Australians Are the Worst in the World
Thu, Nov 15, 2007
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Australia has been named the world’s worst polluter in a new global ranking list.
The list was posted on the Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) website and looked at over 50,000 power stations worldwide to determine its rankings. The list ranked countries according to the amount of CO2 produced from generating power.
Although Australia does not emit the largest amount of CO2, that honor belongs to the US at 2,530 million tons per year; its comparatively low population and high level of emissions make it the largest polluter per capita. Australia emits 205 million tons of CO2 annually, the 7th highest overall. This works out to around 10 tons per person. The US, in second place, averages 8.2 tons per person.
Carma hopes the list will help push countries towards lower carbon emissions. Kevin Ummel is a research assistant with the Center for Global Development, the company that compiled the data for the list. Ummel said: “The experience of people in the environmental field has been that supplying the public and markets with information that they did not have has often led to improvements in environmental quality. There is no reason why this could not happen for carbon emissions.”
Australia is one of two nations, the other being the US, which did not ratify the Kyoto accords. The country regularly places in the top of lists of worst polluters. Environmental groups have been actively pushing the government towards more environmentally friendly policies, however. Earlier this week close to 150,000 people rallied in cities and towns across Australia to draw attention to global warming as an issue in the upcoming November 24 elections.
Source: BBC
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“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else.”
August 7th, 2008 at 8:24 am
You should also note that australia just has a population of 22 million people, so 10 tons per person isn’t in equation of the huge country and production!
They have huge natural recources which they ship to the vs and asia, but refine in the country itself. Of course you can blame the source, but we are the people asking for it!
November 18th, 2008 at 2:03 am
It is worth noting that since the change of government, Australia did at last raftify Kyoto. It may not be much, but it is something. And Australia seems to want to be present in a new global commitment coming up in Poland. So, some cause for optimism in these bleak times!
May 1st, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Australia is very rich in resources
It exportes millions of tone of coal ,iron, aluminium, etc
A huge amount of electricity is required to do the job. This has NOTHING to do with population consumption. It is entirely industrial FOR EXPORT
The corporations involved are often international mostly BRITISH and US
In other words ,the Anglo/deuch corporative empire is vandalising the Australian land (the british crown has huge rural proprieties and interest in minings eg:rio tinto )
for Australia to reduce emmissions of Co2 by 5%(nationaly ) it means the PEOPLE will in fact suffer 25% reduction (because the mining will go on )
But all that do not have to Happen as the Co2 FEAR is a scam
Check this http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2550682.htm