Australia's greenhouse emissions questioned (may be 20% higher) - Reuters

[Eugene]

Australia's greenhouse emissions questioned
17 Jan 2007 04:45:25 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Australia's greenhouse emissions could be almost 20 percent
higher than government figures, and well above an earlier agreed Kyoto Protocol limit,
says a new report that studied land-clearing rates.

The Australia Institute report released on Wednesday said that recently published higher
land-clearing rates in one of the country's biggest states, Queensland, cast doubt on a
government claim that Australia was on track to meet the Kyoto target.

Australia signed the 1997 climate pact, which allowed the country's greenhouse gas
emissions to rise eight percent above 1990 levels by 2008-12. While Canberra pulled
out of the protocol four years later, it still cites the target as a measure of its green
credentials even though it is no longer obliged to meet it.

-snip-

"Without the decline in land clearing claimed by the federal government, total emissions
would have increased by over 20 percent between 1990 and 2004, well above Australia's
Kyoto target of an eight per cent increase between 1990 and 2008/2012."

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SYD222240.htm