A proposal to add greenhouse gases to the National Pollutant Inventory has been welcomed by Environment Victoria as a key step to tackle greenhouse pollution.
At a meeting of the Environment Protection and Heritage Council in Adelaide today, Victoria’s Environment Minister, John Thwaites, called on the nation’s environment ministers to add six greenhouse gases to the National Pollutant Inventory.
“Currently there are no laws requiring power stations and other major polluters to report their greenhouse gas pollution,” said Darren Gladman, Environment Victoria’s global warming campaign director.
“Major greenhouse polluters are hiding the extent of their greenhouse pollution,” said Darren Gladman.
“The community wants to know what companies are doing to reduce their greenhouse pollution and investors want to know about companies’ carbon risk. Including greenhouse pollution on the National Pollutant Inventory will prevent companies hiding their pollution statistics”.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” said Darren Gladman. “How can Australia claim to be managing greenhouse pollution if we don’t even know who is polluting and how much they are polluting?”
Australians are among the world’s worst greenhouse polluters because of our reliance on coal for electricity production.