Files
Abstract
Genuine savings is a conceptually valid one-sided indicator as to whether Australia
is on a weak sustainability path (negative GS would warn that current welfare is
unsustainable). The World Bank’s adjusted net savings (ANS) data summarise the
available evidence, and by this indicator Australia is muddling along, at best. ANS
misses some important pieces of the picture – net depletion of water, soil and
biodiversity, and most kinds of pollution damage – and thus overstates Australia’s
genuine savings performance. Weak sustainability can be promoted by getting the prices
right, and piecemeal efforts are underway via regulatory approaches and resource/
environmental markets of various kinds. Nevertheless, particular resource problems –
habitat conservation, biodiversity, climate change and dryland salinity – are likely to
also require strong sustainability approaches. A sustainable future involves pushing
weak sustainability as far as the body politic permits, invoking precautionary instruments
for specific resource crises, and nurturing policy processes that encourage the consensus-building
that will be necessary to get it done.