A Greater Australia: Population, policies and governance - CEDA

Section 2.5else. Even with a broad international commitment about CO 2emissions, it is temptingfor a nation like Australia to “free ride” and keep burning coal for its electricity, unlessinternational sanctions and Australians’ moral sense of fair play, dictate otherwise.To decide not to do this, there must be a social and environmental justification, tiedto rigorous energy, economic and population policy. We can anticipate many of theimpacts of future global warming, and we have the ability to make the key economicand technological choices required to substantially mitigate emissions. But will we actin time, and will it be with sufficient effort, to avoid dangerous climate change?Focusing first on the short-term 2020 goal, the Australian Government’s expectation isthat total national emissions will actually rise from the 2011 figure of 578 Mt of CO 2e to621 Mt by 2020 – a net growth of 7.5 per cent over the next nine years. 19 Yet the goalis five per cent below 2000 levels of 558 Mt, so the target number the government isseeking to reach is 530 Mt. The BAU expectation is 680 Mt, so the newly legislatedcarbon tax and other emissions reduction incentives (such as energy efficiency andrenewable energy certificates) are expected to save about 60 Mt compared with theno policy approach. To fill the 91 Mt gap, Treasury modelling suggests that 15 per centof the 2020 emissions reductions will come from international carbon pollution permitsfrom developing countries, including clean energy projects, avoided deforestation, andso on. 20 These are of course difficult to verify, but that is the concept.The heavy reliance on foreign abatement credits to supplement domestic efforts willcontinue through to 2050. In July 2011 the Treasury released new modelling whichlooked at a range of energy scenarios (assuming a mix of energy efficiency and conservation,renewable energy and fossil fuels, but excluding nuclear) and design features ofa carbon pricing scheme. 21 The core policy scenario assumes global action to stabiliseCO 2e at 550 ppm by the year 2100, which aligns with Australia’s current emissionsreduction target of 80 per cent by 2050. The energy mix in 40 years is assumed tocontinue with a majority reliance on fossil fuels (black coal, oil and natural gas, abouthalf of which makes use of carbon capture and storage technology), but with between35 and 47 per cent coming from renewables, up from an 11 per cent share today. 22Alternatives: steady or declining Australianpopulation?Standard policy analyses on emissions abatement involve the modelling of energy andeconomic growth pathways, and a conjecture about future population size. The defaultassumption is that population will continue to grow in the coming decades, with themid-range estimate, as described above, being an increase from 22.7 million people in2011 to 31.3 million in 2050. Australia’s total fertility rate is currently 1.78 23 , which is theaverage number of children born to a woman if she were to survive through to the endof her reproductive life. This is below the replacement fertility rate, which for Australia(with a low mortality rate) is a little less than 2.1 24 . Yet Australia’s population continuesto grow at a rate of 1.15 per cent per year, due to our substantial net migration rate,recently six migrants per 1000 population. That is, without migration, Australia’s populationwould now be contracting, not growing, as is already the case for many OECDnations with lower immigration rates, such as Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Japanand Korea. 26Because Australia’s population growth is now determined by migration policy, ourfuture population trajectory is, in theory, “tuneable”, via adjustment of net migrationrates, without any need for recourse to other forms of population control such as incentivesfor fertility reductions. This situation allows us to pose an interesting hypotheticalA Greater Australia: Population, Policies and Governance107