The Rudd Government have announced plans to delay the emissions trading scheme by one year, winning support from business groups, but angering the Greens.
The delay, which has the support of the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Climate Institute and the World Wildlife Fund – has been rejected by the Greens for giving an extra $2.2 billion in funding to “big polluters.”
Kevin Rudd reneged on his election promise that delaying the scheme would be “reckless and irresponsible for the economy and the environment” after much pressure from industry and business groups.
Mr Rudd cited the global financial crisis as the reason for the delay, saying “the worst global recession since the Great Depression means we must adapt our climate change measures but not abandon them.”
However the Greens are not happy, claiming that the announcement makes the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme friendlier to big polluters with an almost irrelevant green distraction of a hypothetical 25 percent target to undermine criticism.”
Australian Greens deputy leader senator Christine Milne was quoted as saying, “if you add a little bit of green to brown, you still get brown.”
They also believe that by “weakening the scheme” the Government has ensured that there will be “no new jobs and new industries ready to employ those workers who will lose their jobs.”
The changes announced include a one-year delay on the scheme’s proposed start-date of July 1, 2010, taking it beyond the next federal election, which must be held before April16, 2011; along with a low $10 a tonne fixed carbon price for its first year of operation from July 2011 to July 2012.
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