Australia’s carbon tax plan – leadership on tackling climate change
I think it will give momentum to the global talks to know that a country as resource-dependent in terms of fossil fuels as Australia is, is now prepared to adopt emissions trading, is prepared to go with an economywide approach and is prepared to lift its level of ambition for 2050 to an 80% reduction……
The main problem is that the same people who run
campaigns for Big Oil and Big Tobacco have been involved in a campaign of climate denial, really post-the U.N. Copenhagenconference — we had the climate denial before then, but it’s really taken on a life of its own since then. And so we’ve had massive investment by the big fossil fuel lobby in Australia in generating doubt and undermining the science.
Australia’s carbon tax plan ‘a big turning point’, By Jennifer Bennett, Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2011, Greens party Sen. Christine Milne says plans for a carbon tax of $24.65 a ton, aimed at discouraging the use of fossil fuels and increasing investment in renewable energy, could blaze a trail for other nations in lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
“…..I think this is a big turning point for Australia. When we started this negotiation after the federal election last year, I didn’t think it would have that much impact on the global negotiations, but I now think it will because I think it will give momentum to the global talks to know that a country as resource-dependent in terms of fossil fuels as Australia is, is now prepared to adopt emissions trading, is prepared to go with an economywide approach and is prepared to lift its level of ambition for 2050 to an 80% reduction.
I really think now there’s a strong signal there to other countries like the United States, like Canada, to see that if Australia can do this then so can anywhere…….
The main problem is that the same people who run campaigns for Big Oil and Big Tobacco have been involved in a campaign of climate denial, really post-the U.N. Copenhagenconference — we had the climate denial before then, but it’s really taken on a life of its own since then. And so we’ve had massive investment by the big fossil fuel lobby in Australia in generating doubt and undermining the science.
I think this is going to be more significant than we had realized when we started this negotiation 10 months ago. Nobody expected [the 2009 talks in] Copenhagen to come up with a global treaty, but people thought it would make a lot more progress than it did. But at the moment there is very little confidence that [this year’s climate talks in] Durban is going to produce very much towards a global agreement. So I think Australia’s decision as one of the highest per capita emitters in the world, and with huge reliance on coal-fired energy and coal energy, to make the move to a broad-based emissions trading scheme and embrace it, I think that could arrest the decline and start the rebuilding of a momentum towards a global outcome….
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