Australia Gears Up for Carbon Trading

Posted by Danielle Jarvis.

As John Howard’s re-election campaign in Australia warms up, so too has his stance on climate change. Howard signalled yesterday that Australia will develop a carbon trading scheme and invest AU$627 million in new measures (CAD$571 million) to help tackle emissions of greenhouse gases and global warming. Missing from Howard’s speech, were any hard targets for the reduction of GHG emissions, but he has signalled that these would be coming after 2008, so that modeling of impacts could be carried out.

Details of the emissions trading scheme and new measures that have emerged include:

• credits will be issued and auctioned under a “cap and trade” scheme allowing firms to emit a certain level of greenhouse gases. Firms emitting more than their allotted amount will be required to purchase additional credits;
• the deadline for setting up the emissions trading scheme is 2011;
• the scheme will include a “safety valve” emissions fee limit, to ensure that businesses do not suffer unfairly in the transition process;
• firms that cut emissions in the lead-up to the scheme will be rewarded for these cuts;
• research into the potential of nuclear energy in Australia will be funded;
• AU$336 million (CAD$306 million) will be invested in green vouchers for schools to improve energy and water efficiency, with every school eligible for up to AU$50,000 (CAD$ 45,585) to install solar hot water systems and rain water tanks;

Critics are panning Howard’s plan as too little, and too late. They point to Australia’s track record as one of the world’s worst polluters per capita, and one of only two fully industrialized countries (the other being the U.S.) that refused to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol. Howard, however, states that action by his government since 1990, will prevent about 87 million tonnes of GHG’s a year from entering the atmosphere by 2010. In his speech, he also commented that, “Australia will more than play its part to address climate change, but we’ll do it in a practical and balanced way, in full knowledge of the economic consequences of our nation.”