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| Growth created since the Industrial Revolution depended on the availability of cheap energy from fossil fuels, but cheap fossil fuels have dried up. Photo: Rob Homer |
In the 1970s, the combined effect of population growth and consumption began to exceed the capacity of planetary ecosystems to meet human demands. To the point where today we need the annual biophysical capacity of 1.6 planets to survive. This unsustainable pressure is now hitting global limits which we can no longer circumvent, manifesting itself in two immediate pressure points.
First, increasing energy costs. Economic growth and wealth created since the Industrial Revolution totally depended on the availability of cheap energy in the shape of fossil fuels, first coal, then oil, then gas. But cheap fossil fuels have dried up. Their cost has increased steadily as we used up the "low-hanging fruit" and now rely on more expensive sources such as deepwater oil, tar sands, shale and coal seam fracking.
This was a primary cause of the 2008 global financial crisis, for once oil exceeds around $100 per barrel, which is a pre-requisite for their development, Western economies go into recession, resulting in the falling demand and low prices we see today. Except this is happening around a declining energy surplus trend in that the surplus available to run society net of the increasing energy needed to extract these sources, is dropping rapidly, making it impossible to maintain conventional economic growth, which has already slowed.
Second, our underestimation of the speed and extent of climate change, as witnessed by irreversible tipping points now being triggered in the Arctic, Antarctic and the oceans, not least the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef. To avoid its worst impacts we must wean ourselves off all fossil fuel use far faster than proposed in the recent Paris climate agreement. This view is instantly dismissed officially, but it will soon be accepted as the impact of extreme weather events, such as the massive Fort McMurray wild fire raging in Canada, accelerates. Some continued use of fossil fuels to build the new low-carbon economy is inevitable, but much less than industry and government maintain.
–The most dangerous aspect of our climate and energy dilemma is that, due to the inertia of the climate system, the actions we take today are locking in irreversible catastrophic climate outcomes decades ahead, long before we see them. Solutions require enlightened long-term thinking, based on the latest science, and a preparedness to act in the public interest; the antithesis of the blind, short-termist, anti-science, ideology which drives mainstream Australian politics and corporate decision-making. Waiting for catastrophe to happen before acting, which is what we are currently doing, ensures it will be too late to act.
We are being taken for fools by our politicians and corporate leaders as they place personal aggrandisement and self-interest ahead of our future.
Climate change is a genuinely existential issue which unless rapidly addressed, will result in a substantial reduction in global population with immeasurable suffering, the beginnings of which can already be seen in the climate-driven refugee crisis engulfing Europe. Australia, as the driest continent on Earth is not immune. We have left it too late to solve this dilemma with a graduated response; emergency action, akin to placing the economy on a war-footing, is essential if we wish to avoid the worst outcomes.
This is not irrational alarmism, but an objective view of the latest science and evidence, a view which is increasingly aired by responsible leaders worldwide. It is a matter of national survival which conventional left and right-wing politics is incapable of addressing, as recent history and the irrelevance of the election campaign demonstrate only too well.
The corollary of these existential risks is that their solution represents the greatest development and investment opportunity we have ever seen in creating the low-carbon world. But it must be a 21st-century world focused on genuine sustainability and quality of life, not on rebooting the unsustainable 20th-century free-market version which has got us in to the current mess. We hear much rhetoric about "transition", "innovation", "jobs and growth" but no clarity on "transition to what?", "innovation to what end?" and "what sort of jobs and growth?". At present, policies of both the left and right are committed to delivering the latter world, not the former.
We have solutions, but they will not see the light of day without a fundamental rethink of our national strategy. There are good people across the political spectrum capable of acting in the public interest if they can break the shackles of outdated ideologies. Time to dispense with party politics, encourage these folk to step forward and form nothing less than a government of national unity. That is what the community must demand on election day.
*Ian Dunlop was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chair of the Australian Coal Association and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a member of the Club of Rome.
Links
- A big majority of Australians say Malcolm Turnbull is doing little or nothing about climate change
- Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce faces the reality of climate change
- When should we worry about climate change?
- Climate Change Authority report recommending 'a mandatory carbon price' held back until after election
- Election 2016: Climate change policy a vote winner for majority of Australians
