One of the main headlines in the first week of the election campaign was Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's announcement that Labor would sell additional Commonwealth land, much of it in outer metropolitan areas, to help ease the housing crisis. The Howard Government has a similar plan.
While there is a need for affordable housing, these policies will promote further urban sprawl and, in doing so, undermine measures to tackle climate change.
Earlier this month, Australian of the Year Professor Tim Flannery warned that a soon-to-be-issued report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would show that the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases had crossed the threshold for dangerous climate change.
The news prompted renewed calls for governments to implement measures to reduce emissions. Alarmingly, the situation is more serious than suggested by Professor Flannery. His statements were made on the basis that the new report would show the concentration of greenhouse gases reached 455 parts per million in 2005, some 25ppm above previous estimates. The significance of this figure is that some people have suggested it is necessary to stabilise the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases at 450ppm to ensure the global average surface temperature does not increase by more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Warming of 2 degrees is viewed by many as the threshold for dangerous climate change. The weight of scientific evidence suggests that keeping temperature increases below the 2 degrees threshold will require the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases to be stabilised at levels below 400ppm, not 450ppm.
Put more simply, we crossed the threshold for dangerous climate change some time ago. Worse still, there is little, if any, chance of stabilising the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases at levels below 500ppm.
There is too much momentum in the global economy and carbon-dependent activities, and not enough political support for change domestically and abroad, to achieve these targets.
This does not mean it is pointless to reduce emissions. On the contrary, the need for emission abatement is greater because of the heightened risk of serious harm. But mitigation alone is not sufficient governments must also begin adapting to the inevitable warming of the climate.
When evaluated in the context of global warming and the challenges it presents, policies promoting continued urban sprawl look decidedly undesirable. The pressures to release additional land for housing are obvious. House prices and rents have increased dramatically over the past 10 years, leaving many people struggling to find affordable accommodation.
A lack of supply is one reason for the situation, prompting governments to look to farms and bushland in outer metropolitan areas to satisfy demand.
In Canberra, the developments around Gungahlin and Tug-geranong are the most obvious examples. Large, outer metropolitan developments have been seen in other capital cities, the estates near Campbelltown in Sydney being the ones many Canberrans would be most familiar with.
Andrew Macintosh works on climate and environment issues at the ANU law school