This Business of Reducing Emissions

If Victoria’s “Grow Me the Money” program was replicated across the country, Australia would be a third of the way towards meeting its 2020 emissions reduction target,  while Dr Tim Flannery believes large animals like cattle and sheep are essential to restoring the health of the planet and reducing greenhouse gas levels.

Mathew Murphy in The Age (19 November 2009):

The Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called on its Australian counterparts to implement basic carbon-saving measures that it calculates could deliver a third of the Federal Government’s 2020 emissions reduction target.

An analysis by VECCI shows that about 46 million tonnes of carbon a year could be saved if Australian business was to match its business-run sustainability program.

VECCI’s ”Grow Me the Money” program, which began in 2007, is a free initiative aimed at helping Victoria’s small to medium-sized businesses become more sustainable while improving profits.

VECCI’s analysis shows participants are saving an average of $6600 a year and reducing their carbon footprint by 28 tonnes a year.

The chamber’s chief executive, Wayne Kayler-Thomson, said Australia’s 2 million businesses were responsible for half the nation’s 600 million tonnes of annual emissions.

He said that if the Grow Me the Money program was replicated across the country, the Federal Government would be a third of the way towards meeting its 2020 emissions reduction target of 138 million tonnes, or 5 per cent below 2000 levels.

Source: www.businessday.com.au

Vernon Graham for The Land/Farmonline (18 November 2009):

ENVIRONMENTAL scientist, Dr Tim Flannery, believes large animals like cattle and sheep are essential to restoring the health of the planet and reducing greenhouse gas levels.

Dr Flannery said the planet and its atmosphere had evolved through the interaction between plants and animals.

He said 99 percent of gases we breathed were produced by plants and animals but about 200 years ago humans discovered fossil fuels which, “combined with our destruction of living things like forests and soils, had pumped tens of billions of extra tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere”.

The forum at which Mr Flannery was speaking last week was organised by Meat and Livestock Australia in a move to get on to the front foot in the increasingly noisy debate about whether people should become vegetarians to save the planet.

The five environmentalists on the panel were the Climate Institute’s Corey Watts, Murdoch University Professor of Sustainable Agriculture, Nick Costa, NSW livestock producer, Sam Archer, the MLA’s Beverley Henry and Dr Flannery.

There was general agreement with Professor Flannery that large farm animals helped retain fertility in the land and recycled carbon but also that they had to be better managed and bred to maximise their environmental benefit while reducing methane gas emissions.

He backed cell grazing where stock are rotated around paddocks to ensure desirable grasses and herbs survive.

Dr Flannery and Mr Watts opposed including agriculture in the Federal Government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), saying such a regulatory framework would be a nightmare if imposed on family farmers.

Instead agriculture should be opened up for carbon offsets.

Dr Costa declared red meat could be “nutritious, clean and green” and MLA managing director, David Palmer, said livestock industries had cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5pc since 1990.

During the same time emissions from electricity generation had risen by 49.5pc and transport by 26.9pc.

Source: www.theland.farmonline.com.au