Q&A

Dr Mark Diesendorf

Associate Professor

UNSW Sydney

Could you introduce yourself to those who don’t know you?

My name is Mark Diesendorf and originally I was trained as a physicist, a physical scientist. And after I got my PhD, I gradually broadened out into particularly focusing on sustainability and energy issues. Much of my research has been on implementing 100% renewable energy for Australia and for the world - and how to do that technically. But what I found was that the more I worked on the problem, the more I realised that the technical problems are the minor part and the major problems are really the resistance of vested interests who do not wish to make a transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy and energy efficiency. And, also the existing economic system. Now, I had an introduction to questioning the existing economic system when I was doing my PhD because my professor, who was an applied mathematician and a famous physicist, also had recently written a book called Dynamic Economic Systems, which basically showed some of the flaws in neoclassical macroeconomics. So that was my first introduction really to questioning conventional economics. And that has run in parallel to my work on energy and sustainability. And of course, now, I've reached the stage where I feel that it's essential to change the existing economic system and that technological change is necessary, but it's not going to be sufficient And what we're facing is resistance to the change

First, partly by vested interests: the fossil fuel industry, the weapons industry But also they are backed up by an economic system that is based on exploiting the environment and exploiting the majority of people.So, that's where I'm at, at present, and I've become increasingly interested in alternatives to conventional economics as part of the transition to a more sustainable society.

What do you think is the most important issue that we, as a planet, can solve? Or an issue that you are trying to solve?

Well, for me it is climate change, but I'm conscious that there are many other issues where we are crossing planetary boundaries. We are losing biological diversity at a huge rate, we are destroying our soils around the world, we are using up and polluting freshwater at a high rate. And I'm talking on a global scale. Probably that will do for starters. I'm not, strictly speaking, a climate scientist, but I'm a scientist and I do a lot of engineering work and a lot of other, more interdisciplinary work on solutions to the climate problem and the technical solutions as I see it, are 100% renewable energy together with using energy more efficiently, less wastefully. But I also see in broad terms as I've mentioned in the introduction , a need to actually weaken the driving forces of unsustainability, and these I see as powerful industries and individuals are rich people whose spending is causing a lot of the problem. And changing the economic system to one which ultimately is what's called the steady state economy. Where the concept was originally coined by Herman Daly back in the 1970s. And so that's in broad terms my approach but in terms of my research output it's mostly on making the transition to 100% renewable energy But my interests are much broader than that Because making the energy transition alone isn't going to be enough to stop the collapse of civilization and the destruction of the biosphere.

Building on that view and this holistic approach to solving these kinds of problems, when did that start being important for you?

Ok, well, I first became concerned about environmental destruction as a young child, actually. Because, where I lived, across the road was a magnificent tree that I used to climb and I would spend hours sitting up in the branches there and I just loved it. And one fine day a housing development started across the road and the tree was cut down and I really felt that loss. And as I grew up, I started walking in the Bush. Bush walking is very popular amongst some of us in Australia. And I started to gain an appreciation of nature. So that was the personal start. But in terms of my academic work, it didn't really come in until I was well advanced in my career and I started with energy issues and then I saw that the sustainability issues, the issues of having a sustainable society, were much broader than energy as I've outlined a moment ago. And then I started to learn about some of these other issues. Although I can't claim to be an expert on issues like biodiversity and soils and freshwater, I'm conscious of them. And in trying to formulate solutions to the sustainability problem, I felt the need to at least read sufficiently to be able to understand the magnitude of the threats in these areas. Becoming aware, for example, of the destruction of the Amazon rainforestwhich is now at such an advanced stage that a large part of the Amazon now is becoming a net emitter of carbon dioxide instead of an absorber. Not all of the Amazon is at that stage yet, but probably 1/4 at least is. So I guess it's evolved and the more I tried to work on renewable energy in Australia, I found enormous resistance from the fossil fuel industries

So, for example, I was in our National Research Organisation as a young scientist, that is CSIRO, It's the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. And I managed to get some funding. And this is way back in the late 1970s, I managed to get some funding for doing research on wind power.

And this was before wind power was a global industry, before it was a commercial industry, apart from very small wind turbines. There was then strong resistance from the people who run CSIRO to work on renewable energy. There was work going on in many different divisions around the country. Australia was one of the world leaders on solar hot water at that time. It was also a leading researcher on passive solar housing, and it was doing important work on bioenergy as well. So this is back in like 1978 to 1980. And what happened was that as our work advanced on wind power the executive that controlled CSIRO suddenly announced that they were shutting down all renewable energy research across the organisation in every state of Australia

The solar research, the bioenergy research, the passive solar housing and our wind power research was all shut down. And I was retrenched from CSIRO and fortunately I managed to grab a university job. But that then brought home to me the power of the fossil fuel industry, which was very well represented in the executives of CSIRO. Even though renewable energy in those days was just a research topic, there was no chance of it being economical, except maybe passive solar housing. And yet the fossil fuel industry feeled so threatened and was so powerful that it shut down all the renewable energy research across this National Research Organisation. So that brought home to me that it isn't going to be sufficient just to do the science and the engineering, but one also has to tackle the driving forces of unsustainability And that I'll be bringing out very strongly in my new book that will come out next year.

So yeah, that's how it's evolved. And of course, I've seen many other examples of the power of the fossil fuel industry in my country, Australia, because Australia is the world's biggest exporter of coal, alongside Indonesia.

And it's the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas And so the coal and the gas corporations in Australia are incredibly powerful politically, and they have succeeded in totally holding back strong policies by our federal government to phase out fossil fuels and to accelerate renewable energy. The miracle has been, in my country, that renewable energy has grown quite rapidly despite the efforts of our previous federal government partly because of the actions of the community. 1/4 of all houses in Australia have rooftop solar electricity and per person - that's world leading. We have many wind farms and solar farms already and one of our states, South Australia, already gets 2/3 of its electricity from wind and solar, and it'll be 100% within a few years. So the transition is happening despite the resistance of the vested interests which are so powerful, particularly at the federal government level in Australia And of course, the same thing is happening in the United States, the same resistance, and in quite a few other countries.

When we talk about implementing infrastructure in less developed countries and communities where they have no money for these expensive renewable energy systemshow can you justify reaching a solution that is centred around sustainability rather than the urgency of their needs?

It's a really good question and what's happening in many so-called third world countries or the global south is that it's becoming quite clear that for many of the poorest people who, of course, live in villages I'm thinking of countries that I visited, like India and Bangladesh, and these villages will never be connected to an electricity grid. It just doesn't make sense.

Ok, well, I first became concerned about environmental destruction as a young child, actually. Because, where I lived, across the road was a magnificent tree that I used to climb and I would spend hours sitting up in the branches there and I just loved it. And one fine day a housing development started across the road and the tree was cut down and I really felt that loss. And as I grew up, I started walking in the Bush. Bush walking is very popular amongst some of us in Australia. And I started to gain an appreciation of nature. So that was the personal start. But in terms of my academic work, it didn't really come in until I was well advanced in my career and I started with energy issues and then I saw that the sustainability issues, the issues of having a sustainable society, were much broader than energy as I've outlined a moment ago. And then I started to learn about some of these other issues. Although I can't claim to be an expert on issues like biodiversity and soils and freshwater, I'm conscious of them. And in trying to formulate solutions to the sustainability problem, I felt the need to at least read sufficiently to be able to understand the magnitude of the threats in these areas. Becoming aware, for example, of the destruction of the Amazon rainforestwhich is now at such an advanced stage that a large part of the Amazon now is becoming a net emitter of carbon dioxide instead of an absorber. Not all of the Amazon is at that stage yet, but probably 1/4 at least is. So I guess it's evolved and the more I tried to work on renewable energy in Australia, I found enormous resistance from the fossil fuel industries

So, for example, I was in our National Research Organisation as a young scientist, that is CSIRO, It's the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. And I managed to get some funding. And this is way back in the late 1970s, I managed to get some funding for doing research on wind power.

And this was before wind power was a global industry, before it was a commercial industry, apart from very small wind turbines. There was then strong resistance from the people who run CSIRO to work on renewable energy. There was work going on in many different divisions around the country. Australia was one of the world leaders on solar hot water at that time. It was also a leading researcher on passive solar housing, and it was doing important work on bioenergy as well. So this is back in like 1978 to 1980. And what happened was that as our work advanced on wind power the executive that controlled CSIRO suddenly announced that they were shutting down all renewable energy research across the organisation in every state of Australia

The solar research, the bioenergy research, the passive solar housing and our wind power research was all shut down. And I was retrenched from CSIRO and fortunately I managed to grab a university job. But that then brought home to me the power of the fossil fuel industry, which was very well represented in the executives of CSIRO. Even though renewable energy in those days was just a research topic, there was no chance of it being economical, except maybe passive solar housing. And yet the fossil fuel industry feeled so threatened and was so powerful that it shut down all the renewable energy research across this National Research Organisation. So that brought home to me that it isn't going to be sufficient just to do the science and the engineering, but one also has to tackle the driving forces of unsustainability And that I'll be bringing out very strongly in my new book that will come out next year.

So yeah, that's how it's evolved. And of course, I've seen many other examples of the power of the fossil fuel industry in my country, Australia, because Australia is the world's biggest exporter of coal, alongside Indonesia.

And it's the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas And so the coal and the gas corporations in Australia are incredibly powerful politically, and they have succeeded in totally holding back strong policies by our federal government to phase out fossil fuels and to accelerate renewable energy. The miracle has been, in my country, that renewable energy has grown quite rapidly despite the efforts of our previous federal government partly because of the actions of the community. 1/4 of all houses in Australia have rooftop solar electricity and per person - that's world leading. We have many wind farms and solar farms already and one of our states, South Australia, already gets 2/3 of its electricity from wind and solar, and it'll be 100% within a few years. So the transition is happening despite the resistance of the vested interests which are so powerful, particularly at the federal government level in Australia And of course, the same thing is happening in the United States, the same resistance, and in quite a few other countries.

When we talk about implementing infrastructure in less developed countries and communities where they have no money for these expensive renewable energy systemshow can you justify reaching a solution that is centred around sustainability rather than the urgency of their needs?

It's a really good question and what's happening in many so-called third world countries or the global south is that it's becoming quite clear that for many of the poorest people who, of course, live in villages I'm thinking of countries that I visited, like India and Bangladesh, and these villages will never be connected to an electricity grid. It just doesn't make sense.

But what is happening is that you're now seeing, in many of these villages and also in Africa, small solar systems. Just a small solar collector and a battery. And that is sufficient for lighting in the evening, which means that children and adults can study. It's a much better lighting than using kerosene, and kerosene is actually expensive in India, for example, although it is subsidised by the government. And it turns out that solar in many parts of the global south is actually cheaper. And I'm now talking about small solar systems, a single battery that's just got enough to store electricity for a few hours. Enough electricity for lighting and for perhaps a radio, and for charging a mobile phone. And this is spreading across the Third World very rapidly And thanks to the low cost of solar panels Now, batteries are still expensive and in some global south countries there are schemes where a village can have a stock of solar charged batteries. But, solar is spreading in these countries. So I guess that's the first thing, but it's really strange and you still see journal papers written about covering Africa with high voltage transmission lines, as if villagers will be able to tap in to this technology which is really designed for large industries and for exporting electricity or exporting the products of industrial technologies produced by large industries. And there's this sort of naive idea that somehow you put in large power stations. Large coal-fired power stations and high voltage transmission lines. And the argument is made that somehow that will lift the country out of poverty. Well that's very questionable, very debatable to say the least And certainly what's happening is that at the grassroots, people are going solar and that's exciting