Research Institute for the Environment & Livelihoods17 May 2011

Converging Insecurities: climate, water, energy and food

ANDREW CAMPBELL

JORNADA CIENTIFICA, DILI 17-18 MAY 2011

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• Consolidating CDU environmental research in one place

• Interdisciplinary across the natural and social sciences

• Focus on northern Australia and the region to its north

• Strong emphasis on:• collaborative research partnerships

• high quality scholarship

• Building research capacity (especially PhD & Masters levels)

• Indigenous engagement

• working with research end-users to ensure relevance and adoptability

Research Institute for the Environment & Livelihoods (RIEL)

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• Natural Resources-based Livelihoods

• Coastal and Marine ecology and management

• Freshwater ecology and management

• Savanna Management and Wildlife Conservation

• Tropical Resource Futures Centre for Renewable Energy

RIEL Research Themes

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Key Points• Climate, water, energy, food and health are interconnected

• They need to be considered together, not as separate issues

– In science and policy

• The age of cheap, abundant fossil fuel energy is coming to an end

• Energy prices feed into fuel, fertiliser and food prices

• Agricultural planning needs to integrate its consideration of climate, water, energy and food systems

• Farming & food systems are part of the primary health system

Drivers for change

• Climate

• Water

• Energy

• Food

• Population, demography, consumption and development pressures

• Competition for land & water resources

• Resource depletion & degradation

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The human footprint on the planet

1950 2050

Population 2 billion 9 billion

CO2 310 ppm >450ppm

Energy Use 80EJ/yr >550EJ/yr

Sea Levels ———— 0.2-1.5m higher

• This trajectory cannot be sustained without a radical decoupling of economic growth from resource depletion and degradation, and from emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG).

• Achieving such a decoupling is the most profound structural change the world has ever attempted

Source: WBCSD & IUCN 2008; Harvard Medical School 2008

ClimateThe core problem: population & carbon emissions

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Impacts• As greenhouse gases

increase– so does temperature

• land, sea & air– and sea levels– oceans more acidic– snow & ice melt– more variable climate– more extreme

weather

• Climate change is the biggest market failure the world has seen (Stern and Garnaut)

Water

• Each calorie takes one

litre of water to produce,

on average

• All the world’s major food

producing basins are

effectively ‘closed’ or

already over-committed

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Physical & Economic Water Scarcity (IWMI 2007)

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Feeding the world

• The world needs to increase food production by about 70% by 2050, & improve distribution

• We have done this in the past, mainly through clearing, cultivating and irrigating more land– and intensification, better varieties, more fertiliser, pesticides

• Climate change and oil depletion is narrowing those options, with limits to water, land, energy & nutrients

Energy & nutrients

• The era of abundant, cheap fossil fuels is coming to a close

• Rising oil costs = rising costs for fertiliser, agri-chemicals, transport and food

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World

World oil demand expected to grow 50% by 2025

Oil discovery peaked in the 1960s, and production is in decline, 4 barrels used for each 1 discovered

49 of 65 oil producing regions are past their peak, declining at average 6.7% per year

The world needs new production six times that of Saudi Arabia today to be brought on stream between 2007 and 2030

Profound technical challenges

1. To decouple economic growth from carbon emissions

2. To adapt to an increasingly difficult climate

3. To increase water productivity

— decoupling the 1 litre per calorie relationship

4. To increase energy productivity– more food energy out per unit of energy in

– while shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy

5. To develop more sustainable food systems– while conserving biodiversity and

– Improving soil health, animal welfare & human health

6. TO DO ALL OF THIS AT THE SAME TIME!

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We need a third agricultural revolution

• High level goals: e.g. 200% increase in food & fibre production while doubling water productivity, and becoming a net energy producer from farming lands

• How to get there?

– Farming systems that make more efficient use of and conserve water, energy, nutrients, carbon and biodiversity

– Smart metering, sensing, telemetry, robotics, guidance, biotech

– Better understanding of soil carbon & microbial activity

– Radically reducing waste in all parts of the food chain

– Farming systems producing renewable (2nd gen) bioenergy• Also producing energy from waste

– Urban and peri-urban food production

– Attracting talented young people into careers in agriculture

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Food Security in Timor Leste

• Apology: many people here know much more about this subject than me!

• Food security is obviously a very high priority for TL– ~40% of people malnourished (WFP VAM 2005)

– many people hungry for some months each year

– food production varies widely with seasonal conditions, but rarely exceeds consumption, so imports are crucial

– many key elements of a productive and sustainable system are not yet in place — economic scarcity

• The integration issues I am raising here may not seem as urgent as the basic measures needed to increase food production and the reliability of the food system

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Food Security in Timor Leste (2)

• However, longer term progress will depend on the attention given to:– Agricultural education and extension to develop a skilled workforce

(professionals and practitioners [farmers & food processors])

– The social, economic and legal context of agriculture, fisheries and forestry to get a sound framework in place, that meets social goals

– Agricultural and environmental research to develop & refine locally useful knowledge and to develop new solutions

– Catchment management to identify and look after the most valuable soils and to protect water resources

– Water management to get the most production from the least amount of water, and to protect water quality (surface water and groundwater)

– Renewable energy systems to become independent from imported oil

Scales for response to climate change

• Many of the main drivers of biodiversity loss operate at the landscape-scale e.g. habitat fragmentation, invasive species and changed fire regimes.

• It is the scale which lends itself to integrated, whole of ecosystem and cross tenure solutions.

• In Australia the most threatened components of biodiversity are in the intensive zones and

CSIRO 2010

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• Climate, water, energy, food and health are interconnected

• The age of cheap, abundant fossil fuel energy is ending

• Agricultural planning needs to integrate its consideration of climate, carbon, water, energy and food

• Farming & food systems are part of the primary health system

• Food security in Timor Leste has many urgent and immediate basic issues to tackle. However these big integration issues will determine longer term success, and need to be considered now.

• CDU is pleased to be a long term partner with UNTL and the Government to develop knowledge and capacity to help TL build more sustainable food systems, and to look after its wonderful environment for the benefit of the people of Timor Leste.

Summary

For more information

www.cdu.edu.au/riel

www.triplehelix.com

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