Carbon neutrality for just $169 a year: Prof Peter Newman

Just 46 cents a day is all it would cost each Australian to make the nation carbon neutral.
Murdoch University sustainability expert Peter Newman says it's a relatively small price to pay and could make Australia carbon neutral in just three years.
Professor Newman will present a free public lecture at Murdoch on Thursday, May 31 to show how people, companies and the country could become carbon neutral.
He has called on the Government and primary producers of greenhouse gas to agree to a carbon charge which, if passed to consumers, would cost each Australian $169 a year.
"If the Government imposed a $13 a tonne tax on power, gas and oil producers this would generate a $3.5 billion annual Carbon Fund," Professor Newman said.
"This could be used to plant enough trees to offset the country's greenhouse gas emissions in just three years and generate research and development projects into sustainable living and renewable energies."
Professor Newman said it was vital Australians embraced the carbon tax concept which would enable changes in everyday behaviour.
"It would be interesting to see how many Australians would see this as an unnecessary tax or as an essential way to make a national contribution to a major global problem," Professor Newman said. "It would be my bet they would prefer this to being seen as an international pariah on climate change.
"This concept will have immediate results and we will be able to show the world we are no longer polluting the atmosphere."
Professor Newman's lecture "Carbon Neutral Households, Football Teams and Nations" will feature Spike and Mary Edwards from SBS TV's hit series EcoHouse which followed two families' efforts to become carbon neutral.