Australia Switches on to Light Bulb Change

Australia will ban incandescent light bulbs to help cut greenhouse gas emissions, its government announced today.

Malcolm Turnbull, the environment minister, said replacing the country's incandescent bulbs could prevent up to 4m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere every year by 2015.

Banning the bulbs would also help cut 800,000 tonnes from Australia's current greenhouse gas emissions level by 2012 and lower household lighting costs by 66%, Reuters reported him as saying.

Mr Turnbull claimed Australia would be the first country to phase out the old-style - but Cuba launched a similar programme two years ago, and was followed by Venezuela.

Incandescent light bulbs, which were introduced more than 125 years ago, are acutely inefficient, turning only around 5% of the energy they use into light. The rest is turned to heat.

The minister said incandescent bulbs would be phased out within three years, and none would be on sale by 2009. More efficient compact fluorescent bulbs would replace them, he added.

"If the whole world switches to these bulbs today, we would reduce our consumption of electricity by an amount equal to five times Australia's annual consumption of electricity," Mr Turnbull added.

He said the initiative had the full support of the lighting industry and, although the more efficient bulbs were more expensive, they would pay their way within a year.

The opposition Labor party leader, Kevin Rudd, said he was 100% behind the idea.

Australia, along with the US, has refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, which sets greenhouse gas reduction targets, calling instead for an agreement requiring developing countries such as India and China to help combat climate change.

The country's conservative prime minister, John Howard, has said he would not adopt any greenhouse targets that could hurt the country's economy.

Australians are, per head, among the world's biggest greenhouse gas producers. However, climate change is becoming a major issue for voters as drought grips the country.