Chapter 3: A New Approach to Climate Change, Water and the Environment
Climate Change
The Australian Government recognises its responsibility and is committed to undertaking significant action on climate change. The Government's climate change policy is built on three priorities: reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions; adapting to climate change that we cannot avoid; and helping to shape a global solution. The Government is moving quickly to implement this policy framework.
Reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions
The Government is committed to a target of reducing emissions by 60 per cent of 2000 levels by 2050 and will set a medium-term target this year, informed by economic modelling from the Australian Treasury and the independent Garnaut Climate Change Review.
In developing its strategy to achieve deep reductions in emissions, the Government is conscious of the economic challenges facing Australia. While the fundamentals of Australia's economy remain strong, inflation is currently above the Reserve Bank's target band, and there are uncertainties around the global economic outlook. Faced with these challenges, the Government is committed to responsible economic management, which includes a prudent and disciplined approach to fiscal policy.
The Government will work to reduce emissions at least cost in an equitable way and with the greatest potential to drive growth, create jobs and develop new industries. This is the reason that emissions trading is the central element of the Government's efforts to reduce emissions.
The expanded Renewable Energy Target will accelerate the use of renewable energy, driving cost reductions by encouraging economies of scale. The Government will also support households, communities and businesses to reduce their emissions and adjust to future carbon constraints, including by encouraging the adoption of measures, such as energy efficiency.
The Government will also support critical research and development into new low emissions technologies such as advanced renewable and fossil fuel technologies.
Adapting to climate change that we cannot avoid
Climate change resulting from human influences is already underway, so Australia needs to prepare itself for the inevitable changes already locked into the climate system. This will involve far reaching impacts on our economy, human amenity and our environment.
In recognition of this, the Government is supporting efforts to improve information as well as preparing industries, particularly primary industries, for the future impact of climate change.
Helping to shape a global solution
The first act of the Rudd Government was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Ratifying Kyoto sent a clear message that Australia is no longer part of the problem on climate change; we are now part of the solution. This has meant that for the first time Australia is a full negotiating partner in all key international forums. The Government is committed to working towards a post-2012 agreement for addressing climate change that is equitable and effective, and that includes agreement on a long-term global goal for emissions reductions.
Achieving an effective global agreement will not be easy. Any post-2012 approach needs to secure widespread agreement of countries with diverse interests. Nevertheless, the Government is committed to working through these multilateral negotiations toward an effective global agreement. In working toward that agreement, Australia understands that the developed world has to lead and Australia's commitment to making substantial cuts to domestic emissions underlines that leadership.
All major emitters must take action to reduce global emissions to a level that avoids dangerous climate change, although developing countries are likely to take on different kinds of obligations than developed countries. The Government is also providing support to assist countries in Australia's region where communities are at significant risk from the impacts of climate change.
Water
The Australian Government will work in close cooperation with the States on water policy and play a leading role through Water for the Future.
National leadership means leadership across the whole country to address the challenges faced by all Australians — whether they are irrigation communities or suburban households. It means protecting the rivers that provide our water and investing wisely to get the best results for all Australians.
National leadership means preparing Australia for the challenges of the future and the Government is providing that leadership by focusing on four water priorities — taking action on climate change; using water wisely; securing water supplies and healthy rivers and waterways.
Taking action on climate change
The signs that the Australian climate is changing due to human influences are now becoming clearer. The trend towards drying in southern Australia began in the west where flows into water storages around Perth have dropped by an alarming two thirds since the 1980s due to less rainfall and impacts of land use change.
Earlier this year, the Bureau of Meteorology reported that 2007 was the sixth warmest year on record, and that 16 of the last 18 years have been warmer than the long term average in Australia. It also told us that 2007 was the hottest year on record in the Murray Darling Basin, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. In the Murray Darling Basin, the total flows into the system were about 2,100 billion litres in 2007 — the third lowest year in 116 years of records, with the lowest year on record in 2006. Together, this was the lowest ever recorded two year period, representing just 15 per cent of the long term average.
Looking to the future, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) projects that temperatures will rise another one to five degrees by 2070. In those circumstances, and without a concerted effort, Australia's most populated regions face an ongoing shortage of natural water supply.
This is why climate change will be at the heart of everything the Government does on water. A failure to understand and respond to the impacts of climate change on our water supply will have serious consequences for our rural and urban communities.
State governments around the country have recognised this, which is why they are investing in recycling and stormwater harvesting. And it is why desalination plants will be operational in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and South-East Queensland within the next five years.
The Australian Government has a key role to play in leading the battle against climate change, both in Australia and overseas. The Government also needs to help in building the scientific and technical expertise to understand how much water our national river and groundwater systems are capable of providing into the future.
The CSIRO has been modelling a range of scenarios to look at the impacts that climate change and other factors — such as current and future groundwater use, plantation forestry and farm dam development — will have in the Murray Darling Basin.
Over the next 18 months, the technical expertise brought by CSIRO to this project will be brought to bear in assessments of water for other priority areas nationally, including northern Australia, Tasmania and south-west Western Australia.
The work that the Australian Government is doing on climate change, both globally and in Australia, is fundamental to the question of long-term water security.
Using water wisely
The Murray Darling Basin supports around 70 per cent of Australia's irrigated agriculture. In the process, however, an average of 2,000 billion litres of water is lost each year in the Basin through inefficient storage and delivery systems. That is equivalent to approximately twice the combined water usage of Sydney and Melbourne each year.
As a part of the ground-breaking Memorandum of Understanding reached by the Prime Minister and Premiers of the Basin States at the 26 March 2008 Council of Australian Governments meeting — the Australian Government agreed to undertake a due diligence analysis with a view to providing up to $1.0 billion for Stage 2 of the Food Bowl Modernisation Project in Victoria's Goulburn Valley. Under the Government's Sustainable Rural Water Use and Infrastructure program, similar projects will be developed in the Basin and elsewhere.
In urban areas, the Australian Government will invest $250.0 million in a rainwater and greywater program to help families invest in saving water at home. There is also much we can do in terms of supporting water smart design — and the Government will provide $254.8 million for new and replacement water infrastructure in our cities and towns.
In recent years, State governments have taken the tough and often unpopular decision to enforce water restrictions. Nobody wants to be told when and how they can use water, but many people are finding out that saving water around the home can be easy to achieve, through using efficient appliances like washing machines and low flow shower heads. In Melbourne, people are now using 34 per cent less water per person than they were in the 1990s. Water conservation in our everyday lives is an important part of the ongoing solution.
Securing water supplies
The Government will help develop new water supplies for our growing cities and towns in order to diversify their water supplies and reduce reliance on rain-fed water catchments. Desalination, recycling and stormwater reuse all reduce our reliance on water sourced from rivers and groundwater systems. In addition, connecting water supply grids helps to spread the risks of more localised droughts.
In Ballarat, the Goldfields Superpipe — for which the Australian Government has provided $90.0 million2 — is linking the local water supply to the much bigger Goulburn system. Ballarat received only three per cent of its usual flows in 2006 when the Goldfields Superpipe project commenced. The Superpipe is expected to be complete by the end of June 2008. Without this measure, Ballarat was at risk of running out of water.
The Government's $1.0 billion Water for the Future — National Urban Water and Desalination Plan will support a range of new water supply initiatives, and will be used to leverage further urban water reform by the States.
Healthy rivers and waterways
Healthy rivers support healthy communities and strong economies. They provide habitat for aquatic plans and animals and protect waterways against algal blooms and salinity which reduce our ability to use the water. In addition, they also support regional economies through industries such as tourism, recreational fishing and sport.
A priority for achieving healthy rivers is to address overallocation in the Murray Darling Basin. Following the agreement reached at the Council of Australian Governments meeting on 26 March 2008, an independent Murray Darling Basin Authority is to be established to develop a whole of Basin Plan in consultation with states and the Basin community. For the first time, there will be a sustainable cap set on surface and groundwater extractions in the Basin, and this will be legally enforceable. The new cap will become binding on states as their existing water resource plans expire over the coming years.
To help water users manage the transition to more sustainable water allocations, the Government is supporting two key actions. Firstly, the Government will be active in the water market purchasing entitlements from willing sellers, at a fair market price, under the Restoring the Balance in the Basin program. Savings will be returned to the Basin rivers, and managed by a new Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder.
Secondly, the Government will invest in more efficient infrastructure — in partnership with State governments and landholders.
Environment
This Government has a proactive agenda to pursue sustainability across the economy and to measure rigorously how well we are performing.
This Budget not only responds to emerging challenges — it invests in maintaining and sustaining a healthy and productive environment. And it does this at every level, from national reform in managing water and land management to support for householders taking action at home.
A key element of the Government's sustainability agenda is the $2.2 billion Caring for our Country program. Caring for our Country will focus on six national priorities of the Australian Government: the National Reserve System, biodiversity and natural icons, coastal environments and aquatic habitats, sustainable farm practices, natural resource management in remote and northern Australia and community skills, knowledge and engagement.
Under Caring for our Country, the Australian Government is bringing together the delivery of four national programs — the Natural Heritage Trust, the National Landcare program, the Environmental Stewardship program and the Working on Country Indigenous Land and Environmental program.
It will take a business approach to investment, having clear outcomes and priorities. It will be less bureaucratic and more accountable, with the Prime Minister being asked to approve a set of clear and measurable outcomes for the first five years of the program by the end of June 2008.
National Reserve System
The Government will boost funding for the National Reserve System with $180.0 million over five years as part of Caring for our Country. The National Reserve System, often referred to as nature's safety net in the face of climate change, will help to conserve Australia's distinctive landscapes, plants and animals through a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of reserves across Australia.
Biodiversity and natural icons
The Government has acknowledged the need to take action to protect our biodiversity and natural icons beyond the National Reserve System. Priorities for Government funding will include protecting world heritage areas, tackling the impact of weeds and feral animals in protected areas, delivering the Great Barrier Reef Rescue package, and improving outcomes for nationally threatened species and communities.
Coastal environments and critical aquatic habitats
Our coastal environments and critical aquatic habitats face a range of threats. The Government will deliver outcomes for these important areas — for example the protection and rehabilitation of dunes, improvement of the water quality discharged into coastal environments, and the protection of Ramsar wetlands.
Sustainable farm practices
The Government has committed to building on the success of the Landcare program to change on-farm land management practices to improve the delivery of ecosystem services and production, and assist farmers and primary industries to reduce their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.
Natural resource management in remote and northern Australia
The Government will secure better environmental and natural resource outcomes in remote and northern Australia, particularly for Indigenous groups.
The Government will commit $50.0 million for Indigenous protected areas and $90.0 million for the employment of up to an additional 300 Indigenous rangers.
Community skills, knowledge and engagement
Communities have an important role to play in managing our natural resources. This priority area will invest in the skills and knowledge of Indigenous Australia, volunteers and communities to enable them to partner more effectively with regional and other organisations to deliver landscape-scale change.
2 Funded from Water Smart Australia.
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