Parliamentary record : Part I debates (27 February 1990)
Debates for 5th Assembly 1987 - 1990; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 5th Assembly 1987 - 1990
1990-02-27
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Debates
Northern Territory Legislative Assembly
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https://hdl.handle.net/10070/220388
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/699398
DEBATES - Tuesday 27 February 1990 ministers tripping off to conferences and no doubt, before long, we will have consu1tancies and our own local conferences and the cost will rise. This will do nothing to assist in relation to the Greenhouse Effect. Indeed, it will possibly exacerbate the problem because of the timber that will be cut down to provide the paper involved. The Petroleum Gazette 1989 states: 'Greenhouse Effect - More Hard Data, Less Conjecture Necessary'. It includes an interesting paper on some of the other aspects of the debate which were not mentioned anywhere whatsoever in the honourable minister's statement. He could have also examined articles in some of our local papers. There was an interesting article entitled, 'Greenhouse Fears Fuel Polar Study', published in The Australian on 20 September. There have been many others. Here is one for the member for Sadadeen: 'The Tropical Chainsaw Massacre'. That was quite an interesting article in the New Scientist of 23 September 1989. In October 1989, the same magazine had an article entitled 'Fighting Over Malaysia's Forests' and, in November 1989, 'First Under the Greenhouse Flood'. These are further discussions on the same point. He could also have looked at some of the political ramifications discussed in Time of 13 November 1989. In the New Scientist of 4 November 1989, an article called 'The Shelf Life of Antarctic Ice' discusses the warming as a result of the Greenhouse Effect and it discusses the clues to climatic change which lie in the floating ice shelves which fringe the Antarctic. The Mining Review of August 1989 discusses how real the Greenhouse Effect is. There is di scuss i on of the vari ous models whi ch have been used for research. He could have looked at the Economist of 2 September 1989 which has a very extensive article: 'The Environment and the Politics of Posterity'. It discusses some of the issues in great detail, including the question of what needs to be done in order to arrive at a situation where the problem is stabilised. Mr Irving Mintzer of the World Resources Institute used a computer model to show how the commitment to future warming might stabilise by the year 2060. He had to make some crucial assumptions. He assumed that the world population would stabilise at about 8 billion in 2075. That is the United Nations low estimate - its median estimate is much higher. The economic growth per head from 1975 to 2075 is to about 3% globally. However, in developing countries today, real income per head is growing at the rate of 4.6% a year. By 2025, this trend would 11ft real incomes in those countries to about the level of Denmark's in 1975, quite a substantial 1 eve 1. A 1 so postul ated was an annual improvement in effi ci ency of energy use of 1. 7% to 2.4% in today's industrial countries and 1. 4% to 2.3% in the developing world. In the past decade, the improvement has averaged just over 1% a year so there has to be a very substantial increase there. It could possibly be done with existing best technology but would require a sharp price increase for fossil fuels. Gas and oil prices would have to quadruple in real terms, coal prices triple by 2025 and then decline as coal demand falls. Coal has to be largely replaced by 2075 by natural gas, solar, nuclear and renewable fuels, with the use of CFCs stopped by 2020 in the industrial world and by 2050 in the developing world. It is an interesting article. One does not have to go to an international conference to read it. It can be read in our own Parliamentary Library. One could also read Business Review Weekly which presents the view that it is time to stand up to the greenies in the interests of balance. Australian Business of 11 October 1989 contained an article on environmental 8767