Australian lifestyle getting worse for environment: report

A new report on the health of the planet has found Australia's exploitation of its natural resources is worse than ever.

A study by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has found it takes nearly eight hectares of land to maintain the lifestyle of each Australian, up from nearly seven hectares in 2006.

Carbon emissions as well as cropping and grazing practices make up the vast majority of the country's massive ecological footprint.

WWF conservation director Ray Nias says the outlook is bleak.

"Unfortunately Australia and Australians are in the top five in terms of the amount of land required to feed our lifestyle and our consumption," he said.


meanwhile

Cutting Australia's greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change would have a negligible impact on the overall economy, but would hit some industry sectors much harder and would crimp growth in household incomes over the next few decades.

These are the key findings of federal Treasury's long-awaited economic modelling of the Federal Government's plans to introduce a carbon pollution reduction scheme from 2010, which would put new caps on Australia's emissions of carbon dioxide.

The modelling report, which runs to hundreds of pages, estimates the economic impact of Australia and the rest of the world all moving to put new caps on greenhouse gas emissions to arrest global warming.

Treasury projected how the economy would change over the next four decades with and without local and global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions including through imposing an emissions trading system.

The key finding for the overall Australian economy is that cutting emissions in line with the targets now being canvassed would reduce growth in gross national product by just one-tenth of one percentage point a year between now and 2050.


meanwhile at the coalface of the Liberal's do nothing see nothing policy

Mr Turnbull said Treasury should have considered the current economic crisis in the modelling.

"[Treasurer Wayne Swan] has said that the world changed when the global financial crisis hit with its full intensity some weeks or months ago," Mr Turnbull told reporters in Sydney today.

"And yet we hear from Senator Wong that the global financial crisis and its implications and likely consequences have not been taken into account in the modelling.

"Well, if the world changed, you'd think the Treasury would have included that or taken that into account in its modelling."

Mr Turnbull said there would be little impact on global warming if Australia acted alone on cutting emissions.

--------------------------

Meanwhile the earth is going down the tube — human made...

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has criticised Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull for wanting to delay the start of a carbon reduction scheme by at least a year.

Mr Turnbull says the Government's proposed start date of 2010 does not allow enough time to get such an important scheme right.

But Senator Wong says Mr Turnbull is just bowing to pressure from climate change sceptics within the Liberal Party.

"Malcolm Turnbull is keen for us to know that he was one of the people arguing for the ratification of Kyoto," he said.

"He wants us to know that he did believe that we should ratify Kyoto.

"But he got rolled by the climate change deniers in the Liberal Party, and the fact is he appears to be unable to stand up to the climate change deniers in his party."

Complex tax structures diverted resources from other valuable uses, he said. "Many high-achieving tax agents could be school teachers, for example."

The speech suggested that Dr Henry and his review panel want to reshape Australia's system of tax and transfer and welfare payments. He said the panel was examining the best way to tax companies without forcing them to cut investment or move overseas.

After spending time caring for an endangered species of wombat in central Queensland, Dr Henry noted the 125 separate taxes in Australia outnumber the population of northern hairynosed wombats.