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The Green Paper

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

Crikey writes:

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Crikey brought you live coverage of Penny Wong's Green Paper report today. Visit the coverage here. This is the next step in the Rudd government's fight against climate change. What did you think of it?

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Peter Wood Wednesday, 16 July 2008 4:38:10 PM: There will be big handouts to both "emissions-intensive trade exposed industries" (EITEs) and "strongly affected industries". These handouts will probably be free permits, but they could be in the form of cash. Strongly affected industries are industries that emit 1500 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent per million dollars of revenue and include electricity generation (especially from brown coal), waste, and production of natural gas. Strongly affected industries will receive handouts on the basis for their assets while trade exposed industries will receive handouts that are based on their emissions.

A 60% cut in emissions by 2050 is still proposed, so Australia will probably remain among the highest per-capita polluters; the trajectories will be determined by 5 to 10 year gateways which will provide certainty for industry but reduce our flexibility if we decide that we need reduce emissions much more quickly; petrol left out for the time being; a price cap but no price floor; land clearing and revegetation not included or funded; emissions from our coal exports not mentioned; emissions from livestock not included until at least 2015; emissions from forest degradation and grazeland degradation are not mentioned (except for in developing countries), so logging and burning old growth forests will probably continue to not be measured in Australia's greenhouse accounting and reporting unless things are changed at the international level. There will be some compensation for low to middle income households but there may not be so much after the big polluters have been catered for.

One difference between the Green Paper and the Garnaut Review is that Garnaut proposes $3 billion or 20% of auction revenue (whichever is greater) should be invested in technology and RD&D, while the only technology emphasis in the green paper is on carbon capture and storage (as assistance to the coal industry). The extra handouts for big polluters effectively mean that cash would not be available for RD&D, and there will be less available for compensating households. Because there is a price cap, the emissions cap is not strict, which means that it is not even a real cap and trade scheme.

Garnaut has stated that a carbon tax would be much better than a badly designed cap and trade scheme. A carbon tax would be much better than the 'Preferred Positions' in the Green Paper.
johnsamuels Thursday, 17 July 2008 7:58:43 PM: The government will not handle this, we will get white washes and handshakes till the cows come home. Hundreds of political solutions to what is a scientific problem. But in the end public opinion will win out. I am seeing a lot more marketing initiatives based around the knowledge that environmental issues attract users/readers.

An example of this is http://www.thegreenroad.com.au/about-the-greenroad

I'm telling you, the corporate world is probably our only bet for real solutions. firstly because they create a large part of the problem and secondly they will always go where the public leads them, simply because that is how they earn money.

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Next Crikey Email 1300 hrs 8 September

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The Green Paper

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