Media release – Peter Gutwein, Premier & Minister for Climate Change, 25 June 2020
Leading the world in climate change action
Tasmania’s latest greenhouse gas emissions profile confirms our position as a world leader in mitigating climate change.
The latest State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories shows we have hit our target of net zero emissions by 2050 for the fourth year in a row.
The data also shows that in 2018, Tasmania emitted negative 2.19 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents – 111 per cent lower than our 1990 baseline emissions of 20.10 megatonnes.
Not only were we the first jurisdiction in Australia to achieve net zero emissions in 2015, but importantly the emissions intensity of our economy is trending downwards, even as we continue to grow our economy and jobs.
This globally significant achievement highlights our enviable renewable energy profile and our unique opportunity to lead Australia’s transition to a low-emissions economy, attract more investment and create more local jobs. Renewable energy and clean hydrogen projects will be vital growth areas in our economic recovery.
Given our strong emissions performance, it is important we are able to maintain this momentum.
Which is why in coming months we will strengthen our legislative framework, develop and consult on our next whole-of-government climate change action plan, and review future emissions to determine if we can set an even more ambitious target, driving investment and job creation.
Climate Change is a significant issue and one that this Government takes seriously. It brings challenges but also enormous opportunities for our state and our economy.
As we continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, our plan will stimulate even more investment, and will create even more opportunities for Tasmanians, both now and the future.
Media release – Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens Leader and Forests spokesperson, 25 June 2020
Latest Greenhouse Accounts Show Forests Doing Heavy Lifting
The latest State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories 2018 confirms Tasmania’s native forest estate is foundational to this island’s positive emissions profile.
Our globally significant, carbon sink forests are doing the heavy lifting on climate.
The latest greenhouse accounts also confirm the huge carbon positive impact of getting loggers out of more than half a million hectares under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement in 2012-13.
It’s clear that with our relatively small population and large, remaining tracts of old forests, the single biggest contribution Tasmania can make to a safe climate is to protect native forests and reforest degraded lands.
Today, for the first time, the Premier and Minister for Climate Change, Mr Gutwein, rightly described Tasmania’s forests as a ‘carbon bank’.
His Resources Minister, Guy Barnett, is still lurching around in the dark ages with a chainsaw.
Mr Barnett persistently calls the 356 000 hectares of high conservation value forest set aside under the TFA a ‘wood bank’. Native forest logging is escalating on his watch.
The science tells us it takes at least a century for a logged and burned coupe to recover the carbon that’s been lost.
We don’t have a century to ensure a safe climate. These forests, our carbon bank and gift to the world, need protection.
Media release – The Wilderness Society, 26 June 2020
Tasmania’s Low Net Carbon Emissions Are Because It Logs (A Bit) Less Native Forest
Tasmania’s Liberal State Government is right to trumpet Tasmania’s epically low net carbon emissions, but omits to mention this is only because forestry industry reforms that it opposed means the State now logs fewer native forests than it used to.
The most recent State and Territory Greenhouse Gas inventories show Tasmania’s net emissions were negative 2.19 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, 111% lower than 1990 baseline emissions of 20.10 megatonnes.
“The climate “action” the Gutwein Government claims is that of the Labor-Green government, which began to transition the native forest logging industry out of Tasmania’s native forests. We are seeing the climate benefits now, while the Gutwein Government continues to log the most powerful climate solutions we have.
“About 10 years ago, the Tasmanian Forest Agreement (TFA) more than halved the logging quota of state-owned logging agency Sustainable Timber Tasmania so that many more unlogged native forests have been left to do what they can better than anything else: cheaply, safely and securely sequester CO2.
“It’s great Tasmania’s ‘Premier for Climate Change’, Peter Gutwein, celebrates this outcome but he should credit the role of Tasmania’s unlogged forests in achieving it. Perhaps he didn’t because he opposed the TFA reforms and tore-up that Agreement—some of the outcomes of which he now ironically welcomes.
“‘The Premier for Climate Change’ could show he’s real on climate by completing these logging industry reforms and finally transition the uncommercial native forest logging industry out of native forests so that Tasmania becomes a proud 100% plantation forestry state.
“Even better, if he does this before 2030, he’ll beat Victoria, and reap the first-mover advantage that comes from investors and wood buyers knowing that all wood coming from Tasmania is forest-destruction-free.
“When logging ends in Tasmania’s native forests, our precious Gondwanan forests can finally be left in peace to do the heavy lifting of CO2 sequestration and species protection, and help offset millions and millions more tonnes of CO2. The Gutwein Government would then be in a position to say that it took climate action instead of claiming the credit of others,” said Mr Allen.
