Australia's natural absorption of CO2 exceeds its man-made emissions

True, it’s all due to Australia’s great size and small population - but that’s the world we live in. These are arguments about what’s goodfor Australia, not for the rest of the world. In both absolute and per capita terms, Australia’s territory and population are already standout performers.

Even if you protest that Australia is largely semi-arid, while Brazil is largely rainforest, it can’t be denied that the contribution of Australian territory and waters, by absorbing far more CO₂ than it produces, is still huge, in terms of the IPCC’s figures. In both absolute and per capita terms, Australia stands out as the global hero in reducing atmospheric CO₂.

So we’d be justified in asking: Why would any responsible Australian government want to introduce a ‘carbon’ tax, when this country isn’t a net emitter of CO₂ at all? When, on the IPCC’s own figures, in net absolute terms, we absorb naturally more CO₂ than we emit? And when, in net per capita terms, we’re ahead of all other major nations and regions by a huge margin?

More to the point, where have CSIRO and the Department of Climate Change been on these questions? Why haven’t they applied the same simple logic to these issues? Calls to their offices have drawn replies that either the data are equivocal, or that no response would be provided.

Come on, fellas, it’s not that hard. You’d be forgiven for suspecting they aren’t publicising these facts because they’ve been told not to upset the party line - and let facts be damned, reality misrepresented, policy distorted and nation pushed into relative decline.