The transition has been compared with the changes adopted by a reformed alcoholic who needs the weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or an emissions trading scheme (ETS), to maintain the zeal for reform.

 

This comment by a research fellow with the Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Institute for Land, Water and Society, Mr Barney Foran, follows the release by the federal Government of its Green Paper on Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in July.

 

 

Mr Foran maintains the carbon emissions trading scheme outlined in the Green Paper spares regional Australia the initial financial blows from the ETS by initially shielding agricultural activities, land clearing and forestry activities.

 

“Regional industries should use this period of grace to embrace global environmental realities and develop the production niches that give them global advantages in affluent markets, where carbon neutrality reeks of virtue, and might one day return a market premium for appropriate products with a low carbon signature.

 

“Leadership by regional industries and local governments will ‘separate the wheat from the chaff’ in the global race for carbon accreditation where goods and services with a low carbon content, and therefore environmental impact, will attract investment and a new breed of environmental entrepreneurs,” Mr Foran said.

 

He has suggested a ‘hard line’ approach for business and industry leaders who have held back the greenhouse tide for a decade or so, but now seem to require billion dollar lifebuoys so they can stay afloat.

 

“Insightful regions would be wise to let these chief executive officers float out to sea, but stream their trained workers towards the ‘low carbon’ industries of the future,” said the research fellow.  

 

“The Stone Age did not pass because of a market shortage of stones. Protecting these dumb and dirty industries will inevitably cause a sharper and more painful transition down the line.”

 

 

The Federal Government’s philosophical reluctance to not pick winners, but to invest $500 million in carbon capture and storage, belies the thermodynamic and engineering nightmare that this technology promises, if successful deployment is to happen, according to Mr Foran.

 

“By contrast renewable energy sources are here already and they promise truckloads of financial and employment opportunities for much of regional Australia. The sunshine, moderate wind resources and relatively cheap flat land could locate solar thermal arrays and forests of wind turbines far from the ‘not in my backyard’ sensibilities of the urban elites, but close enough to the major nodes of electricity demand.”

 

“When Australia eventually gets past the shock of today’s petrol prices, it may realise that the real challenge is to produce transport fuels that are carbon neutral. This can only be achieved in a physical sense by growing vast areas of wood on cleared farmland, and converting wood to bio-alcohols through thermochemical conversion processes. This process converts wood to gas and then uses catalysts to synthesise a bio-alcohol such as methanol or ethanol.

 

“Current biofuel systems that convert sugar cane and grain to ethanol offer a short term bridge, but can never give the volumes and carbon savings that the second generation thermochemical processes based on wood can,” he said.

 

 

“Regional areas can also use wood to generate bio-electricity and heat services. Some towns now heat their swimming pools with wood off cuts. Home space and water heating generally can get to a near carbon-neutral position if fuelled with locally grown wood.

 

“Thus regions have opportunities to help their household transition towards low carbon lifestyles, but only if they think ‘big picture’ and act aggressively to build the infrastructure, grow the fuels and develop the rewards of local employment and financial activity.”

 

 

“Human capital in regional Australia will be sorely pressed to underpin the new low-carbon carbon economy because it relies on good skills in maths, engineering, chemistry and systems thinking. Australia’s transition to a ‘rock gouging’ economy has left it poorly prepared for the environmental realities of the 21^st century.

 

“Regional universities such as Charles Sturt University could be central to educating this expertise but they must get back basic sciences and work in close partnership with regional industries.”

 

Mr Foran is warning it will not be long till the promised ETS starts to throttle the windpipe of many of Australia’s agricultural sectors, particularly through the high methane production from livestock and nitrous oxide emissions from applied fertilisers.

 

“Proper accounting methods will reveal these greenhouse realities on supermarket shelves and export consignment labels. We can’t hide behind politician’s skirts forever.

 

“The ETS is nearly here and the future is in our own hands.”