Saturday, November 13, 2010

QLD govt ClimateSmart vs "Something big"


A poignant slide from Dr Guy Pearse's talk "Is 'Queensland - The Smart State'? - Queensland's Continuing Addiction to Carbon" at UQ on the 28th of October. Full speech with slides available from the UQ Global Change Institute website.

Guy's talk made some very important points, (as summarised on the website), in Queensland "current policy would leave Queensland’s emissions 36% higher in 2050", which is shocking considering QLD already has one of the highest per capita emissions levels in the world and that "Meanwhile, the government is spending billions of dollars on infrastructure to help Queensland double coal exports over the next decade or so. The legacy of that is a state generating more than 50% more greenhouse pollution at home and abroad than Australia’s current national total."

Guy's talk (and the slide above) showed how all the current policy measures are not going to dent the continuing increase in C02 emissions within QLD, and even if they did, are obliterated by the increase in the coal exports we are sending to the rest of the world. Clearly far more government action is needed.

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