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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today I will introduce a research paper by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original paper, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole paper.

Our summary today works with the position paper titled Managing climate change in Australia – A global long-term view from 2019 by the United Nations Associations of Australia, abbreviated to UNAA. Since here we are investigating the future of cities, I though it would be interesting to include the position of the UNAA on the climate change which is one of the greatest challenges humanity and cities facing. The piece gives an overview of what the appropriate response by Australia would include. It must be also mentioned that this piece is focusing on Australia, but there are great things to learn for other parts of the world.

As an introduction to the UNAA, it is a non-government organisation to promote the ideals and support the work of the UN. Many similar organisations exist all around the world. The UNAA’s National Climate Change Program launched in 2016 based on the UN Paris Climate Change Agreement from 2015. They released a discussion paper with the results of their work in 2018 and many of the conclusions in this position paper are derived from that data set.

The paper starts with the warning about the need of a global response to the climate change. It emphasises that the world is at a critical time to needing accelerated action worldwide. In their analysis, Australia was one of the developed countries most susceptible to climate change. The Paris Agreement with the assistance of the member states can enhance the situation, and the member states can learn from and help each other to create better contribution to the climate.

Since the Paris Agreement was singed by each member of the UN, it is a unique opportunity for global collaboration to face climate change. As the Paris Agreement said: “ climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet and thus requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their pariticipation in an effective and appropriate international response with a view to accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions”. By signing the Agreement, the members agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and help each other out by financial aid and knowledge transfer.

The greenhouse gas emissions come from many different sources all around the world, and the member states have been already battling to reduce their contribution in varying levels. Interestingly, when the developed countries lowered their emissions, they did not see any economic melt down, rather, their economies continued to grow. Many laws have been put in place to reduce emissions, many countries try to shift towards renewable energy.

In Australia, the greenhouse gas emissions had been rising until 2007, then fell back to the 90s’ level, but have been again rising. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions come from many different sources: 34% from electricity generation, 19% from transport, 18% from stationary energy, 14% from agriculture, 11% from fugitive emissions, 7% from industrial processes, and 2% from wastes. Again, interestingly, land use, land use change and forestry captured more greenhouse gases than it produced. And according to the position paper’s references, only the generation of electricity has seen decreasing emissions.

Despite their emission levels, the climate action and awareness is now widespread in Australia. All levels of government have policies and programs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the use of renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and adaptation to climate change. Independently from the government, many actors in the private sector also committed themselves to lower their emissions. This is all very well intertwined with the Paris Agreement, which calls for “stronger and more ambitious climate action by all, … including civil society, private sector, financial institutions, cities and other sub-national authorities, local communities and indigenous people”. Although it is well needed to raise awareness of climate change, the paper also highlights to need for a unified direction to achieve the targets along the way.

According to the paper, Australia lacks long-term goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, although many other countries set theirs and even have achieved already parts of them. The long-term goals would help align policies, setting targets, establishing strategies and programs. The UN helps through its Sustainable Development Goals to set up short terms goals, but it stresses the need for long term strategies. Deciding on short and intermediate goals without long-term targets can result in counteractive actions, inhibiting the long-term success. Australia is lacking such a long-term idea, its current intermediate goal is to reduce emissions by 26-28% below the 2005 levels by 2030.

The long term goals should be based upon the unique circumstances of the country. Although the recent findings suggest that net zero emission will be necessary by 2050 to prevent catastrophe, but the national pledges are voluntary in the Paris Agreement, and each country set its own goals. Unfortunately, the voluntary targets do not seem to reach to required levels, and the paper suggestes that stronger and more ambitious climate action must be introduced, and that developed countries, like Australia, based on their knowledge and financial base, should lead this more ambitous approach.

In Australia, many local and state governments adopted the goals of reaching net-zero by 2050, and with their constituency, this reached 85% of Australia’s population. The benefits of adopting an Australia-wide common goal could include unity of purpose, attracting and retaining climate migration projects, greater consistency across the country and improved participation in a nation-wide effort. Therefore, the UNAA strongly suggested the nation-wide adoption of the goal of net zero emissions by 2050 and setting intermediate goals in that context. Afterwards, they summarised their recommendations for handling climate change in Australia.

This climate action should involve all agents across the country, citizens, communities, societies, private sector and government alike. The success of the Paris Agreement, and the handling of the climate change depends upon collaboration across all levels. The collaboration also should include all levels of policy and regulation and standard, to convey transparency in goals and commitment.

UNAA proposed that the national pathway could lead the components to set in place, regarding achievements and formats, to help creating opportunities for collaboration and ensuring compatibility. According to the paper, each entity involved in greenhouse gas emissions should create a pathway to reduce their emissions. This approach has only reached 16% of the big companies yet, unfortunately, at the time of writing.

Setting a sequence of key actions could help to achieve such huge goals. Worldwide, these key actions included minimising energy demand, converting electricity supply to zero emissions of greenhouse gasses, switching to zero emission electricity from fossil fuels, minimising emissions from other processes, and managing current and potential carbon sinks. In Australia, the emphasis has been on transition to low emission electricity, though there is much more needed to be done. Energy efficiency and energy demand are not a strong side of Australia, and the electric vehicles are still missing from the nation-wide approach. And, the Australian economy still is very much dependent on the export of coal and natural gas.

The nation-wide collaboration could be based upon the emission reduction steps – each state could create their own pathways based on the federal approach towards net zero emissions. Assessments were also highlighted as part of keeping track of the actions and progress – for example, the energy production from renewables could create difficulties for the current infrastructure, therefore its upgrade should be planned and assessed over the timeframe. The ability to predict and respond to inevitable changes in the climate must be also enhanced. All of these actions should be part of a bigger network to forecast trends and the actions can be updated based on the data and analysis – including prevention and helping adaptability.

So in conclusion, the UNAA highlighted the importance of raising awareness and ambition and engage all sectors to achieve the Paris Agreement’s targets. According to their analysis, an appropriate response by Australia would include:

• Supporting the Paris Agreement by locking 2050 as the target date to achieve net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases
• Developing a 30-year plan for all Australia to achieve this across public and private sectors and by industry sectors
• Establishing inclusive, nation-wide action programs focusing on the main emission reduction steps, such as conserve energy, supply low-emission electricity, switch to lo-emission energy, minimise emissions from other processes and manage carbon sinks
• Enhancing the network of climate adaptation plans and programs
• Assessing progress and recognising achievements at all levels
• Providing additional support for Australia’s neighbouring countries
• Taking a leadership role in supporting the worldwide actions required for the success of the Paris Agreement
• Establishing a climate response commission to provide independent advice on progress and to co-ordinate action across the nation

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. There is a huge need for an overarching direction to guide specific actions – without that, the individual projects may not have long-term effects, or not the good ones.
2. There could be targeted solutions based on the specific emission levels, such as switching to renewable sources in energy production.
3. Although the Australian federal government has not yet set an overarching goal, many actors across all levels are acting in the name of the Paris Agreement, contributing to their individual actions to the global agenda, which is amazing. And the climate change must be handled in such a collaborative way.

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. How can the individual or the industry or any agent influence the establishment of such an overarching nation-wide target?
2. How can the local energy production, for example through solar panels, fit into this agenda? How much can the individual contribute by producing their own energy locally?
3. What can you do to contribute better to the Paris Agreement goals, as each bit of the collaborative effort counts?

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Do you have any follow up questions? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the website where the transcripts and show notes are available! I hope this was an interesting research for you as well, and thanks for tuning in!

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