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JAMES GLENDAY, PRESENTER: While, the political debate over the carbon tax has raged in Canberra this week scientists have been meeting in Darwin to discuss how human-induced climate change will affect the Northern Territory. And their forecast is pretty grim. Most agree there'll be stronger cyclones, wetter wet seasons and pristine parts of the Top End will be inundated with salt-water. But one academic sees an opportunity for northern and central Australia. Professor Andrew Campbell is the Director of the Research Institute of Environment and Livelihoods at Charles Darwin University and I spoke to him earlier today.
JAMES GLENDAY: Professor Campbell welcome to 7.30 NT.
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: Thanks James.
JAMES GLENDAY: You've been at a conference for the past three days discussing climate change and some of the different ways we can prepare for it, what sort of a future do you think the Northern Territory has in developing renewable energy.
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: I think the NT's very well-placed. This could potentially be a renewable energy powerhouse. One of the constraints we have is the size of our own market; the Darwin market, the Darwin-Katherine grid is fairly modest in size but if we think bigger about export to 500 million people to our north and potentially linking to an east coast grid too then the NT could be a, have a very significant large scale energy future.
JAMES GLENDAY: So by a renewable energy future you're talking about building wind, plants, solar plants, geothermal energy is that sort of the idea?
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: A mix, I think certainly up here in cyclone prone areas I don't think we'd too many wind farms but we have a massive solar energy resource, some of the highest areas of solar radiation hitting the earth and we also have potentially, a bit longer term but very large scale geothermal resources under that area around Katherine and potentially we have very significant tidal energy resources off the north coast as well.
JAMES GLENDAY: But that renewable energy future you're talking about isn't happening at the moment. I mean at the moment successive governments have been looking at mines and more recently even a, possibly large dams around the Top End. What do you think of those sorts of proposals?
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: The Territory's fortunate in that the moment our dominant energy source is gas which is admittedly significantly cleaner than coal but it is still a fossil fuel and it will run out at some stage so we need to be planning for an energy future that goes beyond gas and eventually moves us away from gas. We should be thinking about how we use the revenues from gas to position ourselves for the very long term. As for the proposal that we're going to feed 120 million people by damming the rivers of northern Australia, I think there is a significant future for more irrigation here in the north but not by damming rivers and having large scale schemes like the Ord.
JAMES GLENDAY: It's very hot and humid at the moment at the moment in the Top End, I'm actually starting to sweat a little bit now, but what can Territorians expect the weather to be like in 10, 20, 30 years time with climate change?
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: The best available science suggests that things are going to get warmer, that our wets are going to get a little bit wetter. Potentially in terms of heat we currently have 10 or 11 days a year above 35 degrees Celsius, we're looking at that going up more than 50 days a year by about 2030 so that impact on heat stress will be significant. Probably the biggest two impacts though will be although we'll have fewer cyclones we'll have a higher proportion of category 4 and 5 so of extreme storm events their intensity is likely to increase of the order of 60 percent and the other one is sea level rise. The seas of around northern Australia are rising faster than anywhere else in the continent - around seven mils per year - and if that accelerates as scientists are now thinking it will with the melting of the ice caps, then we're potentially looking at very big impacts in Kakadu National Park and our other lowland wetlands and floodplains.
JAMES GLENDAY: Of course climate change has been well and truly on the agenda now in Canberra this week and it now does look as though the country will get a carbon tax and then possibly an emissions trading scheme. A lot of local politicians wanted the Northern Territory completely exempt from any new tax or any new carbon scheme. Do you think that would have been a good idea?
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: I actually see more upside in this package for the Territory than downside. People need to remember that this fix-priced period; the price only applies to 500 firms nationally that are generating more than 25,000 tonnes of emissions. Only ten of those firms are wholly located within the Territory and the others would be mainly multi-national mining companies. It doesn't apply to households, it doesn't apply to fuel, it doesn't apply to small business unless you're emitting more than 25,000 tonnes so I would think for the vast majority of the people in the Northern Territory, they would mainly be beneficiaries of the package.
JAMES GLENDAY: Any action that ultimately is taken on climate change seems like it's going to cost something and recent polls show a lot of people aren't really prepared to pay for that. Given that and some of the recent very vigorous political debate I suppose you'd call it, are you optimistic about the future of the Northern Territory?
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: If we do it in smart ways. If we make the shift off fossil fuels to more renewable energy, if we develop truly Territorian lifestyles in terms of house designs, the way we use water, the way we roll out new urban and suburban developments, I think if we grow a lot more of our own food but in an and around our population settlements then we can be at the frontend of a very exciting century of innovation.
JAMES GLENDAY: Professor Andrew Campbell thank you very much for your time.
PROF. ANDREW CAMPBELL: Thank you.