It is difficult to imagine the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) getting much worse than it already was. It is an appalling piece of legislation that, if passed, will allow the ongoing expansion of Australia’s most polluting industries whilst giving the illusion that the Government is taking action on climate change. It passed through the Lower House of Parliament this evening and is headed for the Senate where the debate will no doubt turn into political circus.
As part of the concessions to win coalition support, the Government has agreed to exclude Agriculture from the scheme indefinitely, while giving farmers the ability to earn carbon credits. At one level it is a positive thing to give farmers an incentive to reduce agricultural emissions, but not if it gives the big polluters another source of cheap offsets so that they can continue with business as usual – which it will.
Whether or not this concession is sufficient to win coalition support is anyone’s guess. The debate is beyond bizarre. On one hand, the climate sceptics have been coming out of the closet to oppose the scheme, whilst on the other, the Greens and most of the environmental movement oppose the scheme as well – but for completely different reasons.
As the central plank of the Australian Government’s response to climate change, the CPRS perversely rewards big polluters, ignores the science, and will result in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise. Given the stark evidence from around the globe of a rapidly warming climate, this is unacceptable.
Rather than creating clean energy jobs, the CPRS will create jobs for lawyers, bankers and speculators. Rather than driving the transition to renewable energy, it will allow new coal plants to continue to be built, and will turn the longstanding “polluter pays” principle on its head.
Both the Government and the Coalition have allowed the short-term economic self-interest of the big polluters to undermine good policy, and our future. Many of the largest corporations operating in Australia, including BHP, Rio Tinto, Woodside, Alcoa, Xstrata and others, have put their own short-term self interest above the interests of the community and have undermined the scheme from the outset.
As Ross Garnaut said, “this whole process of policy making over the ETS has been one of the worst examples of policy making we have seen on major issues in Australia.”
It is time that our elected representatives on both sides of politics stopped using climate change as a political football, and it is time that the big polluters were banished from the halls of Parliament.
The CPRS does not need to be passed before Copenhagen. What is needed is for Australia to go to the Copenhagen meeting with a strong target to cut emissions by at least 40% in the next decade. And these emissions reductions need to be actual reductions in greenhouse pollution in Australia – not just paying other countries to cut their emissions or some kind of creative accounting.
A price on carbon has a useful role to play but only as one of many policies that will be required to shift to a zero carbon economy. The CPRS needs to go back to the drawing board and, as a matter of urgency, the Government must immediately begin work on a ‘Plan B’ that:
· delivers policies that directly and immediately reduce greenhouse pollution;
· lays the groundwork for a fundamental transformation of our energy economy;
· increases Australia’s resilience to the increasingly harsh impacts of climate change;
· builds Australia’s capacity to halve our emissions over the next decade;
We are rapidly running out of time to avert runaway climate change. We need an action plan to transition to a zero carbon economy as soon as humanly possible, and we need to work with the international community to support other countries to do the same. We cannot allow old political alliances and battles to deflect us from this task. Our children are counting on us.
