A Climate for Growth

Views: 2,519 views. Comments: No Comment.
Tags: books, environment, Science, summer-2010, UQP

Cover of A Climare for Growth

An edited excerpt from A Climate for Growth, published by UQP

As Australia’s fastest growing urban area with population levels expected to double over the next 20 years, south-east Queensland offers a powerful illustration of the growth paradox.

The paradox takes three quite vexing dimensions.

First, the big spend underway on infrastructure is trying to address perilous deficits, especially in water and transport.

Much of it, especially the massive new tunnels, tollways and bridges, will worsen greenhouse emissions.

But should we let the region grind to a halt or dry up? How can we turn around the supertankers of car dependency and resource profligacy?

The second dimension of the paradox is political: how do we address rising community unease about growth in general in a democracy where people can’t be ordered to “stay put” and in a nation that continues to run one of the world’s highest immigration rates? There is rising pressure from longer-term residents for a growth cap. But how do you put up the “full” sign in Australia?

These questions point to the third vexing dimension, which is an institutional question. How do we further develop and deepen the governance capacity to push through the growth malaise and build on progressive and transformative practices?

Underpinning the region’s continued growth is the need to plan for key infrastructure networks around transport, electricity, gas, water, hospitals and schools.

Identified infrastructure pressures include: the continued growth of the SEQ economy and population; competition between projects and jurisdictions for scarce resources; changes in the living arrangements of the population causing stress on infrastructure, resulting in unreliability of supply; deterioration in environmental factors such as the level of rainfall; and traditional long lead times required to identify and commission new infrastructure.

A Climate for Growth, edited by Brendan Gleeson & Wendy Steele, UQP, RRP $34.95

• Home
• Graduate Contact
• Alumni Profiles
• Global Education: Divining world trends