AUSTRALIA IN BREACH OF PRINCIPLE 2 OF THE ’92 RIO DECLARATION
PRINCIPLE 2. Of the Rio Declaration: ” States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national control”.
World Delegates Attending Rio Summit
The Earth Summit took place from June 3 to 14, 1992, and the Rio Declaration was one of the key outcomes of the conference, along with Agenda 21 and other agreements.
The global agreement – to which Australia is a signatory – states that parties “have the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States”.
Which means consumers of imported manufactured goods and exporters of fossil fuels should be held accountable for their roles in the co-production of carbon dioxide emissions released at a “distance”.
We are limiting the use of our own coal but are exporting it in ever increasing amounts overseas and buying the cheaper goods that are manufactured from it.
At this rate Australia could be indirectly responsible for nearly Two Billion Tonnes of exported GHG emissions by 2030.
5 Comments
Most of goods we import have embodied carbon which should to be added to our total emissions tally. If they were taken into account we would be one of world’s highest emitters of CO2. I raised the issue with a councilor several months ago who said she knew nothing about the “emissions at a distance”. There are Councils that are run solely on political lines which make it difficult for voters and councilors when there is a lack of community consultation.
This Net Zero thing will die a natural death when Australians realize it is just another Carbon Tax that put the Julia Gillard labor party out of business after promising they would not impose it.
“There’ll be no carbon tax under the government I lead”…… Julia Gillard
I cannot see any difference between a carbon tax or net zero either one will spell disaster for our economy and our way of life.
A carbon tax is a pricing mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions, where emitters pay a fee for each unit of emissions released. Net zero, on the other hand, is a state where emissions released are balanced by the amount removed from the atmosphere, resulting in no increase in overall greenhouse gas concentration. This comes from the A I which is programmed to overcome doubters