Invited seminar in the Australian Ambassador's Speaker Series, Australian Embassy, Washington D.C. 2 May 2012

1. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
Converging Insecurities:
climate, energy, water and food
ANDREW CAMPBELL
Director, Research Institute
for the Environment and Livelihoods (RIEL)
Chairman, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN)
http://www.tern.org.au/
Australian Embassy, Washington D.C. 2 May 2012

2. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
Key Points
• Climate, water, energy and food systems are converging
as major public policy challenges
• Each of these has their own imperatives,
but their interactions are equally, if not more important
• We deal with these issues in science, planning and policy silos
• But at sub-national and local levels, there is lots of innovation and
much more integration: 2 case studies are introduced here
• How could the US and Australia cooperate and lead the way
in developing better approaches to tackling the biggest challenge
of our age?
2

3. Personal declarations
• Farming background south-eastern Australia
– Family farming in the district since 1860s, own farm managed 1987—
– 450ha: 30% farm forestry, 10% environmental reserves, 60% leased
to a neighbour for prime lambs
• Forestry & rural sociology: Creswick, Melbourne &Wageningen
• Forester Victorian government, Manager Potter Farmland Plan 1984-88
• First National Landcare Facilitator 1989-92
• 5 years as a Senior Executive in Australian Government
• 7 years as CEO of a national research funding authority
• 4 years as an independent consultant
• 1 year as a Professor, Charles Darwin University in Darwin…
• I don‘t know what to do in Australia, let alone elsewhere…

4. our current local context…

5. The local coNText
place-based distinctiveness
• Relatively intact landscapes and seascapes
− the largest network of free-flowing rivers in the world
− Indo-Malay global epicentre of tropical biodiversity
• Extraordinary cultural heritage, ancient and contemporary
• Rich opportunities & intense development pressures
• Strategic national significance on the edge of Asia
• Very few English-language universities in the tropics
− Closest Australian university (JCU) is 2500km away
− CDU is by far the major training provider in the NT

6. RIEL Research Themes
• Natural resources-based Livelihoods
• Coastal and marine ecology and management
• Freshwater ecology and management
• Savanna management and wildlife conservation
• Tropical Resource Futures
(including Centre for Renewable Energy)

15. Unique, extensive, relatively intact
ecosystems
Adelaide River

16. The climate is
changing……

17. Sea level rise (8mm/year last 20 years)
&saltwater intrusion

18. Tommycuthypersaline mud flats were once fresh water wetlands

19. The Mary River
Site of extensive
melaleuca dieback

20. 1m Inundation

21. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
Converging Insecurities
• Climate change
• Direct impacts
• Impacts of climate change policies – e.g. carbon markets
• Energy
• the era of cheap, energetically efficient fossil fuels is ending
• Water
• Every calorie we consume uses one litre in its production
• Every litre weighs one kilogram — energy intensive to distribute it
• Per capita freshwater availability declining steeply (globally)
• Food — must increase world production by 70% by 2050
• Using less land, water, fossil energy and nutrients
21

22. Climate-energy-water feedbacks
• Saving water often uses
more energy, and vice-versa
• E.g. desalination plants
• Piping & pumping
• Biofuels
• Coal seam gas
• Efforts to moderate climate
often use more energy +/or
water
• coal-fired power stations with
CCS will be 25-33% more
water-intensive
• Using more fossil energy
exacerbates climate chaos
22
from Proust, Dovers, Foran, Newell, Steffen & Troy (2007)

23. Water, energy, and GDP
Water and energy have
historically been closely
coupled with GDP in Water&
Australia GDP
Energy & GDP Our challenge now is to
radically reduce the energy,
carbon and water-intensity of
our economy
23 from Proust, Dovers, Foran, Newell, Steffen & Troy (2007)

24. Profound technical challenges
• To decouple economic growth from carbon emissions
• To adapt to an increasingly difficult climate
• To increase water productivity
− Decoupling the 1 litre per calorie relationship
• To increase energy productivity
– more food energy out per unit of energy input
– while shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy
• To develop more sustainable food systems
– while conserving biodiversity and human livelihoods
– improving landscape amenity, soil health, animal welfare & human
health
• TO DO ALL OF THIS SIMULTANEOUSLY!
—improving sustainability and resilience

25. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
“…we need to make sure that our policy solutions
are as integrated as nature itself.
Today, they are not.”
Thomas Friedman, New York Times 23 August 2009
25

26. We need a third agricultural revolution
• High level goals: e.g. doubling food &fibre production
while doubling water productivity, and becoming a net
energy producer from farming & pastoral lands
• How to get there?
– Farming/agroforestry systems that make more efficient use of
and conserve water, energy, nutrients, carbon and biodiversity
– Smart metering, sensing, telemetry, robotics, guidance, biotech
– Better understanding of soil carbon & microbial activity
– Radically reducing waste in all parts of the food chain
– Farming systems producing renewable (2nd gen) bioenergy
• Also producing energy from waste
– Urban and peri-urban food production
26 – Attracting talented young people into careers in agriculture

27. 3 case studies
• Savanna burning for carbon, biodiversity &
livelihoods in northern Australia
• Turning an irrigation company into an integrated
water, energy and carbon company
• Large scale export of renewable energy to
south-east Asia
27

28. Savannas burn every year
• Dry season - highly flammable landscape
• Exacerbated by introduced weeds, especially Gamba Grass
• Fire emits Greenhouse gases  CO2, methane, N20
Photo Sam Setterfield

29. WALFA – savanna fire abatement scheme
• Western Arnhemland – 25,000 km2 (6 million acres)
– Significant biodiversity hot spot
– Significant fire problem
• Unique partnership between traditional owners, NT
and Commonwealth Governments and private funders
• Aims
– Shift fire regimes at landscape scales
– Reintroduce traditional burning regime, increase early dry
season fires and patchiness
– Accurately quantify savanna GHG emission factors
– Develop remote sensing techniques to map fires and
calculate emissions

30. Savanna burning – 2011 fire scars

33. Cultural heritage values are also threatened
by very hot, late dry season fires
• Nourlangie Rocks main gallery, Kakadu N.P
~10 metres wide x 3 metres high

35. West Arnhemland Fire Abatement Project
80%
70% EDS
(a) Seasonality of 60% LDS
Proportion burnt
Total
burning 50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
700
(b) GHG Pre-project
Emissions t.CO2-e * 1000
600
Emissions 500
baseline
400
300
200
100
0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

36. Kimberley to Cape
onservation • Indigenous Futures • Climate Change • SustainableIndustry
Arafura Sea
Timor Sea
Darwin
Gulf of
Top End Carpentaria Cape
York
Cairns
Broome Kimberley Gulf Country
Across the c.250Mha (600m acres) of Nth Australia, protect and sustainably
manage world‘s largest intact area of tropical savannas, seas & rivers through:
1.Effectively managed, connected Protected Areas conserving half the savannas (60Mha)
2. Large network of marine sanctuaries across the Arafura & Timor Seas, Gulf of Carpentaria
3. Maintaining hydrological connectivity along 1 million km of undammed rivers & creeks
4. Slowing & reversing the mammal extinction crisis
5. Storing gigatons of carbon by managing fire, grazing, ferals, clearing
6. Enhancing landscape connectivity & climate resilience along 4,000km long corridor
7. Create Indigenous futures eg, Caring for Country, tourism, fee-for-service contracts
8. Supporting sustainable grazing through stewardship payments, stronger laws
9. Providing resource security for sustainability-focussed companies eg, mines, LNG
10. Reducing land-based pollution of coral reefs & fisheries in Arafura & Timor Seas

37. Australia-Asia Supergrid?
• Potential to export renewable energy to south-east Asia
• HVDC cable Katherine-Darwin-Dili-Denpasar-Jakarta-
Singapore-KL-Bangkok
• Geothermal, Concentrated Solar Thermal, Tidal, Off-shore
wind

38. Murrumbidgee Irrigation - a current
case
• Bulk water distributor and seller in New South
Wales
– $1Billion on-farm agricultural production
– $7B value-add of food, wine and fibre production
• 100 year old irrigation & drainage network being
modernised to save water
– Replacing ‗leaky‘, gravity-fed open earthen channels
– BUT: piping and pressurisation will treble energy
consumption
– & hence greenhouse gas emissions >25,000 tonnes/year
– So MIL will be affected by Australia‘s new carbon price
38

39. Murrumbidgee Irrigation: solutions
• Options:
– Biomass energy plant - 0.5m tonnes p.a. of ag& food
process waste
– Solar thermal power plant on linear easements
(Carbon price-dependent)
– Conversion of plant & vehicles to biodiesel
– Carbon offsets through large scale tree planting
– Potential for 2nd generation woody biofuels
• Turning a water company into a water, energy &
carbon company
– Liberating opportunities through a more integrated
approach 39

40. 40

41. The integration imperative
• Managing whole landscapes
– “where nature meets culture” (Simon Schama)
– landscapes are socially constructed
– beyond ‘ecological apartheid’
– this means people management
– engage values, perceptions, aspirations, behaviour
• Integration
- across issues — e.g climate, energy, water, food, biodiversity
- across scales — agencies, governments, short-term, long-term
- across the triple helix — landscapes, lifestyles & livelihoods

42. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
Opportunities for US-Australia
collaboration
• Science:
− Joint Commission Mtg on Science and Technology Feb 2011
made an excellent start in Earth Observations, and Ag & Food
− Scope to work together in observation systems, and in model
calibration & refinement for e.g. terrestrial carbon & water
− Develop integrated metrics (or tools for integrating metrics)
across climate-energy-water & food systems
− Better CEW project assessment &optimisation tools
• Policy:
− Compile and share case studies of innovation & best practice
42

43. Building capability to tackle big questions in science & policy
See also McKinsey & Co
―Big data‖ special report

44. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) www.tern.org.au

45. Using OzFlux data (&LandSat imagery) to constrain modelled estimates
of continental carbon budget
Transpiration
Total Net Primary Productivity
Long-term continental water balance properties
and Carbon balance using BIOS2, constrained
Soil Evaporation by data including OzFlux data

46. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
An engaged community base is crucial
• Rapid, often surprising, on-going environmental change will challenge
governments and industries, and stress communities
• Responses (proactive and reactive) needed at regional and local levels
• Successful implementation of tough decisions requires community support
• Pricing carbon ($23/tonne initially) in Australia is a potential game-changer
• Convergence in climate, energy, water and food mandates an integrated,
environmentally literate, planning & delivery framework
− Rural and urban
− Involving community leaders and engaging grassroots volunteers
− And the wider community in schools, clubs, workplaces, homes
47

47. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
Underpinning principles
• Building Resilience
• Balancing centralism and subsidiarity
• Re-engaging stakeholders and devolving responsibility
• Taking the time necessary to sort through complex, contested,
connected issues
• Building, sustaining and using a comprehensive evidence base
(across multiple knowledges)
• Investing in skills, knowledge, innovation and leadership
• Budgeting for longer term stability
48

48. http://riel.cdu.edu.au
the future is in our hands
“The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are
creating.
The paths to it are made, not found.”
• This is the greatest challenge of our age
• Climate, water, energy, food and health are interconnected
• We must deal with them holistically, as parts of the same problem
• The US and Australia have much in common, and much to
contribute in leaving our kids a more livable world
• There are great examples of innovation in both our countries
• Now is the time to show leadership at all levels
49

49. For more info:
http://riel.cdu.edu.au
• The Getting of Knowledge
• Managing Australian Soils
• Paddock to Plate [policies for sustainable food systems]
• Managing Australian Landscapes in a Changing Climate
• Powerful Choices: transition to a biofuel economy
50