Event partner
Event_
Living in a warming world series
Dr Frances Flanagan and Michelle St Anne convened this series.
This series was held at the University of Sydney from May to September 2018 in partnership with Sydney Ideas.
Listen to the podcast series
The series
There are many dimensions to spatial inequality in Australia. This seminar will probe the uneven distribution of the country’s economic and environmental resources, with a particular focus on cities. What does residence in ‘hot Sydney’, mean for your life chances, for those of your children, and for the elderly in your community? How do poorer schools, less green space, fewer trees, reduced public transport, fewer libraries and areas of public airconditioned space work together to exacerbate inequality? How does ‘hot Sydney’ compa re to life in suburbs with good health and transport infrastructure, more public space, moderating sea breezes and reduced levels of crime and risk?
Speakers
Associate Professor Ollie Jay, Director of the Thermal Ergonomics Laboratory
Associate Professor Kurt Iveson, School of Geoscience
Dr. Abby Mellick Lopes, Western Sydney University
Chair
Professor Christopher Wright, University of Sydney Business School
Climate change has the potential to significantly accelerate inequality. Low income and precariously employed Australians tend to live and work in areas more susceptible to temperature extremes, and in buildings less able to withstand them. They are less able to afford the cost of energy required for air-conditioning, have less access to public green space, shaded recreation areas, pools and schools with facilities for learning in extreme weather. At the same time, rising inequality in Australia is making it harder to tackle climate change. Elites in highly unequal societies pollute more, waste more water, emit more carbon dioxide, and produce and consume more products that are designed not to last. Highly unequal societies are less democratically responsive, and are more likely to accept climate change ‘solutions’ that are premised on the privatisation of ‘liveable space’. This panel will bring together speakers who make the case for the necessity of seeing climate change and inequality as entwined challenges.
Speakers
Professor Kate Auty, ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment
Professor Marc Stears, Sydney Policy Lab
Chair
Professor Christopher Wright, University of Sydney Business School
It is inarguable that Australia needs to urgently transition from a fossil fuel, to a renewables-based energy system if it is to play its part in avoiding catastrophic climate change. Such a transition, though, cannot be undertaken in a purely technical manner, through the direct and straightforward substitution of one energy source for another. Land must be made available for wind and solar farms, solar panels and mills must be constructed and installed, and decisions must be made about the way our new energy systems are owned and distributed.
This event brings together policy experts, activists and academics to ask what conceptual frameworks we should we be reaching for in trying to build a renewable energy system that is fair. What are the opportunities that exist for democratising the ownership and control of energy generation in the shift to a new system based on renewables? What might a genuinely ‘progressive energy’ system look like, that takes into account differences in citizens’ ‘capacity to cope’ with extreme weather, and takes into account the double penalty suffered by poorer Australians who tend to live in areas afflicted by more extreme temperatures and must pay a larger proportion of their incomes to cool their homes? How could representation on energy boards be better shared around?
Speakers
Dr. Amanda Cahill, CEO, The Next Economy
Godfrey Moase, Ass General Branch Secretary, National Union of Workers
Joseph Scales, National Director, Solar Citizens
Chair
Professor Christopher Wright, University of Sydney Business School
The radical threat posed by global warming poses a profound challenge to every vocation. At the core of every profession, from engineering to accountancy to law to journalism, is the idea of providing expertise in service to the public good. Professionals must act ethically, in accordance with relevant codes and standards. But with the whole system under challenge from the possible collapse of the natural systems that support life on earth, will these ethics be sufficient?
Is it possible to be an ethical professional while also providing advice that supports fossil fuel companies? How are professional standards and codes of ethics shifting in response to the catastrophic threat posed by climate change? How have certain professionals been implicated in perpetuating and legitimising environmentally destructive acts?
This outstanding panel will consider these and other profound questions facing all professionals in the age of global warming.
Speakers
Anna Krien, Author and Journalist
David Ritter, CEO, Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Colonel Ian Cumming, Department of Defence
Chair
Professor Christopher Wright, University of Sydney Business School
Header image: aerial Aldana.