Australian Greenhouse Gas Emissions Lowest since 98' = Sustainable or Not?

Hey all, read this article today which confirms our countries Greenhouse Gas emissions are the lowest in over 20 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/31/australi…

Some people are hopeful that this reduction can be maintained and that lot of people will continue to work from home, reducing commuter and other infrastructure traffic.

I'm nowhere near as optimistic and think that 85% businesses want staff working together and the rat race recommencing as soon as possible.

Your thoughts?

Poll Options expired

  • 0
    Emissions will return to 2019 levels by 2042
  • 1
    Emissions will return to 2019 levels by 2032
  • 51
    Emissions will return to 2019 levels by 2022

Comments

  • Lower CO2 emissions is a direct result of a slowing economy which in turn means higher unemployed. Higher unemployed means more money printing and higher inflation. The Chad and Stacy thinking they're good WFH isn't paying attention to their dollar slowly losing its buying power.

  • +1

    I'm nowhere near as optimistic and think that 85% businesses want staff working together and the rat race recommencing as soon as possible.

    From the country that survives on commodities, tourism, education and export of agricultural products (Barley, Wine etc). All the old school industries, not surprised! NBN isn't up to the task of working from home.

    • NBN isn't up to the task of working from home.

      Just curious where you got your data from to come to this conclusion?

      According to this, NBN reported that its throughput increases, even those in the evening, remain “well below” its maximum capacity.

      Interestingly from this, peak time usage in the evening (after work hours) suggests that heavy network usage is not work related.

      I'm lucky enough to have FTTP. When you take a look at countries with the fastest internet speeds in the world, the common denominator is fibre optics.

      • +1

        CVC is the problem. Australia is the only country to implement CVC.

        Link to the problem everyone knows about

        Alternative source

        If everyone continued to work from home and no additional capacity then we are just all waiting.

        • I'm not very familiar with CVC so had to read it up. Apologies in advance if my point misses your mark. Each country handles the rollout of high speed internet differently. In some countries, the market is monopolized by select few ISPs where consumers don't really get a chance to choose. Countries like Singapore and South Korea are also small and concentrated so cost of infrastructure would be lower than large countries like Australia. Some one has to pay for the cost of the infrastructure ie some one has to pay for the cost of fibre to my home and NTD in my garage since I paid $0. Better to handle it centrally through NBNCo and split the costs to ISPs that uses it (where my ISP would charge me a portion in my monthly NBN plan) rather than leaving ISPs to build the infrastructure on their own. ISPs are profit driven so will only concentrate on areas with more customers and higher returns. Poorer/smaller suburbs will be ignored or avoided. This is a problem faced in USA. Anyway CVC is more of a cost issue rather than a speed issue.

          Back to the stats from NBNCo, office hours usage during COVID now is still much lower than pre-COVID peak that happens after office hours. So I don't see any capacity issues from WFH.

  • +2

    It'll bounce back to 2019 levels once we have the vaccine and we can travel freely again. In China, emissions are already (or have already) rebounding as the country restarts its factories.

    Covid19 might have stricken the worlda and caused a general slow-down in economy, but things still need manufacturing. People still want their iPhone 12's and RTX 3000 graphics cards.

    Australia is on a low-carbon diet temporarily, but once the pandemic leather belt is taken off we'll be back to our consumerist lifestyles and churning out CO2 at pre Covid levels.

  • No point trying to save the world if half the country is unemployed and crime is going up and you may not see the fruits of reducing carbon emissions. But perhaps we'll do mother natures job for her if we keep people locked up and out of work.

  • +1

    A vaccine for Covid is not guaranteed, the aviation industry is going to take quite a few years to bounce back even with a vaccine, and the next federal election is scheduled in 2022. I think there is a chance that emissions don't go back to pre-covid levels in the near future, but it all depends on the world being too optimistic about a vaccine, vaccination rates if a vaccine is found, anxiety levels towards public transport, and also possibly a change in government in 2022.

  • +3

    Seriously? We are but a pimple on the ass of the global greenhouse issue. Maybe we should look to ask the question of China what they are doing for the cause (lol)

    • Making iPhones.

    • +2

      Pointing the finger at China/India is really blame-shifting propaganda by politicians looking to make big money by doing nothing. You can't say your country is progressing with emission reductions when all you're doing is dismantling primary/manufacturing industries for service industries and then outsourcing those to said countries. All the whilst whipping up higher immigration to drive domestic growth which then demands greater consumption of products from those countries.

      Don't be surprised in 10-20 years time when China/India will suddenly announce big progress in emissions targets and coincidentally denounce South-East Asian countries as polluting the world.

      • +1

        Unlikely.

        Your ignoring the elephant(s) in the room.

        Who knows in 10-20 years time the damage might be irreversible.

        • +2

          Who knows if we don't do irreversible damage, we may be the target for aliens looking for a relatively untouched planet.

    • +4

      You need to watch Kurzgesagt video which actually turns that idea upside down. The answer is not so simple…

      Also refer to the Per Capita CO/2 Emissions table on Wikipedia. click on the header of the table [2018] to sort by Descending order, then look at the figures in the 2018 column.

      you'll be shocked to see that we rank, really, really high on the table, more than twice that of China.

      • +1 for fellow Kurzgesagt watcher. Quirky family fun and educational too.

      • -1

        Any measure that makes Australia look bad right?

        If you had magical powers to null out a country's CO/2 emissions would you pick China, India or Australia?

    • +1

      As long as we continue to ignore it us pointing fingers at other countries is like Saudi Arabia condemning China for Human Rights Abuses.

  • +1

    Two items in the article interested me:

    • "…missions from exports continued to increase (up 1.9%), mainly fuelled by an 11% increase to LNG exports…"

    • "…recent analysis found that Australia’s greenhouse gas accounting underestimates national emissions by about 10%, largely due to a failure to properly recognise the impact of methane released during gas production…"

    This federal government has no interest in the environment. The emissions will still exceed our international agreements, even with the staggered return to our 'normal' economy.

  • +1

    The tipping point will be reached very soon and then you humans will have to go to planets B,
    oh wait, you humans are stuffed (ha ha). It is a pity you have to take so many animals with you,
    wasn't 3 billion during last summer enough?

    You humans had one job and that was to look after all other species of animal on this 3rd rock from the sun.
    And how do you look after them?
    Destroy their habitats. Hunt them till extinction.

    And you humans think you are so smart.
    You had WWII, did you not learn from WWI?
    Idiots. Is WWIII next year?

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