A leading climate change scientist in Australia believes Britain is streets ahead on climate change policy. or signup to continue reading Speaking ahead of his upcoming appearance at Mount Beauty Writers Festival, Professor Ian Lowe said he had been able to get a feel for how Britain was doing during an extended stay there over winter and spring. "They have reduced their use of coal much more rapidly than we have, partly because of Thatcher's attack on the mining industry to weaken the union movement," he said.
"They don't have the same opportunity as we have to use solar energy but they have put a lot more effort (and funding) into off-shore wind." Formally educated in physics, Professor Lowe has been working for about 40 years on aspects of energy supply and use, especially environmental consequences such as climate change, as well as the broader issue of sustainable futures. He said several countries got most of their electricity from hydro such as Norway 89 per cent, Brazil 60 per cent and Canada 58 per cent.
"Denmark gets 58 per cent of its electricity from wind, UK 28 per cent, Germany 27 per cent and Netherlands 24 per cent," Professor Lowe said. "Chile gets the largest share of its power from solar (20 per cent), with Spain, Netherlands and Australia all about 17 per cent." President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University, an adjunct professor at Flinders and Sunshine Coast universities, Professor Lowe had written or co-written 20 books including and tells the social and political history of Australia's role, from the first discovery of radioactive ores in 1906 to contemporary contentious questions about the next generation of submarines and radioactive waste storage.
Professor Lowe said nuclear power had not garnered renewed support in Australia. He argued in a recent article for the the Coalition had realised it was no longer politically acceptable to come straight out and say they didn't believe we needed to respond to climate change and wanted to keep burning coal. "Saying they want to build nuclear power stations effectively means they would need to keep burning coal for decades but they are not mentioning that in their argument for nuclear power," he said.
Professor Lowe said there were more cost-effective ways to reduce emissions faster. "By far the most cost-effective way to reduce our emissions is to improve the efficiency of turning energy into the goods and services we use," Professor Lowe said. "A 2003 report showed we could reduce emissions by 30 per cent using cost-effective existing technology.
" Professor Lowe is among a stellar line-up of authors coming to the Mount Beauty Writers Festival on Saturday, October 12. Others include Satyajit Das, , Lee Christine, Naomi Crisante, Fiona Lowe, and Liz Foster. Author talks will take place at Mountain Monk Brewers, 1 Lakeside Ave, Mount Beauty, from 9am to 6pm.
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