Thursday, January 18, 2007
Becoming carbon neutral cannot remain voluntary
Blair’s right. If you have the money, you should be able to spend it how your conscience dictates. Why should you forgo the mini-break, when your neighbour is not compelled to?
At least Blair has decided that his foreign travel will become ‘carbon neutral’, by simultaneously investing in carbon-capture schemes, such as reforestation.
Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Campbell Newman is embracing carbon capture too. Despite inaugurating the biggest and most expensive road expansion program in the city’s history, he too wants to do his bit for slowing CO2 emissions growth.
The O2 project is a pilot project driven by Brisbane City Council to plant 1,000 hectares of trees in the Oxley Creek catchment. The aim is twofold: rehabilitation of the catchment and carbon capture under the South East Queensland Regional Carbon Sink scheme.
It is expected to capture and store between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide per annum. To begin with, the project will be funded by Brisbane City Council, but the Mayor is hoping that eventually Brisbane residents will voluntarily buy into the scheme – to the tune of around $75 to $150 each year - to become personally carbon neutral.
It all sounds to good to be true. A politician finally grappling with climate change. But before Newman gets his Honorary Diploma from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sense of perspective is required.
Brisbane is a city of 957,000 residents who emit over seventeen million tons of carbon dioxide each year.
To sequester the city’s emissions in forestry schemes will require between 861,000 and 1.15 million hectares of reforestation and / or avoided deforestation each year, or between 63% and 84% of the total land area within Council’s jurisdiction. Not entirely possible….
But Brisbane is a metropolitan area, and it is unfeasible for it to be sustainable without drawing on the ecological services of a large hinterland. But even on a regional basis the sums don’t add up. South East Queensland (SEQ)’s population is currently 2.7million, in an area of 22,420kms2, stretching from the NSW border, Toowoomba in the west and Noosa in the north. To become carbon neutral, the SEQ region will require between 11% and 14% of it’s total land area to be reforested each year.
Most of the region is already urbanised, suburbanised, used for intensive agriculture or water catchment. Forested areas account for around 25% of the region. Carbon sequestration from forestry schemes has around 4 to 5 years productive activity before exhaustion, at static population levels and energy consumption levels. A regional scale of operation is simply not enough. Australian cities emit enormous amounts of carbon dioxide.
A state-wide carbon sequestration program is the only scheme capable of meeting the climate challenge. Today’s four million Queeslanders emit around 72 million tons of CO2 each year. Reforesting between 0.21% and 0.28% of the State would in theory sequester most of this carbon each year.
This seems entirely feasible, leveraging the States competitive advantage in being thinly populated, but the scale of change will require a huge paradigm shift from the population growth driving material expansion policy settings driven by governments of all levels.
But it is only feasible through a cap-and-trade scheme, demanding that consumers, government and business can choose between cutting emissions or paying the price. Conserving energy or investing in carbon capture.
Reforestation would have numerous external benefits, including habitat preservation, habitat rehabilitation, catchment protection and tourism value.
However, not all reforestation projects will deliver such lofty benefits. Much would be plantation. Huge expanses of monoculture – fast growing pines most likely – is probably not what most people would have in mind for reforestation. However, some human productive use of the land is a necessity, as much of the reforestation will be a value recovery from otherwise productive land.
Carbon markets are a panacea for environmental economists, but remain riddled with ethical and ecological questions and are yet to prove that nature retains its fair share of resources. But then did ethical questions form part of contemporary political debate?
Becoming carbon neutral cannot remain voluntary
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:39 AM
Blair’s right. If you have the money, you should be able to spend it how your conscience dictates. Why should you forgo the mini-break, when your neighbour is not compelled to?
At least Blair has decided that his foreign travel will become ‘carbon neutral’, by simultaneously investing in carbon-capture schemes, such as reforestation.
Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Campbell Newman is embracing carbon capture too. Despite inaugurating the biggest and most expensive road expansion program in the city’s history, he too wants to do his bit for slowing CO2 emissions growth.
The O2 project is a pilot project driven by Brisbane City Council to plant 1,000 hectares of trees in the Oxley Creek catchment. The aim is twofold: rehabilitation of the catchment and carbon capture under the South East Queensland Regional Carbon Sink scheme.
It is expected to capture and store between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide per annum. To begin with, the project will be funded by Brisbane City Council, but the Mayor is hoping that eventually Brisbane residents will voluntarily buy into the scheme – to the tune of around $75 to $150 each year - to become personally carbon neutral.
It all sounds to good to be true. A politician finally grappling with climate change. But before Newman gets his Honorary Diploma from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sense of perspective is required.
Brisbane is a city of 957,000 residents who emit over seventeen million tons of carbon dioxide each year.
To sequester the city’s emissions in forestry schemes will require between 861,000 and 1.15 million hectares of reforestation and / or avoided deforestation each year, or between 63% and 84% of the total land area within Council’s jurisdiction. Not entirely possible….
But Brisbane is a metropolitan area, and it is unfeasible for it to be sustainable without drawing on the ecological services of a large hinterland. But even on a regional basis the sums don’t add up. South East Queensland (SEQ)’s population is currently 2.7million, in an area of 22,420kms2, stretching from the NSW border, Toowoomba in the west and Noosa in the north. To become carbon neutral, the SEQ region will require between 11% and 14% of it’s total land area to be reforested each year.
Most of the region is already urbanised, suburbanised, used for intensive agriculture or water catchment. Forested areas account for around 25% of the region. Carbon sequestration from forestry schemes has around 4 to 5 years productive activity before exhaustion, at static population levels and energy consumption levels. A regional scale of operation is simply not enough. Australian cities emit enormous amounts of carbon dioxide.
A state-wide carbon sequestration program is the only scheme capable of meeting the climate challenge. Today’s four million Queeslanders emit around 72 million tons of CO2 each year. Reforesting between 0.21% and 0.28% of the State would in theory sequester most of this carbon each year.
This seems entirely feasible, leveraging the States competitive advantage in being thinly populated, but the scale of change will require a huge paradigm shift from the population growth driving material expansion policy settings driven by governments of all levels.
But it is only feasible through a cap-and-trade scheme, demanding that consumers, government and business can choose between cutting emissions or paying the price. Conserving energy or investing in carbon capture.
Reforestation would have numerous external benefits, including habitat preservation, habitat rehabilitation, catchment protection and tourism value.
However, not all reforestation projects will deliver such lofty benefits. Much would be plantation. Huge expanses of monoculture – fast growing pines most likely – is probably not what most people would have in mind for reforestation. However, some human productive use of the land is a necessity, as much of the reforestation will be a value recovery from otherwise productive land.
Carbon markets are a panacea for environmental economists, but remain riddled with ethical and ecological questions and are yet to prove that nature retains its fair share of resources. But then did ethical questions form part of contemporary political debate?
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:39 AM
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| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
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