Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
emissions is a cause for serious concern, if not always for ameliorative
policy.
4
The increasing market share of oil and gas provides some comfort -
these energy sources, especially gas, burn cleaner than coal - but carbon
emissions and methane leakage in extraction (especially by unconventional
methods) and processing potentially offset this benefit in part or whole.
1.2 The Australian Context
Some particular Australian historical and institutional peculiarities shape
and will continue to shape the way Australia experiences its boom in un-
conventional gas extraction. The system of property rights reflects its British
colonial history, but with a twist. In 1770 Captain James Cook claimed the
east coast of Australia for Britain under the doctrine of terra nullius
(nobody's land) thereby denying the legitimacy of all claims its original
inhabitants may have had. It took until the 1990s before aboriginal land
claims were given a rather limited form of recognition. Consistent with terra
nullius, settlers established claims to land by establishing occupancy and
only later were property rights for these squatters formalised. As this process
wore on, 'public lands' became literally a residual category: lands held by
government only because they remained unclaimed by settlers. Sub-surface
rights, including mineral rights, remained with the Crown - in effect, the
property of colonial governments, the state governments that succeeded
them and the territorial governments set up in non-state territories following
federation. Governments allocate exploration permits non-competitively and
for nominal fees, transferring to the permit-holder the right to explore
under relatively liberal conditions and to retain the rights to any minerals
found - essentially a 'finders keepers' regime.
The net effect of this convoluted history is that surface and sub-surface
rights are severed in most cases. Sub-surface rights are dominant and
are readily appropriated by licensed explorers. In practice, this means that
land-owners cannot look to property rights for defence against damages
induced by mining; rather, their legal protections are limited by the will-
ingness and capacity of governments to implement adequate regulatory
regimes. Nor do governments retain property in minerals discovered.
Vehicles for retaining benefits of mining for the Australian public are limited
to royalties and taxation and, with roughly 83% of minerals activity
controlled by multi-national corporations, governments have trodden lightly
in these matters.
Australia's prosperity has long been underpinned by commodity exports,
agricultural and mineral, in proportions that have varied according to cir-
cumstances. Economic growth spurts were driven by mining in the 1850s
through 1870s (gold), the 1870s-1900 (copper, tin, lead, and zinc), and the
1960s through the 1970s (iron ore, bauxite, nickel, tungsten, rutile, uranium,
oil and natural gas). The current minerals boom, beginning in the early
2000s, has been driven by exuberant economic growth in Asia, especially
mainland China. It focused initially on iron ore and coal, and was driven
