Australia was one of the first countries to ratify the Intergovernmental Convention on Climate Change.  See:  http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/international/unfccc.html

Yet, if you read the executive summary (Chapter 1, introduction) of the Special Report on Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it says:

According to IPCC’s Third Assessment Report:
• ‘There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities.
• Human influences are expected to continue to change atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century.’
The greenhouse gas making the largest contribution from human activities is carbon dioxide (CO2). It is released by burning fossil fuels and biomass as a fuel; FROM THE BURNING, FOR EXAMPLE, OF FORESTS DURING LAND CLEARANCE and by certain industrial and resource extraction processes.
• ‘Emissions of CO2 due to fossil fuel burning are virtually certain to be the dominant influence on the trends in atmospheric CO2 concentration during the 21st century.
• Global average temperatures and sea level are projected to rise under all (…) scenarios.’
The ultimate objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has been accepted by 189 nations, is to achieve ‘(…) stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’...”

So, we signed up to the Convention and we have an obligation now to implement “national programs to mitigate climate change”.

Where do we go from here when Australia feels so free to ignore its international obligations?  Tassie’s native forests are put to the match every year.  Most of the biomass from plantations is piled up and burnt every year.  When the technology exists to mulch the biomass and store the carbon on our forests floor instead of releasing gigantic swathes of it to the atmosphere!
See first posting at:
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/weblog/comments/sue-napier-1992/

The incredible hypocrisy of this leaves me wordless.

If only we were so lucky Brenda!

Brenda, perhaps a student in environmental studies or forestry management might like to calculate the sheer qualities of carbon in post-harvest coupes that are burnt across the state each year. This could be done.

Such a calculation could then be converted into C02 emissions. Correct me, if I’m wrong but I thought that emissions from these forestry burnoffs are not included in Australia’s calculations of National annual CO2 emissions. Australians might be startled at the contribution from the nation’s smallest and ‘clean, green & clever’ state.

“from the stavin’s report it looks like a rough number is that 2 tons of CO2 can be sequestored per acre per year “

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Sequest_Final.pdf