LitFuse

This is a blog-post based on an article about ‘water neutrality’ in the journal Conservation Letters.  The article references the term water neutrality as an idea proposed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.  The concept is similar to the idea of carbon credits in that it seeks to create a cap on resource use. If someone takes water out of the system, they should take steps to make sure water is put back into the system from another source. Private water users balance their water account through both demand- and supply-side interventions.

The paper describes a scheme in South Africa which sets out to harness private sector investment in water security, “by allowing investors to balance quantitatively their water account based on sound scientific rationale.”

A three-step process is established:

1. reviewing water usage,

2. implementing a reduction strategy,

3. replenish of water to hydrological systems.

In South Africa, private water users can invest in removing weedy plants in the watershed that have a high water demand. By removing these weeds, private water users can “put back” water into the system that is  equivalent to their own water usage. Such a model opens up other clever ideas and will create a market for people who might sell water that they have been able to ‘create’ to those who wish to expand their water use. The trial presents an operational model for the promotion of a water-neutral market in South Africa.

In Australia, rural water users can trade water licenses across a 1 million km2  in the Murray Darling Basin, albeit in an environment where too many water licenses were handed out in the first place. Farmers trade water between each other. As water becomes scarce, some farmers are willing to pay a higher price for water, which attracts other farmers to sell or lease their water. Water trade also occurs between the city and the rural areas – that is, water utilities in the city are able to buy water licenses from farmers further back up the catchment. Another way water is sourced from the watershed is to shut down wetlands – removing their water so that the wetland system dies out, replaced by a terrestrial ecosystem. All of these decisions are made centrally by government and water utilities. Could Australia set up a system that allowed individuals and entrepreneurs to both find water savings and sell them, not just in the watershed, but in cities themselves? Professor Mike Young, Executive Director of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide has suggested the concept of water neutrality for cities using a different set of language to describe the same thing – a cap on water use in urban areas.

The water neutrality concept could be expanded to allow individual companies, local councils, and government agencies to find new water sources and trade them back into the system. This would require the water network to be opened up to third party suppliers who may be able to supply water from water recycling schemes, local, small scale desalination plants and rainwater harvesting (with quality assurance and the core infrastructure provided by government for an access fee).

In an environment where we have reached the limit of the water resource for human consumption in many areas across the globe, we need to create new institutional frameworks to allow economic growth to continue under conditions of resource constraint. The water neutrality concept, or establishing a cap on net water extractions from a watershed, is an example of a policy setting that allows us to protect our resource base, but encourages everyone to find better and more efficient ways of utilising the available resource.

Written by Paul Dalby on 21 June 2009

I’m resyndicating a blog post by Tim Kelly on Barry Brook’s “Brave New Climate” blog about Australia’s renewable energy policy. To quote the gist of Tim’s point:

“From June 9, 2009 when a householder is seduced into signing across Solar Credits associated with their small scale Solar, Wind or Hydro generation schemes, they will continue to reduce their emissions yet for every deemed megawatt hour (MWh) created, they will displace 5 MWh of accredited Renewable Energy already required under Australian Law. They will be causing a net 4 MWh to be continued to be produced from fossil fuel sources and therefore will cause more greenhouse gas emissions and do more harm to the environment than doing nothing.”

This is the sort of outcome only a cross-agency government committee can come up with. There is enormous goodwill in the Australian population to contribute to lowering carbon emissions. The current policy is either cynically taking advantage of that goodwill, or the committee has become so bound up in the complex issues it has to address, that it has invented a camel when it meant to invent a horse.

A different approach would be to replace the GST with a carbon tax. This could be cost neutral to the Australian economy (in terms of net tax collected – there would obviously be significant costs in shifting policies over), would not unfairly disadvantage our exporters (no carbon tax on exports) and would encourage Australians to buy and manufacture low carbon products. Over time, one would expect that the economy would shift to a lower carbon economy – which would mean the price of carbon would have to rise to maintain the taxation base to the government. There is some brief discussion about this idea here and here.

Written by Paul Dalby on 14 June 2009

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has just released results from a survey of agricultural land management practices undertaken in 2007/08.

54% of Australia’s total land area was managed by agricultural businesses – Tasmania the smallest  (23%)  Queensland the largest (82%). Grazing land accounted for 87% of land managed by agricultural businesses, 8% for cropping and 2% was set aside for conservation.

The most common land management practices undertaken were surface water management (74%), application of fertiliser (62%) and monitoring ground cover in paddocks (54%).

66% of all agricultural businesses reported having native vegetation on their properties, more than half reported rivers or creeks and wetlands were reported by 10% of all agricultural businesses. About half of all agricultural businesses that had such ecological assets on their property reported that they were protecting them.

Nationally 17 million hectares was prepared using zero-till compared with 9 million hectares prepared using one or more cultivation passes. Of all agricultural businesses managing crop residue, the main crop residue management practices undertaken were to leave stubble intact (43%), removal of crop residue by baling or heavy grazing (34%) and ploughing crop residue into the soil (33%). These management practices were used on 90% of all land managed for crop residue in 2007-08.

Of agricultural businesses grazing livestock on crops or pasture, 69% monitor the amount of ground cover in paddocks and 57% of these have established a minimum ground cover level target. By far the most common method undertaken by agricultural businesses for monitoring ground cover was visual estimates, with 96% reporting using this method. This proportion was generally reflected in all states except the Northern Territory where 17% reported using photo monitoring standards (comparison with photos of known ground cover levels) to monitor ground cover.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

On the one hand, this survey does suggest the billions of dollars spent on natural resource management and engagement of farmers in conservation has has an impact, but there are still half of all agricultural businesses in Australia who do not see that protecting ecological assets is part of their business and a similar proportion who are leaving their soils at risk to erosion. While I could not find a comparable earlier survey by the ABS, when I think back to the 1980’s, this survey suggests that there has been a major shift towards improvements in agricultural land management practices. However, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Failure to protect natural resources now such as soil, native vegetation and water will disadvantage the ability of future generations to enjoy the productive benefits of Australia’s agricultural lands.

Do we need to invent a “Landcare” for the 21st Century that picks up the other 50% of landholders and taps into the latest in science and technology? Is the current dry period across southern Australia an impediment to change, or a catalyst?

Written by Paul Dalby on 12 June 2009

Many people have been asking for the video from the launch of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide.

Written by Paul Dalby on 6 June 2009

Thanks so much to Robyn Williams for speaking at the Environment Insitute Launch last night. Professor Williams is an eloquant speaker and just quietly has some interesting theories on where laywers come from. Also thanks to The Hon Jay Weatherill, Minister for Environment and Heritage in South Australia for launching the Institute, and Mark Butler MP, Federal Member for Port Adelaide who is an obvious candidate for Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change.

#environmentinst

Written by Paul Dalby on 5 June 2009

Steve Collin’s blog post expands on the article I pointed to recently from Lavartus Prodeo on the use of Web 2.0 by politicians and government (Thanks to Penny Sharpe for pointing me to both articles). Steve makes the same point I made in response to the Lavartus Prodeo blog post, which is that the real opportunity for social networking in a democracy is to link the public servants to the public.  My particular beef is about making government data available freely online, both in raw form, and interpreted from the view of government. But there is so much more that could be achieved, so much more richness in terms of conservation and interaction. I’d be very keen to hear from people in the public service about their views on this.

Written by Paul Dalby on 26 May 2009

I enjoyed reading this well researched Climate Progress blog post regarding the proposed Clean Energy Bank  in the US.

“Last week House Energy and Commerce members approved by 51-6 an amendment to the Waxman-Markey bill offered by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) to create a clean energy bank .  As Greenwire explained, the amendment would “create an autonomous Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) within the Energy Department” that would “provide a suite of financing options, including direct loans, letters of credit, loan guarantees, insurance products and others” for “energy production, transmission, storage and other areas that could reduce greenhouse gases, diversify energy supplies and save energy.”

At the same time as investment in clean technology increases around the world, investment in oil exploration is falling,which may lead to another oil price spike in the medium term.

“…Oil firms must work doubly hard to replace declining fields and to increase output. Yet the oil industry is short of equipment and manpower, thanks to underinvestment in the 1980s and 1990s, when prices were low. As soon as the world economy starts growing again, the theory runs, demand for oil will once again outstrip the industry’s ability to supply it. In other words, the global recession has only interrupted the “supercycle” of which many analysts used to speak, during which the normal boom-and-bust cycle of oil and other commodities would give way to a protracted period of high prices, as ever-growing demand from emerging markets swallowed everything the extractive industries could produce.”

Where does this leave Australia? Weak and vulnerable in my view. The recent Federal Budget was analysed by Professor Barry Brook from the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide. There is little cheer in the budget for entrepreneurs in the clean energy game according to Barry’s analysis, particularly in relation to the flawed design and inadequate targets of the CPRS. And Australia is an economy heavily reliant on energy. It’s a big place with relatively few people, extreme climates, and all of our capaital cities will be reliant on energy-hungry desalination for their water supplies. We are rich in coal, but produce only 60% of our oil consumption, so we rely on imported oil and petroleum products. A spike in energy prices will result in pressure on Australia’s economy, and leave us reliant on imported technology to meet renewable energy targets and needs, much like we rely on imported desalination technology.

I would add a note of optimism. The changes to the research and development (R&D) tax credit scheme will “double the level of assistance currently available to small companies and remove the cap on the amount of R&D expenditure subject to a tax credit. Large companies with more than $20 million annual turnover will receive a 40% R&D tax credit instead of tax deductions, which is a 10% net – benefit – one third higher than the current regime.  Small companies will receive a 45% R&D tax credit, which amounts to a 15% benefit – twice the current level.  Small companies with tax losses will be able to ‘cash out’ their R&D credit when they file their income tax return.”

As a modest investor in commercial R&D myself, this is a great incentive, and one that the Rudd government should be applauded for. Let’s hope it stimulates Australian businesses and entrepreneurs to invest in clean energy. More targeted approaches, such as a national feed in tariff, and a redesigned CPRS system along the lines suggested by Professor Brook would be even better. An increase in oil price would be a much more economically damaging driver of investment by Australian researchers and entrepreneurs in clean energy solutions. A Clean Energy Bank for Australia would be visionary.

Written by Paul Dalby on 24 May 2009

Responding to Trev’s comment in the Larvatus Prodeo blog, what you have described is about politicking, which is valuable in its own right. What I am interested in is allowing the same sort of interaction between public servants and the broader community in policy development. I think in New Zealand, the new Police Act was developed through a public wiki. But from what I can work out, In Australia politicians are making use of social media because they get benefit from it, but are blocking public servant access to it. As someone who would like to contribute from the outside to policy development, I am frustrated that government agencies cannot interact with the outside world except through the government’s media office. This is stifling the flow of ideas and information, and limiting democratic input into policy development. Most government departments block all social networking tools. This is such a shame, but seems to be driven from the desperate need by the politicians to control their message.

Was made aware of these websites by tweets from the Whitehouse.

http://www.data.gov/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/innovations/

President Obama is the first world leader to really ‘get’ the power of online social networks. These initiatives aim to put government data online (that’s right, ‘other’ people will be able to download it and ‘misinterpret’ it ), and champions more open, accountable and transparent government using the web as a tool.

I’m thinking of emigrating.

Written by Paul Dalby on 22 May 2009