Lucky Last – In the footprints of immigrants

What is a sustainable population for Australia?  Where are our people coming from? Once here, migrants add to the nation’s population – and to the economy – which, inescapably increases the burden on Australia’s environment. Graham Readfearn reports on the question of population on the ABC Environment portal (15 April 2010):

How many more migrants can Australia handle?

Migration contributes massively to Australia’s population, but the environmental impacts aren’t as simple as they seem.

WHEN migrants arrive in Australia they bring with them hopes for a new life which for some might even stretch to a four-burner barbecue and backyard pool. For others the hope might be for a steady income, a life free from repression or simply better weather.

Whatever their motivation, once here migrants add to the nation’s population which, inescapably increases the burden on Australia’s environment.

Latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that between September 2008 and 2009, 450,000 new people called Australia home, tipping the country’s population over the 22 million mark.

Some 66 per cent of those new people came via boats and planes. But will these migrants bring with them habits that are any better for Australia’s environment or the nation’s contribution to global emissions of greenhouse gases?

“It’s a very complicated issue,” says Charles Berger, director of strategic ideas at the Australian Conservation Foundation which wants population growth to be acknowledged as an official “threatening process” by the Federal Government.

“The profile of individuals that might be coming to Australia isn’t the same as the average profile of the country they’re coming from. It might not be the rural Indian villager coming to Australia, but the accountant from New Delhi who is already leading a more carbon intensive life. But once folks do come here, they are immediately plugged into our electricity system which for the most part is using coal-fired power unless they choose renewable energy.”

Official United Nations estimates say by late next year the world’s population will reach seven billion. By 2050, it is predicted to be above nine billion.

Almost all of the globe’s population increase will be seen in poorer countries where people have ecological and carbon footprints far smaller than in Australia.

One detailed study from WWF suggested that each person on the planet needs an average of 2.7 hectares of good land to produce what we consume and absorb our waste.

In 2005, this demand on the planet’s resources was outstripping supply by 30 per cent as the planet only had 2.1 hectares of productive land available per person.

Migrants to Australia will become part of an average ecological footprint which stands at 7.8 global hectares, one of the highest in the world.

And the UN points out that by 2050 there will be 2.4 million people each year migrating from a poorer country to join those consumption-driven lifestyles in developed countries.

How full is full?

Barney Foran, a research fellow at Charles Sturt University, has a long history of studying the connections between populations, the environment and the economy.

“We should be aiming to stabilise our population,” he says. “Even at 30 million we could feed and water those people but with current systems of farming, city infrastructure, waste management, transport and increasing greenhouse gas emissions, we are back in the 1950s in terms of the technical standards of much of our infrastructure.”

He says that even if Australia reached 30 million, this would still be “grossly unsustainable” given current patterns of consumption and lifestyles.

So where are the migrants, the driving force for Australia’s current population boom, coming from? While the most visible arrivals to Australia are no doubt those arriving by boat seeking refugee status, they’re a tiny proportion of arrivals.

ABS analysis last year showed only 13,000 of the 206,000 permanent visas granted to migrants were given for humanitarian reasons, the rest came mainly as skilled workers or to join family members.

The contribution of natural births is also minimal. Women of child-bearing age in Australia are having an average of 1.97 babies each – a rate just below the 2.1 level required to keep the equilibrium between births and deaths.

According to projections from the Australian Treasury, even if migration levels dropped, as they are expected to, there will be 35.9 million in the lucky country by 2050.

The country contributing most to Australia’s net migration is China, which added 28,700 people to Australia’s population in 2007/08. New Zealand lost 27,400 to Australia, followed by 24,000 souls from the United Kingdom and 23,900 from India.

All these imports would leave behind a country with much lower carbon footprints than Australia’s which, according to the International Energy Agency, stands at 18.75 tonnes just from burning fossil fuels for energy and transport.

When 28,700 migrants arrive from China, they swap their average ecological footprint of 2.1 hectares per person for a far more damaging scenario.

According to analysis from Dr Bob Birrell, of Monash University’s Centre for Population and Urban Research, rising population will be responsible for 83 per cent of the total growth of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Dr Birrell was a member of the Hawke Government’s National Population Council which disbanded in the mid-1990s after recommending, among other things, that the Government should establish a ministerial portfolio for population.

He says: “The stated environmental aspirations of our Government are totally in conflict with its economic and population aspirations.

“It is not so much a question of how many people Australia could carry, but rather what is a sensible number in terms of balancing people and nature.”

Dr Birrell believes Australia should aim for a stable population of around 26 million which is “still too high” but given current trends, “is the best we could hope for”.

Yet there is research to suggest that the global impact of people migrating from a low-carbon lifestyle to one of high consumption is further compounded with each generation.

In the journal Global Environmental Change, a study last year found a child born in the United States (a country with near identical per capita emissions to Australia) would be responsible for 9441 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions when you also take into account that child’s expected descendants.

However, under the same rules, a child born in India would be responsible for 171 tonnes or 1384 tonnes for a child born in China.

Barney Foran points out that as the world’s environmental resources are now interconnected through world trade, “all affluent people have to radically change their footprints, whether or not they’re in Mumbai or Sydney”.

Environmental refugees

Environmental degradation and worsening climate change isn’t just a potential effect of population growth, it could also be a cause of mass migrations around the globe.

Former Australian Government climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut warned in his report that Australia would “not be immune from the consequences of climate-induced migration” in the Asia-Pacific region.

Low-lying Pacific nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and PNG’s Carteret Islands are among those who fear that rising sea-levels are putting their future in doubt.

Other more populated countries, in particular Bangladesh, Egypt, China and India, could generate millions of climate refugees.

Two new documentary films, Climate Refugees and Sun Come Up are highlighting the concerns of many campaigners and communities.

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2010/04/15/2874088.htm