Page 3047 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 23 September 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
inventory in 2010-11 and below the 2009-10 emissions of 4,399 kilotonnes. This is a very pleasing report for our community.
I am also pleased to be able to announce that greenhouse gas emissions per person have also continued to decline. The legislative target is for per capita emissions to peak by June 2013. While we do not have the results for this period yet, the trends from this and previous inventories show that per person emissions in the territory actually peaked in 2005-06 and the overall trend line is continuing to decrease. The level of ACT per person emissions in 2011-12 was 11.6 tonnes per person, a reduction of nearly five per cent on the previous reporting period. This is less than half the estimated national per person emissions of around 25 tonnes. This inventory also records that consumption of renewable energy in the territory has increased from 14.2 per cent in 2011 to 16.9 per cent in 2012. This shows that Canberrans want renewable energy generation as a viable alternative to fossil fuel power.
As the Assembly will be aware, in late 2013 the Assembly determined a new renewable energy target of 90 per cent of consumption by 2020. This replaced the 2011 electricity renewable energy target of 15 per cent by 2012 and 25 per cent by 2020. While these targets are superseded, this inventory shows that we met the 15 per cent target for 2012.
Madam Assistant Speaker, overall, this inventory shows that Canberrans understand the importance of climate change mitigation and are supportive of the government’s policies and actions, despite the lack of national level leadership. All Canberrans should take pride in the trends evident in this inventory and be inspired to continue the good work we are seeing to date in reducing our city’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The government’s strategy and action plan to address climate change, action plan 2, was adopted in 2012 to commence in 2013. The inventory I present to the Assembly today will form the baseline for implementation assessment of the actions in AP2. Importantly, it can inform the first review of this important whole-of-government strategy in 2014 and the government’s response in 2015. As we progress towards 2020, the government anticipates that AP2 actions, the 90 per cent renewable energy target and other important programs such as the energy efficiency improvement scheme, none of which were in place when this latest inventory report period concluded, will lead to further emissions reductions.
As Canberrans, we should be proud of what we have been able to achieve in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to date. I look forward to being able to present further inventories that continue this downward trend.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission for their work in preparing this latest ACT Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, and I commend the paper to the Assembly.
Papers
Mr Corbell presented the following papers:
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video