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Mike Ritchie of MRA Consulting explains why he disagrees with the argument that reducing emissions means destroying jobs and the economy. Instead, it means job growth and economic well-being in different parts of the economy.<\/p>\nMike Ritchie of MRA Consulting explains why he disagrees with the argument that reducing emissions means destroying jobs and the economy. Instead, it means job growth and economic well-being in different parts of the economy.<\/p>\n
Mike Ritchie of MRA Consulting explains why he disagrees with the argument that reducing emissions means destroying jobs and the economy. Instead, it means job growth and economic well-being in different parts of the economy.<\/p>\n
Australia contributes 1.3% to global greenhouse gas emissions, and various voices in the Coalition say that it is so small that we do not need to act or do not need to act faster to reduce emissions, because the adverse economic consequences are not worth it.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at the recycling industry as an example.<\/p>\n
The waste and recycling industry accounts for about 3% of direct emissions in Australia, mainly from methane leakage from landfills and carbon dioxide emissions from trucks. In 1996, it produced 16 million tons of CO2-e, had a recycling rate of 6% of the total waste, and employed 30,000 people.<\/p>\n
In 2019, CO2-e emissions amounted to 10 million tons (a decrease of almost 40%), the processing ratio was 58%, and 56,000 people worked for it.<\/p>\n
This allowed us to reduce emissions by 40% while increasing jobs, economic well-being and increasing the level of processing. How?<\/p>\n
By investing climate change costs in the economic decisions of waste producers. What does this mean in English? Having set the carbon price for the waste, we sent it to a landfill.<\/p>\n
This was done both directly through Julia Gillard’s Carbon \u201ctax\u201d (although it was not a tax, but a fixed-price scheme), and indirectly by state governments in the form of landfill charges.<\/p>\n
The effect was significant.<\/p>\n
First, the carbon pricing mechanism urged landfill owners to install gas capture systems to reduce methane emissions from landfills. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 25 times that of carbon dioxide. Simply put, every ton of methane discharged from a landfill is equivalent to 25 tons of carbon dioxide. Organic matter in the landfill decomposes anaerobically to form methane.<\/p>\n
The result of the carbon price was that every landfill in Australia that emits more than 25,000 tonnes of CO2-e per year had a landfill gas capture system in place. This single agreement reduced landfill greenhouse emissions by at least 6 million tons per year.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem remains the cumulative emissions from all small landfills and the continued uncontrolled emissions from large landfills (along the edges of the landfill, cracks and long tail emissions after it has stopped working). With increasing carbon prices, the commercial incentive to improve gas recovery is significantly reduced. So fugitive emissions continue.<\/p>\n
The second key mechanism came not from the federal government, but from the states. Government fees for waste disposal are an indirect price for the \u201cexternal effects\u201d of waste disposal. That is, they represent an attempt to assess the unintended consequences of the disposal of our waste, including odor, loss of resources, emissions, traffic, dust and the opportunity cost of not being able to recycle these products back to a productive economy.<\/p>\n
Government landfill taxes now range from $ 0 (NT, Tas and ACT) to $ 140 (currently in New South Wales and soon in South Africa), between Vic, Qld and WA. They are a key factor in a significant increase in recycling rates across the country. And most importantly, the fee is paid only for garbage in a landfill. This is completely excluded if the material is recycled. (Likewise, the price of carbon will work). If you do not cause pollution, you do not pay the price.<\/p>\n
And here I have to discuss significant indirect emissions from processing.<\/p>\n
Although direct emissions from the waste sector amount to 10 million tons (from methane emissions from landfill), indirect benefits from processing are much higher. The fact is that recycling sends useful products back to industry, and by avoiding the extraction of raw materials, it significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. If we process, we do not need to extract, transport and process equivalent raw materials. These processes can be very energy intensive and emission intensive, especially for products such as aluminum, steel, glass and plastic.<\/p>\n
Thus, while processing, we capture the embodied energy of the recovered materials. This is the energy that went into the manufacture of plastic, glass, steel, aluminum, etc. First of all.<\/p>\n
In fact, recycling currently reduces direct emissions from other types of production activities by at least 50 million tons of CO2 per year. That is, 50 million tons more emissions than glass factories, aluminum plants, steel mills, paper mills, etc., could emit if they did not have access to the processed product.<\/p>\n
Thus, if we stopped processing, emissions would increase by 50 million tons of CO2-e. This is 10% of Australia\u2019s 533MT national emissions. (I should note that part of this material is exported, so it appears on emission reduction accounts in other countries – but climate change doesn’t care where the emissions occur, just what they do).<\/p>\n
Thus, state government landfill fees have significantly reduced Australia’s emissions and contributed to a global reduction in emissions of at least 50 million tons of CO2-e.<\/p>\n
Which leads me to future emission reductions. Currently, we have reached 58% of the national level of processing. What if we could do even better?<\/p>\n
Recent work by Warnken ISE and MRA shows that Australia can achieve at least another 50 million tonnes of CO2-e emission reductions by expanding recycling and introducing energy from waste. Four simple and cost-effective actions are required:<\/p>\n
Convert organic matter from landfills to farmer compost – to reduce methane formation in landfills and facilitate the accumulation of carbon in the soil.
\nExpand recycling to avoid emissions from mining and manufacturing new materials.
\nExpand energy from waste to displace fossil fuels, capture embodied energy from unsuitable materials and avoid emissions.
\nIncrease landfill gas collection to capture remaining direct emissions from landfills
\nThese four actions will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by 10% (more than one third of Paris’s total commitment of 26-28%).<\/p>\n
In other words, if we expanded recycling, caught uncontrolled emissions from landfills, injected energy from waste and prohibited organic substances into the landfill, we could have avoided another 50 million tons that are currently emitted by other sectors. organic matter in the soil through compost and biochar).<\/p>\n
As I said, this is a third of our total commitment in Paris.<\/p>\n
This will not only significantly reduce our contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, but also create at least an additional 50,000 new jobs and a huge variety of new enterprises. This will stimulate economic growth (and resource conservation).<\/p>\n
Therefore, the idea that reducing emissions necessarily stifles economic growth and is a destroyer of jobs is simply not true.<\/p>\n
We can create a more sustainable Australia by reducing emissions, increasing recycling and creating new green jobs. Simply.<\/p>\n
It just takes political will and courage to take the next step.<\/p>\n
We do not need more disasters to make this transition.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Ritchie of MRA Consulting explains why he disagrees with the argument that reducing emissions means destroying jobs and the economy. Instead, it means job growth and economic well-being in different parts of the economy. Mike Ritchie of MRA Consulting explains why he disagrees with the argument that reducing emissions means destroying jobs and the […]<\/p>\n