Should Australia's fossil fuel exports be counted in its share of global carbon emissions?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has long suggested Australia can do little to influence the Earth's changing climate because its emissions make up just 1.3 per cent of the world total.

Should Australia's exported fossil fuel be
counted in its share of global carbon emissions?

The imputation, by extension, is we're too small to make a difference.

Such arguments have been made possible — in part — thanks to the international carbon accounting methodology most commonly used to apportion greenhouse gas emissions to individual countries.

Sometimes referred to as territorial-based carbon accounting, this system attributes emissions only to activity that takes place within a country's borders; for example, through the combustion of coal for power generation.

Read the ABC News story by Josh Gordon - “Should Australia's fossil fuel exports be counted in its share of global carbon emissions?”

National energy guarantee would cut 6 per cent off power bills in best scenario

Even the best energy policy will do little to reduce costs for consumers, experts have warned, as the Turnbull government resists pressure to substantiate claims its new policy will save Australians $2 a week on power bills. 

Minister for Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg, Deputy
 Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Prime Minister Malcolm
 Turnbull during Question Time at Parliament House in
 Canberra on Wednesday.  

 In Parliament on Wednesday, Labor seized on suggestions the reduction could be closer to 50¢ a week but Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg stood by the claim of an average $115-a-year saving between 2020 and 2030.

"The national energy guarantee is a credible, workable, pro-market policy that will deliver lower power prices for Australians and involves no taxes, no subsidies and no emission trading schemes," he said. 

A report this week from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found a 63 per cent power price rise since 2007 had put consumers under "unacceptable pressure"

  

Read Eryk Bagshaw’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “National energy guarantee would cut 6 per cent off power bills in best scenario.”