Page 2494 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 22 August 2006
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There is a responsibility within the Chief Minister’s Department, vested in me, in relation to water and energy policy, and that is quite reasonable. At the level of policy determination in relation to those issues, accepting, of course, the responsibility which I hold, too, as a shareholder in and minister responsible for Actew and ActewAGL, it is quite reasonable that the Chief Minister, or the holder of that position and that particular responsibility, would retain overarching responsibility for major policy in relation to both energy and water. That reflects indeed the seriousness with which I and the government take issues about climate change.
It is said often, and it is a statement with which I essentially agree, in the context of issues facing the world from time to time in recent years or recent times that the greatest issue or threat facing the world is the emergence of international terrorism; but I see more and more the suggestion that perhaps the threats posed to the world by climate change are equal to or greater in essence than the threat the world faces from terrorism, and that is a suggestion that I think has some force. I accept it. I believe the great threat facing the world and its future are the implications of climate change, and I believe it is overdue that we as a nation respond to those implications.
Mr Mulcahy: And terrorism is the second, is it?
MR STANHOPE: Yes, and I think that in the context of the world there are probably a few other issues that we might add to that list. I am responding simply to the statements that are made from time to time that the most important issue facing the world is this or that. It has been oft mentioned in recent years that terrorism leads the list, but I think as well of climate change, issues around poverty, and water and its availability.
There is a whole range of other subjects that we might add to the list, but, for the purposes of a discussion about sustainability, the environment and climate change, I think it does give some force to the importance of the issue of climate change to put it there as one of the great issues that the world faces currently. It is an issue which must be dealt with at a national level first and foremost, but each jurisdiction, of course, has its role to play. We are a non-emitting jurisdiction in terms of big industry or the generation of power—the great greenhouse emitters in Australia, of course, are the power generators and heavy industry, which we do not experience—but, of course, we are users.
Mrs Dunne: As a result, transport is our second biggest user.
MR STANHOPE: Absolutely. We are major users of transport, major users of electricity and major users of the products of the generation of power. Indeed, as we know from a report which I tabled 18 months ago or so, our ecological footprint is the largest in the nation. We, as a community, do have a very strong moral obligation, despite our own fantastic environment, to respond as consumers of energy to the greenhouse gas emissions for which we are personally responsible, and we have done that. In its first year of operation, the ACT greenhouse gas abatement scheme reduced, we believe, CO2 emissions for which we are responsible by 316,000 tonnes, equivalent to annual emissions produced by 73,000 cars.
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