Letter to The Editor - The Mad Mad Maths of Australian Emissions Targets

Most politicians live in a green fantasy-land where facts and numbers don’t count.

They dream up fanciful figures for proposed cuts to industrial and agricultural emissions without any understanding of the remorseless growth of population.

The Australian government has set a target to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 27% from 2005 levels by 2030, just 11 years away. The ALP opposition plans to cut emissions by a staggering 45% by 2030.

Australia’s population is growing at 1.7% per year (higher than most other developed countries). At this growth rate, population will increase by about 50% from 2005 levels by 2030.

If we did NOTHING about cutting emissions, and the economy stood still, the continuing rise in population will ensure that emissions (and economic activity) per head of population will fall by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030.

Who among us is volunteering to use 30% less food, petrol, gas and electricity than we used in 2005 solely because of population growth? Who is promising to abolish the baby bonus and cut our intake of migrants, refugees, tourists and foreign students by 30%?

And of those prepared to make these sacrifices, who is volunteering to meet even the modest government cuts proposed for 2030 which will require us to use 50% less food, petrol, gas and electricity per capita than we used in 2005? The Green/ALP cuts would take us back to the middle ages.

We have just three choices – reduce population growth; abolish emissions targets; or welcome creeping poverty.

There is a fourth choice – eject all climate fools from the political stables in Canberra.

Their proposed emissions targets will harm the natural environment by splattering the land with subsidised wind and solar monstrosities. They will also divert land from producing food to producing ethanol fuel for cars, and they will force poor people into poverty with soaring electricity prices.

But they will have no measurable effect on climate.

  Viv Forbes

Authorised by K. W. Grundy
13 Carsten Court, Happy Valley, SA.