Reduce your carbon footprint

Though climate change can appear overwhelming, there are a number of ways you can take direct action to make your home and lifestyle more environmentally friendly and to reduce your personal carbon footprint.

What you can do right now

Australia generates more pollution per person than any developed country, including the United States. We produce more pollution per person than India and China. Australia’s carbon pollution is high because our electricity is mainly generated by burning coal. Other contributors are the transport and mining industries, industry, farming and deforestation.

Acting now is cheaper than acting later. Millions of households will be better off through Clean Energy Future. Households that improve their energy efficiency can help the environment and save money. Because households that do use less energy will still get to keep all of their tax cuts and payment increases, the carbon price will still provide them with a financial incentive to do their bit for the environment. The revenue from the carbon price will pay for new permanent tax cuts for millions of Australians. No-one will pay more income tax. The tax-free threshold will be increased from $6,000 to $18,200 in 2012, which is tripled. In 2015 it will increase to $19,400. And up to one million Australians will be freed from having to lodge a tax return.

The Australian Government has a range of incentives that can help you to make the transition.

Through the GreenPower initiative, Australian households and businesses can choose to purchase some, or all, of their electricity from renewable sources. By purchasing GreenPower you can further encourage reductions in power generation emissions through support of renewable generation.

Offsetting your carbon pollution

Once you have reduced your carbon pollution emissions as much as possible by becoming more energy efficient and making smarter choices, you can reduce your carbon pollution even further by offsetting remaining emissions.

Offsetting your own emissions simply means that you pay someone else to reduce the carbon pollution in the atmosphere to offset your emissions. For example, you may pay someone to plant and maintain a forest plantation that absorbs carbon pollution from the atmosphere.

To provide Australians with certainty that the offsets they buy are genuine, the Government has developed the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) to ensure there are clear criteria around how offsets are generated, verified and calculated.

Carbon Farming Initiative

Domestic offsets to meet the NCOS eligibility criteria will be provided for under the Carbon Farming Initiative.

NCOS Carbon Neutral Program

The NCOS Carbon Neutral Program allows the Australian operations of organisations or Australian products to be certified under the NCOS as carbon neutral, meaning that net emissions associated with a product or an organisation’s activities are equal to zero. A trade mark has been developed to provide consumers with confidence that organisations and products bearing the trade mark are committed to carbon neutrality in a way that achieves genuine emissions reductions.