Going green for cost of a phone call

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/going-green-for-cost-of-a-phone-call/2008/02/14/1202760494380.html

Going green for cost of a phone call

Marian Wilkinson Environment Editor
February 15, 2008

FOR the cost of a daily local phone call, Australians could cut their greenhouse gas emissions to the same ambitious levels now being considered by the most advanced European countries, an economic study has found.

The report by the management consultants McKinsey and Company, advisers to some of the world's biggest corporations and institutions, says that by 2020 Australia could cut its greenhouse emissions to 30 per cent below 1990 levels for a cost of less than 80 cents a day for each household - or $290 per year. Over the same period household income is expected to rise by more than $20,000 per year.

The cuts could be made without a big technological breakthrough or dramatic lifestyle changes, the report finds, and by 2030, emissions could be slashed up to 60 per cent.

"This is not daydreaming. This is a fact-based analysis aimed at setting the goal posts," one of the report's authors, Stephan Gorner, told the Herald.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23216638-11949,00.html

'Efficiency and forestry' key to cuts

Matthew Warren, Environment writer | February 15, 2008

FORESTRY and more efficient use of energy, rather than gas or renewables, can spearhead deep cuts in Australia's greenhouse emissions by 2020, according to research by heavyweight business consultants McKinseys.

The report, to be released today by the global A-list consultants, backs environmentalists' claims that Australia can afford to cut its greenhouse emissions by nearly 40 per cent over the next 12 years.

Major energy users dismissed the claim as "literally fantastic".

The report claims deep emission cuts of 30 per cent by 2020 based on 1990 levels could be achieved at a cost of about $3billion a year, or up to $65 per tonne of greenhouse emissions. Australia is currently 9 per cent above its 1990 emissions.

The report claims the first quarter of the 40 per cent emissions cuts could come by improving the efficiency of energy use in factories, offices and households through insulation and retrofitting of electric motors and airconditioning systems, which would deliver huge savings in power bills.

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