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6.13.2 Existing environment<br />

Greenhouse gas<br />

The Australian Department <strong>of</strong> Climate Change and Energy Efficiency estimates that<br />

NSW produced 157 million tonnes <strong>of</strong> carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO 2 -e) in 2010,<br />

22 million tCO 2 -e (14 per cent) <strong>of</strong> which was from the transport sector.<br />

Climate change in NSW<br />

Global climate change predictions vary across the scientific community. There is<br />

however broad consensus that ‘extreme events’ will become more frequent 7 over<br />

time, leading to more prolonged dry periods, heavier more-intense rainfall, higher<br />

winds, and more extreme (hot and cold) temperatures. In addition, a general warming<br />

in global temperatures is predicted, which could see temperatures increase locally by<br />

0.2 to1.6 degrees Celsius (°C) on average by 2030.<br />

Roads and Maritime’s climate change adaptation plan is to build climate change<br />

resilience into the road infrastructure to prevent flooding, improve run<strong>of</strong>f and<br />

drainage, improve asphalt durability against temperature extremes, ensure winddamage<br />

protection and provide pedestrian shading.<br />

6.13.3 Potential impacts<br />

Greenhouse gas construction impacts<br />

Greenhouse gas emissions would result from the following activities:<br />

Construction traffic and equipment emissions<br />

Existing road traffic emissions, which would marginally increase during<br />

construction for the reasons described above in section 6.12.3<br />

Emissions generated in producing construction materials (termed embodied<br />

energy)<br />

Electri<strong>city</strong>-generated emissions in response to the power requirements to<br />

service work site requirements<br />

Upstream and downstream lifecycle emissions (eg. fuel extraction, processing,<br />

production, transport, disposal) including emissions at the construction<br />

compounds/laydown areas<br />

Emissions resulting from the breakdown <strong>of</strong> cleared vegetation.<br />

The proposal is <strong>of</strong> a scale that would only generate minor greenhouse gas emissions<br />

from the above sources over a short construction period. Consequently, the<br />

emissions have not been quantified suffice to note that the proposal would have<br />

negligible contribution to the State’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.<br />

The greatest contribution, which would be likely to be over half <strong>of</strong> the total emissions,<br />

would come from the embodied energy associated with the energy-intensive<br />

production <strong>of</strong> the concrete, asphalt and other construction materials needed for the<br />

proposal, as concluded by referring to the quantified assessments undertaken for<br />

similar road-development projects.<br />

This percentage and the overall emissions generated by the proposal may decrease<br />

by using a higher proportion <strong>of</strong> recycled materials as proposed under section 6.14.4.<br />

7 Hennessey et al, 2004a and Hennessey et al, 2004b<br />

Sydney City Centre Capa<strong>city</strong> Improvement 403<br />

Review <strong>of</strong> Environmental Factors

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