The Australian government’s Direct Action policy for meeting carbon emission reduction targets

Australia’s carbon emission reduction policies are designed to honour the country’s commitment to the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, the government’s voluntary approach to environmental policy is unlikely to achieve emissions reductions. Scientists have long been arguing that the world must reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases, such as methane, because the build-up of these gases in the atmosphere is creating a greenhouse effect by trapping in heat that would otherwise radiate out into space. The vast majority of climate scientists, some 97%, believe that humans are causing global warming (Doran and Zimmerman, 2009) and the impact from the greenhouse effect will create higher temperatures, more extreme and variable weather conditions and desertification. These impacts will have incredible costs on the world’s economies and its people, plants and animals.