Polluter assistance and 5% target: Rudd’s CO2 fail
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The Government has restructured its emissions trading scheme to deliver even greater assistance to Australia’s biggest polluters and to scale back its commitment to participate in any international agreement, well below that advocated in the Garnaut Review. The emissions trading scheme White Paper released this morning proposes that Australia commit to a unilateral 5% reduction in carbon emissions on 2000 levels by 2020, equivalent to a 27% per capita reduction given Australia’s population growth. In the event of an international agreement, the Government has proposed committing to up to a 15% reduction by 2020, equivalent to a 34% per capita reduction. The unilateral target of 5% is in line with that recommended by Garnaut, and the 15% target would reflect an international agreement somewhere between the 550ppm realistic goal discussed by Garnaut — which would require a 10% cut — and the 450ppm ambition that would require a 25% cut by 2020. However, the Government has rejected Garnaut’s recommendation that it commit to a 25% cut if an international agreement around 450ppm is reached (equivalent to a 40% per capita reduction). Australia will go no lower than a 15% cut, even though the White Paper specifically states that “the Government believes that it is in Australia’s national interest to achieve a comprehensive global agreement to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at around 450ppm”. In the event such an agreement is reached, the Government has only committed to reconsider its post 2020 targets. The Government strongly argues that its 5-15% effort is comparable to that adopted by Europe on a per capita basis — Europe’s current goal of 20-30% below 1990 levels equates on a per capita basis to 24-34% below 1990 levels; Australia’s 5-15% goal would be 34-41% below 1990 levels. The Government has also made significant concessions to Australia’s biggest polluters in the design of the scheme. Under the White Paper scheme, the carbon price will be reduced by permitting unlimited importation of accepted international permits, and there will be a $40 price cap for the first five years of the scheme. The Government expects the initial permit price to be around $23 a tonne, and some borrowing of the following year’s permits will be permitted in addition to unlimited banking. The compensation arrangements have been significantly broadened to include industries that previously missed out on compensation and to provide greater flexibility for companies in determining their eligibility for compensation, through providing a value-added option in addition to the tonnes per million dollars revenue, and extending the period on which the calculation is based. The threshold of 2000t per million dollars revenue/value added has been retained from the Green Paper, above which trade-exposed firms will be eligible for 90% free permits. But in a big victory for the LNG industry and other previously borderline industries, the lower threshold at which 60% of permits are provided free has been dropped to 1000t per million dollars revenue/value added. As a consequence the proportion of free permits under the scheme has increased from 20% to 25% — with another 10% for agriculture, which will remain excluded until at least 2015. The Government has also clarified that such firms will receive increasing numbers of free permits if they increase production, meaning there will be no cap on emissions from our worst polluting sectors. There will be a 1.3% “dividend” deducted from caps each year but under normal economic growth conditions, it means that by 2020 45% of permits will be handed out free to polluters. The Government will also provided $3.9b over five years in handouts to the coal-fired power industry, as well as a $2.15b “climate change action fund” for handouts to businesses, community groups and the coal mining industry. The petrol excise offset from the Green Paper has been retained, and the Government has strengthened its household assistance measures, promising to overcompensate nearly all low-income households with 120% of their additional costs, and committing that most middle-income households will not be out of pocket. The Government expected to generate $11.5b in permit revenue in 2010-11, with all permit revenue recycled back into assistance, and a substantial risk that if big polluters grow faster than the rest of the economy, the Government will be forced to fund some assistance measures from the Budget. Now the Government’s selling task begins, commencing with Kevin Rudd – having bumped Penny Wong — at the Press Club today. Next stop, the Senate. |
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17 Comments
That’s a 40 year plan. Now ranters, what are you going to do? What have you done so far?
Does Clive Hamilton still fly all over the world to spruik his ideas and does he still let trees get killed to publish his books?
I think I can safely guarantee that Clive, Christine Milne and Bob Brown add more to the pollution of this planet than I ever have while they demand that other people go into third world conditions.
Sheesh, I am sick of this all this already. Did Rudd and Wong cause the f………..g mess?
No they did not. We did.
heh, after reading graeme’s, jamesK’s (and other’s) comments i always shake my head in confusion when they point out rudd and co’s percieved “deficiencies”, eg jamesk’s comment insinuating that penny wong was “upset” about rudd announcing the policy. i see it as the decision of a LEADER making sure that as LEADER he takes the flack for what he knows will be an unpalatable policy and who doesn’t allow his minister to hang out to dry when delivering it.
further, graeme indicates he didnt’ vote for rudd but in further comments says that he doesn’t think much of the policies. of course, he and others don’t come up with any alternative strategies for this major problem but simply pout- so predictable of right-leaning types.
just a question to you fellas (and others of your ilk): where is the right-leaning opposition with their suggestions and policies about climate change? many still make comments in the media denying it exists, and the leader of the opposition actually WAS the minister for the environment in the previous government, but he didn’t do anything about climate change apart from making some mewling sounds about how the government should think about signing up to kyoto. so please fellas, you’ve got NUTHIN, and any comments you make are just a lot of obnoxious noise.
i’m not happy with the new policy- i think it hasn’t gone far enough. the comments from industry and their spokespeople (heather ridout- UGH!), make me question what policies they’ve been forming to deal with this issue over the past 12 years? they’ve managed to rake in huge profits during that time, but did they honestly think this day would never come? they have filthy industries that they haven’t bothered to do a thing about, and now they want all of us to pay for the changes so they can give their upper management huge salaries and bonuses- for what? so they can threaten to go- where? they’ll still be on the same planet…
they’re the oz equivalent of the us auto industry.
Probably because you have a typically leftist small-minded and narrow world view all to readily expressed in a mealy mouthed manner.
Rant, rant and rant. I love it. I have not heard one of the ranters tell us what they will do. Will you stop driving your cars and catch buses? Will you use all low watt lights, shut off all appliances at night except for the most important like the fridge. Will you convert to gas where possible or solar otherwise?
Or will you sit around like dead shits whining and whinging that the guv’mint has to do your dirty work for you.
The debate is as deranged as the ‘conomic debate. Listen up pathetic children. Guv’mints can only set guidelines, the 21 million of us have to do out bit.
It is a 40 plan. If you want to go on a diet and set yourself a goal of 50 pound weight loss in 6 months and you lose in it one month what are the results? System failure, extreme illness and dehydration following being bunged into a hospital and then putting back on 60 pounds.
If we tried to shut down the coal fired power stations at the end of 2010 we would be plunged into a world wide “nuclear” winter because we have been so lazy about building new technology.
In South Australia 50% + of our power is gas, same in WA. Why hasn’t NSW and Victoria even bothered to make the switch as they are the bastard states holding the country in the dark ages.
Instead of whining about Rudd and what he says, ask what you can do and then do it.
Put the car in the garage and walk. Turn off the lights. My emissions tonnage per annum with simple measures is less than 2 or less than 10% of the national average.
Grow up children, do it for yourself - the guv’mint does not manage your pockets, why should they manage how dirty you are?
And the coal industry gets a very short time to change over and re-tool everything. Smart ones have been doing it already, like in SA and WA, and it will be less onerous.
Rant at NSW and Victoria.
And learn about what you are talking about - a 250 year mess will not be cleaned by 2020.
Nick - here, here!
Thanks, Marilyn, for your insulting and ill-informed comment. I am regarded as a ranter - I DO have low wattage light globes, I am attempting to get together the funds to convert progressively to solar and feedback to the grid, in the meantime I purchase renewables from my power suppliers. I subscribe to voluntary carbon offset schemes where available.
So there you go, i’ve got my mouth where my money is, as opposed to my foot.
Your abuse is not helpful. But keep it coming, it makes me laugh.
We do need this ET to go further, I’ve always said that rather than funding the desals and other schemes the money should be invested in private homes to put solar on every house, tanks in every place and mandate them to be installed under EVERY new building to enable us to harvest storm water wherever it falls on concrete rather than continue to destroy our river systems.
Just an idea.
Graeme L cast your mind back a while and remember that the previous government were climate change sceptics and did zero to address the known environmental challenges that lay ahead - in fact they did quite the opposite by encouraging us to consume as much as we possbily could therefore increasing emissions.
Marilyn amongst your um, ranting and whining and peculiar spelling I agree with you that discussion on both climate change and the Global Economic Crisis (GEC) is deranged and that is because our leaders, and any group of people needs one, have become so entrenched in vote winning strategy and disagreeing with the opposite side regardless of what they are saying, have become competely disconnected with reality.
What we need is a few good men…
..or women
Get over it, universal action is required, in its absence, a learning phase is smart and neccessary,
These commenters asking for more WOULD NOT accept the financial reality of the higher targets.
Whinginging and bitching about WORKING FAMILIES would then be the province of the commentariat,
Including CRIKEY’S brood.
I am a supporter of Crikey, lets see you convince USA and CHINA the i’ll subscribe and march with you,
Even just China, go on, i dare ya’
Or even there there…
CO2 Fail? Don`t make me laugh! It`s a Big Success for a Big Business party, such as Labour, which some 20 years aga has dropped any pretense of being connected in some tenuous way, to the ordinary people. Under the `alternative` Liberal coalition, things would have been much the same: welfare to the polluters, wealth transfer from the majority poor to the rich and `market solutions` to the impending and unimaginable ecological catastrophe, which will dwarf many 1930`s depressions, but from which there is no escape and no hiding place for anyone. But, of course, under the capitalist mode of production, it is a given, that there must be growth, international competitiveness and `strong` balance sheets, and let the workers pay! In other words, Capitalism is incapable of solving the three exiistential problems that it caused in the first place: 1. a global ecological catastrophe that will inevitably become irreversible, 2. constant wars, armed conflicts and social disruption on a massive scale, and 3. rising poverty and hunger at a time when world productive capacity could eliminate this scourge. We MUST look for a solution to these terminal problems OUTSIDE the Capitalist system, or we will be forced to do that under the weight of events. Byt then it will be too late!
Thank you Mikey for providing sensible commentary on the above, which actually suggests a viable solution for the mess we are finding ourselves in.
And Marilyn, political commentary is a productive and, I believe, necessary exercise. The day we stop questioning the policies of our leaders will be a very sad day indeed.
I am extremely disappointed by Rudd’s ET and once again have lost faith that politicians have the capacity to act with integrity and resist the temptation to bow to the demands of big business. Whiskers and JamesK are right - what we need is a very good men/women….
Why do the words “little weasel” spring to mind?
“I am honoured that the prime minister will be announcing the policy that I’ve had responsibility for”…………
of course you are Penny.
What a nausea inducing address at the NPC.
The only thing Rudd is strong is PR (you make up your own mind what that stands for)
Rudd’s following a game plan. I’m convinced its about forging early perceptions of being a disciplined affable conservative determined to install Labor policy and dint the opposition on political tactics. He’ll have the support of the electorate until such time as he becomes a monumental question mark over a platform of failed ‘revolutions’ in environment, workplace, education and indigenous policy. By that time the only war on his hands will be to defeat a defeated opposition. Its been done before back in his home state where he’s been drip fed on deceitful governance by both conservative and working man administrations. So far he hasn’t deviated from the Bjelke-Beattie principle of keep them guessing and do nothing.
Global warming is either real or not - caused by human actions or not.
Big Kev07 has clearly decided that whatever the answer, it is not a serious issue. I didn’t vote for him but we’ve got him. Bad luck for the faithful who did vote for him - they are entitled to feel very very cheated.
But that was always going to happen. I just wonder now what Rudd is going to do when the bikky tin is empty and the world is barren and stuffed. Both could happen real soon!
I do feel sorry for the blind who voted for him IN GOOD FAITH, but have now been shown the truth. He couldn’t make a hard decision if his life depended on it!!
Marilyn, great to see you ranting on about the ranters (and whingers).
“…we have been so lazy about building new technology” - is it just me, or is that because of the very government policies you think we should stop whinging about. You know, subsidizing old polluting tech, while not providing market incentives to move to new cleaner tech. Seems pretty obvious to me; but hey, perhaps you’re right, individually we CAN make a difference - Hooray!
You and I should get off our lazy asses and ‘build some new efficient technology’ together.