Climate Change
Australian total emissions, million tonnes of CO2 in 2007 were 396 Mt. Per capita Australians were in 2007 among the top climate change polluter nations of the world. Australian emissions of carbon dioxide per capita in 2007 were 18.8 tons CO2 compared to EU 27 average 7.9 tons. Emission change 2007/1990 (%) was +52.5 % compared to EU 27 average -3.3 %.
In March 2009 the British economist Nicholas Stern warned the governments in the international climate meeting of the high cost of climate change. He said policy-makers needed to think the likely impact of temperature rises of 6C or more. The target of limiting temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels is no longer realistic because the world emissions have grown faster than expected. An increase of more than 5C is "likely to lead to major disruption and large-scale movement of population". It said the effects would be "catastrophic" and "far outside human experience".
The footprint per person in Australia was the 12 th top in the world by PNAS in 2011.
Read more about this topic: Energy In Australia
Famous quotes containing the words climate and/or change:
“Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions ... extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“And I looked to be happy, and I was,
As I said, for a while but I don’t know!
Somehow the change wore out like a prescription.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)