The solemn monkey

Okay, Australia, if you can do something about lightbulbs, won’t you do something about cutting your damn CO2 emissions?

Australia’s government has announced it will phase out incandescent lightbulbs and replace them with more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs by 2009, in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The environment minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has said, “By that stage you simply won’t be able to buy incandescent lightbulbs, because they won’t meet the energy standard.” He added, “If the rest of the world … follows our lead, this will reduce an amount of energy to the tune of five times as much energy as Australia consumes.” In fact, the banning of incandescent bulbs is expected to help help trim 800,000 tons from Australia’s current emissions level by 2012 and lower household lighting costs by 66%.

With Australia refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol, and being one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas producers per head, it is good to see such a positive, even though small, step forward. Hopefully it will lead to further progress on the issue.

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