The statement
Australian forests adsorb 940 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum compared to our domestic and industrial emissions of 417 million tonnes. Add to that the absorption of carbon dioxide in continental Australia to the carbon dioxide adsorption of 2,500,000 square kilometres of continental shelf waters and Australia sequesters some five times as much carbon dioxide as it emits. Australia does more than its share of the heavy lifting for global sequestration of carbon dioxide.
The source
Professor Emeritus Ian Plimer, Australia is already at Net Zero, in The Spectator, 24 May 2022
My take on it
This article is for those who are taken in by the concept of Net Zero, in order that they might look at another perspective. (I’d prefer not to give the Net Zero notion any oxygen.)
Net Zero relies on multiple assumptions including that the globe is getting dangerously hotter, and that this is caused to a significant extent through the generation of carbon dioxide by human activity. It’s a narrative that fits the globalist agenda, rather than the truth.
As to the first assumption, please see my next post.
And perhaps a few words on carbon sequestration. Sequestration means a withdrawal into seclusion. Carbon sequestration refers to the removal of carbon from general circulation. Biological carbon sequestration happens naturally through photosynthesis, the process whereby plants use solar energy to combine carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) with water to produce carbohydrate (especially glucose) and oxygen. That carbohydrate is a building block that enables the plant or tree to grow and reproduce. It is also an energy source for that growth, in which case the chemical equation of photosynthesis is reversed to that of respiration, some of the carbohydrate combining with oxygen to yield carbon dioxide and energy. Over time, plants and trees may be cropped, or burned off, or simply die, in which case carbon is released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (or methane) once again. It’s just a matter of time.