Page 2793 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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Federal Government and the States to develop a national target and to identify a realistic target for an ACT contribution towards achieving that national target.
The Toronto agreement set an interim goal of a 20 per cent reduction by the year 2005 of carbon dioxide emissions globally. When considered along with the potentially tightened Montreal protocol for reduction in ozone depleting substances, this would mean about 45 per cent overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions - a very worthy aim and something which I am confident the governments of the world can achieve.
Many countries produce less greenhouse gas per capita than we do in Australia and in Canberra in particular. We need to carefully consider what our targets should be and how we measure achievement. We cannot just measure the fossil fuels used for energy in the ACT. Obviously we have got to consider our substantial imports of electricity and the manufactured goods we import as producing greenhouse gases.
There are many issues which need to be brought into the open, and the Government is looking to see how best this can be done. The greenhouse effect is not a simple matter, it is not a matter of black and white, but it is a very important matter. The issues are complex and they affect us all. We, as a Government, are developing a policy which shows leadership. It must not be an "at all costs" policy as those approaches invariably do not work.
The options and the trade-offs must be identified and taken into account in our considered response if we are going to be able to address the problems that we have identified throughout this debate. All in all, I am looking forward to the contribution of the community in this vital issue and I think the release of the Government's response and intentions in regard to the greenhouse effect has come at a very satisfactory time.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (8.11): I think it is clear from what has been said so far that the Alliance Government is determined to develop a systematic response to the environmental challenges facing the ACT. To achieve that we have produced a set of three policy statements which I think complement each other in developing a coordinated approach towards the environmental problems that face us.
We have first of all the Alliance's environment policy, which has in fact been on the table for some months. Secondly, there is the greenhouse statement, which we are debating this evening; and there is also the environmental platform which detailed a five-year implementation strategy for the environment policy. That platform, of course, was released on World Environment Day as one of a set of ongoing environmental initiatives.
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