Australia - Environmental Challenges

This brief summary is written with reference to Wikipedia’s reference to environment issues in Australia. Australia is a huge continent. It is largely desert and dry in the central areas and surrounded by grasslands, with a variety of margins. This varies from tropical rainforest in the north, to sub-tropical to the east and south west, and temperate in the south east. The coasts are generally where people live.

Environmental issues are focused on mining for coal, intensity of water use for agriculture, land clearing and soil erosion relating to agriculture, and pollution, and other impacts resulting from climate change.

In 2016 Australia was the world’s largest coal exporter, which is mostly used for power stations in eastern Asia. After China, the United States, India and Indonesia, Australia is the fifth largest producer of coal. Coal accounts for 75% of Australia’s electricity generation. The burning of coal for electricity contributed to 29% of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions in 2013. An article in the New York Times (13th June 2019) confirms that a new coal mine is to be opened in Queensland known as the Carmichael mine. This will eventually export up to 60 million tonnes of coal a year to India.

Agriculture is dependent on irrigation, with 40% of all food produced from within the river basins in the south eastern part of the country. Whilst water can be carefully managed and traded, issues can arise with the over extraction of groundwater, river water, and the salinity of soils increasing as a result of irrigation. This can result in areas become unproductive for agriculture.

In 2011 about 87% of Australia's vegetation since European settlement still exists, (so it is lucky that so much is left) which is fortunate. Key issues are that traditionally clearing of native grasslands, forests, savannah and bush land for development is seen as being progressive, when it might have impacts on ecosystems and result in practices that could increase greenhouse gas emissions such as cattle rearing. This and coal extraction are two key climate change indicators that are within the control of Australia's government.

Forest fires

Bushfires and forest fires are a natural event, but the summer fires of 2019 have resulted in huge areas being burnt. This is the equivalent to 110,000 square kilometres. This has been an extreme event, even by Australian standards which is a dry continent. Scientists are saying that a warming climate is leading to an increased severity of bush and forest fires. There is evidence that up to one billion animals died in Australia’s fires of 2019, including kangaroos, koalas and others. This is a warning to every country where bushfires occur, and also evidence that the scientists are right when they warned about global warming resulting in a greater frequency and severity of bushfires.