NSW fuel consumption and high immigration not compatible with CO2 reduction pathways
On 12/4/2018 a briefing session of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) on recently released planning documents
https://www.greater.sydney/greater-sydney-region-plan
took place in the Parramatta Novotel. According to the GSC establishment Act 2015 No 56 one of 9 principal objectives is:
(e) to encourage development that is resilient and takes into account natural hazards,
https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/acts/2015-57.pdf
The term “resilient” for the purpose of this legislation is not defined elsewhere in the act. According to the Oxford Dictionary resilient is being “able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions” https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/resilient
Note that CO2 emissions are not mentioned in this act.
Two of the most “difficult conditions” are oil supplies and climate change. So the question here is: has the Commission done any calculations to demonstrate Sydney’s resilience in this regard?
Fig 4: Recommendations on energy
https://insw-sis.visualise.today/documents/INSW_2018SIS_BuildingMomentum.pdf
In Q&A questions had to be submitted in writing:
My question was: “In which document can I find your energy calculations? How much oil, gas and coal will Sydney need in 10, 20 years? Have emission calculations been done? Has resource consumption as a function of alternative immigration scenarios been calculated?”
The host (Craig) sorted and selected the questions. He left out the immigration related part of my question and replaced it with: “And how about resource consumption?” This shows the GSC does not want an immigration debate because it would practically put in question their whole perpetual growth planning.
The Commissioner for Environment, Rod Simpson, answered:
“Good question. So we have actually got a publication where we are looking at the actual energy demand, the water demand across Sydney up on the web. So I encourage you to look at that.
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