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| Canberra: A green, wiiiiide open sort of place and major greenhouse gas polluter |
ACT, 2007: Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG): 13.7 tonnes per year per person [source]. Moreover, growth of GHGs in Canberra is higher than the national average. [source]
Hong Kong, 2005: 5.4 tonnes per year per person [source]. Growth is slower than the world average. [same source]
One of the reasons: people consume less per capita in more densely populated cities. This is because there is more public transport, daily trips are shorter, heating and cooling large buildings is more efficient than for more distributed and smaller buildings.
Therefore: Canberra’s greenies should be pushing for Canberra to have higher density. They’re doing the opposite, because they hate dense cities (an ideological/emotional issue, not rational)
I have done some calculations of what would happen to global GHG emissions if both Australia and Hong Kong were to reduce their emissions by 20%, which all parties seem to agree would be a huge reduction, extremely difficult and very costly to the economy and therefore to jobs:
For Australia:
Global GHG would be reduced by 0.24%, a bit over two-tenths of one percent.
For Hong Kong
Global GHG would be reduced by 0.027%, not quite three hundredths of one percent.
I submit that these are insignificant and meaningless. Moreover they would only be obtained at great cost.
Globally what’s needed – and it is a global problem, not Australia’s or Hong Kong’s – is for massive reductions in the main polluters, China, the US and Europe. Whatever we do in little Australia or littler Hong Kong will no nothing save assuage middle class guilt.
Oh, and Canberra could do with more skyscrapers and fewer quarter acre blocks. Who will be first to give them up? And give up the car?
