Responding to Paris COP 21?

Twenty years after the first United Nations Climate Change Conference and after four years negotiation, on 12 December 2015, the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed on a fundamentally new approach. Gone is the differentiation between developed and developing countries, replaced by a framework that commits all countries to apply their best efforts to address causes of climate change and to respond to its impacts. For the first time, all parties are required to report on their emissions and mitigation actions for international review (see C2ES 2015 for COP21 outcomes). The target is to keep temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, for global greenhouse gas emissions to peak ‘as soon as possible’ and to achieve overall carbon neutrality ‘in the second half of the century’. These remain formidable technical and political challenges.

The provisions of the agreement send a clear message: the international community intends to end its reliance on fossil fuels within several generations. This signals the need for a significant redefining of Australasian policy on climate change, or at least the accompanying rhetoric, which must remove any hint of denial that has pervaded political leader's comments in recent years, and acted as an excuse for a lack of leadership and coordinated action (Ross & Carter 2011, 2012). Climate change can no longer be considered just a possibility, significant global warming and its systemic consequences are occurring, greenhouse gas emissions from anthropogenic origins are a significant factor. Global impacts will occur, with developing economies most at risk economically, environmentally and socially.

The Australian government's response has been to pledge ratification of the second commitment to the Kyoto protocol, double clean technology R&D by 2020, and additional climate finance for vulnerable countries, but from within the already reduced aid budget. In contrast, New Zealand is calling for fossil fuel subsidies to be phased out, and have set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels, by 2030. This is a significant increase on the current target of 5 per cent below 1990 emission levels by 2020. Given that half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions come from the agriculture sector, the challenge is to develop cost-effective technologies to reduce agricultural emissions.

The immediate challenge for both governments is not to filibuster targets on the international stage, but to convert intentions to successful domestic policy that provides global leadership. Close behind is the need to assist our Asia-Pacific neighbours in responding to climate change impacts, including preparing to welcome climate refugees. However, the most successful climate change adaptation strategy in this case is likely to be continuing with assistance to improve community health, education standards and the status of women towards improved economies and fostering localised self-help.

The environmental management profession is well placed and prepared to respond to the opportunities that will undoubtedly emerge from renewed enthusiasm to address climate change and its impacts. However, the greatest challenge for the profession lies in ensuring that enthusiasm does not result in ignoring other pressing environmental issues, especially those exacerbated by climate change. The greatest challenge for the profession is to convince decision makers that good climate change policy and action is synonymous with good environmental policy and action.

The front cover

The use of an urban landscape for the front cover is somewhat a departure from our usual rural or natural landscape images. It acknowledges the great range in environmental focus of EIANZ members. In the context of this editorial, it also reflects a major source of greenhouse gas emissions as well as the society that will have to make greater adjustments than others in response to changed climate change policy. It also reflects the probable source of many of the innovations needed and the population that needs to provide support for climate change action. The Manly, Sydney, image also ties with an article in this issue on public support for recycled water.

Articles in this issue

Our mixed set of articles to open 2016 reflects much of the breadth of this journal, from the major challenges of our globe (climate change) to environmental management in a variety of contexts including agricultural land, and economic and business dimensions.

Using climate change adaptation as a case, Owen Temby Jean Sandall, Ray Cooksey, Ray Cooksey and Gordon Hickey explored how civil servants viewed interagency collaboration and use of science-based knowledge to inform policy and address complex environmental governance challenges. They report differences in the collaborative mechanisms between the selected states and provinces in Australia, the USA and Canada, but conformity in the perceived importance of collaboration and using the best available scientific knowledge. The study suggests that institutional and systemic barriers may prevent the achievement of the desired level of collaboration and use of scientific insight needed to address ‘wicked problems’, such as climate change.

Farmers are renowned for their resilience to variable weather patterns and, as a result, may be one of the industry sectors best prepared to meet the challenges of a changing climate. However, this must be done in the context of meeting future food security needs, possibly through intensifying agriculture to feed the increasing world population, without clearing more land to preserve biodiversity values. Simone Carr-Cornish and Nina Hall explore the intentions of farmers to intensify their farming in Australia's ‘high rainfall zone’, across eastern Australia and small parts of South Australia and south-western Western Australia. Interviews with farmers in this zone, which has significant biodiversity and the potential for intensification, showed that most farmers had increased cropping and undertaken biodiversity initiatives over the last five years. Also, they were likely to increase cropping, and the grazing of sheep to meet improved meat markets. The farmers showed a strong commitment to biodiversity conservation, but felt their ability to carry out initiatives was constrained by their resources during land-use change and intensification. The work suggests how industry and environmental management organisations can support the processes of intensification of farming in the high rainfall zone while maintaining and enhancing biodiversity.

The changing need of farmers to address more than production issues is also considered by Kenneth Wallace, Ralph Behrendt and Meredith Mitchell. They identify that the changing mix of land uses in agricultural systems affects human benefits such as water supply and quality through to aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of landscapes. Effective and satisfactory evaluation of the impact of change against the diverse human well-being benefits of agricultural landscapes remains elusive. The article reports testing a new classification of benefits based on expert opinion. They assessed two perennial plant technologies against the status quo to find the experts believed change in the system would result in neutral or positive benefits. The authors assert that because of the low cost and time efficiency, their benefits analysis approach is useful for quickly identifying the impact of proposed land-use changes and issues that need to be considered by decision makers.

Jeff Bennett, Ben McNair and Jeremy Cheesman remind us that many Australian cities have targets for use of recycled waste- and stormwater, to address the challenge of maintaining a safe and sustainable water supply in the face of population growth, growing environmental awareness in the general public and the risks in climate change. We know little, however, about residents’ preferences for the end uses of recycled water beyond their homes, or their willingness to pay for increased use of recycled water in their cities. This team conducted an internet survey of 800 Sydney households in the growth areas of western Sydney, using a choice modelling approach. It showed that western Sydney residents favoured increasing the use of recycled water, and were prepared to pay for this. They preferred that it be used to replace potable water in industrial uses, but not in homes. They were less interested in that water being used by Councils to water public areas, or to provide environmental flows to flush out rivers. The survey results are also informative about residents’ water awareness, and some demographic differences in willingness to pay for western Sydney to use more recycled water.

Darryl Jones, Lilia Bernede, Amy Bond, Cathryn Dexter and Craig Strong investigated an issue that potentially affects many parts of Australia: the effect of road dust on small mammal populations. They used the opportunity of road upgrade in outer-Brisbane to compare ground-dwelling mammal populations before and after sealing of the road. They report that sealing of the road reduced dust considerably, but the abundance of the eight species recorded did not vary close to the road but did increase 80–100 metres from the road. The study suggests that dust may not be a prime determinant of small mammal abundance, at least in some ecosystems, although the effect of noise, vibration, light and roadkill, exacerbated by traffic loads and vehicle speeds remain to be clarified.

Susan Campbell, John Roberts, Carlo Pacioni, Raoul Craemer, Lee Ann Rollins and Andrew Woolnough assessed the economic benefits of determining feral animal population size and control. Using populations of common starling in Western Australia, they modelled population dynamics and economic costs of starling establishment incorporating environmental and control effort variability, as well as the benefit-cost of different management responses. In this outstanding use of ecological economics, they estimate that uncontrolled starling population growth could cost the WA economy $43.7 million annually in the next 30 years, with a benefit-cost ratio of control being around 6:1, over a 50-year period. Without increased population detection and control, they estimate that the starling population will reach 11 million by 2061. Without considering the implications of native bird displacement, the modelling supports their call for greater effort in detection and the probable need for improved control techniques.

Kaja Primc and Tomaž Cˇater's review article and (Australian) case studies link an organisation's environmental strategies with its stage in a life cycle. Their work shows that while responding to environmental agendas adds to a new company's challenges, young firms with greater social awareness, simple and flexible organisational structure, and fast decision-making can be more successful in the adoption of proactive environmental strategies than larger firms. This challenges ‘conventional wisdom’ that assumes larger, mature firms are more able to adopt proactive environmental management strategies. Young firms proved to perform and respond well to stakeholder interests, whereas more mature companies were often conservative, and comfortable with familiar practices, limiting their ability to use the opportunities of an environmentally conscious stance. A practical implication is the need for caution in prescribing environmental strategies, since these need to match a company's life stage and be carefully integrated into business models without conflicting with other corporate objectives.

AJEM announcements

With some reluctance, Professor Marc Hockings has stepped down from his role as Associate Editor with the AJEM to open time to better meet his academic commitments to his employers and his roles with the World Commission for Protected Areas. As editors we thank Marc for his key role in building the standing of AJEM over 11 years and look forward to his on-going role in peer-review of articles submitted to the journal.

Editors' tip

Is your report publishable? Many public servants and consultants write valuable policy and technical reports, which may contain useful new knowledge or syntheses of existing knowledge. In many cases these need considerable work to be publishable in a journal, because of great differences in expectations and styles. First, follow this checklist. (1) does it make a new contribution to knowledge (knowledge, not data), and if so, what is that contribution? If it is a single study, e.g. an impact assessment on a particular proposal, how does it contribute to a ‘bigger picture’ of understanding? This may be a cumulative contribution to knowledge. (2) are there any contractual obstacles, e.g. confidentiality agreements?

In the next issue, we will give some suggestions as to how to convert your report into journal style.