FIFTY companies were responsible for half of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and would pay the bulk of the carbon tax revenue, the Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, said yesterday.

In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra, Mr Combet said about 1000 companies would pay the tax on carbon but only a small number would be the main contributors.

”The latest … data shows that the 50 largest polluters account for over 50 per cent of Australia’s carbon pollution,” he said. ”When you include sectors that will not be covered by the carbon price, the 50 largest polluters will be responsible for around two-thirds of carbon liabilities.”

The climate change department’s website says the top five emitters are Macquarie Generation, Delta Electricity, Great Energy Alliance, International Power and CS Energy. Next are TRUenergy, Eraring Energy, BlueScope Steel, Loy Yang and OzGen. Other companies in the top 50 include Woodside, Rio Tinto, BHP, Qantas, and Xstrata. (Read on …)

Queensland’s environment department says an alumina refinery owned by Rio Tinto has spilt sulphuric acid into a creek in central Queensland.

Rio Tinto notified the Department of Environment and Resource Management that the spill occurred at the Yarwun alumina refinery on Sunday during heavy rain.

DERM spokesman Joe Pappalardo said an unknown amount of the acid was released into Boat Creek when the site’s stormwater system overflowed in heavy rain.

Urgent inspections and water sampling has been done at Boat Creek and nearby Port Curtis, at Gladstone.

“Inspections by DERM officers … have found no evidence of environmental harm suggesting that the recent rain and high tides in Boat Creek have helped to dilute the acid and flush it through the system relatively quickly,” Mr Pappalardo said. (Read on …)

IT WAS a DIY repair-job gone wrong that has now cost a Sydney man $19,000.

Peter Petrou, 43, was digging outside the house he shares with his parents and children in Randwick on July 31 last year, searching for a leaking pipe that was causing water to gush over his front steps and footpath, when he cut into what he described as a ”fat root” belonging to an old native brush box tree.

Although the cut did not kill the tree, it had to be removed, the council said, for safety reasons. Mr Petrou was ordered to pay $19,000 by Waverley Local Court for breaching a tree preservation order, thought to be the largest penalty of its kind ever issued in the local government area. (Read on …)

Queensland is set to introduce a raft of new penalties under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (EP Act), which include providing courts with the power to issue ‘name and shame’ and ‘education’ orders for breaches of the legislation.

On 24 November 2010, the Honourable Kate Jones, Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability introduced the proposed amendments and in her ministerial statement announced that:

‘Courts will now have more contemporary and flexibility penalty options for cracking down on companies that do the wrong thing’.

In addition to the proposed new penalties, amendments to the EP Act were recently passed that will increase the powers of inspectors and the duties of disclosure.

These amendments will have wide reaching impacts on both Queensland government and private entities who may find themselves under investigation for environmental issues. (Read on …)

THE company responsible for one of Australia’s worst oil spills could lose its offshore drilling licences if measures to shore up safety standards are not up to scratch, the government says.

The Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, has decided to review the Thai-owned gas and oil giant PTTEP’s licence to operate in Australia, after a damning report into last year’s Montara oil disaster, released yesterday, found the company failed ”basic oilfield practice 101”, resulting in a 74-day spill, spewing 29,600 barrels of oil into the Timor Sea.

The report into the disaster found a cement barrier in the Montara wellhead failed due to shoddy installation by PTTEP. (Read on …)

POLLUTION, illegal logging and wildlife smuggling are now parts of a multibillion-dollar international crime problem almost as lucrative as the drugs and illegal arms trades, a report says.

The prevalence of the latest electronic gadgets and the proposed introduction of emissions trading schemes would provide scope for the further involvement of organised crime in what is broadly labelled environmental crime, it warns.

Nevertheless, environmental crime is traditionally ”not viewed with the same moral repugnance” as property or personal crime – perhaps because it is perceived as victimless or does not always have immediate consequences, the report by the Australian Institute of Criminology warns.

”The recognition and acceptance of environmental crime as a genuine criminal offence … has perhaps been more problematic than other crime types,” the report says.

Internationally, environmental crime, including disposal of hazardous waste and wildlife trafficking, is often linked to other illegal activities such as drug trafficking and money laundering. In Australia, outlaw motorcycle groups are believed to be involved in the illegal trade of reptiles, spiders and pearls.

While the largest penalty under NSW environmental protection legislation is seven years imprisonment and/or a $1 million fine (or $5 million for a corporation), many environmental crimes are dealt with by warning letters or infringement notices. (Read on …)

Forests NSW is being forced to review its logging practices, after the discovery of a spate of new breaches including logging old-growth rainforests and destroying the habitat of threatened native animals.

The latest damage, at Girard State Forest near Tenterfield, is the fifth time in five months that the state agency has come under investigation.

The NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, which oversees environmental protection licences, is conducting a joint audit with the agency of logging in the region.

The review will examine the regulations under which contractors are employed by Forests NSW, and rules protecting native wildlife, young trees and trees surrounding waterways.

The department has already handed out four penalty notices to the agency this year for breaking logging rules in the nearby Yabbra State Forest. (Read on …)