CANBERRA, Australia - Australia's government is pitching a proposal in which it would be a-OK to kill camels in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions—and in exchange for cash. The AP reports that in one year's time, just six of these creatures will burp about 600 pounds of methane into the air, which is roughly equivalent to the amount of CO2 a car produces in the same amount of time. With a population of 1.2 million wild camels, the country sees them as a big problem.- The proposal, released for public comment this week, would allow sharpshooters to earn so-called carbon credits for slaughtering camels. Industrial polluters around the world could buy the credits to offset their own carbon emissions. Each camel belches an estimated 45kg of methane a year, which is equivalent to a metric tonne of carbon dioxide in its impact on global warming. That's roughly one sixth the amount of Co2 that the US Environmental Protection Agency says an average car produces annually.
- A bill to create a carbon credit regime went to a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday and is expected to become law within weeks.
- A government registry will be set up to determine what actions will qualify for carbon credits, and bureaucrats are expected to decide by the end of the year whether killing camels will be among them.
- Mark Dreyfus, the government's parliamentary secretary for climate change, said he hopes the proposal wipes out camels from the Australian wild.
- "Potentially it has tremendous merit, because feral camels are a dreadful menace across the whole of arid Australia," Dreyfus said.
First introduced in the 1840s to help explorers and pioneers travel through Australia's arid interior, camels now cover vast tracts of the continent's parched and sparsely populated center and west.Camels compete with sheep and cattle for food, trample vegetation and invade remote settlements in search of water, scaring residents as they tear apart bathrooms and rip up water pipes.
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