Top economists call for budget measures to speed the switch to electric cars

Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityAustralia’s top economists overwhelmingly back government measures to speed the transition to electric cars in order to meet emission reduction targets.

An exclusive poll of 62 of Australia’s preeminent economists — selected by their peers — finds 51 back measures to boost the take-up of electric cars including subsidising public charging stations, subsidising the purchase of all-electric vehicles, and setting a date to ban the import of traditionally-powered cars.

Only 11 oppose such measures, three of them because they prefer a carbon tax.

Six of the 51 who supported special measures said they did so reluctantly, as their preferred alternative would be a carbon price or a carbon tax, rather than subsidising “one alternative out of many to reduce emissions”.

Cars account for roughly half of Australia’s transport emissions, making them about 8% of Australia’s total emissions.

Yet Australia’s take-up of electric vehicles is dwarfed by the rest of the world.

On one measure, all-electric cars accounted for just 0.7% of new car sales in Australia in 2020 compared to 5% in China and 3.5% in the European Union.

Australia has no domestic car industry to protect, meaning industry policy concerns needn’t hold back the transition.

Norway plans to outlaw new petrol car sales from 2025; Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland and Israel from 2030; and California and Britain from 2035.

Asked whether Australia should take action to speed the transition, eight in ten of the 62 economists selected by the Economic Society said it should.

Economic Society of Australia/The Conversation, CC BY-ND

The results represent a departure for a profession whose usual advice is to avoid interfering with markets.

One participant, University of NSW professor Gigi Foster said an important question needed to be answered in order to justify government intervention: “what is the market failure here?”

The market failure was pollution, imposing costs on the community beyond the drivers of conventionally-powered cars and on the planet by pushing up global temperatures.

Broad support: subsidies for charging points

If it wasn’t to be dealt with by a carbon price, measures that sped up the switchover to electric vehicles could achieve some of the same effect.

By far the most popular measure of six presented to the panellists who supported government action was subsidising public charging points, backed by 84%.

The next most popular was removing the luxury car tax from electric-only vehicles. At present the 35% tax applies to cars valued at more than $69,152, and $79,659 for fuel-efficient vehicles.

43% supported making charging points compulsory in new homes and new car parks. 39% supported setting a date to ban the import of petrol and diesel cars.

Matthew Butlin, who chairs South Australia’s Productivity Commission, noted that much of Australia was not urban and unlikely to be served by charging points for some time.

Without government measures to speed the installation of remote charging stations, many buyers would be reluctant to go electric, even if most of their driving was in cities.

When they were in place, there would be a good case for banning the import of petrol and diesel vehicles, but not until then.

Others wanted to hold off on banning the import of conventionally-powered cars until Australia had a lower-emissions mix of electricity.

Macquarie University’s Lisa Magnani said that with three quarters of Australia’s electricity generated from coal, electric vehicles created considerable emissions.

The Grattan Institute’s Danielle Wood disagreed, saying “network effects” built a case for switching over early.

Network effects build on themselves

The more people switched, the more charging stations would be built and the lower electric vehicle prices would drop, driving more people to switch, and increasing the benefits of decarbonising the electricity supply.

The sooner Australia swapped over, the easier it would be to get to net zero emissions by 2050 without the need for a “cash for clunkers” style scheme to buy back polluting vehicles.

Setting 2035 as the date for banning imports of petrol-powered cars as recommended this year by the International Energy Agency would give buyers time to adjust while the charging infrastructure developed.

Tax specialist John Freebairn said electric cars were already heavily subsidised by escaping the fuel excise used to fund roads, despite the efforts of some states to plug the gap.

Sydney University economist Stefanie Schurer argued on the other hand bulky and polluting sport utility vehicles were effectively subsidised because of the tax benefits they attracted when used for work.

Former Liberal Party leader John Hewson of the Crawford School of Public Policy said smoothing the transition had become urgent.

Smooth transition now “urgent”

It took only ten years from 1903-13 for the United States to switch from horse-drawn to petrol-driven vehicles, and technology take-up was quicker today, particularly in Australia.

Other economists surveyed noted that there was much that could be done to reduce harmful emissions in addition to going electric.

Sue Richardson said Australia should impose serious limits on the tailpipe emissions of new cars. Australia is unusual among developed nations in not having such a limit, making it a favoured market for high-emission cars.

Rana Roy said a better approach would be to limit transport itself through remote working and efforts to encourage walking and cycling. Subsidies for electric cars could send such moves backwards.

When responses to the survey were weighted by the confidence respondents had in them on a scale of 1 to 10, support of special measures to drive the transition remained about as strong, backed by eight in ten of the economists surveyed.

Detailed responses:

Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The budget should have been a road to Australia’s low-emissions future. Instead, it’s a flight of fancy

John Quiggin, The University of QueenslandLooking at other nations around the world, the path to cutting greenhouse gas emissions seems clear.

First, develop wind and solar energy and battery storage to replace coal- and gas-fired electricity. Then, replace petrol and diesel cars with electric vehicles running off carbon-free sources. Finally, replace traditionally made steel, cement and other industries with low-carbon alternatives.

In this global context, the climate policies announced in Tuesday’s federal budget are a long-odds bet on a radically different approach. In place of the approaches adopted elsewhere, the Morrison government is betting heavily on alternatives that have failed previous tests, such as carbon capture and storage. And it’s blatantly ignoring internationally proven technology, such as electric vehicles.

The government could have followed the lead of our international peers and backed Australia’s clean energy sector to create jobs and stimulate the post-pandemic economy. Instead, it’s sending the nation on a fool’s errand.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, left, and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg shake hands — Prime Minister Scott Morrison, left, and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg should have used the budget to create jobs in the clean economy.
Mick Tsikas/AAP

Carbon-capture folly

The Morrison government is taking a “technology, not taxes” approach to emissions reduction. Rather than adopt a policy such as a carbon price – broadly considered the most effective and efficient way to cut emissions – the government has instead pinned its hopes on a low-emissions technology plan.

That means increased public spending on research and development, to accelerate the commercialisation of low emissions technologies. The problems with this approach are most obvious in relation to carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The budget contains A$263.7 million to fund new carbon capture and storage projects. This technology promises to capture some – but to date, not all – carbon dioxide at the point of emission, and then inject it underground. It would allow continued fossil fuel use with fewer emissions, but the process is complex and expensive.

In fact, recent research found of 39 carbon-capture projects examined in the United States, more than 80% ended in failure.

The government’s CCS funding is focused on capturing CO₂ from gas projects. This is despite the disappointing experience of Australia’s only CCS project so far, Chevron’s Gorgon gas field off Western Australia.

Some 80% of emissions from the operation were meant to be captured from 2016. But the process was delayed for three years, allowing millions of tonnes of CO₂ to enter the atmosphere. As of January this year, the project was still facing technical issues.

CCS from gas will be expensive even if it can be made to work. Santos, which has proposed a CCS project at its Moomba gas plant in South Australia, suggests a cost of $A30 per tonne of CO₂ captured.

This money would need to come from the government’s Climate Solutions Fund, currently allocated about A$2 billion over four years. If Moomba’s projected emissions reduction of 20 million tonnes a year were realised, this project alone would exhaust the fund.

two men stand over equipment — Plans to capture carbon from Chevron’s Gorgon gas project have not gone to plan.
Chevron Australia

What about electric vehicles?

There is a striking contrast between the Morrison government’s enthusiasm for carbon capture, and its neglect of electric vehicles.

It ought to be obvious that if Australia is to achieve a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 – which Treasurer Josh Frydenberg this week reiterated was his government’s preference – the road transport sector must be decarbonised by then.

The average age of Australian cars is about 10 years. This implies, given fairly steady sales, an average lifespan of 20 years. This in turn implies most petrol or diesel vehicles sold after 2030 will have to be taken off the road before the end of their useful life.

In any case, such vehicles will probably be very difficult to buy within 15 years. Manufacturers including General Motors and Volvo have announced plans to stop selling petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035 or earlier.

But the Morrison government has ruled out consumer incentives to encourage electric vehicle uptake – a policy at odds with many other nations, including the US.

Despite the “technology, not taxes” mantra, this week’s federal budget ignored electric vehicles. This includes a A$10 billion infrastructure spend which did not include charging stations as part of highway upgrades.

Unless the government takes action soon, Australian motorists will be faced with the choice between a limited range of second-rate petrol and diesel vehicles, or electric vehicles for which key infrastructure is missing.

It’s hard to work out why the government is so resistant to doing anything to help electric vehicles. Public support appears strong. There are no domestic carmakers left to protect.

The car retail industry is generally unenthusiastic about electric vehicles. Its business model is built on combining competitive sticker prices with a high-margin service and repair business, and electric vehicles don’t fit this model.

At the moment (although not for much longer), electric vehicles are more expensive than traditional cars to buy upfront. But they are cheaper to run and service.

There are fears of job losses in car maintenance as electric vehicle uptake increases. However, car dealers have adjusted to change in the past, and can do so in future.

electric vehicle on charge — The budget ignored electric vehicles.
Shutterstock

Wishful thinking

The Morrison government is still edging towards announcing a 2050 net-zero target in time for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this November. But as Prime Minister Scott Morrison himself has emphasised, there’s no point having a target without a strategy to get there.

Yet at this stage, the government’ emissions reduction strategy looks more like wishful thinking than a road map.

John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How much the budget undervalued conservation: 16 World Heritage sites received less than Sydney Harbour

Sean Maxwell, The University of Queensland and James Watson, The University of Queensland

The proportion of Earth’s surface designated as “protected” has expanded over the past decade. But new findings show these areas have failed to improve the state of the environment, casting doubt on government commitments to biodiversity conservation.

Our global research published in Nature yesterday found between 2010 and 2019, protected areas expanded from covering 14.1% to 15.3% of global land and freshwater environments (excluding Antarctica), and from 2.9% to 7.5% of marine environments.

However, 78% of known threatened species and more than half of all ecoregions on land and sea remain without adequate protection. In Australia, we found nearly half of land-based ecoregions and threatened species have inadequate protections.

“Adequate” protection is different for individual species, but typically requires 10-100% of a species’ geographic range to be under some form of protection.

The Coalition government’s federal budget allocated A$233.4 million to six Commonwealth-run national parks — but most will be spent on tourism infrastructure upgrades. What’s needed is more staff and equipment to restore, enrich and maintain natural ecosystems, and to secure our most iconic natural places.

The best and worst performing countries

Our global assessment examined how nations are tracking a decade after committing to UN targets for area-based conservation: at least 17% of land and 10% of ocean must be protected by 2020.

Best-performing countries include Botswana, Hungary and Thailand. Botswana’s protected area estate adequately covers 86% of its ecoregions and 83% of its threatened species.

Chobe National Park in Botswana covers 1,170,000 hectares of savannah, woodland and marsh ecosystems. It was designated in 1968.
Sean Maxwell, Author provided

The worst performing countries — such as Indonesia, Canada and Madagascar — have a long way to go to meet these targets. For example, only 3% of Canada’s ocean waters are under formal protection.

But there are alarming and consistent problems with management. Globally, as much as 90% of marine protected areas have inadequate or below optimum on-site staff capacity. On land, some 47% of protected areas suffer from inadequate staff and budget resources. And the global budget shortfall for protected areas likely exceeds the multi-billion dollar mark.

Threatened species in Australia

Australia’s protected area estate is not immune to these management shortfalls. Between 1997 and 2014, there were more than 1,500 legal changes in Australia that eased restrictions, reduced boundaries or eliminated legal protections in protected areas.

Our research also showed less than 1% of the geographic ranges of the orange-bellied frog (Geocrinia vitellina), carpentarian dunnart (Sminthopsis butleri) and upriver orange mangrove (Bruguiera sexangula) — all threatened species — are protected.

Many of Australia’s savanna ecoregions also have poor levels of protection, including the Mitchell grass downs (less than 3% of its range is protected), Brigalow tropical savanna (less than 5% protected) and southeast Australian temperate savannas (less than 4% protected).

But it’s not all bad news. We found around 36% of Australia’s oceans are protected and 76% of our marine ecoregions have adequate protection.

Protected areas cover 19% of Australia’s land and 36% of its oceans.
Sean Maxwell, Author provided

Previous studies also suggest protected areas governed by Indigenous Australians and local communities effectively reduce deforestation pressure and support similar numbers of species to those inside nationally designated protected areas.

How should funds be used?

Protecting our wild places will not come cheap. One estimate suggests an effective global land-based protected area network would cost US$76 billion annually.

This level of investment would ensure each protected area has sufficient staff, resources and equipment to conserve local species and ecosystems. The spending is justified, given the direct value generated by visits to protected areas around the world is valued at US$600 billion per year.

In Australia, effective conservation typically requires mimicking land and sea use practices that were in place before Europeans arrived, which involves actively managing disturbances such as fire and invasive species.

Funds should also be used to track the biodiversity outcomes of protected areas to make sure they’re meeting their objectives.

Beyond budgets, national governments around the world must be more ambitious when negotiating the next round of international environmental targets, due in mid-2021. These negotiations will define national conservation agendas for the next decade.

Governments must adopt policies that make biodiversity conservation a greater part of broader land and sea management plans. They can, for example, embrace new models for land and sea stewardship that reward good behaviour by farmers, developers and miners.

Budget breakdown

In Australia, most national parks are funded and run by state governments. The federal government, through Parks Australia, is responsible for Kakadu, Uluru-Kata Tjuta, Christmas Island, Pulu Keeling, Booderee and Norfolk Island.

The Commonwealth also plays a key role in funding and managing Australia’s 16 natural World Heritage sites, including K’gari and the Ningaloo Coast.

Of the A$329.2 million allocated in the budget to protect iconic places, A$233.4 million (71%) is set aside for tourism infrastructure in non-World Heritage national parks in Australia.

We calculate this provides about A$18,000 for every hectare of Booderee National Park and national parks on Christmas Island, Norfork Island and Pulu Keeling. Most of this will likely be spent on improving visitor amenities or ensuring nearby businesses can stay open, rather than directed to measures such as invasive species control or fire management.

Australia’s 16 natural World Heritage sites will receive just A$33.5 million — less than the $40.6 million promised to maintain and restore historical sites across Sydney Harbour.

Kakadu National Park — Australia’s 16 natural World Heritage sites will receive just A$33.5 million.
Shutterstock

A further $23.6 million was promised for compliance, enforcement and monitoring activities across Australia’s marine parks. Enforcing no-take marine protected areas improves species populations and biomass, but this funding boost is grossly inadequate. It equates to just 1 cent for every hectare of Commonwealth-run marine parks.

It’s hard to see how these measures will prevent further ecosystem degradation or species extinctions, when conservation of Australia’s biodiversity heavily relies on protected areas.

In response to this article, a spokesperson for federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley said investment in protecting national parks went beyond infrastructure spending, however infrastructure did assist people to “access parks in a responsible manner”.

Ley’s spokesperson said protecting biodiversity was “a core aspect of park operations” and included eradicating invasive species, and interaction with the National Environmental Science Program and the office of the threatened species commissioner.

In addition to national parks, Australia “also has the world’s largest network of Indigenous protected areas, which the government is already in the process of expanding,” the spokesperson said.

Sean Maxwell, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland and James Watson, Professor, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Backwards’ federal budget: Morrison government never fails to disappoint on climate action

John Quiggin, The University of Queensland

When it comes to action on climate change, Tuesday’s federal budget delivered by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was a real – though not unexpected – disappointment which favoured polluting technologies over a clean energy future.

It included money to upgrade a coal-fired power station in New South Wales, and confirmed A$50 million previously announced to develop carbon capture and storage. The government will also spend A$52.9 million expanding Australia’s gas industry.

But investment in renewable energy was largely shunned. Notably, the government allocated just A$5 million for electric vehicles. It confirmed funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) for another decade, but the money is far less than what’s needed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the Morrison government abandon long-held dogma on debt and deficits. However, the federal budget shows when it comes to climate and energy, the government is singing from the same old songbook.

Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg — On climate policy, the Morrison government is singing from the same old songbook.
AAP/Mick Tsikas

A techno-fix

The budget doubled down on the Morrison government’s rhetoric of “technology, not taxes”, by choosing preferred technologies for investment.

This “picking winners” approach would have some chance of addressing climate change if it were based on a comprehensive analysis of the best path to zero emissions. But instead, the government has largely made offerings at the altars of technologies worshipped by the conservative side of politics.

The government will spend an as-yet undisclosed sum, possibly A$11 million, to refurbish the Vales Point coal-fired power station. The commitment to this coal infrastructure, co-owned by prominent Liberal party donor Trevor St Baker, is a disgraceful misuse of public money. It will also do little to halt the steady decline of coal-fired power generation.

As previously announced, the government will spend A$52.9 million to support the gas industry, which Frydenberg says will lower prices and support more manufacturing jobs. It includes money for gas infrastructure planning and to open up five gas basins, starting with Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory.

The budget confirms A$50 million for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to fund projects to cut emissions from industry. But proving the viability of large-scale CCS projects is extremely difficult, as experience in the United States and Canada has shown. In this context, allocating just A$50 million to get the technology off the ground is simply laughable.

History suggests the spending offers little return on investment. Research by the Australia Institute in 2017 revealed federal governments have spent A$1.3 billion in taxpayers’ money on CCS projects, with very little to show for it.

The budget contained spending to upgrade the Vales Point coal plant.
NSW Health/AAP

Renewables snubbed

Meanwhile, last night’s budget largely shunned investment in renewable energy.

The budget confirmed A$1.4 billion in ARENA funding for a further ten years, including a pretty paltry A$223.9 million over the next four years. Separately, the government will also seek to pass legislation to change ARENA’s investment mandate, enabling it to fund gas and carbon capture projects.

The government has allocated a tiny A$5 million towards electric vehicle development, including money towards a manufacturing facility in South Australia. It’s good to see electric vehicles on the government’s radar. But the commitment is dwarfed by investment overseas, including a reported US$300 billion set aside by global car makers over the next decade to bring electric vehicles to mass production.

The measly spending on clean energy technology does not make economic sense. The renewable energy sector is standing by to slash emissions and deliver lower energy prices – if only the right policy environment existed.

The budget was also an opportunity for the government to ditch its irrational opposition to carbon pricing. Recent research has comprehensively shown carbon pricing slows growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

Vehement carbon pricing critics, such as conservatives Tony Abbott, Craig Kelly and Barnaby Joyce, are now either discredited or out of parliament altogether. And scores of countries around the world have implemented some form of price on carbon.

A global outlier

Most obviously, the budget was an opportunity to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050, as many developed countries have done.

The Morrison government has already used dodgy accounting tricks to meet Australia’s Paris Agreement commitment – reducing emissions by 26% on 2005 levels. The absence of a net-zero target suggests the government intends to allow emissions to grow indefinitely after 2030.

This approach is out of step with many of Australia’s international peers. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, now the clear favourite to win the US election in November, is campaigning on what has been described as “the most aggressive climate platform” ever put forward by a presidential nominee.

Biden wants the US to produce net-zero emissions by 2050. His US$2 trillion plan includes huge investments in clean energy research and development, and low-emissions infrastructure such as public transport and energy-efficient buildings. He has also promised a border tax levied on imports from countries without a carbon price.

Europe is well on the way to phasing out coal, and forging ahead with new carbon-free technologies to produce steel, cement and ammonia. The European Union has also said any free trade deal with Australia is contingent on our commitment to deep emissions abatement.

And in China, President Xi Jinping recently announced his nation will reach net-zero emissions by 2060.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has an ambitious climate agenda.
Patrick Semansky/AP

We have no choice

The budget was a chance to reset Australia’s failed climate policy – an opportunity enhanced by the stimulus spending brought on by COVID-19.

Instead, we got a string of backward-looking gestures including subsidies for coal, another go at the failed technology of carbon capture storage and a continued push for gas.

Sooner or later, Australia will have to join the rest of the world in ending our reliance on carbon-based energy. The catastrophic bushfires of last summer proved this. And if we refuse to move, the rest of the world will force our hand.

John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How New Zealand’s well-being budget delivers for the environment

One of the government’s spending priorities is a transformation towards a low-emissions economy.
from http://www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

Troy Baisden, University of Waikato

Internationally, the Ardern government is seen as a progressive beacon, and its recent budget was watched closely as a milestone in the “year of delivery” for Ardern’s well-being agenda.

The budget is a leap ahead of other Western democracies in that it replaces the gross domestic product (GDP) with a set of well-being measures and six focal areas to justify investment. Transforming the economy and society towards environmental sustainability is one of them.

The recently released state of the environment report highlighted deep concerns about trends in biodiversity conservation, greenhouse gas emissions and freshwater health. Budget 2019 signals a meaningful shift, but more in intention than sufficient funding.

Two tactics for delivery

Two very different tactics are at play in the well-being budget, and both can be seen in areas related to the environment. First, in conservation, government officials know where support is needed and can use the budget to address historic underinvestment.

Where the path for delivery isn’t clear, the government has budgeted a minimum credible investment over four years and is working through the complexity of directing that investment. This second tactic dominates climate change, freshwater, and their convergence in sustainable land use.

To better understand how these tactics play out, it helps to look at the way information is presented in New Zealand’s budgets, which are seen as a model for transparency. Announcements describe investment of new money, typically over four years, but not necessarily how the money will be spread out across the years. More detailed information that appears with the budget helps to clarify when spending will occur, as well as whether spending will really happen.

A budget includes main estimates, estimated actuals and actuals, listed over three years. These reveal useful insights, including a persistent pattern through the past decade of underspending compared to what was announced in budgets.

Conservation spending

The conservation budget provides a typical example, showing how significant the signalled increases in funding will be. Expenditure increases from steady budget estimates of less than NZ$450 million from 2008 to 2018 to NZ$600 million in 2020.

But from 2010 through to 2016, there was a persistent pattern of underspending by NZ$30–49 million each year, relative to the budget announcements. The pattern ended after becoming controversial, but resulted in a cumulative underinvestment of NZ$275 million, which the latest budget aims to redress.

Budget 2019 also highlights major investments in biosecurity. By 2020, this budget will be nearly double the NZ$205 million spent in 2017. Historically, funding for biosecurity has been stable but low compared to the benefits of maintaining New Zealand’s natural isolation from pests and disease. Such benefits are hard to measure until they are lost following an incursion of a new pest or disease.

Several such cases are a main driver of increased funding for biosecurity, including Mycoplasma bovis infecting cattle throughout much of New Zealand, the arrival of myrtle rust and the disease-causing Kauri dieback.

Climate change and freshwater

The budget includes a sustainable land use package of NZ$229 million over four years, including several components. It addresses the mounting environmental challenges facing agriculture. The sector generates excess nutrient flows to iconic lakes and rivers, and roughly half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The government has committed to transforming the economy toward sustainability, but the budget signals only the broad direction of investment. One clear signal in the budget is an end to government subsidies for intensifying agriculture, confirming last year’s decision to end support for large irrigation projects, on which the previous government spent NZ$13 million in 2017.

But most components in the new package will not reach full funding levels until the 2021 financial year. The amounts of funding signal a credible start, but are unlikely to be enough. On an annual basis, the new package is only about 0.14% of the NZ$40 billion value of land-based primary sector exports.

Past budgets show that complex expenditure that depends on further planning, reorganisation or new structures is often delayed beyond initial projections. This applies to this budget, too. A major freshwater taskforce is now underway but was delayed from its original plan, which means its work is not reflected in this budget. Reform of the software platform that links farm management to environmental regulations will receive NZ$30.5 million, but there are no clear objectives.

Overall, spending with an environmental classification increased 40% from NZ$0.92 billion in 2017 to NZ$1.28 billion last year. However, with a decrease to NZ$1.17 billion estimated for this year, it may make sense to ask whether the projected increase to NZ$1.55 billion for 2020 will be achieved.

To understand the challenges of funding complex environmental issues, we can look to the history of items in the budget – officially called appropriations – containing the words climate change. Budget projections went as high as NZ$64 million to be spent in 2009. But actual spending peaked at NZ$49 million in 2010. This spending bottomed out under NZ$12 million in 2014, and is estimated to be NZ$30 million this year. Estimated expenditure for 2020 exceeds the 2009–10 peak for the first time, at nearly NZ$70 million.

Estimates overshot actual spending by an average of NZ$7 million each year from 2010 through 2018. It makes sense to assume this signals a backlog of work to figure out what needs to be done on climate change issues.

Overall, for science and the environment, a first glance suggests this is hardly a “year of delivery”. Despite a focus on transformation in six areas of spending, including natural and social capital rather than GDP, the budget kicks any real plans for change down the road. But it prioritised achievable goals fairly well, given the big constraints posed by past underinvestment combined with a political commitment to fiscal responsibility.

If the budget succeeds in delivering for New Zealand’s environment, it will be by spending wisely to reverse past underinvestment in specific areas and ensuring that degradation stops and reverses in the relevant areas of environmental well-being. Success can only come through the latter, if groups like the climate change commission and freshwater task force forge clear paths through the political constraints that will guide investment in future budgets.

Troy Baisden, Professor and Chair in Lake and Freshwater Sciences, University of Waikato

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Invasive ants: federal budget takes aim but will it be a lethal shot?

File 20190404 131415 1ag8r2w.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — Argentine ants are a fact of life in many parts of Australia, but can still potentially be banished from Norfolk Island.
Davefoc/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Lori Lach, James Cook University

Amid all the usual items we expect to see in the federal budget was one that raised eyebrows: A$28.8 million for three ant eradication programs.

Yet amid the inevitable media puns about the government “upping the ant-e”, we should note that these funds are for the continuation of existing programs that have already attracted significant funding and made substantial progress. Stopping now would have meant previous funding was wasted.

The funds will go a long way towards protecting Australia’s economy and environment from the damage wrought by invasive ants. But despite the apparent cash splurge, it nevertheless falls short of what is really needed.

Of the $28.8 million, $18.3 million was for the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program. These funds are part of a $411 million, ten-year program begun in 2017 to eradicate red imported fire ants from southeast Queensland, the only place they are found in Australia.

Removing these pests will avoid an estimated $1.65 billion in total costs to 19 different parts of the economy. With previous funding, the program eradicated these ants from 8,300 hectares near the Port of Brisbane, making it the world’s largest ant eradication to date.

The Yellow Crazy Ant Eradication Program was allocated $9.2 million over three years. Yellow crazy ants have caused a cascade of ecological effects on Christmas Island, and at their peak abundance temporarily blinded a Queensland cane farmer with their acid spray.

The Wet Tropics Management Authority, which runs the program, had requested $6 million per year for six years to continue removing the ant from in and around the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. The federal funding is $3 million short of this, and the authority is still waiting to hear whether the Queensland government will provide the remainder.

Since 2013, the program has received $9.5 million from the federal government (and $3 million from the Queensland government). No yellow crazy ants have been observed in about half of the target area in more than a year. A yet-to-be published analysis estimates the benefit-cost ratio for the program as 178:1.

“It’s a mop-up operation… we’ve got our foot on the throat of this thing.”

A further $1.3 million was allocated to the Argentine Ant Eradication Strategy on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific. Argentine ants have invaded places with Mediterranean-type climates all over the world, including southwestern Western Australia and parts of southern Australia, and become firmly established. But unlike those areas, the population on Norfolk Island is still considered small enough to be eradicable, and federally funded efforts to remove them began in 2010.

Yellow crazy ants in Queensland and Argentine ants on Norfolk Island directly threaten World Heritage Areas. The ants can have significant impacts on native birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and plants. Getting rid of them is important for meeting Australia’s international obligations to protect World Heritage sites.

What is ant eradication?

Ant eradication means removing all individuals of a particular ant species from a given area.

The first step is to define the extent of that area. Depending on the species, this may involve visual searches and/or placing lures such as sausages, cat food, or jam to attract the ants. The public can help by notifying relevant authorities of unusual ants in their gardens, and by not transporting materials that have ants on them.

The second step is treatment. Currently, the only way to eradicate ants is with insecticidal baits. Ants’ social structure makes this particularly challenging: killing the queens is vital for eradication, but queens typically stay sheltered in the nest – the only ants we see out foraging are workers.

Some of the most problematic ant species can have hundreds of queens and tens of thousands of workers per nest. They can reach extraordinarily high densities, partly because invasive ant species, unlike most of our native ant species, do not fight one another for territories.

Yellow crazy ants, proving it is possible to feel sorry for a cockroach.
Bradley Rentz/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Beating ants means turning their biology against them. Bait needs to be attractive enough for workers to bring back to the colony and share, but not so deadly that they die before they get there. (And yes, this means if you’re spraying foraging ants in your kitchen you won’t get rid them for good, because the queens are somewhere hidden, laying more eggs and making more ants.)

Most ant eradication programs take three to four years to fine-tune their baiting regime because of a multitude of factors that need to be considered, such as seasonal changes in ant foraging behaviour and food preference, and the desire to avoid harming non-target species. Typically, two to six treatments are required, depending on the ant species, the size of the area, and the habitat type.

Beating the 1%

The hardest part of ant eradication is the end-game. Getting rid of the final 1% requires first finding them. This may mean painstaking searches through hundreds of hectares of bushland and residential areas, and the placement of hundreds of thousands of lures. Detector dogs can be very helpful, but they cannot be used in all environments and also need substantial resources for training, handling, and maintenance.

Ironically, it is at this stage that public and political support for eradication programs is most likely to wane, because ant numbers are too low to be seen as a threat to the public, economy or environment. Yet it is vital not to stop now, or else the remaining 1% will simply build up their numbers again. Experienced staff are also lost when programs suffer cuts or delays in their funding.

Disappointingly not mentioned in the budget was funding for eradicating electric ants. Like red imported fire ants, electric ants have a painful sting, and when left to multiply will eventually turn gardens and swimming pools into no-go zones. They also pose a significant threat to native animals such as the southern cassowary, and can blind animals as large as elephants.

They are currently only found in the Cairns region. The National Electric Ant Eradication Program, funded by federal and state governments, ran from 2006 until 2017 and had likely reduced numbers down to that last 1%. The program has been running on state funding with reduced staff since then, but several new detections in the past three months demonstrate the cost of the gap in funding.

In those inevitable “federal budget winners and losers” lists, invasive ants have found themselves firmly in the losers column for 2019. But it’s worth remembering that most of the world’s roughly 15,000 known ant species provide vital services for the functioning of our ecosystems.

They aerate soil and redistribute its nutrients, protect plants from herbivores, disperse seeds, and repurpose dead organisms. They may even help slow down the spread of those pesky invasive ants that are much less friendly.

Lori Lach, Associate Professor, James Cook University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Travelling Around Australia

‘Renewable energy breeding’ can stop Australia blowing the carbon budget – if we’re quick

Mark Diesendorf, UNSW

Moving to a future powered mainly by renewable energy will be crucial if we are to stay within the global warming limits set out by the Paris Agreement. But building all of this new renewable energy will initially require fossil fuels to help power all of the necessary mining, construction and decommissioning. This raises the question as to whether the energy transition itself will be pointless.

But new research by a group at UNSW (Bahareh Sara Howard, Nick Hamilton, Tommy Wiedmann and myself) shows that it is theoretically possible for Australia to move to a renewable energy future without blowing its share of the carbon budget.

Actually doing it will require two things: prompt, decisive action, and a reliance on “renewable energy breeding” – the process by which mining the raw materials and manufacturing technologies such as solar cells and wind turbines are themselves powered by renewables rather than fossil fuels.

Already under way

This renewable energy breeding is already under way in some places. Tesla’s solar panel factory in Nevada, known as Gigafactory 1, will itself run on solar power. In South Australia, Liberty OneSteel, the new owner of the Whyalla steelworks, is planning solar power, pumped hydro, batteries and demand management to reduce energy costs and greenhouse emissions. In Western Australia, Sandfire Resources’ DeGrussa gold and copper mine and Galaxy Resources’ lithium mine are both going solar.

These are encouraging developments. But will they be enough? The world has only a limited emissions budget left to keep global warming below the Paris Agreement’s 2℃ limit, and an even smaller budget for the agreement’s more ambitious 1.5℃ goal.

As Australia is responsible for about 1% of global emissions and its electricity industry is responsible for about one-third of that, we have assumed that the country’s carbon budget for electricity generation is about one-third of 1% of the global carbon budget. Overall, then, this gives us a total carbon budget for Australia’s electricity sector of 3.3 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (post-2011) for the 2℃ target, and 1.3 gigatonnes for the 1.5℃ target. For comparison, Australia’s annual carbon dioxide equivalent emissions are over half a gigatonne (actually 0.55 gigatonnes), so we are only three years away from overshooting the 1.5℃ target.

Even these budgets are generous, because Australia is one of the biggest per capita carbon dioxide emitters in the world and has enormous renewable energy resources.

What’s more, electricity is the easiest part of the energy sector to move to renewable energy – heating and transport are more difficult prospects. This means that if we are to move to an entirely renewable energy future, most heating and transport will need to be electrified. Therefore, electricity should have a greater emissions reduction target than other sectors.

Making the transition

Our study, which builds on earlier research, looked at 22 possible scenarios for transitioning Australia’s electricity sector to predominantly renewable energy. Some were developed by us, and some by other research groups.

Crucially, our study factored in the “life-cycle” emissions of these energy generation technologies – that is, the total greenhouse emissions including those released during the manufacture of the technologies themselves. And we looked explicitly at renewable energy breeding as part of that analysis.

Our scenarios also assume that overall electricity demand will either stabilise or decline, despite the move towards electrifying transport and heating. This is because Australia is well placed to make huge improvements in energy efficiency.

Rapid action needed

The principal findings of our research include the good news that the life-cycle greenhouse emissions from manufacturing renewable energy technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines are tiny, compared with the emissions saved by using them as substitutes for fossil fuels.

With the help of renewable energy breeding, the overall life-cycle emissions savings can be substantial – more than 90%, in some of the scenarios we examined. Therefore, manufacturers of renewable energy systems should use renewable energy to power their production lines.

The bad news is that, in every scenario we investigated, Australia nevertheless fails to achieve its share of the ambitious emissions reductions needed to limit global warming to 1.5℃ with 66% probability. Furthermore, 9 of our 22 scenarios also fail the more lenient 2℃ target.

Cumulative emissions for 2011-50 for 22 different pathways for a renewable energy transition in Australia. Green shaded area represents pathways that are within Australia’s share of the global carbon budget for 2℃ of warming; red shaded area represents pathways that exceed it.
Howard et al., 2018

The main reason for this is the legacy of CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use before the renewable energy transition. In most of our scenarios, the benefits of renewable energy breeding to the cumulative emissions become significant only beyond 2040.

The scenario (S8a, labelled V in the graph above) that comes closest to achieving the 1.5℃ target involves a 98% transition to renewable electricity and a 35% reduction in electricity demand by 2030 – a very rapid transition indeed!

The scenarios that deliver on the 2℃ target have rapid and high penetrations of renewable energy into the market, and high contributions from energy efficiency.

While it may already be too late for Australia to make a fair contribution to keeping global warming at 1.5℃, our results show that we can stay within our share of the carbon budget for 2℃ – provided we have the political will to move fast.

What’s more, if we implement policies that incentivise renewable energy breeding, there is no reason to suppose that moving to 100% renewable energy would necessarily entail a large increase in emissions to produce the necessary technologies.

But the overriding message is that time is of the essence, if we want to come anywhere close to limiting dangerous climate change. Our various scenarios suggest that even if we implement a rapid, effective response, we are likely to have to take CO₂ back out of the atmosphere in the future, to compensate for the likely overshoot on our share of the global carbon budget.

Mark Diesendorf, Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

By slashing environment spending, the government is slashing opportunities

File 20171217 17878 1ezx5hj.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — At a time of growing human impacts, spending on environmental protection is more important than ever.
Author provided

Don Driscoll, Deakin University

Australia’s native plants and animals are integral to the success of our society. We depend on wildlife to pollinate many of our crops. Most of our cities depend on effective water catchments to provide clean water. And medical scientists are making important breakthroughs in managing disease and health issues based on discoveries in nature.

The mental health benefits of a “dose of nature” are becoming more widely recognised, on top of our own experiences of having fun and enjoying the natural wonders of national parks. Our nature inspires us in all kinds of ways, and you can build major industries around that; the Great Barrier Reef is reportedly worth A$56 billion to the Australian economy.

It is therefore surprising, on one hand, to read the Australian Conservation Foundation and WWF Australia budget submission that the Australian government has slashed environmental spending by one third since 2013.

On the other hand, I’m not especially surprised because we ecologists have been living through the ongoing attack on the environment every day. We see how cuts to environmental budgets play out.

Our native species and ecosystems are under growing pressure. Australia’s 1.6% annual population growth outstrips many other countries. This is compounded by rises in per-capita consumption and greenhouse emissions.

Escalating consumption translates into growing impacts on biodiversity as more land is released for housing and infrastructure, extractive industries such as mining, recreational and industrial fishing expand and agriculture intensifies.

Climate change further interacts with land clearing associated with producing more for a growing and greedier population. Many species are expected to have to shift their range as the environmental conditions they live in move, and if they can’t move because there is no habitat to move through, extinctions will result.

State of the Environment reports document the extent of the problem.

For example, between 2011 and 2015, there was a 66% increase in the number of critically endangered animals (from 38 in 2011 to 63 in 2015), and a 28% increase in critically endangered plants (112 in 2011; 143 in 2015). By critically endangered, we mean that extinction is a real possibility in the short term for these species. Immediate action is needed if we are to avoid terminating millions of years of independent evolution, as these biological lineages die out.

Given the extraordinary value of biodiversity and the extreme and growing threats, it would make sense to maximise our spending on biodiversity conservation now, to protect our wildlife through this period of peak human.

Key areas for investment include creating an effective national reserve system, at least meeting the arbitrary international goals of 17% of the land and 10% of the sea area.

Funding is needed to manage the reserve system, containing threats and nurturing already threatened species. Meanwhile, outside of reserves where most of the people live and interact with nature, biodiversity needs to be provided for, and threats need to be managed. Biosecurity is a critical area for funding, particularly to more tightly regulate rogue industries, like horticulture.

Horticulture was recently responsible for introducing myrtle rust, a disease that is devastating many gum-tree relatives, in the family Myrtaceae. Finally, climate change demands a strong response, both in mitigation and adaptation.

Science and environment work needs funding

I’ve never seen so many fantastic, skilled, enthusiastic young ecologists struggling to get a job. At a time when ecologists and conservation scientists are needed more than ever to help solve the problems created by the growth economy, funding for ecology is at a low.

Of course, beyond the people, we see conservation programs in desperate need of support that just isn’t forthcoming. Christmas Island is a case in point.

The island’s reptiles have been devastated by invasive pests, most likely the wolf snake and perhaps the giant centipede. Two endemic species (species that only lived on Christmas Island) are presumed extinct; the last known forest skink died in 2014.

This Christmas Island Forest Skink was the last known member of her species.
Director of National Parks/Supplied

Two other endemic species are extinct in the wild, but small populations of around 1,000 animals are kept in captivity on the island and at Taronga Zoo.

While ideally a population of at least 5,000 would be maintained to minimise loss of genetic diversity, funding is not available to house that many animals. And it’s rock-bottom budget accommodation; Lister’s geckos are housed in tents because the budget doesn’t stretch to building something permanent.

We’ve also seen important long term research programs defunded. Long-term data provides crucial insights into how our biodiversity responds to decadal changes in weather patterns as well as longer-term changes caused by the greenhouse effect. It is unimaginable that the government have slashed the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network’s funding so far that well-established long-term data series are now being compromised.

Ultimately, the environmental funding shortfall needs to be fixed. Our livelihoods and well-being depend on it.

The original version of this article incorrectly reported that the budget submission was made by the Australian Conservation Foundation and The Wilderness Foundation. It was in fact made by the Australian Conservation Foundation and WWF Australia.

Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The 2017 budget has axed research to help Australia adapt to climate change

Tayanah O’Donnell, University of Canberra and Josephine Mummery, University of Canberra

The 2017 federal budget has axed funding for the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), an agency that provides information to decision-makers on how best to manage the risks of climate change and sea level rise.

The NCCARF received A$50 million in 2008 to coordinate Australia’s national research effort into climate adaptation measures. That was reduced in 2014 to just under A$9 million. For 2017-18, a mere A$600,000 will be spread between CSIRO and NCCARF to support existing online platforms only. From 2018, funding is axed entirely.

This decision follows on from the 2014 streamlining of CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship, and comes at a time when a national review of Australia’s climate policies is still underway.

Despite a growing global impetus to address the risks of climate change, there is evidence that Australia is being hampered by policy inertia. A review of 79 submissions to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry on Barriers to Effective Climate Change Adaptation, published in 2014, found that:

adaptation first and foremost requires clear governance, and appropriate policy and legislation to implement change.

Earlier this year the World Economic Forum listed “failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation” as one of the top five risks to the world, in terms of its potential impact. Meanwhile, in Australia, local governments, professionals and community groups have consistently called for more national policy guidance on how best to adapt to climate risks.

The government’s decision to slash funding for climate adaptation research is therefore at odds with the growing urgency of the problem. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its most recent major assessment report, pointed out that Australia can benefit significantly from taking adaptation action in highly vulnerable sectors.

These areas of vulnerability include: the risk of more frequent and intense floods; water shortages in southern regions; deaths and infrastructure damage caused by heatwaves; bushfires; and impacts on low-lying coastal communities.

To put it simply, lives and money will be saved by strong climate adaptation measures.

Australia needs a coherent policy approach that goes beyond the current focus on energy policy, although climate adaptation is indeed an important issue for our electricity grid as well as for many other elements of our infrastructure. A coherent, whole-of-government, approach to climate risk is the economical and sensible approach in the long term.

Like it or not, the federal government has to take a leading role in climate adaptation. This includes the ongoing need to address existing knowledge gaps through well-funded research.

The federal government is the major funder of leading research in Australia, delivered through CSIRO, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Cooperative Reserach Centres, the Australian Research Council and universities. This role should not be divested. Without climate adaptation research, Australia can expect significantly higher infrastructure damage and repair costs, more death and disease, and more frequent disruption to services – much of which would be avoidable with the right knowledge and preparation.

The damage bill from the 2010-11 Queensland floods alone exceeded A$6 billion. Since 2009, natural disasters have cost the Australian government more than A$12 billion, and the private sector has begun trying in earnest to reduce its risk exposure.

In response to these known risks, there is demand for robust policy guidance. Effective partnerships between government, industry and the community are crucial. One such example led by the NCCARF is CoastAdapt, an online tool that collates details of climate risks and potential costs in coastal areas.

For projects like this, success hinges on full engagement with all relevant spheres of government, industry, research, and the community. There is more to be done, and it needs leadership at the highest level.

Tayanah O’Donnell, Research Fellow, University of Canberra and Josephine Mummery, Research Fellow and PhD Candidate, climate change policy, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Kevin's Walk on the Wild Side

Environment, Wildlife and Wilderness – Articles and News

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