Pressure on the NT Government continues to rise with the imminent release of the Scientific Inquiry Into Hydraulic Fracturing Final Report and recently released figures showing a 28% rise in the NT emissions over the last ten years.
Some of the Territory’s biggest economic contributors and also the largest contributors to carbon emissions met in Alice Springs last week.
Reducing carbon emissions and climate action was not on the agenda of either the AGES Mining Conference or the NT Cattleman’s Association Industry Conference.
“The Northern Territory is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. We can’t just stand by and watch emissions rise from new gas projects, land clearing and lack of industry innovation,” said Jimmy Cocking, CEO of the Arid Lands Environment Centre.
“Whilst Territory emissions only represent 3 per cent of the national total, we are only 1% of the national population. In contrast South Australia, who has had a strong focus on renewable energy, contributes only 5% of the emissions with 7% of the population.
“If the Beetaloo Basin is fracked it is estimated that the carbon emissions will be 4-5 times that of the Adani project. When the INPEX Ichthys gas project comes online it will produce 280Mt of carbon over its 40-year lifetime. We have also got large scale land clearing projects that have just been approved that will also increase emissions.”
“The Territory has ample opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. Through supporting land managers to account for and build carbon stock in the land while also changing management practices to increase carbon sequestration, significant climate gains can be made.”
“With climate impacts already being felt, our government can simply not accept that emissions will continue to rise unabated. We need a comprehensive climate policy that has emission reduction targets, we need to ban fracking, stop investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure and transition to a low carbon economy.”
The Arid Lands Environment Centre is calling on the NT Government to take serious action on climate change. Go to http://www.alec.org.au/alec_climate_action for more details.
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