ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a brief description of the key characteristics of Australian agriculture is followed by a similarly brief survey of likely direct, indirect, and socioeconomic effects of Enhanced Greenhouse Effect (EGE) on Australian agriculture. It describes a systematic analytic framework for incorporating EGE effects on Australian agriculture, including a discussion of possible welfare effects in a partial-equilibrium setting. Because of the effect of macroeconomic variables on Australian agriculture, aggregative variables potentially directly affected by EGE—which are likely to interact with purely agricultural production-oriented EGE effects. The potential effects of a possible EGE on natural resources include CO2 availability, ambient temperature, rainfall, and wind and their effects on farm-production characteristics such as yield, land degradation, and externalities. Effects of EGE on natural resources would partly be directly environmental, but would also be substantially conditioned by management response. Potential socioeconomic consequences of EGE also include collective policy responses to EGE.
