Australia's greenhouse emissions questioned
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. Australia was one of the few nations allowed to increase emissions under Kyoto, which obliges about 40 nations to cut the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Australia was allowed the increase because of the expected benefits from reductions in land clearing used in calculating the overall emissions rate. The respected Australia Institute think-tank said Queensland state government data suggests land in the tropical northern state was being cleared at a rate of about 50 percent greater than national government figures. "If the Queensland government figures are correct, Australia's total greenhouse emissions may be well above the Kyoto target," said Institute deputy director Andrew Macintosh. "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." The Institute report titled "The national greenhouse accounts and land clearing: Do the numbers stack up?" said the government's land-clearing estimates had fluctuated wildly over the past 3 to 4 years. It said a government report in 2006 put Australia's 1990 land-clearing rate 33 percent higher than a 2002 estimate for the Kyoto base year. "Curiously almost all of the changes in the baseline figures published by the government have made it easier for Australia to meet its Kyoto target," Macintosh said in a statement. Australia, one of the world's major coal exporters, is the world's 10th largest emitter of greenhouse gases that many scientists say are causing global warming. Macintosh said the variations in the government's land-clearing data could not be explained by public information. "Due to these issues, there are doubts about the accuracy of the national greenhouse accounts and the government's claims that emissions have only increased by around 2.3 percent since 1990," he said. The Institute and the Australian Greens party both called for an independent review of Australia's greenhouse accounts. Greens Senator Christine Milne said that as Australia relies heavily on reduced land-clearing emissions to achieve its Kyoto target, the community must be confident of the accuracy of these emission estimates. "It will be a major global humiliation for the government if it has to admit to the international community that not only are its emissions in transport and electricity skyrocketing, but the offset it claimed from reduced land clearance does not exist," said Milne. Prime Minister John Howard refuses to sign Kyoto, saying it is unworkable without participation of major polluters India and China.
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