Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

That is indeed an incredibly important question. The world, and Australia in particular, is well aware of the substantial challenge that we face as a result of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As Senator Chapman knows, over a trillion tonnes of carbon have been pumped into the atmosphere over the last 150 years, and we are on track to pump in about another trillion tonnes of carbon over the next 50 years. So we do need to address that.

We know that the globe is warming. The science tells us that it is already starting to warm and that the oceans are starting to warm, and that is likely to have substantial negative impacts on Australia. That is why Australia has led the world in mitigation measures to stop greenhouse gases going up. That is why we are one of the few countries in the world which is likely—and I say ‘likely’ in an informed way—to meet its agreed Kyoto target, the 108 per cent target signed up to at Kyoto.

It is worth noting, however, that it takes a lot of hard effort to ensure that we do meet that target. I congratulate governments like the South Australian government for the effort they have put in as well as a number of other governments and also industry. Last night I attended the Greenhouse Challenge Plus celebration, at which we presented Yalumba Wines, from South Australia, with an award for achieving their greenhouse target of a seven per cent reduction.

The Australian nation has achieved 85 megatonnes of carbon abatement a year because of the efforts of industry. The Greenhouse Challenge partners have achieved 15 million tonnes of abatement, and Australia has achieved 85 megatonnes. But we are going to have to work hard and harder to achieve 108 per cent. It is going to be difficult in such a strongly growing economy. We will not back off from achieving the target, Mr President, I assure you of that. But we do need to ensure that the world and Australia have all of their options open. We need to ensure that we stop deforestation and land clearing and to ensure the sorts of forward-looking programs under our forestry policy, so ably overseen by Senator Abetz, that will see three million hectares of trees planted in Australia by 2020.