What well need to weather the coming change in our climate
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[Applause]
we have a climate emergency
we need to take action now how can we
best do this
carbon emissions have been rising
steadily
for the past 200 years since the
pre-industrial era
through the industrial revolution from
200
past per million to now having exceeded
400 parts per million
carbon dioxide co2
is the main driver of climate change the
main source of these carbon emissions
is the burning of fossil fuels we are
now burning
55 gigatonnes per annum
into the atmosphere and climate change
is happening
it’s happening very quickly the
international panel on climate change
made up with about eleven thousand
eminent scientists from around the world
and forecasting where climate change is
heading
from where i sit at murdoch university
i’ve been fortunate enough to work
closely with a number of
key climate scientists that contribute
to this great body of work
their work has informed the most recent
ipcc report
which shows that we’ve now reached one
degree c in global warming
we’re heading towards 1.5 degrees c
warming very quickly
and is having serious climate change
impacts if we reach
2 degrees celsius we’re going to have
catastrophic climate change bill
mckibben
he looked at all this climate modelling
he looked at the fossil fuel
companies their annual reports
and he compiled all of that work and he
put it down
to three numbers the first number
two degrees celsius if we reach this
we have catastrophic climate change
the second number 565 gigatons
this is how much carbon emissions we can
pour into the atmosphere
until we get to this two degrees warming
his third number
was 2795 gigatons
this is the amount of proven coal oil
and gas
reserves that the fossil fuel companies
have
this is what they want to burn
the key part of this number
is there’s five times bigger than the
565
which is all that we need to put into
the atmosphere to get to this 2 degrees
celsius
the global carbon project has also
looked at all of this modelling
and have prepared scenarios of the
future what will happen
so we know we’re already pushing above
400 parts per million now
we’ve got one degree c warming already
we’re on the way to
1.5 degrees c if we don’t stop emissions
very soon even if we stabilize now at
400 past per million
concentration of co2 in the atmosphere
we will have 0.4 metre sea level rise by
the end of this century
if we keep going and we go up to 500
parts per million
we will get to a three degree celsius
temperature rise
in the coming decades this would give us
a 0.6 metre sea level rise
around the world 900 parts per million
what will happen
this will take us up to a devastating
five degrees celsius this is the
direction we’re heading
if the fossil fuel companies are going
to burn all of those proven reserves
of all gas and coal by the end of this
century
that would give us 0.8 meter sea level
rise around the world
this is something that developing
countries
would be extremely vulnerable to in any
of these scenarios even the first one
we would see millions of people in these
developing countries
low-lying lands heading for higher
ground
so this brings me back to where we live
here in the southwest
we have a drying climate our rainfall
decline
has resulted in a 60 reduction in runoff
in the perth catchment dams in the perth
hills so we now only get
10 of our water supply
coming from these catchment dams 50
percent
is coming from massive sea water
desalination plants
at huge financial and carbon cost
forty percent of our water supply is
coming from groundwater
this is a declining resource along with
the declining rainfall
it is already over abstracted
beyond sustainable yield in the northern
suburbs
we’re even recycling our sewage and
injecting it back into the aquifer
to top up this groundwater here in
western australia in the southwest
we have many iconic ecosystems which are
under enormous threat
we have the great ningaloo reef this is
suffering some serious impacts at the
moment the rising temperatures
are also impacting sea grass meadows
like a shark bay
the heat wave and the drought in 2010
had huge impacts on penguins and there
were huge population losses of black
cockatoos
so we know the impacts here in the
southwest and they’re getting worse
so this brings me to the action we need
to take
we need to build resilience across
western australia
understand the change that’s coming
the first transformation transforming
heavy industry
we have a huge liquefied natural gas
industry
in the north of this state this has
engineering capability
and manufacturing capacity we need to
harness the wealth
that’s generated from this industry and
convert this to renewables
have a look at the uk this is a useful
model
they have their offshore oil and gas
industry
they have used that engineering know-how
and manufacturing capability
to build a really strong and growing
offshore wind farm industry
and a marine renewable sector we can
harness the wealth
from our lng industry to build a marine
renewables
tidal power and green solar hydrogen
industry
to rival the world but if that’s not
enough
we can start to build resilience at a
community level
we can build community infrastructure if
you have a look at our electricity
network
the swiss the southwest interconnected
system we now know
and actions are underway to transition
away from coal
and convert this electricity grid into
solar wind and biomass systems
this grid this new grid will need an
enormous amount of energy storage
because renewable energies are variable
so we need
energy storage to stabilize that we’re
probably going to need
something like 200 community scale
batteries across the swiss
two or three or four utility scale
batteries the big ones
that are currently being built in
adelaide these can be located where
sewer mains and power lines cross
we need to green our city we can use
the sewer mining plants powered by solar
battery systems
to produce recycled water for urban
greening
urban forestry urban agriculture
if that’s not enough then it’s back to
us
it’s back to you and i what are the
personal actions
that you and i can take look at the
solar rooftop revolution
that’s rolling out across perth at the
moment
tens of thousands of solar photovoltaic
rooftops being installed all the time
in total it’s a bigger generator than
any of the coal generators in collie
but do you know what has the potential
to reduce
emissions more than solar power
moving to a plant-based diet
using public transport riding a bike
growing food at home avoiding single-use
plastics
composting your wastes there’s so many
actions we can take
so many things we can do at a personal
level to build
our personal and local resilience change
is coming
we need to act we need to build
resilience
thank you
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you