“The government said it would back a 25 percent cut in emissions from 2000 levels by 2020 if other rich nations agreed something similar as part of deal at the end of the year to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

The previous range of 5 to 15 percent is well below the U.N. Climate Panel’s finding that developed nations need to cut their emissions between 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”

Note the differing baselines between the Government’s emission cuts (from 2000 levels) and those proposed by the UN Climate Panel (from 1990 levels)? Not sure what it would equate to, but a cut of 25% from 2000 levels would be significantly less than the same cut from 1990 levels.

Surprising that this didn’t rate a mention across the Australian media yesterday as it gives the (deliberately?) false impression that the Government are moving into line with international standards, when that is clearly not the case.

The Government should be made to defend and explain their position of using 2000 as their emission-level baseline.

The hard things he won’t do - he hasn’t got the ticker.

He really is a dud.

And we will see it all over again when his budget next week will just rubn up more debt, and do nothing good for our troubled country.

http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2009/mr20090504c.html

 — and there are intriguing details. We now have *three* proposed targets - 25% if the global agreement aims at 450 ppm or less, 15% if there is a less ambitious global agreement, and 5% no matter what.

They also say that in the event of a 450 ppm global target, they’ll call a new election to gain endorsement for revised targets for 2050.

They also say that up to 5% of the 25% might be earned through purchase of international permits. This imitates the Waxman-Markey draft bill in the US.

Meanwhile, the review of the CPRS commissioned by the Coalition can finally be found here:

http://www.andrewrobb.com.au/news/default.asp?action=article&ID=510

Mitchell, that’s a pretty optimistic point of view. Sure, they have ‘left open’ the option to cut to 25%, but if you genuinely believe that summit will find a consensus to 25% you’ve lost your mind.

You have also badly ignored the extra assistance to industry, in the same week as the EITIs were excluded from buying MRET electricity. Rudd has, step by step, moved the burden of this scheme from the polluters to the public, and this offends me deeply. The coal/coal power industries are making a butt-load of cash, note also from public resources, and not changing their behaviour in any way at all. Some will probably even make more money. It’s a Clayton’s ETS, and I look forward to voting against it at the next election.

So when the major change being announced is a deeper target - something which no big polluter was lobbying for - I find it hard to see how this can be construed as a “complete surrender to the largest polluters”, who will still be facing additional expenses totalling billions of dollars per year. If this is “surrender” to anyone, it’s to Malcolm Turnbull, who called for both a delayed start and a deeper target.

I wish he would throw the Tony Blair ‘Guide book to non governing government’ in the circular filing cabinet and govern rather than wait for the next photo op.

How mediocre and disappointing this Federal labor government is.

Bah! Humbug.

Yours faithfully

etc.