Carbon Control Policies in Australia
Over the past two decades, there has been rapid climatic changes across the world with its impacts already visible in some countries. Australia is among the countries that are under threat of the effects of climate changes including increased temperatures, rainfall, flooding and the submergence of the coastal cities. The accumulation of the greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere is the major cause of the rapid climate changes with sources such as the construction industry and fossil fuel production and use singled out as the largest contributors of carbon emissions (Hertzberg and Schreuder 2016). The already visible effects of climatic changes has forced the various environmental organizations to call upon various nations to develop policies that control the release of greenhouse gases into open atmosphere.
Australia forms part of the top countries with highest levels of greenhouse gases emission thus the government, over the past seven years has adopted various legislations to help in the regulation of the production and release of greenhouse gases in the country (Milman 2018). Two legislations, the Carbon Tax and Direct Action Plan have already been put into place and has shown some positive results in the regulation of the carbon emissions. The carbon tax legislations originated from the 2011’s Clean Energy Act and consequently the Carbon Pricing Mechanisms. Through the legislation, the largest companies producing large amounts carbon gases are identified and taxed in relation to the released carbon particles. The extra or heavy expenses on the industries resulting from the taxation cold then force such companies to find other safer sources of energy and control of emissions. In the year 2014, the change of the ruling parties resulted into the repealing of the Clean Energy Act to from the Direct Action Plan for the control of the carbon emissions in Australia. This policy shifted the focus from taxation to providing incentives or funding to various organization including both private and public with plans or ideas in green technologies that result in the mitigation of greenhouse gases production and emissions. The Emission Reduction Fund was therefore established in 2014 to provide funding to various groups or individuals with green ideas.
This work therefore finds out the predicted impacts of the climate changes in the urban water and the effectiveness of the two policies in the control or mitigation of carbon emissions. In addition, the challenges and opportunities in the urban water sector as well as the suitable adaptive strategies are investigated.
Impacts of Climate Change on Urban Water
The climatic changes and impacts currently being witnessed are majorly attributed to the greenhouse gases resulting from various industries and the use of fossil fuels (Kjellén 2019). However, other human activities such as the clearing of vegetation for the purpose of setting out settlement areas and other development purposes is another cause of climate changes. Trees are known to be responsible in the reduction or balance of the carbon IV oxide in the atmosphere, therefore clearing of vegetation for urban development directly results into the accumulation of the carbon gases and consequently the climatic changes. Generally, the unsustainable urban developments in various countries, including Australia results into the undesirable climatic changes and its impacts.
Water shortages is one of the major challenges that are facing the urban areas because of ever rising population of cities due to rural urban migration. Also, the quality of the available water has been found to be very poor due to the poor management of the water supply and waste water systems in the urban areas (Danilenko 2014). However, the rapid climatic changes seems to be altering the water elements including the availability and demand in the urban areas (Jaramillo 2018). Some of the impacts of the climate changes that has been projected include the rise in temperatures, the melting of the Glaciers, increased rainfalls, flooding, the rise of the sea levels as well as the submergence of the coastal cities. The impacts such the rise in the temperatures and the increased flooding have direct impact on the urban water as far as the demand and quality are concerned. The rise in temperatures will considerably affect the demand for water such that a lot of water fresh water will be needed for drinking and other cooling activities during high temperatures in urban areas. Also, urban areas that are faced with high rainfalls and flooding will be left with a lot contaminated water and destroyed water supply systems thus very low quality for consumption and limited supply in the affected city or urban area (Jaramillo 2018).
In addition, it is predicted that the climate changes may result in extreme dry conditions in some parts of the world. This is likely to result into the depletion of major water catchment areas that provide the fresh water to the respective urban areas. This means that the availability of fresh water will be greatly affected with limited quantities left for utilization by the large urban population (Pinceel 2018). It is however important to note that climatic change will affect the various urban areas and cities in different ways based on their global geographical locations.
Challenges and Opportunities in the Urban Water Sector
Generally, the climate changes will affect the availability and quality of the urban water by altering or disrupting the normal natural hydrological cycles in various parts of the world. The various processes such as evaporation and precipitation are necessary for constant water supply but are highly affected by the temperature and other climatic factors. Therefore, there is need for various measures for the conservation of the environment and the urban water at large.
Australia had been recorded as the significant agents of the carbon discharges on the planet and the nation will undoubtedly meet the critical outcomes of the changes in climate including the submergence of the nation’s coasts. According to Irigoyen (2017), reports discharged in 2009 and 2011 laying out the required arrangements provoked the presentation of the Carbon Tax Policy. Getting into legitimate use in July 2012, the legislation presented the Carbon Pricing Mechanism where different companies acquired carbon units from the administration’s vitality offices at fixed costs of about 23 US dollars for every unit in 2013-2014 and increased in 2013-2014 to 24 US dollars for each unit. However, the Tax Policy got substituted with the Direct Action Plan in the year 2014 where different organizations could get installments for their drives in lessening the carbon outflows.
During the two year duration in which the Carbon Tax was under usage, more than 500 organizations that were considered to be the greatest producers were enrolled. Likewise, it assessed that 1.4 percent of the carbon emanations was moderated in the over the two year time frame, the most elevated over the past decades (Irigoyen 2017). Notwithstanding to the carbon outflow decreases, the strategy additionally planned for developing the Australian economy. The payments or installments to different category of individuals in the nation was considerably expanded and another 300,000,000 US dollars put into the steel companies with the general objective of diminishing the emanations by 80% by the end of 2050. The present Australian Prime Minister believes that the Direct Action Plan is a viable strategy for carbon alleviation (Chang 2014). According to the International Emissions Trading Association (2016), the normal carbon cost evaluated at 12.10 US dollars per sell off and the Australian administration intending to use about 2.55 billion dollars in a time of four years under the approach.
The substitution the Carbon Tax Policy utilizing Direct Action Plan has confronted an extensive number of analysis with most green specialists and managers from different greatest carbon transmitting organizations agreeing that the Carbon Tax Policy was more effective. As per different review did crosswise over Australia, most organizations have surrendered their arrangements for the moderation of carbon outflows from time the Carbon Tax was relinquished. The Carbon Tax made great pressure to the organizations both as far as money and the organizations’ public image to the extent of environmental protection was concerned constraining them to act critically. According to Houghton (2016), the Direct Action Plan has small impact because it does not apply any budgetary weights to the organizations.
Adaptive Strategies for the Urban Water Sector
The Direct Action Plan is likewise established on the reverse auction strategy where the Australian administration agencies willfully provides capital to ventures that are proposed by the private organizations. The government energy agency is probably going to be confronted with the issue of choosing the feasible projects thus prone to losing assets by subsidizing ventures which may not be feasible (Burke 2016). Also, monetary examination did by Clarke, Fraser and Waschik (2014), demonstrate that the spending put by the administration for the Direct Action Plan isn’t sufficient to diminish the degrees of carbon emanation towards the international objectives by the Kyoto targets.
The supply of water into urban areas and cities by various urban water authorities involves the use of different equipment for the treatment and conveying the water to the consumers. Some of the equipment like the pumps and all the pipe laying machines utilize electricity which is largely generated by the fossils fuels like diesel. Also, the water supply through the mobile tanks involves the use of vehicles which heavily depend on the fossil fuels. This means that the urban water supply activities through urban water authorities or companies produces a considerable quantities. The carbon constrained world requires that there is low or zero carbon emissions into the atmosphere therefore the water companies are directly faced challenge of complying with the carbon regulation policies.
The compliance with carbon tax policy means that the water company will have to pay heavy taxes depending on the carbon units that is producing. Alternatively, company has an option of reducing its levels of carbon emissions by embracing the green technologies for alternative energy sources, for instance the use solar in the production of energy for powering various water supply equipment (Jones and Olsson 2017). This means that the company will have to incur other costs in the replacement of equipment in alignment to the new energy sources for example the replacement of fuel powered pumps with the electric pumps and the use of electric trucks. Therefore increased costs of operations is the major risk that is associated with the Australian carbon emission regulations for the urban water authorities and the urban water sector as a whole.
The current Direct Action Plan policy provides funding to the companies with projects focusing on the reduction of carbon emissions. This is the best opportunity for the urban water companies to install the green technologies like solar power systems in the production of electricity. The use of solar power is considered as the cheapest and simplest way of production of energy for powering machines over long terms periods. The solar power is very much reliable and efficient when combines with power storage facilities like the tesla lithium-batteries (Kurpaska 2018). The availability of cheap, efficient and reliable energy translates into reduced costs of operations thus the water company is able to make profits and increase its services.
Conclusion
There is need for the urban water supply authorities and companies to come up with various strategies of operating without emitting carbon particles and the green gases. This means that the processes involved in the water treatment and supply must be friendly to the environment and efficient in terms of energy. Some of the green technologies that can be adopted by the water companies include the use of photovoltaic (PV) cells and system technologies in the generation of power and hydrogen energy storage systems from the storage and use of for the generated power (Gul 2016).
The PV cells are used in the conversion of sunlight directly into electricity and its large scale utilization leads to the generation of a lot of power enough for operation of heavy equipment. The urban water authorities should put into consideration the need for investments in the installation of such solar systems for the generation of the required power for its operations. According to Breeze (2018), through the hydrogen energy storage systems the electrical power can easily be converted into hydrogen for storage then released later and used in a fuel cell. Other storage methods such as the use of batteries like the lithium-ion batteries can be utilized for maximum storage of the solar produced electricity (Xiong 2017).
In general, the adoption of the green technologies like the PV cells in the generation of electricity in conjunction with the advanced energy storage systems enables the companies survive in the carbon constrained world in line with the various legislations. Such technologies do not only lead to zero carbon emissions but also increases the efficiency of operations.
The photovoltaic cells power and efficiency can be expressed as:
The solar output for photovoltaic cell, E
E = E = A x r x H x PR
Where E is the Energy (kWh), A is the total area of the solar panel (m2), r is the solar panel efficiency (%), H is the Annual average solar radiation on tilted panels and PR is the Performance ratio ranging between 0.5 and 0.9.
The efficiency of the solar cell based on the power
Pmax = Voc x Isc x FF,
η = (Voc x Isc x FF)/Pin
Where
Pin = power input,
Voc = open-circuit voltage
Isc = short-circuit current
FF = fill factor, η = efficiency
Also, fill factor FF= Pm/ (Vocc x Isc)
= (η x Ac x G)/ (Voc x Isc)
The carbon emissions is given by;
Ek = EhpKe = H/COP ke
Conclusion
The rapid climate changes have diverse effects depending on the geographical location of urban areas therefore policies must be developed to reverse or manage the impacts. The adoption of various legislations by the government is a necessary step as far as the control of carbon emissions is concerned. There is need for working towards the mitigation targets that are set by various environmental organizations like the Kyoto reduction targets. A good number of people ranging from biggest emitters company managers to the green experts believe that Carbon Tax was more effective than the Direct Action Plan that is currently in use in Australia. It therefore means that the Direct Action Plan must be re-examined to as to adequately help in the mitigation of carbon emissions based on the international targets.
References
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Chang, C., (2014). What’s all the fuss about? (2014, October 30). Available from: https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/direct-action-plan-what-is-tony-abbotts-climate-change-policy/news-story/14e652d48897425325035af929453a51
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