Climatic Change

The methods of physical climatology are used to explain climatic variations during the contemporary epoch and in the geological past. Contemporary climatic change is found to depend to a considerable extent on variations in atmospheric transparency. These variations, which change the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface, are associated with the changeable level of volcanic activity. Climatic changes in the geological past are also explained in terms of variations in atmospheric transparency and the changing distribution of the earth's land and sea areas, which influenced circulation in the hydrosphere. On the basis of established regularities in past climatic change, the possible future trend of climatic evolution is suggested. Although the current cooling trend could conceivably lead to renewed expansion of glaciation, this is considered highly unlikely in view of the increasing amount of heat generated by man's growing use of energy. The additional heat may be sufficient in the long run to melt the polar ice and introduce a climate into the middle and high latitudes typical of warm interglacial epochs. Actually, even before this, technology may enable man to eliminate the polar ice artificially. The beneficial and harmful effects of such as step are briefly considered.     

Australia's national climate: learning to adapt?

Pride in Australia's extreme climate has long been a part of Australia's national identity. Today, climate continues to be enrolled in a range of nationalistic projects, including the (re)development of climate science and other responses to climate change. In this paper, we outline some of the contours of the ‘Australian national climate’, claims to know it, and four idealised responses to it: bounce back, dismissal, endurance, and migration. We argue that the deeply cultural framing of climate in Australia—in particular, Australians' emphasis on the climate's inherent variability and unknowability, and their own historical adaptability—is being exploited by the federal government and hampering climate change mitigation nationally.     

Global Climatic Change: the Difficulties of Assessing Impacts

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, initiated in 1988, is complete, was debated at the Second World Climate Conference in November, 1990 and was subsequentty submitted to the United Nations General Assembly. IPCC: (i) asserted the reality of humanity's disturbance of the natural climate system; (ii) demanded studies to improve our knowledge of processes vulnerable to climatic changes: and (iii) called for policy responses to mitigate and adapt to these changes. Two fundamental issues are: how will global climatic change affect natural resources and human population and how will the impetus towards policy responses, particularly greenhouse gas emission reduction treaties, affect industry, the economy and trade? A necessary first step in the highly desirable and geographical aspiration of striving to link numerical climate modelling to the predictions of socioeconomic systems is increased awareness and improved understanding of current physical and social models. In this paper I review the status of numerical climatic modelling especially as it pertains to scenarios of the effects of human-enhanced greenhouse warming. These projections are of futures which are themselves the result of socio-economic predictions. Development of appropriate adaptive strategies depends crucially upon improved simulation of the continental near-surface climate and on improved spatial resolution of climate models by at least two orders of magnitude. Such increased resolution is likely to demand a thousandfold increase in computing power. The physical results of global climatic change are likely to be less significant than the social and economic effects resulting from international agreements on emission reduction Recent shifts in international research and policy responses place today's studies of global climatic change firmly at the focus of human-environment interactions and hence at the core of modern geography.     

A Role for Geomorphology in Integrated Catchment Management

Catchments (watersheds) are integrated through water movements. Water moves sediments; and the translocation of materials has geomorphic and pedological responses. Fertiliser and pesticide residues and other toxic substances are also transported by water, in solution and attached to sediment particles, affecting various ecological components of catchments. The insertion of pollutants is directly caused by land‐use practices. In turn, land uses are influenced by the pedo‐geomorphology of the catchments (uplands, valley sides, flood plains and terraces, spurs and hollows, convexities and concavities; position in the upper, middle or lower catchment; and by catenary relationships). Therefore catchment management must deal with interrelationships amongst human activities and various geomorphic elements. Several case study examples from southwestern Australia demonstrate the importance of geomorphology in catchment management. They include: rates of hillslope erosion and translocation of P in micro‐catchments within a drainage basin context; stream salinisation; accumulation of heavy metals in stream sediments; geomorphic elements influencing the spread of weeds and the erosion of access tracks; and some relationships between valley‐side land uses and stream morphology. The incorporation of these and other issues in a management strategy is then illustrated. Complex skills are involved in producing and implementing a management strategy, including but extending well beyond those of the geomorphologist.     

Rugged Plateaus and Extensive Floodplains — Modelling Landform Evolution in a Northern Australian Catchment

Medium to large natural catchments are often more spatially heterogeneous than small catchments or single landforms. Attempting to model landform evolution of large areas is consequently more complex. This paper demonstrates that modelling landform evolution in medium to large catchments can be improved by calibrating the model to smaller, more geomorphologically homogenous sub‐catchments. The paper investigates landform evolution in the Ngarradj catchment in the Northern Territory of Australia (a medium scale catchment of approximately 67 km²). The catchment is complex and contains two distinct landform regions; an upland plateau region with highly dissected sandstone and shallow, sandy soils, and a lowlands region with gentle, wooded slopes and floodplains with deep, sandy soils. The SIBERIA landform evolution model is calibrated and applied to the Ngarradj catchment. The complexity of the Ngarradj catchment is incorporated into the modelling by dividing the catchment into three sub‐catchments (Swift Creek (SC), Upper Main (UM) and East Tributary (ET)) which are relatively homogeneous and for which hydrology and sediment transport data are available. A discharge‐area relationship and long‐term, sediment loss rates for the catchment are derived based on an annual series flood frequency analysis of a 20 year runoff record predicted in a previous study. Sediment transport modelling incorporates both suspended and bedload sediment loss. The denudation rates derived using these data are 37, 63 and 77 mm kyr^?1 for the SC, UM and ET sub‐catchments, respectively. Model predictions indicate that the UM sub‐catchment will have the greatest mean erosion. This is balanced by the large amount of deposition that will occur in the upper Ngarradj valley of the UM sub‐catchment. Further deposition occurs on the floodplain of Ngarradj, with the area between the SC and ET/UM (up‐stream) sub‐catchments experiencing a small net accretion of sediment (15 mm kyr^?1).     

Australian Coastal Management and Climate Change

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) raised public awareness of the need to consider climate change in coastal management and gained international recognition when it received a joint award of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. The raised awareness of climate change surrounding the work of the IPCC was in large part responsible for the focus of the recent Australian national inquiry into coastal management in the context of potential climate change impacts on the coast, conducted by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts. In the same year the then Minister of Climate Change, Senator Penny Wong, and the Department of Climate Change released a major government report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coast and set up a national Coasts and Climate Change Council to provide advice to the government. This paper provides a review and analysis of the extent to which climate change issues, within the context of the broader global change debate, have influenced Australian coastal management through its legislation, policies and practice. In particular, the paper focuses on the impact of recent national reports and state government legislative and policy changes and draws conclusions on future directions for Australian coastal management.     

Palestinian Water: Resources,Use, Conservation,Climate Change,and Land Use

This article addresses the future of freshwater resources in the Palestinian West Bank through a discussion of contemporary issues that each plays a vital role in determining the long‐term sustainability of freshwater reserves, such as water resource availability, trans‐boundary water issues, water reuse and conservation, changes in land use, and the potential impact of climate change on long‐term water management. Climate change and changing land use patterns are already altering this region's water resources. Future predictions regarding the long‐term effects of these changes are complex and therefore inherently uncertain. However, the consensus among most studies on this subject indicates that currently water‐poor regions such as the Middle East will experience even greater water stress in the future. Nearly all of the freshwater consumed in the West Bank is obtained from local groundwater supplies that are suffering overdraft as well as decreasing water quality. Climate change will exacerbate water stress by increasing overall temperatures, decreasing and fluctuating precipitation, and reducing overall aquifer replenishment. Expanding urbanization will continue to strain freshwater supplies by negatively impacting the quality and quantity of available freshwater. Water management in the West Bank is further complicated by total Israeli control over water resources, which often causes water delivery to Palestinians in this region to be marginalized. This article finds that Palestinian and Israeli water managers must plan for future water crises, which will likely be a result of the combined effects of increasing urbanization and climate change coupled with exponential population growth.     

Multiple Partial Couplings in the Multiple Streams Framework: The Case of Extreme Weather and Climate Change Adaptation

In this paper, I draw insights from a detailed case study of adaptation policymaking to develop a novel interpretation of John Kingdon's original work that shows how policy entrepreneurs can couple the problem, policy, and political streams through multiple partial couplings. Researchers and policymakers often assume that extreme weather opens a window to adopt policies aimed at adapting to long‐term climate change. However, empirical evidence shows that crises can redirect attention to urgent, short‐term goals. Using the Multiple Streams lens in an abductive case study, I investigate how these competing forces interact to influence the policy process. By unpacking Kingdon's familiar “streams” metaphor and elaborating his overlooked concept of partial couplings, I illustrate how the policy entrepreneurs' strategy of issue linking explains Australia's adoption of the 2007 Water Act, one of the world's first major adaptation policies, at the height of its decade‐long Millennium Drought. Employing this novel theoretical understanding offers new insights into this important case. I conclude by developing tentative hypotheses for testing in future studies.     

Cheating on climate change? Australia's challenge to global warming norms

The international governance of climate change was initially informed by two norms concerning who should take responsibility for mitigating climate change and how such mitigation should be pursued.1 1. These normative debates have also been analysed by Matthew J. Hoffman and Loren Cass (see Hoffman 2005; Cass 2006). View all notes Since the early 1990s, these norms have been contested by several states. In this article the author argues that such contestation is a product of the perceived incongruence between these norms and the domestic conditions of those states they seek to govern. Following an overview of the emergence and contestation of climate governance norms, the author elaborates on this relationship between international norms and domestic conditions. These theoretical assumptions are then explored in the context of Australia's response to international climate governance norms from the late 1980s to 2007. As the author demonstrates, the perceived incongruence of these norms with domestic conditions led Australia's foreign policy makers to contest the norms and focus on the construction of alternative governance processes by reframing the issue of climate change. Through a diversion of attention away from historical emissions to future emissions and possible technological mitigation options, climate governance was temporarily reconciled with Australia's domestic conditions. However, the author suggests that this came at the expense of international equity and long-term national sustainability.     

Not Learning from the Past: Adaptive Governance Challenges for Australian Natural Resource Management

Australia's governance arrangements for natural resource management (NRM) have evolved considerably over the last 30 years. The impact of changes in governance on NRM planning and delivery requires assessment. We undertake a multi‐method programme evaluation using adaptive governance principles as an analytical frame and apply this to Queensland to assess the impacts of governance change on NRM planning and governance outcomes. Data to inform our analysis includes: (1) a systematic review of 16 audits/evaluations of Australian NRM over a 15‐year period; (2) a review of Queensland's first‐generation NRM plans; and (3) outputs from a Queensland workshop on NRM planning. NRM has progressed from a bottom‐up grassroots movement into a collaborative regional NRM model that has been centralised by the Australian government. We found that while some adaptive governance challenges have been addressed, others remained unresolved. Results show that collaboration and elements of multi‐level governance under the regional model were positive moves, but also that NRM arrangements contained structural deficiencies across multiple governance levels in relation to public involvement in decision‐making and knowledge production for problem responsiveness. These problems for adaptive governance have been exacerbated since 2008. We conclude that the adaptive governance framework for NRM needs urgent attention so that important environmental management problems can be addressed.     

ENTANGLED INVASIVE LIVES: INDIGENOUS INVASIVE PLANT MANAGEMENT IN NORTHERN AUSTRALIA

This article explores the entanglement of two kinds of invasive lives in northern Australia: invasive plants, and the enduring life of the unfinished colonial project, which continues to have implications for indigenous peoples. In the extensive indigenous lands of Australia's tropical north, communities have increasing responsibility for invasive plant management among other pressing land management tasks. In a context of climate change and novel ecosystems, these entanglements exacerbate environmental management challenges in the tropical savanna and affect indigenous livelihoods. Drawing on arguments that it is necessary to literally speak novel ecologies, we here enunciate and describe a novel ecological assemblage we call Indigenous Invasive Plant Management (IIPM). Historical accounts and contemporary ethnography (semi‐structured interviews and participant observation undertaken in 2010–2013) show a lingering colonial heritage in the ways that IIPM is entwined with tenure and governance issues, and in its everyday practice. These findings illustrate how IIPM can risk being a form of continuing dispossession as well as having good potential outcomes.     

The benefit-sharing principle: Implementing sovereignty bargains on water

A global water crisis is emerging that may challenge states' existing and future water availability. With countries already heavily reliant on international rivers, the issue of managing water scarcity in these basins is mounting. An already complex issue due to climatic change and the politics of access, the management of water resources is complicated further by sovereignty. In a context shaped by political boundaries and a concomitant territorial exclusivity, nation-states seek to guarantee their societies' water by exerting control through physical and institutional infrastructure. Yet, the basin's hydrological interdependency implies co-riparian countries remain vulnerable to each other's use of the shared river, suggesting ecological rather than just political limits to sovereignty. The continued vulnerability, as envisaged within the greening of sovereignty, suggests international cooperation is necessary. Explained as sovereignty bargains, in which states trade reduced autonomy for future benefits, international cooperation is, we suggest, bi-directional and can stem from or create international institutions. We examine an instance of international cooperation that exemplifies an alternative approach to international river management. The benefit-sharing principle focuses on allocating the outputs from water use, rather than the water itself; and was used by the Senegal basin riparians to access key services such as electricity despite a context of poverty, climatic change and intra-basin politics. What emerges is a strong narrative of cooperation sustained, over decades, by the states' willingness to engage in sovereignty bargains.     

The impotence of being earnest? Avoiding the pitfalls of ‘creative middle power diplomacy’

This article critically evaluates Australia's ‘creative middle power diplomacy’, encapsulated in the three pillars of the Labor government's foreign policy platform. It notes that each pillar has been accorded specific roles in the implementation of Australian foreign policy and makes particular reference to the government's preference for multilateral engagement. The article subsequently demonstrates that such an agenda actually impedes a creative approach to key issues such as trade, climate change and non-proliferation challenges, as well as Australia's participation in Asia-Pacific order-building. It then offers some suggestions for a more flexible posture that is not inconsistent with past Labor approaches, but which also better appreciates regional and global complexities.     

One continent,two federalisms: rediscovering the original meanings of Australian federal ideas

Federalism is usually described in political science as a single body of ideas—in Australia's case arriving in the 1840s–50s and moving to constitutional reality in the 1890s. This article re‐examines the origins and diversity of federal ideas in Australia. It suggests that federal thought began influencing Australia's constitutional development significantly earlier than previously described. This first Australian federalism had a previously unappreciated level of support in British colonial policy and drew on Benjamin Franklin's American model of territorial change as a ‘commonwealth for increase’. The revised picture entrenches the notion of federalism's logic but also reveals a dynamic, decentralist style of federalism quite different from Australia's orthodox ‘classic’ or compact federal theory. In fact, Australian political thought contains two often‐conflicting ideas of federalism. The presence of these approaches helps explain longstanding dissent over the regional foundations of Australian constitutionalism.     

Australia's Indigenous Carbon Economy: A National Snapshot

Many Indigenous communities in Australia are well situated to provide greenhouse gas abatement and carbon sequestration benefits, but little is known about the factors affecting the capability of Australia's Indigenous organisations to participate in climate change mitigation strategies. This paper provides a ‘snapshot’ summary of certain aspects of Australia's Indigenous organisations' participation in carbon offset schemes. The snapshot provides insight into the degree to which Indigenous organisations are aware of carbon market opportunities in Australia, the level that these Indigenous organisations participate in or engage with carbon‐based economic enterprises, and the key pathways through which Indigenous carbon market opportunities are pursued. Analysis of data collected from a national survey conducted between 2011 and 2012 show that most obstacles to Indigenous participation in carbon offset schemes relate to land tenure arrangements; geographic and biophysical factors; low levels of requisite technical, human and financial resources; and appropriate recognition of Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsibilities. The snapshot also highlights the value of supporting regionally specific capacity‐building strategies to enable Indigenous people to participate in emerging carbon offset activities and the generation of associated ecosystem services. Cultural, socio‐economic or demographic factors that are also likely to influence the ability of many Indigenous communities to participate in carbon market opportunities are identified as important areas for further research.     

Australia and the rise of India

Australia is at risk of being left behind by the pace of India's emergence as a regional and global power and its lack of engagement with India during this emergence. The Rudd Labor government is developing a framework which may make Australia a significant partner with India. There is the potential for a thoroughgoing engagement of interests and ideals in proposals Australia has put forward in three areas. Australia's vision of an Asia Pacific Community, with cooperation as its habitual operating principle, and with a membership that includes India and the USA as well as China and Japan, fills a multilateral gap. Secondly, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament may provide a global framework assisting the development of Australian and Indian initiatives in the controlling and winding back of nuclear proliferation. Thirdly, Australia's national carbon pollution reduction program is intended to demonstrate international leadership and engagement in climate change, and opens the prospect for Australia of a substantial bilateral partnership with India (and others) to advance common interests around climate change. Australia, while emphasising its close relationship with the USA, is preparing to live in a region where the USA will, over time, be less influential as its relative power declines. As other great powers rise, Australia can actively pursue a hedging strategy to diversify its dependencies, and develop a much deeper engagement with that other emerging Asian giant.     

The Economic Geography of Australia and Its Analysis: From Industrial to Post‐Industrial Regions

The Australian economy has experienced profound change over the last five decades, moving from an industrial to a post‐industrial structure. This transformation has had far‐reaching implications for the nature of economic activity in Australia and has provided the backdrop for the evolving analysis of the nation's space economy. The paper argues that three interrelated themes underpin much of the work of economic geographers in Australia: the impacts of globalisation on Australia's space economy; neoliberalism and the governance of regions; and policy‐focused analysis of regions, their history and prospects. The paper concludes that economic geography will continue to make important intellectual and practical contributions to Australia in the near future as the reshaping of the Australian economy continues and as new challenges reshape the nation's regions.     

气候变迁和中国历史

本文联系东亚、欧州和北美气候变迁及其影响 ,论述中国各历史时期气候变迁和历史的关系。指出以农为本的中国 ,尤其是北方 ,在气候变化面前显得格外脆弱。气候变化影响农业 ,从而影响社会各方面。从新石器时代至清朝 ,中国气候温暖期与寒冷期周期性变化的过程 ,是游牧文明与农耕文明两种生态环境较量与整合的过程。在温暖期 ,中国经济繁荣 ,民族统一 ,国家昌盛 ;寒冷期 ,气候剧变引起经济衰退 ,游牧民族南侵 ,农民起义 ,国家分裂 ,经济文化中心南移等。最后 ,作者指出 ,在历史时期 ,气候是中国北方政治命运的决定性因素之一 ,并强调将世界气候作为一个整体研究历史事件的重要性     

Global Change and Southern Africa

The developing nations of southern Africa have previously been identified as vulnerable to the vagaries of global change, particularly in terms of future climate change. This paper explores recent climate change scenarios for the region in terms of some representative sectors of the environment‐society interface, namely biodiversity, agriculture and related land uses, water resources and health issues. It is concluded that the impacts of predicted climate changes over the next century are likely to be very marked indeed. Biome distribution, agriculture, rangelands and water resources are highlighted as being negatively impacted in ways that will increase the vulnerability of the great majority of the region's population to natural hazards. The potential impact of these changes on the prolific biodiversity of southern Africa is clear. Holistic policy responses, incorporating both environmental and human development concerns, are required in the near future if a crisis is to be averted.     

Perspectives on Australian foreign policy 2006

Australia in 2006 reaffirmed its close relationship with the United States while deepening engagement with other major power partners, with further agreements concluded with China, cooperation extended with Japan, and the profile of ties with India enhanced. Australia continued to navigate through the sometimes sensitive relations among the major powers, amid additional pressures arising from North Korea's nuclear test. Tensions with Indonesia were followed by a new security agreement, though increased confidence was needed in the relationship at both official and public levels. Internal disorder in several southwest Pacific states challenged Australia's capacities to provide effective short and medium term responses. Involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq continued, with the latter situation particularly problematic. Growing demand for energy in the Asia–Pacific region directed further attention towards Australia's uranium resources, as climate change issues assumed a higher profile in domestic debate and multilateral activities.