Biggest Challenge Facing Nations in the 21st Century is Climate Change

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FACING NATION STATES IN THE 21ST CENTURY IS CLIMATE CHANGE
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Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Introduction PAGEREF _Toc41879576 \h 3Impacts of Climate Change in the Australian Energy Sector PAGEREF _Toc41879577 \h 4Climate Change Management Policies PAGEREF _Toc41879578 \h 5Former Labor Government’s Carbon Tax Policy PAGEREF _Toc41879579 \h 6Direct Action Plan (Funded by the ERF) PAGEREF _Toc41879580 \h 7Impact of Climate Change Policies on Energy Sector PAGEREF _Toc41879581 \h 7Risks of Climate Change Policies PAGEREF _Toc41879582 \h 7Climate Change Policies Opportunities PAGEREF _Toc41879583 \h 8Adaptation Strategies PAGEREF _Toc41879584 \h 8Investment on Negative Emission Technology PAGEREF _Toc41879585 \h 9Reduction in Demand with the Expansion of Renewable Energy Sources PAGEREF _Toc41879586 \h 10Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc41879587 \h 10References PAGEREF _Toc41879588 \h 11
The Biggest Challenge Facing Nations in the 21st Century is Climate Change
Introduction
In the 21st century, organisations and overall sectorial authorities face issues with the changing climatic conditions due to rising sea levels and temperature. Henceforth, human activities and industrial practices emit high carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that adversely affects each sector including energy, water, health and education, coastline, agriculture and many others (Australian Government 2020). For this purpose, global organisations are immensely concerned for managing the environmental conditions of the earth to attain high sustainability for benefiting society and enhance living standards. As per Yu et al. (2020), by overviewing the case of Australia, the country is on the frontline of climate change, and Australia can experience high risks due to the extreme conditions of bushfires with increasing temperature and warm seas. Thereby, the government should take immediate actions to manage risk factors.
Moreover, climate change adversely affects Australian economic and environmental stability by altering business practices in various sectors. For examining the influence climate transition and carbon tax policies on the energy sector and its associated risks, the report evaluates the changes emerging in the climate pertaining to the energy sector in Australia. Furthermore, the research substantially identifies the most appropriate policies that magnificently deal with the sectorial challenges to benefit the nation’s economy on a larger scale with limited impact on the environment. Correspondingly, the report is supportive of the environment management authorities to investigate the most ethical approach for limiting carbon emissions and manage the demand and production of energy in Australia by highlighting other approaches.
Impacts of Climate Change in the Australian Energy Sector
The energy sector is a massive contributor to produce emissions and greenhouse gases with sweltering of fossil fuels, including gas, coal and oil in factories and commercials. From the study of the Climate Council (2018), Australia already faces huge complications such as storms, bushfires and heatwaves due to climate change and extreme weather conditions. Additionally, the average temperature is likely to increase from 2°C with the electricity sector in Australia. On the other side, extreme weather conditions, global warming and altering patterns of weather in Australia dramatically influence the demand and production capacity of the energy industry (NCCARF 2018). At this moment, controlling those conditions is crucial for the policymakers to sustain the global environment and limit carbon emission.
By overviewing the impact of climate change on the Australian energy sector, it demonstrates that the extreme weathers create long-term risks for the power systems. Thus, the country experienced severe storms in 2016 that involve seven tornadoes, intense rainfall and hailstones that triggered the 23 transmission towers, which led to the blackout in South Australia. Besides, the decreasing efficiency of thermal conversion and shortage of water sources with high temperature; warm and cold reduce power supply and shut down in immense conditions (The Climate Council 2018). In the case of nuclear plants, they are hugely affected by the water scarcity that disturbed the functioning of plants and processes (World Energy Organisation 2020). In Australia, the report by Hurlimann, Warren-Myers and Browne (2019) observes that the country experiences extreme cold and warm weather that directly affect water supply, which is responsible for managing diverse energy power plants. Thereby, climate change drastically affects the water conditions of the state, which creates trouble for managing energy resources. The figure below illustrates the dynamic effects of climate change on the Australian region that extensively influence the energy sector.
Figure 1: Climate Change Affected Australian Region (NCCARF 2018)
Likewise, power and nuclear stations, the energy transportation, including pipelines, in the coastal places are at high risk because of increasing sea levels that require land-based routes and modern infrastructure for transportation to regulate trade. Along with it, the climate change interrupts the hydrologic cycle with severe storms that damage solar and hydro technologies. The power lines in Australia also need to re-route lines to limit the risk of global warming (World Energy Organisation 2020). Consequently, all those effects are destructive for the Australian economy and environment that increases threats for the humans as well as infrastructure development in the state.
Climate Change Management Policies
In the 21st century, the global environmental protocol authorities encouraged states after the Kyoto Protocol Agreement to minimise the carbon emission especially Australia, which is among the top contributors in increasing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide. Therefore, the Australian government works aggressively to manage those complexities and bring emission on zero levels by controlling the polluted energy production with the enforcement of strict regulatory policies and negative emission technology; BECCS (Pour, Webley and Cook, 2018). According to the study of Kumarasiri and Lodhia (2020), the Australian government impressively takes measures by formulating the regulatory and fiscal policies and frameworks to reduce carbon emission. The other considerations would be on the investment in low carbon-innovation and contemporary technologies that generate, extract, accumulate, transmit and allocate power sources in the state without emitting polluted gases. The most admiring policies to restrain carbon emissions for controlling the climate change conditions in Australia include Former Labor government carbon-tax policy and direct action plan by ERF.
Former Labor Government’s Carbon Tax Policy
By identifying that Australia contributes high in the carbon emission worldwide, Australia’s Labor government formulated the carbon tax policy to pay the taxes for producing emissions. Furthermore, businesses are required to enhance welfare tax and reduce income tax for the sake of the environment and managing the increasing cost. In 2012, the labour government-enforced carbon price and taxes to attain the objectives of the Clean Energy Futures Plan that is focused on the reduction of greenhouse gases in the state by 5% in 2020 and 80% in 2050. Thereby, carbon taxes policy is worthy to meet those targets and invest more on the sustainable energy in Australia. However, the liberal party repeals the corresponding policy because abolishing it is beneficial for the businesses in Australia (Qian, Suryani and Xing, 2020). Thereby, the legislative party removed the particular plan and launched the direct action plan.
Direct Action Plan (Funded by the ERF)
By focusing on the other policy, the Direct Action Plan that is funded by the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) in Australia replaced the carbon tax policy in 2014. The respective scheme is for enhancing the economic wideness in Australia with Carbon Credits. Thus, the scheme utilizes reverse auction for allocating the payments in business and corporate projects from the ERF. Moreover, taxpayers are funded with payments in the crediting period, ...