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This blog was established by Patrick Hughes (1948 - 2022). More content that Patrick intended to add to the blog has been added by his partner, Glenda Mac Naughton, since his death. Patrick was an avid and critical reader, a member of several book groups over the years, a great lover of music histories and biographies and a community activist and policy analyist and developer. This blog houses his writing across these diverse areas of his interests. It is a way to still engage with his thinking and thoughts and to pay tribute to it.

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

A Postcarbon Research and Resource Centre

A Postcarbon Research and Resource Centre on the Bellarine

Summary
1. Businesses, communities and educational/research organisations in the region of the Bellarine Peninsula should collaborate to establish a Postcarbon Research and Resource Centre on the Peninsula.
2. The Centre would:
  • advise businesses and communities on the Bellarine Peninsula on how to grasp the opportunities offered by the transition to a postcarbon economy
  • support business as they meet local needs in a postcarbon society
  • inform and educate local people about postcarbon societies, so that they can participate in creating one.
3. The first step in creating a Postcarbon Research and Resource Centre would
be to convene a meeting of potential stakeholders and funders to invite their participation in establishing the Centre.

Moving towards a post-carbon economy: the role of government
Societies moving towards a postcarbon economy face problems associated with the run-down of industries reliant on coal, oil and other carbon-based sources of energy. At the same time, they face opportunities in at least three areas:
• new industries manufacturing the new 'clean' technologies
• new agribusiness producing carbon credits and biofuels
• new jobs to replace those being lost.

Nicholas Stern (2009) has linked investment in 'clean' technologies with economic development. He was writing about 'developing' countries, but his argument is applicable more broadly:
To ignore a changing climate and what it implies would simply make for bad investments. Adaptation must be part of development. At the same time, development itself will be very important in adapting, as it encourages economic diversification and a more flexible workforce, both of which reduce vulnerability. It also generates the income necessary for robust investment and it fosters greater technical knowledge.1

There is growing evidence that governments can play a crucial role in the transition to postcarbon societies.2 Actively promoting the new industries, goods, services and jobs associated with a postcarbon economy attracts investment by high-tech, 'clean energy' companies, offering high-skill, well-paid jobs; and it increases local incomes which, in turn, attract new firms in the services sector.

Despite that growing evidence, the City of Greater Geelong has no substantive strategy to promote business and employment on the Bellarine Peninsula - including Drysdale and Clifton Springs - in the postcarbon era. In the Council's Drysdale and Clifton Springs Structure Plan, its view of the towns' economic development is restricted to encouraging some more shops and some more tourism - and it offers no strategy to promote even these meagre ideas. Similarly, the Council's Bellarine Peninsula Strategic Plan 2006-2016 lacks any substantive strategy to promote business and employment across the Bellarine peninsula.

Both the Structure Plan and the Strategic Plan have a clear view that local populations should and will increase, but neither Plan offers any strategy to meet these increased populations' economic and employment needs. Similarly, both Plans are clear that there will be a growing demand for housing, but neither Plan offers any economic and employment strategy to ensure that the new residents can repay their mortgages.

In the absence of a government-led substantive business and employment strategy, towns on the Bellarine Peninsula - including Drysdale and Clifton Springs - will continue to export jobs and spending to Geelong and Melbourne. An alternative approach is to regard the Bellarine as a 'green field' demonstration site for a postcarbon economy; and to reap the benefits in terms of increased jobs that the shift to such an economy is likely to create, at least in the short term.3 The first step in that alternative approach is to establish a Postcarbon Research and Resource Centre to advise, support and inform local businesses and communities as they move towards the postcarbon era.

A Postcarbon Research and Resource Centre on the Bellarine Peninsula
AIMS
• To advise businesses and communities on the Bellarine Peninsula how to make a smooth transition to a postcarbon economy and how to grasp the opportunities that such a transition offers. The Centre would offer sustainable, research-based solutions to local economic and employment needs.
• To support businesses - existing, new arrivals and start-ups - as they develop new goods and services to meet local needs in a postcarbon society.
• To inform and educate local people - individuals, groups and organisations - about the problems and opportunities of a postcarbon society, so that they can play an active role in creating one. The Centre's focus would be local needs, but its solutions to those needs will be applicable (suitably adapted) elsewhere.

STRUCTURE
The Centre should be established as an independent organisation, run by a Board representing diverse local interests and expertise, including (but not limited to):
• City of Greater Geelong
• Deakin University
• The Gordon Institute
• Marcus Oldham College
• Affiliation of Bellarine Community Associations
• Local business and farming groups
• Local trade unions.

The Centre should be located on the Bellarine Peninsula, not in Geelong. This sends a clear signal that its focus is the needs of the Bellarine's businesses and communities.

FUNDING
The Centre's initial funding base should be as broad as possible, to survive particular funders' changing priorities. Here is an indicative list of potential funders:
• Commonwealth Government
• Council of Australian Governments
• State Government of Victoria
• City of Greater Geelong
• Surf Coast Shire
• Borough of Queenscliff
• Deakin, Gordon and Marcus Oldham (including ‘in kind’ contributions).
• Philanthropic organisations
• Business and industry peak bodies
• Individual companies.

The Centre should be established with a sound business plan to make it self-funding in a specified time and with clear, measurable benchmarks of progress towards that goal.

THE FIRST STEP
The first step in creating a Postcarbon Research and Resource Centre would be to convene a meeting of potential stakeholders and funders to invite their participation in establishing the Centre. This meeting would have a two-part agenda:
• a presentation of the argument that such a Centre is needed and an outline of how it would meet local needs
• a 'brainstorming' session in which participants would divide the work necessary to take the Centre's establishment to the next stage.

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Notes
1. Stern, N. (2009) A Blueprint For A Safer Planet. London: The Bodley Head.
(p. 14)

2. Here are just two examples of government-led action to promote renewable
energy on a national scale, with international consequences:
Denmark and wind power. In the 1980s, the Danish government gave significant economic support to research and development into wind power. Today, Denmark manufactures over half the world's wind turbines; and 20 per cent of Denmark's electricity comes from wind power, which the government aims to increase to 40 per cent in the next decade.
Germany and solar power. The German government has invested heavily in research and development of solar power systems and requires electricity companies to buy solar-based electricity at attractive rates. Today, Germany produces over half the world's solar panels; and Germany is the world's largest market for solar electricity. The long-term aim is for 25 per cent of Germany's electricity to come from solar alone.
(McNeil, B. (2009) The Clean Industrial revolution: growing Australian
prosperity in a greenhouse age. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. [pp. 96-98, 98-100].)

3. Fankheiser, S., Sehlleier, F. & Stern, N. (2008) 'Climate change, innovation
and jobs.' Climate Policy. 8. (421 - 429)

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