Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse …
Yesterday the government performed a policy back flip on its emissions trading scheme. Unfortunately the acrobatic feat landed us even further in the mire. Instead of showing some much needed leadership, Prime Minister Rudd delayed and watered down his already dismal plans. It couldn’t have been easy to undermine something that was already useless, but somehow, he has done exactly that.
The changes could have been written by lobbyists from the coal industry. In fact, they probably were… a cap on carbon prices of only $10 a tonne for the first year, a one-year delay to the introduction of the carbon pollution reduction scheme, and yet more free permits to pollute. It’s Christmas come early for the big polluters.
The one supposed olive branch to the environmental movement was an increase in the emissions targets, which Australia will take to the global climate talks in Copenhagen in December this year.
But while an increased ‘conditional’ target of 5-25% emissions cuts may seem like an improvement, climate science shows that we need 50% cuts by 2020 to even give us a fighting chance of avoiding the worst effects of climate change.The government will call us extremist as they have the Greens, but our calls for change are based on what the science demands, rather than political compromise.
You have to wonder how this move will be viewed abroad. With an unambitious emissions target stymied by a raft of provisos, the only clear message Rudd is sending is that we will are waiting for everyone else to make emissions reductions first. It hardly augurs well for the strong global deal required.Kevin Rudd is clinging to the past as though it will provide some kind of lifeline in this time of global financial crisis. But inaction and delay are the last things we need now, for the sake of our own economy and the environment.
