BALANCING ACT |
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Climate Change - Re-examining the data of the 'Balancing Act' Report - from a Vegan Perspective by Bruce Poon, March 2007 The Problem The leading climate scientists in the world agree that the Earth is warming, and that the majority of this warming is due to human activity. Fundamentally, the emissions of greenhouse gases, including Carbon Dioxide, have changed the balance of the atmosphere in a way that additional sunlight is 'trapped' by our planet. This will lead to changes in the overall average temperature for the planet, and could lead to wildly different weather in various regions. Melting of the world's glaciers and icecaps could lead to changes in the oceans and significantly higher sea levels. A number of potential 'run away' environmental catastrophes are possible, but the science is still determining how close we are to these events. In a foreword to Tim Flannery's excellent book, 'The Weather Makers', which outlines the problem, Robert Purves, the President of WWF Australia states "Quite simply, climate change is a threat to civilisation as we know it". Most of the world has agreed on a framework for tackling the problem, called the Kyoto Protocol. It limits the amount of greenhouse gas that each country can emit without penalty, and makes a market to trade 'carbon credits'. Australia's emissions from energy use have increased by 46% since 1990. We will only come close to our Kyoto targets because of one-off reductions in land clearing have effectively given us large carbon credits. These credits will be rapidly swallowed up by our rapidly rising energy emissions. Examining the Accounts - First Glance The Australian Government has published a report called the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, based on 2004 data, which is a summary of our 'accounting' for greenhouse gases. It is broken up by sources of emission, and a straightforward presentation of the data shows that Australia produced 564.7 Mt of CO2-e (Megatonnes of Carbon Dioxide or equivalent other gases). Stationary Energy (Coal and Gas fired power stations) and fugitive emissions associated with the fuels, contribute a whopping 310.9 Mt or 55% of these numbers. Other contributors are listed as Transport (13%), Industrial Processes (5%), Agriculture (16%), Land Use (6%) and Waste (3%). This explains why there is such focus on changing the mechanisms for the production of Electricity. Surely, the conventional logic goes, since 55% of the total is to do with stationary energy generation, we should tackle that problem first. Perhaps we can find ways to generate 'clean coal' or we could gradually change to wind, wave and solar technologies. There is merit in examining cleaner technologies for energy generation, but they all come at considerable cost. There is also another way to look at the problem. Examining the Accounts - A deeper look What do we do with all that Energy? We use it in industry throughout Australia, in agriculture and in domestic homes. In order to properly break out the use of energy within Australia, and which industries use how much, when all their inputs and outputs are taken into account, another kind of economic report is required. There is both an 'end-use' report associated with the greenhouse accounts, but more thoroughly, there is a report called 'Balancing Act', a Triple Bottom Line analysis of 135 sectors of the Australian economy. This report was produced by CSIRO and the University of Sydney, and included statistics of greenhouse gases produced by each industrial sector. When we look at these accounts, we see that the animal industries are significant causes of Greenhouse gases, both through the specific activities involved in the industry, but also through their significant use of energy. Additionally and importantly, they are responsible for significant land degradation. The following table shows the amount of Carbon Dioxide (or equivalent) released by each industry sector within the animal industries. Industry Sector Mt CO2-e Percent of Total Beef Cattle 122.5 23.6 Sheep and Shorn Wool 23.9 4.61 Dairy Cattle and Milk 8.8 1.7 Pigs 1.3 0.25 Commercial Fishing 0.68 0.13 Meat Products 0.68 0.13 Dairy Products 0.59 0.11 Poultry and Eggs 0.58 0.11 Leather Products 0.016 0.003 Totals 159.03 30.64 Table 1 - Carbon emissions by industry sector, animal industries in Australia The 'Balancing Act' numbers are based on mid 90's data, compared to the 2004 data used in the National Greenhouse Gas accounts. So while the total numbers of greenhouse gases emitted have increased over that time by about 8.5%, the relative percentages are unlikely to have changed markedly. This re-analysis shows a substantial total of nearly 31% of the total greenhouse gases that Australia produces, all caused by animal industries. This is a number hidden by the conventional view of the accounts. The greenhouse accounts also show a figure of 10% of our greenhouse emissions caused by "Land Use, Land Use Change" which is offset in the top level graph (see Figure 1) by 4% Credit through Forestry, that is, growing of new forests to lock up carbon. Of that 10%, fully 93% of this figure is clearing land for cattle grazing! 31% reduction in emissions is possible by eliminating the animal industries. This is without considering ANY change to our energy generation mix, or other reductions in fuel use in transport or domestic use. Of course, we can and should also look at those other mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but they are secondary to the cheapest and easiest way to reduce emissions now. Forestry Eliminating the need for cattle grazing and dairy herds would free up land for other uses. Quite a lot of land actually. About 110 million hectares, roughly the area of NSW and Victoria combined! If even a fraction of this area was replanted with native forests (or softwoods if desired), then we would start to take carbon from the atmosphere and lock it up in these forests. Even if they were subsequently logged for timber, the bulk of the carbon would remain locked up and out of the atmosphere. The science and accounting for carbon locked up by forestry is still in its infancy. The numbers are still in flux, and any business case for forestry must take that into account. As an example though, based on re-planting of 1 Million Hectares per year (less than 1% of the land freed up), we would take 10 Mt of CO2 from the atmosphere each year6. In the second year, with another million hectares planted, 20 Mt, 3rd year, 30 Mt, etc. Somewhere between 3 and 5 decades of planting would see Australia reach carbon neutrality in total. Again, this is completely without any change in Energy Generation, Household Use, Transport Efficiency, etc. With innovations in these areas, it could happen much quicker. Incidentally, under Kyoto accounting rules, these carbon credits are worth tens of billions of dollars each year. Hugely more than the profits from our current exports of animal products. Download pdf file |