Another lost opportunity for action
Emissions trading issues paper another lost opportunity for action
Prime Minister John Howard's emissions trading issues paper is another lost opportunity for action and fails to come to grips with the urgent need to dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions.
The taskforce was being hindered by a government determined to protect the coal industry from the realities of climate change.
Prime Minister John Howard announced his emissions trading taskforce last year to avoid being embarrassed by the Business Council of Australia which was about to publicly support a price on carbon.
Asking the public and industry questions that were asked by the federal government in 1999 and by the state governments in developing their proposed emissions trading scheme is a waste of time. We know enough now, from two rounds of consultation and from the experience of the European emissions trading system, to get on with the design.
The Prime Minister is just stalling until after the federal election due later this year.
Australian Greens climate change spokesperson Senator Christine Milne has said
"Why are we going through the farce of consultations when Finance Minister Senator Minchin said today that the government is opposed to Australia acting unilaterally to introduce a domestic emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax in the absence of global action? There will be no global emissions trading scheme of the sort that the government says it wants because no scheme will protect the coal industry from paying the costs of its pollution."Instead of playing political games, the government must decide what degree of warming constitutes dangerous climate change and set a national greenhouse reduction target. Only then can we develop financial mechanisms which reduce greenhouse emissions.
The longer the government delays setting the right policy frameworks, the more difficult will be the national task and the more exposed Australia will be to social and economic dislocation and runaway climate change.
