It might not carry the same grandeur, excitement and anticipation as other annual events like Christmas, Melbourne Cup Day or New Year’s Eve, but the Federal Budget each May is one of those events that not only captures much of our attention, but sucks up our cash and often leaves us feeling a little bit disgruntled afterwards.
I remember last year’s budget. Everyone was hoping would be the ‘best budget ever‘. On that second Tuesday in May, we sat around the television in the hope that a new government – one that had for at least the last year admitted that climate change was real – would live up to its rhetoric on climate change by ending years of needless fossil fuel subsidies and prioritising putting public money for renewable energy.
As the new Treasurer got up to speak, it quickly became clear that this was not to be. Only one of the taxpayer handouts that drove the use of fossil fuels was removed. This left over $7 billion of our dollars each year continuing to line the pockets of the wealthy fossil fuel industries. There was the fossil fuel industry equivalent of small change made available for renewable energy, but the industry would have to wait another year before they could touch it (fortunately, since then, some of the renewable energy fund has been freed up).
I might sound like a kid asking Santa for a train set at full scale, but the reality is that climate change needs dealing with on all fronts. And we’re talking about wholesale change, not just tinkering around the edges. It’s not just an environment or an energy or an agricultural issue. Dealing with climate change also means looking at our public spending and making sure our nation’s economy is driving a transition to clean, renewable energy that will inevitably create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and deliver us real energy security.
The biggest change between this year and last, apart from losing another vital 12 months to act on climate change, is that the global financial crisis has arrived. So, what better time to weed out and remove all the subsidies to the wealthy fossil fuel industries?
Not only do we discourage the use of fossil fuels and help promote cleaner, more efficient behaviour, but we can instantly restore $7 billion to our ailing budget.
Subsidies are more often than not unnecessary, especially in developed economies. A report from the OECD in 2002 showed that removing all of the world’s fossil fuel subsidies would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6% and increase real income by 0.1% by 2010. So, if we’re in an environmental and economic crisis right now, wouldn’t removing fossil fuel subsidies in Australia be an ideal measure for tackling climate change?
We are again calling on the government to do the environment and economy a favour by ending needless taxpayer handouts to fossil fuels. It is the simplest, most economically responsible action they can take.
