Responding to climate change is one of the most important and most challenging things we face as a society. So, how do we do it to best protect ourselves and the environment, and ensure a future for generations to come? At Charles Sturt, the Living Hot program is all about focusing on climate change research beyond solely reducing emissions and on preparing for life in a new and less amenable climate.
Professor Clive Hamilton, Charles Sturt University Vice-Chancellor’s Chair of Public Ethics, has co-authored a book on the subject. So we sat down to get his thoughts on how this more holistic approach can change the debate over – and the future of – responding to climate change in Australia.
Firstly, what kind of future are we facing?
“Based on the evidence, it’s unlikely that global emissions will stabilise and then decline steeply enough over the next decades to prevent the Earth becoming at least 2.5 degrees, and possibly even 3.5 degrees, warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
“A 2021 study assessed the unequal burden of extremes across generations on the three-degree warming trajectory. It found that a child born in 2020 can expect to live through seven times more extreme heat waves than someone born in 1960. The study also showed that even if we hold warming to no more than two degrees, which is exceptionally optimistic in my view, children born today can expect to live through five times more extreme heat waves.
“Now, those numbers are for a global child. The exposure of Australian children to danger will vary by income, by education and, of course, by geography. But the point is all too apparent even under more optimistic scenarios. Children alive today and those still to be born will need to learn to cope with much more frequent and dangerous extreme events.”
So, what can we do in Australia?
“Well, Australia is powerless to stop these global trends. The decisions determining whether the world reaches net zero sooner or later are being made not in Canberra but in Washington, New Delhi, Moscow, Brussels and above all in Beijing. China accounts for nearly 30 per cent of total global emissions. Australia accounts for just over one per cent. So our efforts will be barely noticed by the global climate. If we include emissions from our fossil fuel exports, Australia accounts for about three per cent of global emissions. So if we rapidly phased out those exports on moral grounds – which I would support – it would not make a noticeable difference to global emissions. Japan and South Korea would buy their coal from Indonesia instead.
“So, common sense tells us that this is the future Australians must prepare for. Therefore, the climate that we’re familiar with, the one that has shaped the way we live and work in cities, towns and the bush, will be transformed in the next decades into one more unfamiliar, chaotic and dangerous.
“Australians have always lived with heat, fire, flood and drought. But climate change is multiplying and supercharging extreme weather events to the point where they are overwhelming our accustomed ways of coping. Yet debate in Australia over climate policy is built on an implicit belief that what we do in this country to reduce our emissions can change the climate Australians will be living through in 50 or 100 years’ time.”
What about renewable energy?
“Wishful thinking prevails everywhere. Because we want those things to work. But these each turn out to be beyond what is feasible and plausible. Certainly at the scale promised and certainly in the timeframes proposed. Fully decarbonising electricity supply would require four times as much wind and solar generation as we have now. Fair enough; I want to see that. However, replacing natural gas and petroleum use with clean electricity would need an additional eight times as much. If we also replace our fossil fuel exports, we’ll need to build 100 times as many solar and wind farms. Even the conversion of domestic energy to clean electricity will entail a vast expansion of the mining industry. And many of those mines are in areas set aside for biodiversity conservation.
“If protecting our increasingly precious landscapes, seascapes and ecosystems means a slower rollout of renewables and greater use of natural gas, then so be it. There’s little sense in destroying the very natural assets we’re trying to preserve. There are also real concerns about how some solar and wind farms are jeopardising our food security. That’s something Australians will value even more highly as the world enters a long era of climatic transformation. The area of arable land is already shrinking due to climate change. Plus, farm productivity is declining, and we expect it to decline further.
Of course, Australia should continue to cut emissions rapidly even though it can have no appreciable effect on global heating. It’s the right thing to do. It’s also in our economic interests. Because without rapid adoption of clean energy technology our industries would quickly become outdated. Moreover, markets such as the European Union may exclude our exports.”
So how is Living Hot focusing on responding to climate change?
“Our concern in Living Hot is that the public is being led into a false sense that enough is being done to make a difference to our future climate. That’s preventing us from coming to grips with the one thing that really could secure our nation’s future. Which is implementing a far-reaching national program to prepare Australia for life in a hotter, more dangerous climate.
“If we prepare well, we can give ourselves a fighting chance. To preserve some of the best of what we have. Build stronger and fairer communities. And find a path through the escalating pressures of a warming world – even to find ways to flourish. If we don’t prepare, the poor and vulnerable will suffer while the rich look after themselves.
“Making ourselves ready for what is coming and doing so in cooperative ways is not just common sense. It’s also an insurance policy for social justice. Plus, we don’t have to wait for any kind of technological breakthrough. We have the opportunity to make a nation in which the next generations can survive and even live well in the different kind of earth that is our future.
“Building on previous research, we plan to focus much more public and political attention on the kind of Earth we are moving into. And what we can start doing to survive and even to live well. I hope that our research program will spark deeper public and political engagement with the threat of climate change and how we can prepare for it.”
Be part of the solution
At Charles Sturt, sustainability and creating a future world worth living in are part of everything we do. So, whether you want to study an purse a career environmental science or emergency management, for example, you’ll get in-depth knowledge of the challenges ahead. Plus, know how you can help make responding to climate change effective – for everyone.
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