The Australian Government today released proposals for a new plan to tackle climate change by
reducing carbon pollution. The associated media release entitled, GREEN PAPER ON CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME RELEASED’ states that:
“Releasing the Government’s Green Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, Minister for
Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, said the time for action on climate change was
now.
“We confront a daunting reality: we cannot continue to pour carbon pollution into the atmosphere
as if there is no cost,” Senator Wong told the National Press Club in Canberra.
“The 12 hottest years in history have all been in the last 13 years.
“As one of the hottest and driest continents on earth, Australia’s economy and environment will be
one of the hardest and fastest hit by climate change if we don’t act now.
“Climate change threatens our food production, agriculture, and water supplies, as well as icons
like the Great Barrier Reef, the Kakadu wetlands and the multi billion dollar tourism industries they
support.
“The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is a response to climate change that is economically
responsible, supports families and prepares Australia for our future challenges.”
Senator Wong said the Green Paper sets out options and identifies the Government’s disposition
and preferred positions on emissions trading and the support proposed to help households and
businesses adjust to this economic transformation.
“At the heart of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is emissions trading, in which the
Government sets a limit on how much carbon pollution industry can produce, and then the
Government sells permits up to that limit, creating an incentive to look for cleaner energy options.
“Companies can buy and sell permits from each other depending on how much they value them,
thereby enabling the market to find the most efficient ways to reduce carbon pollution.”
Senator Wong said this was the most efficient, lowest cost and most economically responsible way
to reduce carbon pollution, but any move to tackle climate change was not without costs.
“The Government will ensure that every cent raised from the selling of permits will be used to help
households and business as they make the move to a clean energy future.”
Senator Wong said the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, that the Government intends to
implement in 2010, is a whole of economy reform on par with past economic reforms such as the
reduction in tariffs or deregulation of the financial system.
“Placing a limit and a price on pollution will change the things we produce, the way we produce
them, and the things we buy. It will open new doors to a cleaner energy future.”
“In this Green Paper, the Government has sought to strike the right balance, on the basis of
economically responsible policy in the national interest.”
Senator Wong said the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will cover stationary energy, transport,
fugitive emissions, industrial processes, waste and forestry sectors, and all six greenhouse gases
counted under the Kyoto Protocol from the time the scheme begins.
“To offset the initial price impact on fuel associated with the introduction of the Carbon Pollution
Reduction Scheme, the Government will cut fuel taxes on a cent for cent basis.
“We will periodically assess the adequacy of this adjustment measure for three years and adjust this
offset accordingly. At the end of the three year period the measure will be reviewed.”
For heavy vehicle road users, who transport goods across the country, fuel taxes will be cut on a
cent-for-cent basis to offset the initial price impact on fuel associated with the impact of the Carbon
Pollution Reduction Scheme. The Government will review this measure after one year.
To assist rural and regional areas, the Government will provide a rebate equivalent to the excise cut
for businesses in the agricultural and fishing industries for three years.
“The Government will increase payments, above automatic indexation, to people in receipt of
pensioner, carer, senior and allowance benefits and to provide other assistance to meet the overall
increase in the cost of living flowing from the scheme,” Senator Wong said.
“We will also increase assistance to other low-income households through the tax and payment
system to meet the overall increase in the cost of living flowing from the scheme.
“Middle-income households will also get assistance to help them meet any overall increase in the
cost of living flowing from the scheme.”
The Government will establish the Climate Change Action Fund (CCAF) to help business
transition to a cleaner economy, by providing in partnership funding for a range of activities,
including:
• Capital investment in innovative new low emissions processes
• Industrial energy efficiency projects with long payback periods
• Dissemination of best and innovative practice among small to medium sized enterprises.
The Government will provide transitional assistance in the form of a share of free permits to the
most emissions intensive trade exposed activities.
The Government also proposes to provide a limited amount of direct assistance to existing coalfired
electricity generators.
“After so many years of inaction, it is impossible for Australia to be in front of the rest of the world
in tackling climate change,” Senator Wong said.
“A greater risk is being left behind a world of emerging economic opportunities.”
———–
You can read the full report
CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME
Green Paper
July 2008
here: http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/greenpaper/report/index.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“After so many years of inaction, it is impossible for Australia to be in front of the rest of the world in tackling climate change,” Senator Wong said.
So it will be possible for us to be behind the rest of the world.
Hmmmmmmm. Davey Gam – your area I think.
“Middle-income households will also get assistance to help them meet any overall increase in the cost of living flowing from the scheme.”
This is fabulous. If I interpret this correctly – I can salary sacrifice most of my income into superannuation, then convert that into a Transition to Retirement income stream, and then claim a middle or low-income assistance benefit towards the cost of running my Prado.
Brilliant!! I think I am going to enjoy this cap-and-redistribute scheme/rort after all. How soon can we have this?
“The 12 hottest years in history have all been in the last 13 years.
Really? Where? This clueless bint is a government Minister? We’re letting standards slip. They were already low and this mob are failing to meet them.
Why not call it the Carbon Reduction Anti Pollution Scheme? i.e. CRAP scheme.
From the title of the ETS as “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” it appears the Government has declared that carbon and carbon dioxide are pollutants.
This makes every animal – not the least humans – a polluter. Are we to be reduced?
We all exhale carbon dioxide as product of respiration of oxygen.
Carbon dioxide is universal and absolutely essential to plant growth. In growing, plants breathe in carbon dioxide, use the carbon portion to build their structure (biomass), and exhale oxygen and water vapor.
We know or used to know that CO2 is as essential to life as oxygen and water.
“We’re letting standards slip.”
We certainly have. I blame John Howard for this. By being so completely intransigent about the whole issue, it has made the Watermelon lemmings even more hysterical and what do we get as a result? Rudderless and the Clueless Party.
To think we have to put up with these nongs for another 861 days.
Since when was carbon a pollutant?
As for tackling climate change, it is more than 99% certain that Wong’s proposals won’t have any effect on the climate, so why bother?
If Rudd and Wong are so committed to a cause based on scientific “concensus” rather than proven fact why did they:
(I) increase immigration to 300,000 people when it will lead to a net increase in GHGs, put further pressure on inadequate water resources, reduce the per capita resources to feed them and further erode housing affordability?
(II) Only allow the $8000 solar electric power grant to people earning less than $100K, when they are the kind of people who will never install solar system anyway?
Looks like your typical Labor government. Will the Governor General please sack Rudd before he does any more damage?
Dear Luke
Am looking forward to your comments. Now somebody has to pay.
‘ “We confront a daunting reality: we cannot continue to pour carbon pollution into the atmosphere as if there is no cost,” Senator Wong told the National Press Club in Canberra.’
Absolutely True!
Not only will it cost our economy $200 billion annually in punitive taxes… The price of electricity for consumers will rise by at least 15% in 2010 (probably 20%) and rise after that annually for the foreseeable future to as much as 40% by 2015, after adjusting for inflation.
The government plans to buy off drivers by cutting the excise tax on petrol to reduce the effectiveness of the ETS. Just kidding. The really reason is to buy votes to stay in power.
Investment in our power producing and delivering infrastructure is now frozen for years, the costs of this result are not calculated into government estimates, but it means 100’s of billions more lost.
Meanwhile, the government spent not a single penny (no pun intended) on renewable energy research in 2008, talk about hypocrisy.
But the government does plan massive tax churn schemes for the ETS. Anyone who commands a particularly large voting block will be compensated, if only in part, for economic suffering. This will utterly defeat the whole stated purpose of the c-emission tax, which is to cut down c-emissions.
Of course, there are perfectly rational reasons for tax churn—you take from those whose votes are worthless and give to those whose votes you need! In spirit, this is corruption of the type one might expect in a banana republic, but it ain’t against the law. Little irony that the people it benefits write the laws.
The battle against inflation is now lost, inflation will settle in at 5 to 7% a year (that’s a 100% inflation in the next 14 to 20 years) while GDP will decline.
Wages will not pace inflation as demand for labour falls… initially jobs, investment and innovation will flow offshore. Ultimately, if the ETS is allowed to go on for a decade the jobs will return as cheap Australian labour under bids China, but not the innovation or investment.
Imagine that: Your children could work in toy factories making panda bear robots for export to a prosperous China. That’s one way to turn around the trade imbalance.
If combined with a coming global recession, the ALP will have set in motion the reversal of 15 years of economic prosperity and 30 years of economic reforms and 50 years of economic expansion while kick starting decades of stagflation recession or much worse. Civil unrest.
I’m not so pessimistic really. Politically, the ALP have accomplished in less than a year what their inept opponents couldn’t have dreamt possible. They have proved that as economic managers they have failed to grok the ENDER/GAVIN MAXIM: “Plan for the worst possible scenario like boyscouts and carry a fancy penknife.”
For the ALP the worst possible scenario means a return to the wilderness for another decade. Only question is can their lame opposition rise to the challenge in time to spare our nation the worst consequences of this “climate change delusion”?
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003241.html#comments
I think Australia should wait until Qatar shows the way. They are demanding the right to emit more than four times the per capita amount of CO2 that Australians do. Plus it is hotter and drier than Australia, and low lying. What are they thinking?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
I’m going to bed – I can’t stand this anymore – I’m going to destroy my TV and throw away my radios.
well – no I’m not but I damn well feel like I should……… and I’m a Labour supporter – sheeeeesh!!!
Hoaxes that cause mass panics or convey fear for the safety of a person or of property can come under the CRIMES ACT 1900 – SECT 93Q Like if someone went into a shopping centre or cinema and yelled “fire” to cause mass panic they would be in a great deal of trouble. How does this differ from Rudd or Wong’s obvious hoaxes on the Australian people?
93Q Conveying false information that a person or property is in danger
(1) A person who conveys information:
(a) that the person knows to be false or misleading, and
(b) that is likely to make the person to whom the information is conveyed fear for the safety of a person or of property, or both, is guilty of an offence.
Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 5 years.
On the other hand, who would have advised the NSW Government that it would get away with a law against “annoyance”?
Don’t worry guys it will not pass the senate. The Greens will stop it because it is unrealistic. For this to reach its targets a miracle will be needed. If you believe the end is nigh and we must reduce by GHG by 90% introduce a regime that produces great poverty. The aim is about 2.4 tonnes. Baning exports and imports would be a good start. This should produce mass unemployment. We also need to lower life expectancy more than poverty will achieve on it’s own. Get rid of modern medicine it prolongs life. These measures would be a start but one should focus on living as being the prime problem. Could we reduce our population to 4 million?
Well Hello !
What a bunch of whining alarmist denialists. The world is going to end is it?
Listen to yourselves. For fandangos sake !
An ETS may not be good but wouldn’t be terminal (probably) – but hey as your worst nightmare Marxist Leninist anarchist anti-christ local representative I don’t care – as you know myself and my mates want to destroy western civilisation by an means possible).
Soundtrack for Wes and Davey …
(play it loud OK!)
Anyway if you’re totally angry about Garny baby (and obviously you all are REALLY PISSED OFF) simply get Brendan and Malcolm sorted out and briefed.
Point out the unpalatable and unnecessary nature of the proposed changes and have the Opposition run on a platform of no climate taxes under the Liberal/National Coalition and promise dismantling on any such taxes or agreements entered into by this government.
Trust your logic and your arguments. Of course you’ll have to get rid of the ranters and and rednecks that you have on here – or get them into nice suits with elocution lessons and Tourette’s meds. You know who to take with you if you want to turn the electorate off with the ugly angry face of denialism.
But hey having said that – why don’t you let the blog rednecks hijack the debate and go after namby pamby wishy washy watermelon pinko commie politics in general. Let’s have a really big bonfire – you can throw all of the issues onto the pyre – let’s go on forest management, land clearing legislation, EC – let’s have no limits on EC – any dry spell gets supported, property rights maximised, whaling supported – even our own whaling industry – whale steaks in schools, irrigation allocations only – no environmental flows. The whole works. Give the Australian public a stark contrast.
License poofters not guns. Take the vote off the abos as they don’t know what they’re doing with it anyway. Ban ragheads from coming in and deport any of those here.
The next election can be called the “no stuffing around anymore” election.
Come on dudes are you all wind and piss or are you up for the mission.
Let’s get it on !
Motty for PM !!!
As usual, El Luko bratmouth, you’ve missed the point.
You Watermelon dipsticks have no replacement for the energy supply about to be taxed out. I’ve asked that direct question of you several times and you’ve gutlessly avoided it.
The stance seems to be:
We’ve had the bright idea, done the real work (saving the planet). Now you lesser others can just join the dots (ie. find workable, affordable alternatives that we Watermelons like).
I’m not outraged, I’m entertained – too close to the reality of Alzheimers to worry. From your bratmouth dipstickery, I guess you are yet too young to have experienced real inflation or a real recession/depression.
Have fun, dipstick.
Luke maaate, young Johnny, such a nice lad, why he even keeps his shirt tucked in, must be on your side!
You better keep your eye on the Governator, ‘cos he’s thinking of letting a few people go, since economic hell ripped $15.2 billion from his budget.
http://www.latimes.com/business/careers/work/la-fi-caljobs21-2008jun21,0,7334404.story
He’d probably start by outsoucing his Googling to downtown Hyderabad and then give you an IOU as you are sent on your way!
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2D8173FF930A35754C0A964958260
Hey Luke – I’m not pissed off. Those who are dumb enough to bet on the intelligence of the human race are always gonna take a fall (Shorty’s Law).
You’ll be very pleased to know I saw this madness coming long ago and cynically got the piece of land in place. Yep. All set and ready to go from 2010 on to plant and claim, plant and claim, plant and claim, plant and claim all the way through retirement etc…..
T’will be a nice (non-deductible) earner to top off the old age pension for me and then the kids….(plus somewhere to run a few horses).
Here’s a free tip, mate – go do likewise.
Mind you, don’t wait too long or even make it too far away – in your brave new Kev’s world ya still gotta be able to get there on ya electric motor scooter !
Oops, forgot to mention – even drilled the bore a few years back too. A luverly 2.5 L/s with a 12 v solar panel!
PPS. Hey – I’ll even let you walk the kids out and back for a day’s farm stay in the middle of their school hols!
PPPS. Plant yourselves a couple of trees….
(damn but I’m sparkling tonight – that shiraz was a little ripper 😉
“You’ll be very pleased to know I saw this madness coming long ago…”
Ditto. My kids now have second citizenships and two have established careers for themselves overseas in the last couple of years.
The good thing about this option – they don’t need to turn the lights off when they leave. Rudderless will take care of that for them.
Ianl – “You Watermelon dipsticks have no replacement for the energy supply about to be taxed out. I’ve asked that direct question of you several times and you’ve gutlessly avoided it.”
No-one has gutlessly avoided it. There are many low carbon energy generating schemes that are available today that can replace most thermal coal. We don’t need to replace it all. Getting rid of brown coal and gasifying the black coal we burn will do. The problem was the brownshirts, happy with artificially cheap energy, have resisted any gains in efficiency or alternative energy sources in case it may reduce the amount of money they can send to their mostly foreign owners.
Now I like giving tax money away to foreigners as much as the next person however solar and wind can produce reliable power and also instead of being massive power stations belching out CO2 they can be smaller and more oommunity involved. They also can be produced locally generating jobs for Australians especially in rural areas. Our electricity grid needs upgrading anyway and HVDC links will only increase electrity reliability.
As for the lights it will be a LED and will be powered by solar or wind rather than Victorian steam from last century.
If all this fossil fuel is captured biomass that was some how removed from the biosphere, then surely burning it to return it to the biosphere is the zenith and epitome of recycling and sustainable action isn’t?
CO2 Sequestration is really no different than trying to fossilise living things.
Talk about a lack of ecological nous among the Greenies.
Well I don’t know Louis – you’re pretty well fossilised – so how’s it work mate?
Medusa
Burning fossil fuel is recyling carbon. Which bit don’t you understand?
Some may recall how Luke gave one of his best sneers at my past calls to ensure that credit is given in the trading scheme for stored wood carbon, in houses etc. Well, it seems that both Guano and Wrong have managed to comprehend the merit of my case and have included credit for stored wood carbon. And that leaves our very own soothsayer right out on a limb, on his own, with a chill wind blowing up his exposed ass.
Lets face it Luke, any old plodder can sneer up excuses why something won’t happen but it takes a whole lot more to turn a good idea into reality.
But of course, the really interesting times will begin when this new tax system gets the work over by the army of tax consultants who earn a very good living driving mack trucks through poorly conceived tax legislation. My only regret is that few of them are listed on the exchange so we can’t buy shares in their future profits.
Steve, Louis, everybody; if you were going to take the bull between the horns and have a symposium of sceptical scientists and citizens to counter the agitprop coming from the gomminent, who would you invite; on a purely hypothetical basis, at this time?
That’s the spirit Cohenite – go for it. Rally the troops. Can we help you organise it?
I’m impressed on the timber under the house though, did Ms Wong write you a thank you note for mentioning it?
Mr Mott, Sir, sorry to intrude on your magnificence, (can’t call him Ian anymore now) but could you possibly nominate a suitable time for an AGO officer with a tape measure to come around and check your wood heap.
But I can’t ad hom Sir Ian anymore as I’m nominating him for PM. Motty for PM guys – are you all with me?
You can come luke; you can sit here;
http://www.actionevents.com.au/dunking_machine.htm
“if you were going to take the bull between the horns..who would you invite?”
Cohenite – No-one. There’s an old saying: “Don’t try and teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”
A symposium as you suggest would be an exercise in futility. If we believe the opinion polls (and I can’t see why we wouldn’t at this point) around 70% of people believe the world needs saving. Much like 99% of people believed the world was flat before 1492 – since that was all they had been told.
My guess is that most of these 70% are expressing an emotional response as a result of the daily alarmist diet being served up in the media. There is no meaningful contrary view being put – and those that do are drowned out as “deniers”, even by the great Guano himself, no less. So much for impartiality.
Equally, I believe this response is as much a “feel good” response as anything else – it’s like asking people if they support motherhood. I suspect most people also think that any measures and costs will be borne by either a) Big business, or b) everyone else but them. (“What – you want me to pay?? Good heavens – No. I have already replaced all my incandescant globes!”)
The rude shock will be when someone grows big enough corhones to enforce policies that will have a material impact on CO2 levels – i.e. flatten the economy. When Ender’s KarbonSchutzsSaffel Brownshirts show up to take their cars off them, then let’s see where public opinion goes.
There’s another old saying: “Be careful of what you wish for – it may be granted.” Until that time, people should be free to experience the brave new world of the Carbon Economy – it is still a democracy, after all.
There’s also another old saying “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/stop-the-press-mugabe-out-of-monopoly-money/2008/07/15/1215887628568.html
Now that’s how badly “Marxism” can finish. This is classic stuff, ruin the economy, keep spending and destroy any semblance of weath.
Be grateful for Dear Krudd and Wrong, those snot and dirt sandwiches (Luke?}, are a day closer.
Looks like you’re one down Cohenite – Ivan’s done a runner. Looks like he’s been affected by eating too many German sausages. Or perhaps he walks around the house goose-stepping with a pith helmet on?
Why for do you want me to sit on the dunking machine?
Ivan; Brown’s global warming government is finding all about polls after its stupidity and prevarication about this issue; I’m sure more Johnny Punters are sceptical than your 70% despite the blitzkrieg by the msm; what this shameful obfuscation has and is doing is undermining science and its objective defining of our reality. But you are right about one thing; people do have a disconnect between tacitly supporting such ‘moral’ issues and considering the consequences; the main consequence, of course, is the emergence of the fascist tendency of the ‘green’ movement.
To see if you are safe or dangerous;
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u706544135015560/
“what this shameful obfuscation has and is doing is undermining science and its objective defining of our reality..”
It’s more problemmatic than that – there is also an element of the ‘boy who cried wolf’ to it. Once all this farce has played out, it’s going to be a long time before there is any public confidence in self-proclaimed ‘smart people’ again. Bad luck if we face any real catastrophes in the meantime.
There is also the analysis paralysis element. ETS will be Rudderless’ Mabo. In the same way that Keating was consumed and in the end paralysed by the non-problem of Native Title, Rudderless, Wrong and the Clueless Party will be equally consumed and paralysed by selling this can of worms to a public that becomes more sceptical as the costs become apparent – against a background of global economic downturn.
Everything else will get drowned out in the noise. Whereas the Clueless Party will need to be devoting more bandwidth to economic problems, they are too committed (obsessed?) to walk away from the ETS and do so. As a result they will fail for this reason alone.
860 days to go.
What Ender fails to understand is that for a new technology to supplant an old one it must be either a fair bit better or a fair bit cheaper. Wind and solar currently fail on both by being worse and more expensive.
It has been 35 years since the first oil shock when wind and solar came to public notice. After 35 years of R&D and lots of money spent they still aren’t any good except for certain isolated uses. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting.
Ender’s solution is to make existing power generation more expensive by government fiat or an outright ban. Still on the grid Ender, or are you just another green hypocrite?
St. Crudd and Wrong will have to factor a another variable into the pot of untruths, the speculator.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036754-20142,00.html
George Soros is legendary for busting the Bank of England! Labor HO? RBA? Easy!
http://news.forexplane.com/Articles/GeorgeSoros/tabid/101/Default.aspx
Luke, your new found deference is appropriate. But it is not due to any delusional grandeur on my part but, rather, from your own rightful place at the very bottom of the pond. So if you will kindly apply the same respect to every other contributor to this blog you just might manage to convey an accurate impression of the truth.
Ian,
alas you are being gulled by Lukes deference – from experience he does that, as a luke before the storm, to then revert to the Luke we all know.
However, I have a feeling I might have worked out his real name. Just twigged to it over the last day while researching something for the HT article today.
Louis,
You think this might be a single individual person?
Oh-my-God!!
The comment he made earlier about having loved ones … no! no! please!
That would mean he would have to have found someone to br…
Oh-my-god!! No! How would that be possible ..? I’m getting nauseous.
The prospect that there might be another gener…
HUURRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKK!
And Ivan might be dismissed for the reasons put elsewhere.
Eyrie – “It has been 35 years since the first oil shock when wind and solar came to public notice. After 35 years of R&D and lots of money spent they still aren’t any good except for certain isolated uses. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting.”
So what makes you say this? After 35 years of neglect and on and off again funding scaring away the few investors that took the plunge the original solar plants are still there generating electricity without CO2. Also wind is the fastest growing energy resource – what is not good about them?
So far nuclear is still waiting for handouts (even Ziggy wrote that) and coal is lobbying for a free ride to continue polluting.