Forget the carbon price, forget the opposition’s Direct Action climate plan. Australia could probably meet its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without either, provided we did one thing. But you won’t hear the politicians talk about it.
A statistical analysis by Crikey, based on data released this week, indicates that if Australia’s high population growth rate were reined in, the country would already be meeting its targets to cut pollution. In fact, we’d probably be under those targets.
The federal government’s data on greenhouse gas emissions for the December quarter points to the major impact the population boom has had on Australia’s emissions. Here’s the Crikey number-crunching that shows why it might be time to talk about the environmental impact of Australia’s growing population. (This is a crude statistical analysis, but you won’t find the government — both major parties support and plan for significant population growth — doing it. So we had a go.)
Australia’s per capita emissions actually dropped between 1989 and 2012. But the population increased by 35% during that period, and overall national emissions soared by 32%. That took national greenhouse gas emissions from 418 megatonnes a year in 1990 to 552 megatonnes in 2012 (a megatonne is 1 million tonnes).
Australia has a high rate of population growth, caused in part by a relatively high rate of immigration. What would the country’s emissions be if that was not the case?
The ABS calculates that in the decade to 2007, the population grew by 1.3% pa on average, with “just under half from net overseas migration” (the rest comes from births). The proportion of population growth coming from migration increased to more than half at the end of that period; last year the federal government said migration “has in recent years had the largest impact on overall population change”. In 2009, migration provided 65% of population growth.
Based on those numbers, if Australia had net zero migration from 1989 to 2012, we can estimate the population would have increased from 16.9 million (1989) to roughly 20.4 million (2012).
And based on the government’s calculation of current per capita emissions, that would give us total national emissions in 2012 of 495 megatonnes. So our actual total emissions are 11.5% — or 57 megatonnes — higher than if we had had net zero migration.
“The short answer is that we may well be meeting that (emissions) target already if we did not have the population boom.”
So what? Well, the body politic is consumed with how to meet the bipartisan target to reduce national emissions to 537 megatonnes of emissions per year in 2020. It’s an issue that has toppled prime ministers, helped decide elections and keeps politicians awake at night.
The short answer is that we might well be meeting that target already if we did not have the population boom.
With the swelling population, it’s a different story. Australia’s headcount stands at a ticker under 23 million. The ABS predicts there will be between 31 million and 43 million of us in 2056. By 2101, the ABS estimates it could be as high as 62 million.
This above analysis is rough and is no substitute for rigorous modelling by teams of economists and demographers. It’s worth bearing in mind that per capita emissions simply divide up national emissions by the headcount, yet a chunk of those emissions are not from individual people, they come from industry (including export-oriented industry). So some of the increase in total emissions would have happened regardless of population growth. Also, it’s difficult to directly compare population growth and emissions for the exact period 1989 to 2012. However, the numbers crunched here do point to an aspect to the climate debate that is seldom discussed at the political level: more people means higher emissions.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd famously declared he believed in a “big Australia“; in the ensuing criticism both major parties toned down the rhetoric, but neither major party has moved away from significant population growth fuelled by skilled migration.
Tony Mohr, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s manager of climate change campaign, calls for a stabilisation of Australia’s population. “More people in Australia means more roads, more energy use and more greenhouse gas emissions,” Mohr told Crikey. “Population is one driver of emissions growth in Australia.”
He says Australia should address the problem rather than “add fuel”. “We’ve already got a really big emissions footprint … certainly taking another look at our skilled migration would help reduce the growth in our greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
Mohr calls on politicians to debate the impacts of population growth on the environment and cities. He adds the ACF did not support reducing Australia’s humanitarian intake, which is a fraction of the overall migration intake. In the 2010 election campaign, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said:
“I do not believe in the idea of a big Australia; an Australia where we push all the policy leavers into top gear to drive population growth as high as we can. Australia cannot and should not hurtle down the track towards a big population.”
However, Labor has done little to seriously challenge projections of significant population growth (apart from criticising the 457 visa program). Tony Burke, the federal Minister for Population, has issued 46 media releases this year, but none appear to be about population. Last year Burke issued an 86-page sustainable population policy, which appears to make no recommendations on what Australia’s population should be.
68 thoughts on “The dirty little secret to tackling climate change”
marcfranc
April 18, 2013 at 3:26 pmCathy Alexander, I don’t have any suggestions for a different approach, other than not treating people like idots (which some environmentalists have been as guilty of as climate change deniers). Climate change is obviously a global rather than a national issue, but of course it must be addressed through the existing goveranance institutions, which are generally national rather than international. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense to divy up emissions allowances on a national basis. A global per capita basis would be fairer.
I’ve been deeply sceptical of this type of simplistic analysis since listening to an interview on local ABC in Canberra two or three years ago with Clive Hamilton, then director of the Australia Institute. He was arguing against a push by Canberra Airport to introduce direct international flights on the grounds that this would dramatically increase the ACT’s emissions output. (This proposition appeared to be based on the practice of allocating responsibility for emissions according to the airport of departure. On this logic, it made sense for Canberra people to drive or fly to Sydney and then fly overseas, because emissions generated by the overseas leg would be attributed to NSW.)
cyberfysh
April 18, 2013 at 3:27 pmAs others have said, “correlation is not causation” – and surely we need to be smarter in the way we use resources and deal with waste, rather than just saying, “If x people cause y pollution, then 2x people will cause double the pollution.” By that logic, we could never have expanded our cities beyond their 19th century population levels, because there’d be nowhere to stable the number of horses required or to dispose of the nightsoil, etc. etc.
David Hand
April 18, 2013 at 3:41 pmCathy,
It is pointless to debate “treating humanity’s emissions as a whole” or having “a sectoral approach”. The earth has decided this for us and treats our emissions as a whole. So the act of moving from country to country has absolutely zero, nil impact on global warming. If you are thinking about the actual international travel, a better target would be the million overseas holidays a year Australians make.
Go to Singapore darling and look up. You might occasionally see blue sky through the haze of burning forests across in Malaysia and Indonesia. Check out the amount of air-conditioning operating there. Read the newspaper there. Multiply what you see by about 200, as there are about that many cities of similar size in that region. China, India and the countries between them are putting enough carbon into the atmosphere right now to make any IPCC target unachievable. If Australia’s emmissions were zero it would make virtually no difference, whether it’s 20 million, 30 million or 50 million people here.
Adam K
April 18, 2013 at 3:43 pmBasically what marcfranc said. Talking about the effects of migration makes sense in the context of problems that are limited to Australia – global warming is not such a problem.
Interestingly I would suspect that if people migrate from a poorer country to a richer country they would adapt their lifestyle to suit the new country, so their emissions would actually increase. This isn’t a compelling point in this debate, though, because we basically need to accept that at some point in the future most countries will be living the lifestyles that we have here – keeping emissions low by not allowing people to adopt our lifestyle isn’t a fair or sustainable approach.
Ironically, the conclusion Cathy should be reaching here is that we should be trying to *increase* the proportion of our population growth that is driven by migration, by reducing our other sources of population growth, such as good ole’ reproduction, because it’s those sources that are actually going to increase emissions.
Matt Moran
April 18, 2013 at 3:43 pmAs William Bourke says:
It’s a double whammy “in terms of GHG emissions, relocating someone to Australia not only increases their per capita GHG emissions by up to 3-4 times, it encourages/delivers MORE population growth in BOTH countries.”
Instead, better to get help where it’s most needed through access to education and family planning and ultimately improving the quality of life of the most populous countries whilst these improvements would also slow birth rates to give them and ourselves a fighting chance as the money goes a lot further.
At our population growth of 375+K per year, that’s 75-150 billion a year we need to increase our infrastructure by to maintain our standard of living. If it’s about reducing our standard of living (which is very much happening), then by how much? Do people want increasingly triaged access to healthcare, schools, public transport, wildlife etc etc?
Stabilizing our population whilst working in partnership with the most impoverished countries to improve their quality of life and as such, help them remain in their homes (the major preference) is win-win. Any other strategy that involves high immigration into Australia is lose-lose.
Peter W Tait
April 18, 2013 at 3:55 pmFantastic Cathy to see the links between GHG emissions (and by inference other human environmental impacts) and population levels being explicitly spelt out. Population is a key driver, but resource use levels and technological development are others. They also interlink with both positive and negative feed-backs.
Resource use addresses a couple of comments (doesn’t matter which country the person is in). Actually it does. Residents of “northern” countries such as Australia have much higher resource (energy and material) use than in many other countries. So a family moving from say south Asia will magnify their environmental impact significantly; I don’t know the current figures but in the 1990s it was by about 40 times.
So population control by access to reproductive services and female child education as well as making resources use across the planet fairer and by making technology more efficient will all contribute to reducing human impact including to global warming.
zut alors
April 18, 2013 at 4:18 pmI was under the impression our planet passed the sustainability limit in 1977.
Since then the wealthy nations have been in blissful denial the earthling party will come to an end.
Margaret Ludowyk
April 18, 2013 at 4:47 pmWe need to grow our population if we are to justify the infrastructure we all want. And so we are not so insignificant in the world politically.
Sean Doyle
April 18, 2013 at 4:51 pmThe term is “GLOBAL Warming”, not “Australian Warming”. Migration only affects Global Warming if a migrant creates more carbon pollution in their new country than in their old one. Given that Australia has one of the worst per capita carbon emission rates in the world, this is the case for the vast majority of migrants. As far as I can see, there are only two logical solutions:
a: global population control and reduction that’s agreed to by all governments (lol); or
b: Australia actually gets serious with tackling the causes of its abysmally high per capita emissions, such as coal power plants, fossil fuel subsidies, rubbish public transport and city planning, et al.
Any “environmentalist” arguing for Australia specific migration controls as a means of fighting global warming deserves to be treated with deep suspicion, at best. Crikey subscribers deserve better analysis in exchange for their fees rather than this “just asking questions” type effort, while we’re at it.
Coaltopia
April 18, 2013 at 4:59 pmLike population, air-conditioning and aluminium aren’t themselves the problem, but they chew a lot of resources. Can we sustain that many A/C units? Is it wise to smelt aluminium with brown coal?
The issue, as always, is dirty energy. Phase it out and strike right balance between population growth and an ageing population and you might be ok.
Population density could be also be equated with energy efficiency and so huge (GHG) savings are possible here if we discourage urban sprawl and foster better mass transit.