In the absence of any political will to make the difficult decisions to replace polluting industries with clean alternatives, the Rudd Government have gone to great lengths to design a scheme that makes it look like they’re taking action on climate change, without actually having to do anything or make any hard decisions. In order to achieve this remarkable feat, they’ve designed an incredibly complicated scheme that is capable of either boring or confusing people into submission.
One of the great tragedies of emissions trading is that it takes an issue of incredible importance to people’s lives and makes it so utterly impenetrable that most people cease to engage with it.
CPRS hits the Senate
This week, the Australian Senate will be debating Rudd’s CPRS – Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It will almost certainly be defeated and will need to go back to the Senate in November for a second vote. The Coalition will vote against it because they are a party divided by climate sceptics. The Greens will vote against it because it is a monumental fraud being perpetrated on the Australian people and will result in very little, if any, environmental benefit.
Greenpeace’s view of the CPRS is that it is so fundamentally flawed that it should go back to the drawing board. We should replace it with Plan B – a suite of policies we could implement today that would get us on the path to a low emissions future. While we think a price on carbon can be a very useful thing, it is only one of a wide range of policies needed to actually cut emissions and drive the necessary transformation to a low carbon economy. In any case, the CPRS won’t put an effective price on carbon because it will exempt most of the big polluters from having to pay the price, thereby undoing its very purpose for existance.
The gaping holes in the CPRS
But the massive exemptions and billions of dollars in free permits to the big polluters are not the only problems with the CPRS. There has been a lot of discussion about the emissions reduction target of only 5%. Rudd has said that this could increase to 25% under certain circumstances depending on the international climate treaty that will be adoped at Copenhagen in December. But as Bernard Keene from Crikey pointed out, the conditions forAustralia cutting emissions by 25% are so onerous that it is a bit like saying “free for pensioners when accompanied by both grandparents”.
So then, if we put aside the exemptions, free permits and the low target, how is the scheme looking? Well, if you’re interested in actually cutting greenhouse pollution here in Australia then it still isn’t looking too good. Some of you might remember the famous ‘Australia clause’ that Robert Hill managed to negotiate through development of the Kyoto Protocol. It allowed Australia to continue polluting as much as ever, but our overall emissions would decrease because of an accounting slight-of-hand to do with measuring emissions from landclearing. Rest assured that Rudd and Penny Wong are trying to do this again through the REDD mechansims (Reducing emissions from Degradation and Deforestation) of the global treaty process.
I can tell you’re starting to fall asleep already, but it is important!
Australia is setting itself up to be able to offset most (or possibly all) of the emissions reductions required under the CPRS or the global climate treaty. The best description of the scam of offsets I’ve seen is available in this short funny video:
So in a nutshell, the CPRS sets a very unambitious target for emissions reductions, it then exempts most industries from having to pay to pollute (which of course was the whole purpose of the scheme), and then any emissions reductions that we do still need to make can be made by buying cheap offset credits.
If the CPRS gets approved in the Senate, Kevin Rudd will get his kudos for taking action on climate change without actually having to do anything of substance. I don’t know about you but I reckon it’s a fraud.
