Tackle climate change! - Use royal assistance!

When it comes to fighting climate change there’s a lot of hot air in Australia. Prime Minister Rudd wants to cut Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions by 60% - but only by 2050. That’s a long time and in 42 years none of the politicians who are in power today, will be accountable should this ambitious aim fail. However, it is very convenient to have a target set so far into the future. If nothing will have been achieved by 2018 or 2029, there will still be soft spoken politicians to tell the then audience that there's still a lot of time.

Politicians from both sides pretend, measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions should not effect “working families”. But it is inevitable, that it will change their lives - and quite rightly it should change all our lives -, however the longer they wait to take action, the more harmful and vastly more expensive these necessary changes will be.

Neither Labor nor the Coalition want to become “unpopular” for introducing an trading programme for carbon dioxide emissions that has a cost impact on the mythical "working family". Why don’t they seek for help? The heir to the throne, Prince Charles, could show them – and the Australian public - a way to fight C02 emissions. The Prince of Wales’ Rainforests Project encourages everyone to take part in the fight.

The Prince’s Rainforests Project was set up in October 2007 by The Prince of Wales to find practical methods to slow or even reverse, tropical deforestation and combat climate change.

It is estimated that as much as 12 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions result from deforestation, and both the Stern review and the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report believe tackling deforestation may be one of the quickest and most cost effective means of reducing emissions in the short term.

The Prince of Wales has long been concerned that the world will continue to live off capital rather than income, and what we enjoy today will be at the expense of our children and grandchildren, unless practical and robust systems are developed to enable broader and longer-term factors to be taken into account more effectively in accounting and decision-making.

Commissions and committees have been established, and policies and strategies developed and put into practice by the Government and companies; however, the translation of this aspiration into effective action is often inhibited by the lack of new “sustainability systems and processes”.

The Prince of Wales established his Accounting for Sustainability Project to address this issue: to provide practical guidance and tools to help ensure that sustainability is not just talked about but becomes an integral part of organisations’ day-to-day operations. The Project focused on developing systems to help organisations take into account, and report, the wider social and environmental costs of their actions.

With contributions from over 150 public and private sector organisations, the Accounting for Sustainability Project came forward with two practical and innovative tools to help organisations meet the challenge of the sustainable revolution.

It is good to see that the future King of Australia produces more than hot air and gives advice to everyone who wants to join his fight against climate change. A pity Australian politicians don’t want to see the future sovereign in Australia to help them and engage the Australian public in making climate change a matter for everyone. How can they claim climate change should be everybody's concern when they are unwilling to use the assistance that is so close at hand?