Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

yet ratified under the Kyoto Protocol. Other sectors are also growing at high rates.
Politicians who have successfully opposed ratification as a supposed threat to the economy
also claim that Australia is close to achieving the targets anyway!
As shown in Figure 1, skyglow in Melbourne approximately doubled between 1990 and 2000.
As an exponential rate, this represents an increase of 1.072 or 7.2 % per year. If this rate
continues unabated, and ignoring changes in efficacy of conversion of fossil fuel energy to
electricity and then to light, and changes in upward waste light ratio, the generation of
greenhouse gases for outdoor lighting in the Kyoto target year of 2008 will be 348% of what
it was for the 1990 base year. The emissions growth for the outdoor lighting sector will
therefore be 248/8 or 31 times as much as the 8% Kyoto obligation! In other words, at least
240 lamps of every 348 in operation in 2008, or 69%, would need to be decommissioned
overnight then, or equivalent reductions made in energy usage, for the sector to comply with
this part of the Protocol. (This disregards the obligation to attempt compliance with the
Protocol targets throughout the 18 years.) No increases in energy use for outdoor lighting
would be permitted for the following year. Alternatively, part or all of the excess could be
allowed at the expense of other fossil-fuelled sectors making equivalent additional energy
savings after compliance with the Protocol, a rather unlikely prospect.
In part, the problem has largely escaped attention, at least in Australia, because of the Cities
for Climate Protection (CCP) program that is being followed by many local government
bodies as a supposed working alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. CCP uses 1996 as its base
year. In 1996, Melbourne was using 1.0718 6 or 1.52 times as much energy for lighting as it
used in 1990. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the permitted pro rata growth for Australia for 6
years is 1.0043 6 or 1.026. In the case of outdoor lighting, CCP therefore starts from a base
48% larger than that for the Protocol. As a result, great increases are unintentionally
disguised as modest growth or even as reductions.
For most countries, the Kyoto Protocol requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced
below 1990 levels. The gap between this target and what is actually happening with outdoor
lighting will generally be even larger than it is in Australia, given that the exponential rate of
growth in lighting elsewhere is often greater than in Australia. This is a problem that national
governments must face honestly and quickly. Part of the unpalatability of the greenhouse
problem is that it does not look like going away. The longer it is not dealt with properly, the
more onerous will be the necessary reductions in fossil-fuel usage.
Nations with substantial proportions of nuclear fission thermal power generation may claim
that the greenhouse gases problem is lessened in their cases, reducing the urgency for
reductions in lighting use. This ignores the strength of other reasons for reducing energy
lighting usage. Not least of these is the need to reduce the amount of radioactive waste
material produced by existing nuclear power stations. It is hard to justify producing this
material for the ultimate purpose of illuminating outer space with unused light avoidably
emitted by crudely shielded, wrongly aimed and othewise wasteful or unnecessary luminaires.
6.2.2 Miscellaneous light energy loss issues
The Australian Standards for various forms of outdoor lighting (eg street and pedestrian (SA
1999) and sports) generally do not mention what is already a pressing need to limit the use of
outdoor lighting to the absolute minimum required for cultural purposes and mobility safety.
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