One of the greatest challenges for the world is to combat and adapt to climate change. Australia's Defence Force aims to do whatever it can to halt its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions across its broad range of activities.

What is Combat Climate Change?
The Combat Climate Change initiative aims to increase awareness of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, and most importantly, how individual actions can make a difference.

How does Defence produce greenhouse gas emissions?
Greenhouse gas is produced by a myriad of our activities, in the main however:

• The electricity that Defence uses is primarily coal powered, despite Defence opting for a percentage of all energy provided by greenpower, or power from sustainable or renewable energy sources.
• Defence waste that ends up in landfill produces greenhouse gases, unlike waste that is recycled, or composted naturally.
• Emissions from our car fleet, planes, ships and other vehicles that run on petrol or diesel, and to a lesser extent, gas.

What can we do about it?
Based on the key areas outlined above, Combat Climate Change has developed some actions you can take now at work (and at home too) to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These are:

How can I help in the office?
Remember, just because it's not your home doesn't mean you don't pay for it - we are all taxpayers, and of course we still contribute to greenhouse gas emissions when we are at work.

1. TURN LIGHTS OFF WHEREVER AND WHENEVER YOU CAN
Many of Defence buildings have timers on their lights, however turning your area lights off saving even ½ hour a day makes a big difference. Meeting rooms should be unlit when not in use - are they? What about the bathrooms? Rationalise lighting where you can and if its not in use switch it off.

Don't know where you're switches are? Ask your friendly Regional Energy and Sustainability Manager and switch off.

2. TURN YOUR PC MONITOR OFF AT NIGHT
Also during long absences away from your desk.

3. TURN OFF ALL APPLIANCES IN BREAKOUT AND COMMON AREAS
Did you know that generally microwaves use more power to run the clock than to heat food over the course of tis lifetime!? Turn it off at the wall along with kettles, toasters and any other appliances.

4. TURN PRINTERS, PHOTCOPIERS AND FAXES OFF AFTER USE
When they are not needed turn them off unless they need to be connected to the network. Ask your friendly Regional Energy and Sustainability Manager if you're not sure.

5. SAVE PRECIOUS RESOURCES LIKE PAPER AND WATER
Paper takes energy to produce, procure, to deliver and finally to print on, so do you really need to print that out? Read things online when you can and track changes in your documents instead of printing and marking up. Save water when you can, it takes energy to procure it, clean it, pump it and deliver it and as climate change is affecting rainfall patterns and evaporation we've none to spare anyway.

6. REDUCE, REUSE AND RECYCLE
Recycle your paper - print on the back and make sure you are printing double sided. Many important documents are printed double sided, so why not your financial projections?!

Then recycle it in recycling bins provided for you - can't find yours? Ask your friendly Regional Energy and Sustainability Manager for help.

7. CAR POOL TO GET TO MEETINGS
Or even better, don't have them! Can you touch base via phone hook up instead? If you have to meet car pool with others and reduce car travel as much as you can.

8. FLY LESS
Airplane flights are a large contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Where you can touch base via phone hook up and reduce your travel if possible.

How can I help whilst training or on exercises?

1. LOOK FOR WAYS TO MINIMISE ENERGY USAGE
Again, basic principle is to turn off lights and appliances when you don't need them, including generators.

2. REDUCE WASTE AND DISCARD REFUSE RESPONSIBLY
Make sure you take your rubbish with you and dispose off by recycling wherever possible. Food scraps should be composted. For other ideas on waste management during exercises ask your friendly Regional Energy and Sustainability Manager .

3. REDUCE IDLE TIME IN YOUR CAR, PLANE, SHIP OR OTHER MILITARY VEHICLE
Are you all revved up with no place to go? Standing in line hanging around with you engines running is a contributor to global warming, and of course, its totally unnecessary! Look at better ways to program activities so that idle time is reduced.

How can I help at home?

There are HEAPS of ways you can combat climate change at home. Here's a few but click on the fantastic sites below to find out what your carbon footprint is and find more ways to reduce your emissions and save money too!

1. Change your light bulbs to more efficient compact fluorescent ones. These save you heaps of money and heaps of CO2 as well!

2. Use a water efficient shower head and have shorter showers - save hot water and energy to pump it. We're light on for water in Australia so this is a good idea anyway.

3. Use cold water to wash clothes and run full loads only. Less money wasted on heating water.

4. Recycle your household waste and compost non meat food scraps - this saves heaps of C02 and is great for the garden too.

5. Drive less - rationalise trips and car pool when you can. Walk or ride your bike, combat obesity AND climate change!

6. Tune your car and inflate your tires - increased fuel efficiency will save you and the environment.

7. Turn off all appliances at the wall - on standby mode you are still using power, a lot more than most people realise. Turn off at the wall and save.

8. Adjust your thermostat and your hot water heater thermostat. Just a few degrees can make a huge difference to your bills and emissions and you won't even notice it.

9. Plant a tree - one tree will absorb one tonne of CO2 in its lifetime.

10. Avoid lots of packaging - less garbage = less emissions

HOT LINKS TO HELP COOL GLOBAL WARMING
If you want to know what else you can do have a look at the sites below:

Want to see how you can save heaps of money and emissions by doing a home energy audit? Check out the Australian Greenhouse office's "Cool It" online guide:

What if you're renting? You can still make a difference!

Want to check out your own carbon footprint and make some changes yourself, locally and globally? See Al Gore's web site

Want to know more about green energy and green power choices in your area?

Time to trade in that petrol guzzler to save $'s and the environment?

What's the latest in energy ratings for efficient appliances?

Thinking of renovating? Save yourself tonnes of money and emissions

Contacts
The Environment, Heritage and Risk Branch are working with all areas of Defence to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To find out more about including what you can do to help go to the contact the Climate Change Manager or your local Regional Energy and Sustainability Manager.