and doves in Australia. Their charm and beauty belies the important functions they play in ecosystems. Author provided

Australia and its neighbouring islands are the global epicentre of pigeon and dove (or “columbid”) diversity with the highest density of different columbids – an impressive 134 species – found in the region. Twenty-two of these native species are found in Australia alone, in just about every habitat.

These native species play an important role in ecosystem functioning: they forage for and disperse seeds, concentrate nutrients in the environment, and are a source of food for predators. Fruit doves for example, are zealous fruitarians, and the region’s tropical rainforests depend on them for tree diversity. Where fruit-doves have disappeared in the South Pacific, numerous plant species have lost an effective dispersal mechanism.

The rose-crowned fruit-dove is not only beautiful but also plays an important role in dispersing seeds in Australian rainforests. Author provided

The future of Australia’s native pigeons however, may depend on our domestic pigeons. Australia’s domestic pigeon population — both feral and captive - is large and interconnected by frequent local and interstate movements. Pigeon racing, for example, involves releasing captive birds hundreds of kilometres from their homes only so they may find their way back. While most birds do navigate home, up to 20% will not return, of which some will join feral pigeon populations. Birds are also traded across the country and illegally from overseas. These movements, together with poor biosecurity practices, mean that captive pigeons can and do mingle with feral domestic pigeons.

And here’s a paradox. Could Australia’s feral domestic pigeons become the vector for a dramatic decline of columbids – native species on which Australian ecosystems rely?

Emerging viral epidemics

In recent years, two notable infectious diseases have been found to affect our captive domestic pigeons: the pigeon paramyxovirus type 1 (PPMV1) and a new strain of the pigeon rotavirus (G18P). These diseases are notable because in captive domestic flocks they are both spectacularly lethal and difficult to control.

PPMV1, although likely to have originated overseas, is now endemic in Australia. This virus has jumped from captive to feral domestic pigeon populations on several occasions, but fortunately has yet to establish in feral populations.

Domestic pigeons suffer high mortality rates after being infected with either pigeon paramyxovirus ‘PPMV1’ or pigeon rotavirus ‘G18P’. Dr Colin Walker

G18P is thought to have spread to Victoria and South Australia from a bird auction in Perth in 2016. PPMV1 also spread rapidly to multiple states following its first appearance in Melbourne in 2011.

The movements of captive pigeons, and their contact with their feral counterparts, can be the route through which virulent and lethal diseases – such as the PPMV1 and the G18P – may spread to Australia’s native columbids.

Pigeon paramyxovirus and pigeon rotavirus are known to have escaped from captive domestic pigeons into feral domestic pigeons (black arrow). The risk is that these viruses will establish in feral pigeon populations and cause epidemics in our diverse and ecologically important wild native columbids (red arrow). Author provided What have we got to lose?

Fortunately, neither PPMV1 nor G18P has crossed over to Australia’s native columbids. We can’t say how likely this is, or how serious the consequences would be, because we have not previously observed such viral infections among our native pigeons.

If the viruses prove equally lethal to native columbids as they are to domestic pigeons, we could see catastrophic population declines across numerous columbid species in Australia over a short period of time.

Should these viruses spread (via feral domestic pigeons), the control and containment of losses among our native pigeon species would be near impossible. Such a nightmare scenario can only be avoided by predicting if and how these viruses might “spill over” into wild columbids so that we can prevent this in the first place.

Maps of Australia showing the overlapping distribution of our 22 native pigeon and dove species (left) and the distribution (in orange) and verified individual records (red dots) of introduced feral domestic pigeons (right). Atlas of Living Australia, Birdlife International Protecting our pigeons

Agricultural poultry is routinely screened to check their vulnerability to threats like the PPMV1 and G18P. Such screening is an appropriate response to protect our agricultural industry.

For our native pigeons and doves however, no such similar testing is planned. Based on progress in veterinary vaccine development and advancements in understanding of feral pigeon control, the knowledge and technology required to mitigate this threat should be relatively inexpensive. The threat for these species can be actively managed, now, by improving our biosecurity and vaccination programs for captive domestic pigeons, and eradicating feral domestic pigeons.

The protection of our native columbids however, ultimately relies on valuing their ecosystem functions in the first place.

Andrew Peters works for Charles Sturt University. He has received funding from the former Wildlife Exotic Disease Preparedness Program, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. He is affiliated with the Wildlife Disease Association and Wildlife Health Australia.

Australia might have been 'built on the sheep's back' but we can't eat off it. Stanley Zimny/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, Is Australia Full?, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate.

Australia feeds a lot of people. As a big country with a relatively small population, we have just over two arable hectares per person, one of the highest ratios in the world. Our diverse soils and climate provide a wide variety of fresh food all year round.

Historically we produce far more than we consume domestically. We sell around 65% of farm production overseas, making Australia a leading food-exporting nation. We therefore contribute to the food security not just of Australia, but of many other nations.

However, despite being a net food exporter, Australia also imports foods such as coffee, chocolate, processed fruit and vegetables, and key ingredients used in baking our daily bread. We are part of a global food system.

How will a swelling population, projected to reach between 36.8 million and 48.3 million by 2061, affect our food security? Are we set up to weather the storm of climate change, the degradation of our natural resources, and competition for land and water use from mining and urban expansion?

By the numbers

Current Australian government policy is to increase agricultural production and food exports, with a specific focus on developing Australia’s north.

In addition to providing food and nutrition security, the Australian food sector is a key driver of public health, environment, the economy and employment. The gross value of production from Australia’s 135,000 farmers varies between A$55 billion and A$64 billion a year, with exports accounting for between A$45 billion and A$48 billion.

Horticultural production (fruit, nuts and vegetables) will swell as Australian growers move to satisfy growing Asian demand.

Australian food processing companies add a further A$32 billion of value from 150 large food processors. We exported $A26 billion worth of processed food and beverages in 2015-16 and imported A$16.8 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of A$9.1 billion (rounded to one decimal place).

The food retail sector has an annual turnover around A$126 billion, with about 70% of Australians shopping at Woolworths or Coles. It’s also worth noting that considerable land and water resources are devoted to non-food commodities such as forestry, cotton and wool, and to environmental outcomes such as carbon sequestration or biodiversity plantings.

One in seven Australian jobs (1.6 million) are in the farm-dependent economy, and food and beverage processing employs around one-third of all Australian manufacturing workers, with promising growth prospects. Many jobs are seasonal and based in the regions. Farm and food enterprises rely on foreign workers for many key tasks, resulting in the food sector being particularly sensitive to changes in temporary work visas.

How to feed more people

If Australia reaches its projected population of between 36.8 million and 48.3 million by 2061, could we feed everyone?

For the sake of this exercise, let’s leave aside food we import, and assume that Australia will continue to export 65% of the food we produce.

Currently, our exports feed (at least in part) 36.6 million people outside Australia. If we add that to our domestic population, 61 million people will eat Australian food in 2017.

If we apply the same assumptions to projected high and low Australian populations for 2061, we arrive at a total (domestic plus export) population fed by Australian production of 92 million to 121 million, or an increase of 51-98%.

Could Australia double the number of people we feed by 2061? The answer is yes, but not simply by doubling the amount of food we produce. Three broad strategies will need to be integrated to reach this target:

1. Increase food productivity. We need to aim for 2% growth in annual food production by increasing investment research and development for food and agriculture. For comparison, between 1949 and 2012 we have averaged 2.1% annual growth, although from 2000-12 that slumped to 0.6%. Achieving this productivity target will be difficult, given the challenge of climate change and other constraining factors.

2. Reduce food waste. We currently waste around 30% of the food we produce. Reducing food waste benefits the environment and the economy. This strategy requires ongoing improvements in supply chain efficiency, changes in marketing, and consumer education.

3. Change our eating patterns. Moving towards sustainable diets will improve public health and environment outcomes. Reducing overconsumption (a contributor to obesity), eating more vegetables and less discretionary “junk” foods represent initial steps in this direction.

The next few decades will present unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the Australian food sector. Placing the consumer at the centre of healthy, sustainable and ethical food systems will be increasingly important, whether that consumer lives in Brisbane or Beijing. New ways of connecting consumers to producers will become commonplace, creating more informed and empowered consumers, and rewarding innovation.

Research highlighting the interconnections between food, health and environment will be required to support Australia’s claims to being a clean, green provider of food.

It’s easy to conclude that Australia can feed many more people than we currently do, but the real issue is to do this while ensuring our food system is healthy, sustainable and fair. Ultimately, exporting the research, technology and education that underpin our future food system will benefit far more people than those directly consuming food produced in Australia.

Bill Bellotti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Our new ClimateWorks Australia report, released today, shows that the electricity sector needs to deliver a much greater cut than the 28% emissions reduction modelled in the Finkel Review if Australia is to meet its overall climate target for 2030.

When Australia’s energy ministers meet this Friday to discuss (among other things) the Finkel Review released last month, they will hopefully consider its recommendations for the electricity sector in the broader context of developing a long-term national climate policy.

According to our analysis, the electricity sector should cut emissions by at least 45% by 2030, as part of a move towards net zero emissions by 2050. This is well beyond current government policies, but is crucial if Australia is to meet its climate obligations in an economically responsible way.

Climate commitments

The federal government has agreed to cut emissions by 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030. As a signatory to the Paris climate agreement, Australia has also committed to global action to limit global warming to well below 2℃ – and as a developed nation, that means reaching net zero emissions across the whole economy by about 2050.

Our analysis suggests that the electricity sector will need do a larger share than other sectors of the economy, because it has more technical potential to do so and can support emissions reductions in other sectors. In practice, reaching net zero emissions means shifting from coal and other fossil fuels to zero- or near-zero-carbon energy sources such as renewable electricity and bioenergy. Coal or gas will only be feasible if fitted with carbon capture and storage. Achieving near zero-emissions electricity is a key step in the transition to a net zero-emissions economy, not least because of the future importance of electrically powered transport.

The good news is that our previous research has shown that this is achievable with existing technologies, thanks to Australia’s rich renewable resources.

CSIRO and Energy Networks Australia have also shown that the electricity sector can reach zero emissions by 2050 while still maintaining security and reliability, and that this will actually save households an estimated A$414 a year compared with business as usual.

The 2030 target matters

Cutting emissions faster now will make it easier and less economically disruptive to reach net zero by 2050. Yet the latest government emissions projections forecast that Australia’s emissions will grow by 9% by the end of the next decade, from 543 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) in 2016 to 592Mt CO2e in 2030.

If the impact of existing policies (such as the National Energy Productivity Plan, the phase-down of hydroflurocarbon emissions, and state renewable energy targets) are taken into account in the projections, emissions could drop to 531Mt CO2e in 2030. This still leaves an 82-megatonne gap to reach even the minimum emissions reduction target of 26% percent below 2005 levels.

Time to do more

Our report, Power Up: Australia’s electricity sector can and should do more to deliver on our climate commitments shows that Australia’s electricity sector can cut emissions by up to 60% below 2005 levels by 2030. This is nearly six times more carbon reduction than is expected to be delivered by current policies, and could by itself fill the whole emissions reduction gap.

However, should the electricity sector only make a 28% reduction in its emissions, in line with the Finkel analysis, then it would only reduce emissions by 6Mt CO2e beyond current policies, leaving most of the effort of reducing emissions to other sectors such as buildings, transport, industry, waste and land management, where cutting carbon is likely to be significantly more expensive.

To reach this level of emissions reductions in the land sector, for instance, we would need to increase forest planting by more than three times the amount estimated to be delivered by the federal government’s Emission Reduction Fund in 2018, its peak year.

In its defence, the Finkel Review focused exclusively on the electricity sector and its analysis did not look at the impact that limited change in this sector would have on the required effort from other parts of the economy.

We therefore modelled various other scenarios, including one in which the share of renewables increases from 40% to 50% by 2030. This could enable the electricity sector to achieve double the carbon reductions delivered by efforts in line with the Finkel review.

Our third and fourth scenarios are aimed at meeting the more ambitious emissions target range recommended by the Climate Change Authority, corresponding to a more progressive and therefore economically responsible trajectory towards net zero emissions. This requires Australia achieving a 45-60% reduction in emissions from the electricity sector by 2030.

Expected emissions reductions by 2030 (in megatonnes CO₂ equivalent) in four different policy areas under four different electricity scenarios. ClimateWorks Australia, Author provided The long view

Like the Finkel Review, our report recommends that the federal government defines a specific emissions-reduction policy for the electricity sector, which in Finkel’s case was the Clean Energy Target. This will help to ensure a smooth shift to reliable, affordable, low-carbon energy.

Our report outlines the key principles that Australian governments need to consider in order to make effective decisions on climate change policy, with a view to achieving net zero emissions by mid-century.

These include providing clear long-term direction to support the industry’s investment decisions, and ensuring that decision-making to 2030 is compatible with reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Climate policy should also be flexible so that it can be scaled up to meet future targets and allow a range of solutions, including the uptake of emerging technologies to make the transition faster and cheaper.

Given that net zero emissions is the ultimate goal, we need to move faster and achieve greater emissions reductions by 2030 to help deliver a fully decarbonised electricity system, on time and on budget.

Amandine Denis-Ryan receives funding from federal and state government, as well as businesses, for specific analysis conducted for them. ClimateWorks Australia is an independent organisation, funded in majority through philanthropy.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has issued its strongest decision yet about climate change, acknowledging the worldwide threat posed to many World Heritage properties.

The decision (see pages 26-27 here), set to be adopted today at the completion of the Committee’s annual meeting in Krakow, Poland, “expresses its utmost concern regarding the reported serious impacts from coral bleaching that have affected World Heritage properties in 2016-17 and that the majority of World Heritage coral reefs are expected to be seriously impacted by climate change”.

It also urges the 193 signatory nations to the World Heritage Convention to undertake actions to address climate change under the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature increase to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial temperatures.

This decision marks an important shift in the level of recognition by the Committee tasked with protecting World Heritage properties, apparently jolted by the devastating bleaching suffered by the majority of World Heritage coral reefs around the world.

In the past, the Committee has restricted its decisions to addressing localised threats such as water pollution and overfishing, choosing to leave the responsibility to address global climate change to other parts of the United Nations.

In the preamble to its latest decision, the Committee has recognised that local efforts alone are “no longer sufficient” to save the world’s threatened coral reefs.

But while this is an encouraging progression, some members of the Committee are still struggling to come to terms with addressing the global impacts of climate change. This is despite the impacts becoming more pronounced on other World Heritage properties, including glaciers, rainforests, oceanic islands, and sites showing the loss of key species.

The World Heritage-listed glacial landscape around Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps. Steinmann/Wikimedia Commons The ‘jewels’ of marine world heritage

Last month, UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre released the first global scientific assessment of the impact of climate change on all 29 World Heritage-listed coral reefs that are “the jewels in the World Heritage crown”.

The report paints a dire picture, with all but three World Heritage coral reefs exhibiting bleaching over the past three years. Iconic sites like the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), the Northwest Hawaiian islands (United States), the Lagoons of New Caledonia (France), and Aldabra Atoll (Seychelles) have all suffered their worst bleaching on record.

The most widely reported damage was the unprecedented bleaching suffered by the Great Barrier Reef in 2016-17, which killed around 50% of its corals.

The scientific report predicts that without large reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, all 29 reefs will “cease to exist as functioning coral reef ecosystems by the end of this century”.

Reefs can take 10-20 years to recover from bleaching. If our current emissions trajectory continues, within the next two decades, 25 out of the 29 World Heritage reefs will suffer severe heat stress twice a decade. This effectively means they will be unable to recover.

It should also be noted that the majority of World Heritage coral reefs are far better managed than other reefs around the world, so the implications of climate change for coral reefs globally are much worse.

All coral reefs are important

Almost one-third of the world’s marine fish species rely on coral reefs for some part of their life cycle. There are also 6 million people who fish on reefs in 99 countries and territories worldwide. This equates to about a quarter of the world’s small-scale fishers relying directly on coral reefs.

Half of all coral reef fishers globally are in Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific Island nations also have high proportions of reef fishers within their populations. In total, more than 400 million people in the poorest developing countries worldwide live within 100km of coral reefs. The majority of them depend directly on reefs for their food and livelihoods.

Coral reefs provide more value than any other ecosystem on Earth. They protect coastal communities from flooding and erosion, sustain fishing and tourism businesses, and host a stunning array of marine life. Their social, cultural and economic value has been estimated at US$1 trillion globally.

Recent projections indicate that climate-related loss of reef ecosystem services will total more than US$500 billion per year by 2100. The greatest impacts will be felt by the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on reefs.

Where else?

Recognising that the majority of the World Heritage coral reefs are expected to be seriously impacted by climate change is a good start. However, the Committee cannot afford to wait until similar levels of adverse impacts are evident at other natural and cultural heritage sites across the world.

The World Heritage Committee and other influential bodies must continue to acknowledge that climate change has already affected a wide range of World Heritage values through climate-related impacts such as species migrations, loss of biodiversity, glacial melting, sea-level rise, increases in extreme weather events, greater frequency of wildfires, and increased coastal erosion. To help understand the magnitude of the problem, the Committee has asked the World Heritage Centre and the international advisory bodies “to further study the current and potential impacts of climate change on World Heritage properties”, and report back in 2018.

Two of the key foundations of the World Heritage Convention are to protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage, and to pass that heritage on to future generations. For our sake, and the sake of future generations, let’s hope we can do both.

Jon C. Day previously represented Australia as a delegate to the World Heritage Committee between 2007-2011. He worked for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority between 1986 and 2014, and was one of its directors from 1998 to 2014.

We don't know what the car of the future will look like – but that's no excuse to delay transport reform. www.twin-loc.fr/Flickr, CC BY-SA

France has set its car manufacturers the goal of halting sales of diesel and petrol cars by 2040. The announcement last week came a day after the Swedish manufacturer Volvo declared it will build only hybrid and electric cars from 2019.

Moving away from highly polluting cars is an urgent global priority. Worldwide, transport accounts for 26% of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions and, of these emissions, 81% comes from road transport.

Our latest research, published in the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, shows that car ownership and the total distance travelled by cars are both likely to keep growing, globally and in Australia.

But just because there will be more cars, covering more ground, that doesn’t necessarily mean CO₂ emissions will continue to rise. It depends on a complex mix of population trends, income growth and the impacts of new policies and technologies.

It might therefore seem sensible to delay policy decisions until we can see what type of future emerges. However, our research found that a “wait and see” approach will dramatically increase our economic, social and environmental vulnerability.

Lower-income Australians are particularly at risk. This is because transport accounts for a greater proportion of their household income and they tend to live on the urban fringe where daily travel distances are necessarily higher.

Future-proofing our transport policy means we must engage with uncertainty, not ignore it. That means choosing policies that allow us to adapt to a range of technological or social developments.

We modelled different policy options in Western Australia, looking for options that reduced CO₂ emissions without creating social vulnerabilities. The most effective approach requires simultaneously improving fuel standards, making cars more efficient, and increasing city density to reduce both car ownership and the total distance we need to travel in cars.

However, CO₂ emissions alone don’t provide the full picture. Our model found that encouraging biofuels, for example, could mean increasing our agricultural footprint to grow feedstock.

Similarly, electric and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles require energy supplied by the electricity sector. As this sector itself decarbonises, technologies such as solar, hydro and wind will require greater areas of land than coal and gas technologies.

However, managing carbon dioxide emissions and demand on land is not necessarily mutually exclusive. Wind turbines can co-exist with grazing, and decentralised solar panels are already common on existing buildings. Offshore wind farms and solar installed on otherwise unproductive land can lessen impact. Targeted investment in technological efficiency can further reduce this impact.

Using land for both agriculture and energy production could actually give farmers greater economic resilience. Alternative fuels that use waste products or are low-impact (such as biofuel made from algae) are also promising avenues.

The economic case for expensive changes

Although the implementation of stringent transport policy will be costly – it requires massive changes in capital infrastructure and behaviour – it will open up other benefits and saving.

Vehicle emissions are recognised as the source of more air pollution than any other single human activity. These emissions cause hundreds of preventable deaths in Australia every year. (As well as saving lives, we’d also save billions of dollars in related costs.)

Well-designed, more compact urban spaces encourage more biking and walking. This, in turn, reduces chronic diseases that also cost Australians billions every year.

J G/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Research shows that compact cities reduce infrastructure costs by 11%; a 2015 report found gridlock alone could cost Australia A$53 billion by 2031. Curbing urban sprawl can reduce the clearing of native vegetation, which benefits the rivers and animals that live around our cities.

Changing the type of fuel used by cars, improving vehicle efficiency and increasing city density are all policy levers that can reduce the footprint of urban cars, but these must occur in tandem. To minimise costs and realise the potential savings, policymakers need to collaborate on finding policies that are flexible enough to adapt to an uncertain future.

Should we have the leadership to implement such sophisticated policy, we might accidentally design a future in which we are healthier and happier too.

Bonnie McBain received funding from the Australian Research Council to undertake this research.

What if you had somewhere quick and easy to put food waste, instead of being blamed for wasting it? Gary Perkin/Shutterstock

Environmental campaigns often appeal to our emotions: they ask us to care. They implore us to feel a sense of connection, empathy and stewardship, and then to alter our behaviour as a result.

In relation to food waste, this could mean anything from not pouring oil down the sink so as to protect ocean habitats, to keeping methane-emitting organic waste out of landfill.

About one-third of the world’s food goes to waste. We know that this squander is bad for social, economic and environmental reasons, yet still it happens.

But my recent research (publication pending) which looks at how food surplus is managed in homes, found that in many households, food wastage is not due to people being unthinking, unskilled or uncaring over-consumers. Instead, it is a product of our (largely reasonable) hierarchies of care: we actively prioritise the health and well-being of our family and friends.

For example, leftovers may go to waste because of health concerns about freezing and reheating certain foods, or the need to eat them within particular time frames. Many parents with young children (in line with parenting and dietary advice) want to give their kids a wide variety of fresh, nutritious food. This means not feeding them the limp veggies lurking at the bottom of the crisper, and avoiding meat that may have crept past its use-by date.

As well as feeling a strong obligation to their family’s immediate concerns, many people I survey and interview are frustrated by a lack of appropriate infrastructure to help keep food waste out of landfill. As a consequence, campaigns that focus on mobilising people to “care more” about the environment may actually be preventing – or at least limiting – the focus on more urgent problems.

Blame game

The implication that waste results from a lack of care reinforces a neoliberal approach that blames consumers. This is evident in the most well-known food waste reduction campaign, Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW), which originated in Britain and has been imported to New South Wales and Victoria.

The NSW LFHW website implores us to care for food, in turn promising that we can “waste less food, save money and our environment”. The suggested strategies include meal planning and leftover recipes. These could be useful for some people, but many consumers are already using these techniques. They know how to reuse food and consciously attempt to avoid overbuying.

In the few research studies that have looked in detail at the passage of food into and out of homes, all found that householders carefully monitor and manage fresh foods. Generally speaking, people aren’t adding organic waste to landfill through a lack of care for the environment.

Many of my participants said they want to reduce waste but find it difficult to buy small amounts of fresh food from supermarkets, where such products are often pre-packaged. Many people were also concerned about over-packaged items, such as half a cauliflower wrapped in huge lengths of cling wrap.

Food enters the waste stream not because we don’t care, but because we actively prioritise other things such as our family’s health, and because of authorities’ failure to provide infrastructure to address the problem.

A failure of infrastructure

While care for the environment is rarely front and centre in people’s decision-making about food waste (being secondary to health considerations), my research suggests that people will happily use schemes to keep food waste out of landfill, as long as they are simple, efficient, and mess-free.

Such schemes could include regular collection of the waste by local councils, including provision of receptacles that fit into kitchens and minimise mess and smell through the use of biodegradable bags (as used in a recent successful trial by Lake Macquarie Council).

Community composting initiatives, commonly centred around community gardens, also have potential, as does the use of private companies, particularly for servicing businesses. In my work with households involved in some of these initiatives, all were enthusiastic about having their food waste being repurposed into compost to nourish new life.

But most urban Australian households either can’t or won’t compost at home, and this is unlikely to change no matter how much we urge the public to care for the environment.

This illustrates why focusing solely on making people “care” is unlikely to reduce household food waste as much as we would like. Instead, we must reduce food waste in landfill by providing infrastructure that drives widespread behavioural change. Put simply, we need to expand our toolkit.

Many people already care about food waste, but they care about other things too, such as health and hygiene. By giving consumers a simple way to deal with food waste rather than throwing it into the bin, we can reduce landfill without asking people for unrealistic compromises about their food habits. To really drive behavioural change, perhaps what we need to promote is not care but the infrastructure that makes caring convenient.

Access to participants in the Lake Macquarie trial was facilitated by Lake Macquarie City Council. The author did not receive funding from this body.

Terese Pagh eating a banana flavoured eXo Protein bar made out of cricket powder. provded by The Gateway Bug

I’ve had the privilege of getting a sneak preview of a movie called The Gateway Bug, which is a documentary about feeding humanity in an uncertain age. It will be shown in Melbourne next weekend as part of the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival.

I wrote that eating insects is a good idea back in 2013, shortly after the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a report suggesting that using insects for food and feed would increase food security for our planet.

Following the publication of that article, I was contacted by people who wanted to know how to start farming insects. They were looking for people to contact, for information on regulations. I was invariably unhelpful. I didn’t know the answers, and felt inadequate, but now I know that nobody knew the answers back then. We were at the very beginning of a journey.

The Gateway Bug is a documentary about that journey, following the nascent industry in North America producing insects for human consumption. Insects provide an alternative to our current food systems that use too much water, too much land, produce mountains of organic waste and create vast clouds of greenhouse gases.

Film makers Johanna B. Kelly (director) and Cameron Marshad (cinematographer and editor) began making the film in 2015 at the first meeting of the American Edible Insect Coalition in Detroit. By interviewing 50 professionals in this new industry, the film makers have claim that they can convert viewers into activists.

The film begins with a rush of frightening statistics about the dangers surrounding the future of food, made entertaining by their choice of music: Pollution by Tom Lehrer. Within the first 10 minutes they have brought the audience up to speed on the problem with our food systems. They spend the next hour and a quarter listening to the people who are working on potential solutions and providing detail about the challenges they face.

Surprisingly, convincing people to understand the potential health benefits and to like the taste of insects does not seem to be one of those challenges. There are no signs of disgust on the faces of people eating insects for the first time, who say they taste like chips or popcorn. A protein powder made from crickets is said to be “nutty with a hint of shrimp”. When crickets were offered as a topping on gourmet hot dogs in Youngstown Ohio, the restaurant struggled to keep up with demand.

No, the challenges were logistic rather than ideological. Cricket farms must find feed that does not compromise the taste of their product. Grinding the grain to a powder fine enough for baby crickets and caring for thousands of charges at a time is labour intensive. Sadly, one business goes under when millions of crickets die off due to contaminated town water.

What I found deeply surprising was the diversity of viewpoints of the people involved. One California business, which started by growing crickets on spent mash from a nearby brewery, gave up when it became apparent that their product could not be used as fish feed in the aquaculture industry.

Tyler Isaac, co-founder of Slightly Nutty, closed his business in 2016 because, “..we did not want to feed rich millennials cricket powder”. For him, the main problem is the unsustainable food system and unless he was changing that, he did not feel like he was making a difference.

Other companies are all about finding ways to get Americans to eat crickets: as protein bars (eXo), in chocolate bars (Chapul), or as chips quaintly renamed Chirps (Six foods). Also concerned about climate change, the lack of water resources, and food systems, the people that run these companies are nevertheless content to use their products as a gateway to using bugs in everyday foods.

I loved the way the film makers used old footage to express certain attitudes toward food and insects. It cleverly sent the message that although the words sounded perfectly reasonable, these ideas are already part of our past. The graphics were simple and useful, expressing concepts in a way the viewer didn’t have to work too hard to understand.

The Gateway Bug is really a discussion of food and how critical it is to our future on this planet. That may sound somewhat trite, but this film makes you sit down and think seriously about where our food comes from and where it will come from in a more crowded future earth.

Before seeing this movie, I didn’t even know that “entomophagist” was a word, but as an advocate of entomophagy, I suppose I am one. I was surprised and moved by this documentary, which did not pull any punches but also did not preach or condescend. But beware, after watching it, you are probably going to want to eat some bugs.

The Gateway Bug will be screened at Cinema Nova, Melbourne on 16 July 2017 at 3 pm. Buy tickets here

In a somewhat surprising decision, UNESCO ruled this week that the Great Barrier Reef – one of the Earth’s great natural wonders – should not be listed as “World Heritage in Danger”.

The World Heritage Committee praised the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, and the federal minister for the environment, Josh Frydenberg, has called the outcome “a big win for Australia and a big win for the Turnbull government”.

But that doesn’t mean the Reef is out of danger. Afforded World Heritage recognition in 1981, the Reef has been on the warning list for nearly three years. It’s not entirely evident why UNESCO decided not to list the Reef as “in danger” at this year’s meeting, given the many ongoing threats to its health.

However, the World Heritage Committee has made it clear they remain concerned about the future of this remarkable world heritage site.

The reef is still in deep trouble

UNESCO’s draft decision (the adopted version is not yet releasesd) cites significant and ongoing threats to the Reef, and emphasises that much more work is needed to get the health of the Reef back on track. Australia must provide a progress report on the Reef in two years’ time – and they want to see our efforts to protect the reef accelerate.

Right now, unprecedented coral bleaching in consecutive years has damaged two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This bleaching, or loss of algae, affects a 1,500km stretch of the reef. The latest damage is concentrated in the middle section, whereas last year’s bleaching hit mainly the north.

Pollution, overfishing and sedimentation are exacerbating the damage. Land clearing in Queensland has accelerated rapidly in the past few years, with about 1 million hectares of native vegetation being cleared in the past five years. That’s an area the size of the Brisbane Cricket Ground being cleared every three minutes.

About 40% of this vegetation clearing is in catchments that drain to the Great Barrier Reef. Land clearing contributes to gully and streambank erosion. This erosion means that soil (and whatever chemical residues are in it) washes into waterways and flows into reef lagoon, reducing water quality and affecting the health of corals and seagrass.

Landclearing also directly contributes to climate change, which is the single biggest threat to the Reef. The recent surge in land clearing in Queensland alone poses a threat to Australia’s ability to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target. Yet attempts by the Queensland Government to control excessive land clearing have failed – a concern highlighted by UNESCO in the draft decision.

Land clearing can lead to serious hillslope gully and sheet erosion, which causes sedimentation and reduced water quality in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. Willem van Aken/CSIRO A time for action, not celebration

The Reef remains on UNESCO’s watch list. Just last month the World Heritage Committee released a report concluding that progress towards achieving water quality targets had been slow, and that it does not expect the immediate water quality targets to be met.

The draft decision still expressed UNESCO’s “serious concern” and “strongly encouraged” Australia to “accelerate efforts to ensure meeting the intermediate and long-term targets of the plan, which are essential to the overall resilience of the property, in particular regarding water quality”.

This means reducing run-off of sediment, nutrients and pollutants from our towns and farmlands. Improving water quality can help recovery of corals, even if it doesn’t prevent mortality during extreme heatwaves.

The Great Barrier Reef is the most biodiverse of all the World Heritage sites, and of “enormous scientific and intrinsic importance” according to the United Nations. A recent report by Deloitte put its value at A$56bn. It contributes an estimated A$6.4bn annually to Australia’s economy and supports 64,000 jobs.

Excessive landclearing in Queensland, which looks like being a core issue in the next state election, has been successfully curbed in the past, and it could be again.

But the reef cannot exist in the long term without international efforts to curb global warming. To address climate change and reduce emissions, we need to act both nationally and globally. Local action on water quality (the focus of the Reef 2050 Plan) does not prevent bleaching, or “buy time” to delay action on emissions.

We need adequate funding for achieving the Reef 2050 Plan targets for improved water quality, and a plan to reach zero net carbon emissions. Without that action, an “in danger” listing seems inevitable in 2020. But regardless of lists and labels, the evidence is clear. The Great Barrier Reef is dying before our eyes. Unless we do more, and fast, we risk losing it forever.

James Watson receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Programme. He is the global Director of the Science and Research Initiative at the Wildlife Conservation Society and President of the Society for Conservation Biology.

Martine Maron receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Environmental Science Programme, the Science for Nature and People Partnership, and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. She is a Director of BirdLife Australia and a Governor of WWF Australia.

Climate teams: if countries pooled resources, they could support a low-emission transformation. CC BY-ND

Despite the US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, other countries, including New Zealand, remain committed to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions.

In our report, we explore how New Zealand, a trailblazer for emissions trading, might drive a low-emission transformation, both at home and overseas.

Turning off the tap

Emitting greenhouse gases is a lot like overflowing a bathtub. Even a slow trickle will eventually flood the room.

The Paris Agreement gives all countries a common destination: net zero emissions during the second half of the century. It is also an acknowledgement that the world has only a short time to turn the tide on emissions and limit global temperature rise to below two degrees. The sooner we turn down the tap, the more time we have for developing solutions.

Time is running out on meeting the goal of keeping global temperature rise below two degrees. from Unsplash, CC BY-ND

New Zealand’s 2030 commitment is to reduce emissions 30% below 2005 levels (11% below 1990). In 2015, our emissions (excluding forestry) were 24% above 1990 levels. The government projects a gap of 235 million tonnes between what has been pledged and what New Zealand will actually emit in the period from 2021 to 2030.

Reducing emissions rapidly enough within New Zealand to achieve our Paris commitment could be extremely expensive, and even at a cost of NZ$300 per tonne, the target could not be met through domestic action alone.

International emission reductions help bridge the gap. New Zealand could turn off its own greenhouse gas tap while supporting other countries to do the same.

Joining forces across borders

In the past, New Zealand relied heavily on the global Kyoto carbon market and purchased international emission reductions using the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Some ETS firms bought low-cost overseas Kyoto units of questionable integrity while domestic emissions continued to rise.

In 2015, New Zealand pulled out of the Kyoto carbon market and its ETS is now a domestic-only system.

Under the Paris Agreement, carbon markets have changed in three important ways:

• Currently, international emission reductions can be traded only from government to government. It is no longer possible for NZ ETS participants to buy international units directly from the market.

• International emission reductions sold as offsets to other countries will have to be additional to the seller’s own Paris target.

• Countries have flexibility to trade international emission reductions through arrangements outside of the central UN mechanism which is at an early stage of development.

A new approach to reducing emissions

What does this mean for New Zealand? First, we cannot and must not rely on international markets to set our future domestic emission price.

Second, as both taxpayers and responsible global citizens, we need to decide where to fund emission reductions. Most mitigation opportunities are in developing countries. The benefits of investing in lower-cost reductions overseas need to be weighed against the costs of deferring strategic investment in New Zealand’s own low-emission transformation.

Third, we need an effective mechanism to direct New Zealand’s contribution to mitigation overseas.

In collaboration with others, Motu researchers are prototyping a new approach: a results-based agreement between buyer and seller governments within a climate team.

For example, New Zealand could partner with other buyers – such as Australia, South Korea or Norway – to pool funding at a scale that provides incentives for a country with a developing or emerging economy – such as Colombia or Chile – to invest in low-emission transformation beyond its Paris target. These countries could then create a more favourable environment for low-emission investment – including by New Zealand companies.

Emissions trading could play an important role in New Zealand’s transition to a low-emissions economy. from Unsplash, CC BY-ND Retooling the ETS for domestic decarbonisation

So far, New Zealand has been moving at speed but in the wrong direction, relying heavily on international emission reductions to meet its targets from 2008 through 2020 while domestic emissions continued to rise. Gross emissions (excluding forestry) are projected to climb 29% above 1990 gross emission levels by 2030 under current measures. This is a far cry from our 2030 Paris target of net emissions of 30% below 2005 gross emission levels (11% below 1990).

New Zealand’s ETS has an important role to play in achieving a successful low-emission domestic economy, but it needs to be properly equipped.

Unlike other financial markets, the purpose of an ETS market is more than price discovery, resource allocation and liquidity. It is designed to create a change in behaviour to reduce emissions. Prices are driven not just by the interplay of demand and supply, but by current policy decisions, emission reduction opportunities, and expectations about future decisions and opportunities.

Since de-linking from the Kyoto market in mid-2015, NZ ETS participants have had no certainty on how to invest. They need clear near-term signals for unit supply and cost and predictable processes for longer-term decision making.

Five changes to make the emissions trading work

1. Introducing a cap (fixed limit) on NZ ETS units sold or freely allocated by the government will define supply and enable the market to set an efficient price. In the past, the NZ ETS borrowed the global Kyoto cap, which essentially allowed unlimited domestic supply. The Kyoto cap is no longer available and we have committed to reducing domestic emissions.

2. Establishing a price band will provide a minimum and maximum emission price limit, set by government. A price floor will guarantee a minimum return on low-emission investment and a price ceiling will safeguard against upside price shocks. When the floor and ceiling are far apart, the market has latitude when setting the price. The closer they are, the more the government manages the price. The price band will be implemented at auction and replace the current fixed-price option set at NZ$25 per tonne.

3. Fixing both the cap and the price band for five years and extending them by one year each year will provide short-term certainty. The government will also need to set indicative trajectories for caps and price bands for a further 10 years in alignment with its decarbonisation objectives. This will enable long-term decision-making.

4. Given the technical complexity of the ETS, we recommend that an independent body be tasked with advising government on ETS supply and price settings. Ultimately however, decisions on caps and price bands are political and therefore should be taken by government, with transparency and public accountability.

5. The era of top-down carbon markets, unlimited unit supply and rising domestic emissions has ended. Right now, only governments can purchase international emissions reductions. In the longer term, ETS participants may also be able to do so. However, the quantity must be limited and displace other supply under the cap to avoid devaluing domestic investment and disrupting New Zealand’s progress toward decarbonisation. All international emission reductions applied toward New Zealand’s targets must be quality assured to manage risks with environmental integrity.

These adjustments can be achieved through practical legislative amendments and regulation. There is merit in implementing these changes as soon as possible so that low-emission investors and emitters can get on the road.

Setting the ambition of domestic ETS caps and price bands can be politically challenging. That is why New Zealand skipped this step the first time around and borrowed the Kyoto ones instead. Under the Paris Agreement, New Zealand needs to establish a resilient policy architecture with cross-party support that offers predictable processes to guide future political decision making. It’s time for us to forge our own pathway to a successful low-emission economy.

This article was prepared by Suzi Kerr, Catherine Leining and Ceridwyn Roberts at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. The supporting paper was funded by the Aotearoa Foundation and informed by participants in Motu’s ETS Dialogue. The content does not necessarily represent the views of or endorsement by ETS Dialogue participants, their organisation or the funder.

Suzi Kerr is a Senior Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust, a not-for-profit research organisation in New Zealand, and an adjunct professor at Victoria University of Wellington. Motu’s work through the ETS Dialogue on reforming the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme has been funded by the Aotearoa Foundation.

This June was the seventh-warmest and second-driest on record for Australia. Parts of the southwest and southeast saw record dry conditions as frontal systems passed further south than normal and high pressure exerted its influence on the continent.

Australia’s second-driest June on record saw unusually dry conditions over most of the continent but more rain than average for Sydney and northeast New South Wales. Bureau of Meteorology

While many of us will have enjoyed warm, dry weather, farmers in the south of the country will be concerned at the lack of winter rain for their crops. Winter is the dominant season for rainfall, especially in the southwest of the continent, so a return to wetter conditions would be welcome.

There are already indications of drought developing across the west coast of Western Australia and in other areas of the country.

Did climate change play a role?

To deduce whether climate change had an influence on this particular event, I used two sets of climate model simulations: one representing the world of today and another representing a world without human influences (that is, with pre-industrial greenhouse gas concentrations).

I compared the likelihood and magnitude of dry Junes in the two sets of simulations to determine the net effect of human-caused climate change.

I looked at the climate change influence on very dry Junes (such as the one we’ve just experienced) both for Australia as a whole, and for the southeast, which had its driest June on record. Both of these areas received well below half of their average June rainfall in June 2017.

Southeast Australia had its driest June on record this year. Bureau of Meteorology

For Australia-wide June rainfall, I found a clear climate change signal towards drier conditions.

According to my analysis, climate change has increased the likelihood of very dry Junes by at least a third. The driest Junes now are about 12% drier than they would be in the absence of human greenhouse emissions.

When I looked at southeast Australia, however, I found that the influence of climate change is less clear.

My analysis suggested that climate change has probably increased the chance of dry conditions, although there is more uncertainty than for Australia as a whole.

That said, the driest Junes appear to be drier in the world of today than they would have been without climate change, by about 8% in the case of southeast Australia.

It’s not surprising that the result for southeast Australia is less distinct. Generally speaking, the smaller the area, the harder it is to detect an influence of climate change, as there is more year-to-year variability.

What can we expect in future?

The Paris Agreement aims to hold global warming well below 2℃ and preferably at around 1.5℃ above pre-industrial average temperatures. For context, we have had a little over 1℃ of global warming so far, so we’re more than two-thirds of the way to the 1.5℃ target already.

Under either a 1.5℃ or 2℃ global warming target, I project that dry Junes in Australia will become more frequent. For the southeast of the continent the picture is less clear, with high uncertainty in the change we might see.

Climate change is increasing the likelihood of dry Junes for Australia as a whole, but the signal is less clear over the southeast. The best estimate likelihoods are shown with 90% confidence intervals in parentheses. Author provided

The trend towards drier Junes across Australia is related to the southward shift in the storm track, the prevailing westerly winds that bring frontal weather systems across southern Australia. June 2017 is a very clear example of this effect.

Scientists use the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) to describe the position of the storm track. It has been trending towards more “positive” conditions, reflecting a poleward movement in the frontal systems which typically causes them to pass to the south of the Australian landmass.

These positive SAM phases bring drier conditions to most of Australia, but wetter conditions to coastal New South Wales. This is precisely what we have seen in June 2017.

As the effects of climate change intensify in the coming years, scientists expect to see the frontal systems that bring vital rainfall to the south of Australia moving further and further south. This increases the chance of Australia experiencing more dry Junes like the one just passed. Increasing temperatures will cause greater evaporation when there is rainfall, further exacerbating drought conditions.

You can find full details of the methods used in this analysis here.

Disclosure

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

A new paper improves our estimate of the climate's sensitivity to carbon dioxide. NASA/Wikimedia Commons

One of the key questions about climate change is the strength of the greenhouse effect. In scientific terms this is described as “climate sensitivity”. It’s defined as the amount Earth’s average temperature will ultimately rise in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Climate sensitivity has been hard to pin down accurately. Climate models give a range of 1.5-4.5℃ per doubling of CO₂, whereas historical weather observations suggest a smaller range of 1.5-3.0℃ per doubling of CO₂.

In a new study published in Science Advances, Cristian Proistosescu and Peter J. Huybers of Harvard University resolve this discrepancy, by showing that the models are likely to be right.

According to their statistical analysis, historical weather observations reveal only a portion of the planet’s full response to rising CO₂ levels. The true climate sensitivity will only become manifest on a time scale of centuries, due to effects that researchers call “slow climate feedbacks”.

Fast and slow

To understand this, it is important to know precisely what we mean when we talk about climate sensitivity. So-called “equilibrium climate sensitivity”, or slow climate feedbacks, refers to the ultimate consequence of climate response – in other words, the final effects and environmental consequences that a given greenhouse gas concentration will deliver.

These can include long-term climate feedback processes such as ice sheet disintegration with consequent changes in Earth’s surface reflection (albedo), changes to vegetation patterns, and the release of greenhouse gases such as methane from soils, tundra or ocean sediments. These processes can take place on time scales of centuries or more. As such they can only be predicted using climate models based on prehistoric data and paleoclimate evidence.

On the other hand, when greenhouse gas forcing rises at a rate as high as 2–3 parts per million (ppm) of CO₂ per year, as is the case during the past decade or so, the rate of slow feedback processes may be accelerated.

Measurements of atmosphere and marine changes made since the Industrial Revolution (when humans first began the mass release of greenhouse gases) capture mainly the direct warming effects of CO₂, as well as short-term feedbacks such as changes to water vapour and clouds.

A study led by climatologist James Hansen concluded that climate sensitivity is about 3℃ for a doubling of CO₂ when considering only short-term feedbacks. However, it’s potentially as high as 6℃ when considering a final equilibrium involving much of the West and East Antarctic ice melting, if and when global greenhouse levels transcend the 500-700ppm CO₂ range.

This illustrates the problem with using historical weather observations to estimate climate sensitivity – it assumes the response will be linear. In fact, there are factors in the future that can push the curve upwards and increase climate variability, including transient reversals that might interrupt long-term warming. Put simply, temperatures have not yet caught up with the rising greenhouse gas levels.

Prehistoric climate records for the Holocene (10,000-250 years ago), the end of the last ice age roughly 11,700 years ago, and earlier periods such as the Eemian (around 115,000-130,000 years ago) suggest equilibrium climate sensitivities as high as 7.1-8.7℃.

So far we have experienced about 1.1℃ of average global warming since the Industrial Revolution. Over this time atmospheric CO₂ levels have risen from 280ppm to 410ppm – and the equivalent of more than 450ppm after factoring in the effects of all the other greenhouse gases besides CO₂.

Estimate of climate forcing for 1750-2000. Author provided Crossing the threshold

Climate change is unlikely to proceed in a linear way. Instead, there is a range of potential thresholds, tipping points, and points of no return that can be crossed during either warming or transient short-lived cooling pauses followed by further warming.

The prehistoric records of the cycles between ice ages, namely intervening warmer “interglacial” periods, reveal several such events, such as the big freeze that suddenly took hold about 12,900 years ago, and the abrupt thaw about 8,200 years ago.

In the prehistoric record, sudden freezing events (called “stadial events”) consistently follow peak interglacial temperatures.

Such events could include the collapse of the Atlantic Mid-Ocean Circulation (AMOC), with consequent widespread freezing associated with influx of extensive ice melt from the Greenland and other polar ice sheets. The influx of cold ice-melt water would abort the warm salt-rich AMOC, leading to regional cooling such as is recorded following each temperature peak during previous interglacial periods.

Over the past few years cold water pools south of Greenland have indicated such cooling of the North Atlantic Ocean. The current rate of global warming could potentially trigger the AMOC to collapse.

A collapse of the AMOC, which climate “sceptics” would no doubt welcome as “evidence of global cooling”, would represent a highly disruptive transient event that would damage agriculture, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. Because of the cumulative build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such a cool pause is bound to be followed by resumed heating, consistent with IPCC projections.

The growth in the cold water region south of Greenland, heralding a possible collapse of the Atlantic Mid-Ocean Circulation. Author provided

Humanity’s release of greenhouse gases is unprecedented in speed and scale. But if we look far enough back in time we can get some clues as to what to expect. Around 56 million years ago, Earth experienced warming by 5-8℃ lasting several millennia, after a sudden release of methane-triggered feedbacks that caused the CO₂ level rise to around 1,800ppm.

Yet even that sudden rise of CO₂ levels was lower by a large factor than the current CO₂ rise rate of 2-3ppm per year. At this rate, unprecedented in Earth’s recorded history of the past 65 million years (with the exception of the consequences of asteroid impacts), the climate may be entering truly uncharted territory.

Andrew Glikson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Icebergs breaking off Antarctica, even massive ones, do not typically concern glaciologists. But the impending birth of a new massive iceberg could be more than business as usual for the frozen continent.

The Larsen C ice shelf, the fourth-largest in Antarctica, has attracted worldwide attention in the lead-up to calving an iceberg one-tenth of its area – or about half the area of greater Melbourne. It is still difficult to predict exactly when it will break free.

But it’s not the size of the iceberg that should be getting attention. Icebergs calve all the time, including the occasional very large one, with nothing to worry about. Icebergs have only a tiny direct effect on sea level.

The calving itself will simply be the birth of another big iceberg. But there is valid concern among scientists that the entire Larsen C ice shelf could become unstable, and eventually break up entirely, with knock-on effects that could take decades to play out.

Ice shelves essentially act as corks in a bottle. Glaciers flow from land towards the sea, and their ice is eventually absorbed into the ice shelf. Removal of the ice shelf causes glaciers to flow faster, increasing the rate at which ice moves from the land into the sea. This has a much larger effect on sea level than iceberg calving does.

While the prediction that Larsen C could become unstable is based partly on physics, it is also based on observations. Using aerial and satellite images, scientists have been able to track very similar ice shelves in the past, some of which have been seen to retreat and collapse.

The death of an ice shelf

The most dramatic ice shelf collapse observed so far is that of Larsen C’s neighbour to the north – the imaginatively named Larsen B. Over the course of just six weeks in 2002 the entire ice shelf splintered into dozens of icebergs. Almost immediately afterwards, the glaciers feeding into it sped up by two to six times. Those glaciers continue to flow faster to this day.

Satellite photo series of Larsen B Ice Shelf collapse from January 2002 to April 2002. NASA

In our new study, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, we turn the clock back even further to look at the Wordie ice shelf, on the west coast of the southern Antarctic Peninsula, which began to retreat in the 1960s and eventually disappeared in January 2017.

Over the past 20 years, observations have shown that the main glacier feeding into the Wordie ice shelf, the Fleming Glacier, has sped up and thinned. Compared with the glaciers feeding Larsen B and C, Fleming Glacier is massive: 80km long, 12km wide, and 600m thick at its front.

Locations of the Larsen C Ice Shelf and the Wordie Ice Shelf-Fleming Glacier system with ice front positions from 1947 to 2016. Author provided

We used historic aerial photographs from 1966 to create an elevation map of the Fleming Glacier, and compared it to elevation measurements from 2002 to 2015. Between 1966 and 2015 the Fleming Glacier thinned by at least 100m near the front. The thinning rate, which is the elevation change rate, rapidly increased: the thinning rate after 2008 is more than twice that during 2002 to 2008, and four times the average rates from 1966 to 2008.

Ice thinning rate of the Fleming Glacier region during (a) 2002-2008 and (b) 2008-2015. Author provided

Ice flow speeds have also increased by more than 400m per year at the front since 2008. This is the largest speed change in recent years of any glacier in Antarctica. These changes all point to ice shelf collapse as the cause.

We estimate the total glacier ice volume lost from all glaciers that feed the Wordie is 179 cubic kilometres since 1966, or 319 times the volume of Sydney Harbour. The weight of this ice moving off the land and into the ocean has caused the bedrock beneath the glaciers to lift by more than 50mm.

Other research has suggested this lift could have acted to slow the glacier’s retreat, but it’s clear that the bedrock deformation has not stopped the ice movement speeding up. It seems the Fleming Glacier has a long way to go before it will return to a new stable state (in which snowfall feeding the glacier equals the ice flowing into the oceans).

Fifty years after the Wordie Ice Shelf began to collapse, the major feeding glaciers continue to thin and flow faster than before.

We can’t yet predict the full consequences of the new iceberg calving from Larsen C. But if the ice shelf does begin to retreat or collapse, history tells us it is very possible that its glaciers will flow faster – making yet more sea level rise inevitable.

Chen Zhao is a PhD student from the School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania. She receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program.

Christopher Watson receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Environment.

Matt King receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Environment.

This quenda seems to have been a victim of land clearing. Colin Leonhardt/Birdseyeviewphotography.com.au, Author provided

Tens of millions of wild animals are killed each year by land clearing across Australia, according to our research on the harm done to animals when native vegetation is removed for agricultural, urban and industrial development.

As my colleague Nahiid Stephens and I point out in our study, this harm to animals is largely invisible, unlike the obvious effects of clearing on trees and other plants. But just because something is invisible, that does not mean it should be ignored.

We argue that reforms are necessary to ensure that decision-makers take wild animals’ welfare into account when assessing development proposals and land clearing applications.

How does land clearing harm animals?

Land clearing harms animals in two basic ways. First, they may be killed or injured when native vegetation is removed, typically through the use of earth-moving machinery. For example, animals may suffer traumatic injuries or be smothered when vegetation is cut or soil and debris are shifted.

Second, the removal of native vegetation puts animals in harm’s way. Those that survive the clearing process will be left in an environment that is typically hostile, unfamiliar or unsuitable. Animals are likely to find themselves in landscapes that are devoid of food and shelter but filled with predators, disease, and increased aggression from members of their own species as they struggle to make a living.

Land clearing causes animals to die in ways that are physically painful and psychologically distressing. Animals will also suffer physical injuries and other pathological conditions that may persist for days or months as they try to survive in cleared areas or other environments to which they are displaced.

Many reptiles and mammals are territorial or have small home ranges, and thus have strong associations with small areas of habitat. Koalas in urban areas, for example, tend to rely on particular food trees. Likewise, lizards and snakes often rely on particular microhabitat features such as logs, rocks, and leaf litter to provide the combination of temperature and humidity that they need to survive.

Laws are not protecting animals

Land clearing remains a fundamental pressure on the Australian environment. While the regulatory frameworks for land clearing vary greatly across the Australian states and territories, the principal statutes that govern native vegetation clearance in most jurisdictions typically contain some sort of express recognition of the harm that land clearing causes, such as the loss or fragmentation of habitat, land degradation, and salinity.

Habitat lost: land cleared for the now-discontinued Perth Freight Link road project. Colin Leonhardt/Birdseyeviewphotography.com.au, Author provided

Yet these regulations are uniformly silent on the issue of how land clearing harms animals. No state or territory has developed a clear framework to evaluate this harm, let alone minimise it in future development proposals.

This failure to recognise animal welfare as a significant issue for decision-making about land clearing is troubling, especially given the scale of current land clearing. In Queensland, for example, an estimated 296,000 hectares of woody vegetation was cleared in 2014-15, nearly all of which was for the purpose of converting native vegetation to pasture. In our study we estimate that, on the basis of previous studies and current estimates of clearing rates, land clearing in Queensland and New South Wales combined kills more than 50 million birds, mammals and reptiles each year.

What reforms are necessary?

We suggest that two basic reforms are required. First, state and territory parliaments should amend the laws that govern environmental impact assessments and native vegetation clearance, to require decision-makers to take animal welfare into account when assessing land clearing applications.

Second, we urgently need accurate ways to evaluate the harm that proposed clearing actions may cause to individual animals. Animal welfare is broadly recognised as an important social concern, so it makes sense that in a situation where we know animals are being harmed, we should take steps to measure and prevent that harm.

The basic aim of any reform should be to ensure that the harm that land clearing causes to individual wild animals is appropriately considered in all forms of environmental decision-making and that such evaluations are based on clear and objective criteria for animal welfare.

At a minimum, those who apply to clear native vegetation should be required to provide an estimate of the number and type of native animals that will be killed by the proposed land clearing. This would ensure that all parties – applicants, decision-makers, and the community – understand the harm that the clearing would cause. These estimates could be made by using population density information for species that are likely to be affected – an approach that has been already been used.

We also need to revise our perceptions about the usefulness and necessity of land clearing in Australia. A better idea of what is “acceptable” would include not only the environmental costs of clearing an area of native vegetation, but also the individual suffering that animals will experience.

Issues of causation and responsibility are critical here. While it’s unlikely that someone who wants to clear land actually wants native animals to suffer, such suffering will nevertheless be an inevitable consequence. The relevant question is not whether animals will be killed and harmed when land is cleared, but how much of that harm will occur, how severe it will be, and whether it ought to be avoided.

If such harm is deemed necessary – based on an accepted system for weighing the potential benefits and harms – the next question is how the harm to animals can be minimised by, for example, keeping the amount of vegetation to be cleared to a minimum.

Hugh Finn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

AAP/Black Inc Books

Melbourne-born author Anna Krien’s latest Quarterly Essay explores the debates on climate change policy in Australia and the ecological effects of not acting.

She interviewed farmers, scientists, Indigenous groups, and activists from Bowen to Port Augusta. She says climate change denialism has transformed into “climate change nihilism”.

Krien says the Finkel review provides another opportunity in a long line of proposals to take up the challenge of legislating clean energy. “We just need to get that foot in the door. The door has been flapping in the wind for the past decade.”

On a current frontline battle – the planned Adani Carmichael coalmine – she found the people who would be affected were being ignored and blindsided.

Meanwhile, the potential for exploitation of local Indigenous peoples through “opaque” native title legislation was high. “Outsiders are not meant to understand it and to tell you the truth you get the sense that insiders aren’t meant to understand it either.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Earth’s last intact wilderness areas are being rapidly destroyed. More than 5 million square km of wilderness (around 10% of the total area) have been lost in the past two decades. If this continues, the consequences for both people and nature will be catastrophic.

Predominantly free of human activity, especially industrial-scale activities, large wilderness areas host a huge range of environmental values, including endangered species and ecosystems, and critical functions such as storing carbon and providing fresh water. Many indigenous people and local communities, who are often politically and economically marginalised, depend on wilderness areas and have deep cultural connections to them.

Yet despite being important and highly threatened, wilderness areas have been almost completely ignored in international environmental policy. Immediate proactive action is required to save them. The question is where such action could come from.

In a paper published in Conservation Biology, we argue that the United Nations’ World Heritage Convention should expand the amount of wilderness included in its list of Natural World Heritage Sites (NWHS).

Wilderness areas are underrepresented among the 203 sites currently on the list. The World Heritage Committee’s meeting in Poland this week offers a good opportunity to redress the balance.

Whither wilderness?

The World Heritage Convention was adopted in 1972 by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to conserve the world’s most valuable natural and cultural sites – places of exceptional importance to all of humanity and future generations. Each one is unique and irreplaceable. Currently, 193 countries (almost the entire world) are parties to the convention, which has inscribed 203 natural sites around the world.

World Heritage Status is granted to places with “Outstanding Universal Value”, which is defined based on three pillars. First, a site must meet one of the four criteria for listing as natural World Heritage (aesthetic value, geological value, biological processes, and biodiversity conservation). Second, a site must have “integrity” and “intactness” of its values (in other words, it must be in excellent condition). Finally, a site must be officially protected by the national or subnational government under whose jurisdiction it falls.

Wilderness areas can be associated with all four of the natural criteria, as well as the integrity and intactness requirements. What’s more, a wilderness by definition cannot be recreated once it is lost. The argument for protecting wilderness areas by adding them to the NWHS list is therefore compelling.

We created the most up-to-date maps of terrestrial wilderness using recent maps of human pressure and assessed the World Heritage Convention’s current coverage of wilderness areas. We found that some 777,000 square km (around 2% of the total) are already protected in 52 Natural World Heritage Sites.

Very little of the world’s wilderness (green) is within natural World Heritage Sites (pink). Author provided

For example, more than 90% of the World Heritage-listed Purnululu National Park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia can be defined as a wilderness area. Similarly, the Okavango Delta in Botswana features more than 18,000 square km of wilderness, containing many of the world’s most endangered large mammals.

Wilderness boosts heritage value

In these cases, wilderness areas are likely contributing to the Oustanding Universal Value of of these World Heritage Areas – which as explained above is a key consideration in how they are managed and protected.

One way to strengthen this protection further would be to redraw the boundaries of natural World Heritage Areas to include more wilderness. This would help to preserve the conditions that allow ecosystems and other heritage values to thrive.

Our study identified broad gaps in wilderness coverage by the World Heritage Convention. Some places are already protected by national governments and could therefore be added to UNESCO’s list, such as the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve in Myanmar, which contains 4,000 square km of wilderness, and the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna Reserve in Bolivia, which has 9,000 square km.

The places we have identified, and others, could potentially be designated as new Natural World Heritage Sites if they meet the other strict criteria for Outstanding Universal Values and integrity.

The World Heritage Convention could better achieve its objectives and make a substantial contribution to the conservation of wilderness areas by doing these four things:

1. formally acknowledge the Outstanding Universal Values of wilderness areas

2. strengthen the current protection of wilderness within NWHS

3. expand or reconfigure current NWHS to include more wilderness, and

4. designate new NWHS in wilderness areas.

It’s up to national governments to submit sites for inscription as NWHS, and we urge them to consider wilderness when doing so. This will strengthen their applications, and provide wilderness areas with the extra protection they need.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s meeting in Poland this week will consider two sites with significant wilderness areas for World Heritage status: Qinghai Hoh Xil Nature Reserve in China and Los Alerces National Park in Argentina. We urge the committee to approve these sites, and use this to spur further opportunities to raise the profile of wilderness conservation worldwide. It is an obvious win-win.

The clock is ticking fast for our last wilderness areas and the biodiversity they protect. Immediate action is needed.

James Allan receives a stipend from The Australian Research Council

James Watson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is Director of Science and Research Initiative at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“Sustainability” is, ironically, a growth industry. Ever since the term “sustainable development” burst onto the scene in 1987 with the release of Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland report), there has been a dizzying increase in rhetoric about humanity’s relationship with our planet’s resources. Glossy reports - often featuring blonde children in front of solar panels or wind turbines - abound, and are slapped down on desks as proof of responsibility and stewardship.

Every few years a new term is thrown into the mix - usually preceded by adjectives like “participatory” or “community-led”. The fashionability of “resilience” as a mot du jour seems to have peaked, while more recently the “circular economy” has become the trendy term to put on grant applications, conference notices and journal special editions. Over time journals are established, careers are built, and library shelves groan.

Meanwhile, the planetary “overshoot”, to borrow the title of a terrifying 1980 book, goes on - exemplified by rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, warmer oceans, Arctic melting, and other signs of the times.

With all this ink being spilled (or, more sustainably, electrons being pressed into service), is there anything new to say about sustainability? My colleagues and I think so.

Three of us (lead author Ulrike Ehgartner, second author Patrick Gould and myself, recently published an article called “On the obsolescence of human beings in sustainable development”.

In it we explore the big questions of sustainability, drawing on some of the work of an unjustly obscure Austrian political philosopher called Gunther Anders.

Who was Günther Anders?

He was born Günther Siegmund Stern in 1902. While he was working as a journalist in Berlin, an editor wanted to reduce the number of Jewish-sounding bylines. Stern plumped for “Anders” (meaning “other” or “different”) and used that nom de plume for the rest of his life.

Anders knew lots of the big philosophical names of the day. He studied under Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. He was briefly married to Hannah Arendt, and Walter Benjamin was a cousin.

But despite his stellar list of friends and family, Anders himself was not well known. Harold Marcuse points out that the name “Stern” was pretty apt, writing:

His unsparingly critical pessimism may explain why his pathbreaking works have seldom sparked sustained public discussion.

While Hiroshima and the nuclear threat were the most obvious influences on Anders’ writing, he was also crucially influenced by the events at Auschwitz, the Vietnam War, and his periods in exile in France and the United States. But why should we care, and how can his ideas be applied to modern-day ideas about sustainability?

Space precludes a blow-by-blow account of what my colleagues and I wrote, but two ideas are worth exploring: the “Promethean gap” and “apocalyptic blindness”.

Anders suggested that the societal changes wrought by the industrial age – chief among them the division of labour – opened a gap between individuals’ capability to produce machines, and their capability to imagine and deal with the consequences.

So, riffing on the Greek myth of Prometheus (the chap who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to humans), Anders proposed the existence of a “Promethean gap” which manifests in academic and scientific thinking and leads to the extensive trivialisation of societal issues.

The second idea is that of “apocalyptic blindness” – which is, according to Anders, the mindset of humans in the Age of the Third Industrial Revolution. This, as we write in our paper:

…determines a notion of time and future that renders human beings incapable of facing the possibility of a bad end to their history. The belief in progress, persistently ingrained since the Industrial Revolution, causes the incapability of humans to understand that their existence is threatened, and that this could lead to the end of their history.

Put simply, we don’t want to look an apocalypse in the eye, even if it’s heading straight towards us.

The climate connection

“So what?” you might ask. Why listen to yet another obscure philosopher railing about technology, in the vein of Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul? But I think a passing knowledge of Anders and his work reminds us of several important things.

This is nothing new. Recently, the very notion of ‘progress’ has come under renewed assault, with books questioning our assumptions about it. This is not new of course - in a 1967 short story collection about life at the United Nations, Shirley Hazzard had written:

About this development process there appeared to be no half-measures: once a country had admitted its backwardness, it could hope for no quarter in the matter of improvement. It could not accept a box of pills without accepting, in principle, an atomic reactor. Progress was a draught that must be drained to the last bitter drop.

The time - if ever there was one - for tinkering around the edges is over. We need to take stronger action than simply pursuing our feelgood preoccupation with sustainability.

This begs the question of who is supposed to shift us from the current course (or rather, multiple collision courses. That’s a difficult one to answer.

The hope that techno-fixes (including 100% renewable energy) will sort out our problems is a dangerous delusion (please note, I’m not against 100% renewables - I’m just saying that green energy is “necessary but not sufficient” for repairing the planet.

Similarly, the “circular economy” has a rather circular feeling to it – in the sense that we’ve seen all this before. It seems (to me anyway) to be the last gasp of the “ecological modernist” belief that with a bit more efficiency, everything can simply keep on progressing.

Our problems go far deeper. We are going to need a rapid and fundamental shift in our values, habits, behaviours, and outlooks. Put in Anders’ terms, we need to stop being blind to the possibility of apocalypse. But then again, people have been saying that for a century or more.

Red-eared sliders were once popular pets but are currently banned in Australia. These turtles are still regularly found in the wild and being kept as illegal pets. Pablo Garcia-Diaz, Author provided

A taste for owning exotic animals can be addictive – the more flamboyant the better. Earlier this month border security agents found 50 live turtles and lizards smuggled in Lego boxes sent from Indonesia. In April customs officials found a parcel marked “2 pair shoes” that turned out to contain venomous vipers, tarantulas and scorpions.

According to the Animals Medicines Australia 2016 survey some two-thirds of Australian households have pets – more than 24 million animals in total. Not surprisingly, dogs and cats are the most popular (38% and 29% of households, respectively), whereas aquarium fish and birds rank somewhere in the middle (both 12%), and reptiles and less common mammals are kept in some households (both less than 5%).

The federal government largely legislates the owning of exotic pets. The law defines “exotic” as “animals that do not occur naturally in the wild in Australia” – which actually includes dogs and cats. However “domesticated mammals”, which also covers cows, sheep and other farm animals, are generally legal to buy and own. Commercial trade in exotic reptiles and amphibians, on the other hand, has been banned since 1999.

Whether an exotic animal is kept legally or not, some will find their way to the Australian wild through escape or release, posing a potential pest risk. There are some simple things governments and pet owners can do to improve the way this risk is handled, to keep animals and humans safe.

We don’t really know how many exotics are in Australia

Most local councils only require dogs (and sometimes cats) to be registered by their owners. Other pets, whether exotic or native, do not need to be registered. Indeed an owner of an exotic animal is not required to report or register the animal in any way. This means there are very little reliable data and it’s difficult to say how many exotic pets are kept in Australia.

We highlight two cases from our own research: birds and reptiles.

Bird-keeping is common in Australia, particularly of parrots and finches. More than half the bird species traded are exotic and mostly originate in South America, Africa and Asia. Rose-ringed Parakeets are one of the most commonly kept exotic pet bird, and the most frequently reported as having escaped. They are seen as a potential threat because they are a serious agricultural pest in its’ native and exotic distribution, and have a very high risk of establishing in Australia.

The Rose-ringed parakeet is a common pet in Australia and presents a potential biosecurity risk. Dick Danies/Wikimedia

Reptiles – generally skinks, turtles and dragons – are less popular pets than birds. Nonetheless, judging from the posts on public trading webpages, a variety of native reptile species are kept and traded by hobbyists, also including crocodiles and snakes.

Unfortunately, little is known about native reptile trading in Australia and further research is needed. And while native reptiles can be kept legally, illegal exotic reptiles are a serious problem. In a previous article for The Conversation, we reported that 28 alien reptile species were illegally kept in Victoria between 1999 and 2012. More than a third were highly venomous snakes, posing a real risk to human safety.

Responsibly caring for exotic pets

If you own or want to buy an exotic pet, you must be aware of the regulations that apply to you (you can Google “exotic pet regulations” plus the name of your state or territory). Each jurisdiction keeps official lists of those species that may be kept within their borders, with or without a permit. These lists can be found on local government websites or obtained from their relevant departments.

People should also be able to register all of their pets, including exotic ones. Governments need to promote public awareness of the importance of registration (even if it’s not legally required), and ensure the processes are simple, accessible and affordable.

If you lose your exotic pet, it’s important to alert your state or territory biosecurity agency. Each jurisdiction has its own agency, but examples are the Western Australia Department of Agriculture and Food or Agriculture Victoria. If you want to recover your lost pet the best available option is to report your loss to one of the many missing animal websites.

Governments, when facilitating the registration process, will need to establish best practices to collect and analyse information so that the nature and extent of pet ownership may be better known, monitored and managed.

Ultimately, the burden of safe and responsible pet ownership should be shared. While public awareness is crucial, the key to a sustainable pet trade is mutual partnership between pet owner communities and governments. This is particularly important as pet sales and trade shift further to an online environment.

Pablo García-Díaz received funding from the Invasive Animals CRC and the Department of Education and Training (Australian Government). He is currently also affiliated with Landcare Research New Zealand.

Miquel Vall-llosera received funding from the Invasive Animals CRC.

Phill Cassey receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

The Murray-Darling Basin is an incredibly complex ecological system. Mike Russell/Flickr, CC BY-SA

After a long and contentious public debate, in 2012 Australia embarked on a significant and expensive water recovery program to restore the Murray-Darling Basin’s ecosystems.

Despite general agreement that a certain amount of water should be reserved to restore the flagging river system, the argument continues as to whether this should be 2,750 or 3,200 gigalitres (GL) a year, and how these savings can be achieved.

A recent report by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists argues that there is no conclusive evidence, after five years, that the plan is effective. The report’s authors believe that an extra 450GL of water a year needs to be recovered to save the basin.

There is no doubt in our minds that the Murray-Darling river system is in crisis, and the Basin Plan was vitally needed. But while we broadly agree with the Wentworth Group’s report, it’s a mistake to focus on water volume alone.

Without giving equal attention to improving water quality and building critical ecological infrastructure, it’s possible that increasing river flows could actually harm the Basin.

What are we trying to recover?

We don’t really have much information on the state of the basin before industrial development. Most knowledge is more recent, but we do know that from about the 1920s onwards, considerable volumes of water have been removed. Few comprehensive historic records of flora and fauna, let alone water quality, are available.

While knowledge of the state and significance of the ecology of the river systems is scant, there is ample evidence that increased levels of nutrients, salts and, in particular, sediments have adversely affected the wetlands, main channels and associated floodplains.

The records of fish that historically lived in the rivers, billabongs and wetlands also tell a cautionary tale. These wetlands and rivers once teemed with native fish. In 1915, a single scoop of a 10 m seine net would yield more than 100,000 native fish in a single wetland.

There were dozens of species at each site, supporting a burgeoning fishery that was considered inexhaustible.

An example of extreme overfishing of Murray cod in the late 1800s, which caused the first strong declines in the species. Such catches were typical for the period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_cod

Since that time the basin has been extensively developed. The fishing industry expanded, forests were cleared, dams were built, floodplains were blocked by levies, water began to be diverted for irrigation, the demand for drinking water increased and invasive species were introduced. But somewhere over the past 100 years we crossed a threshold where the system stopped being able to support native fish.

Nowadays, visiting the wetlands that were historically packed with native fish (all of which had huge cultural importance to traditional owners), we find mostly invasive species such as carp, goldfish and weatherloach.

In some places, native species that were once abundant have not been seen in 40 years. The formerly productive commercial fisheries, and the livelihoods they supported, have been shut down.

Our native fish are in trouble, and unless urgent action is taken, many face extinction within decades.

Rebuilding a complex system

The Basin Plan is underpinned by a focus on river volume as the cause of system degradation and subsequent recovery. But the system is much more complex than that. Fluctuating levels of sediments, salts and nutrients drive significant changes, and so regulating river flows – which carry these components from place to place – fundamentally alters the dynamics of main channels and floodplain wetlands.

Over the last century, erosion has filled the rivers in the Murray system with mud. When this water flows into the wetlands, this sediment builds and blocks the light, killing the aquatic plants that support native fish.

Simply increasing the water flow without addressing water quality runs the risk of exacerbating this problem. We therefore argue the first step in river recovery is attending to water quality.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has focused very heavily on the amount of water in the system; partly because speaking in terms of volume is easiest to demonstrate and understand. But the paleoecological record reveals that water quality, at least in wetlands, declined well before human use of water changed the river flows.

So if recovering water volume is a critical target, it is equally important that this water is of good quality. Recent experience with blackwater events, in which oxygen levels drop so low that fish suffocate, highlights this need. Even water of the wrong temperature, known as “thermal pollution”, can cause real harm. Winter-temperature water, for example, can prevent fish from breeding if it occurs in summer. Bad water quality will simply not provide good ecological outcomes.

A century of engineering development has fundamentally changed the basins rivers in a way that does not support native fish or the original ecology in general. Even if the recovered water is of high quality, we will need to take other steps to achieve tangible outcomes. Thus we need “complementary measures”, which augment the benefits of increasing river volumes. These include:

• Mitigating thermal and other pollution to ensure the water temperature and overall quality is adequate,
• Building fishways so that fish can navigate dams and weirs,
• Restocking threatened fish species into areas they are no longer found,
• Controlling carp and other non-native species that now dominate our waterways;
• Building fish-friendly irrigation infrastructure such as screens on irrigation pumps or overshot weirs; and
• Improving habitat through resnagging or controlling harmful practices on flood plains.

Another measure to improve the basin’s waterways, the proposal to release a virulent strain of carp herpes, has raised debate over whether it will neatly solve a major environmental and economic problem or create further issues.

If implemented correctly, these complementary measures are just as important as water recovery and improving water quality for meeting the basin plan’s ecological targets.

Repairing a river system such as the Murray-Darling is incredibly complex, and we must broaden our view beyond simply thinking about water volumes. Some of these extra steps can also provide benefits with less cost to the people who live and work with the water. To achieve this we suggest a staged program of recovery that allows the communities who live in the basin more time to adapt to the plan.

Max Finlayson receives funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and the Australian Research Council.

Lee Baumgartner works with the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation to investigate the benefits of complementary measures across the basin, including the release of the carp virus.

Peter Gell received funding from ARC to fund previous research into the Murray-Darling Basin. He currently receives funding from the NSW state government for research into wetlands. He is a member of the Greens.