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Australia's Gillard Under Fire for Climate 'Fudge' (Update2)
2010-07-23 04:13:21.128 GMT
(Updates with comments by Six Degrees from second paragraph,
Colonial in fourth, Greens from sixth, Abbott from eighth.)
By Marion Rae and Gemma Daley
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Australian Prime Minister Julia
Gillard will delay charging companies for pollution, drawing
criticism for reneging on a policy pledge that got Labor elected.
"We gave Labor a mandate to take climate action three
years ago," protest spokesman Bradley Smith, a member of the
Six Degrees climate action group, said in an e-mailed statement.
"What she announced today is just another delay tactic."
Labor, if re-elected at next month's election, will set up
a market mechanism to put a price on carbon after 2012,
establish emission standards for new coal-fired power stations
and pay A$1 billion ($894 million) to connect renewable energy
sources to the nation's power grid, Gillard said a speech today
in Brisbane at the University of Queensland.
"The most important thing for markets is certainty, which
we're unlikely to get until 2013," said Stephen Halmarick, who
helps manage about $135 billion as head of investment markets
research at Colonial First State Global Asset Management in
Sydney. "Having a market mechanism that puts a price on carbon
is the way to go. The price gets to a level that makes people
change their behavior."
Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as leader on June 24 after a
slump in support to election-losing levels sparked by his move
in April to shelve carbon-trading, the mainstay of the 2007
campaign, and a mining tax that caused a standoff with companies.
Policy Nonsense
"The government's policy as it stands is a nonsense,"
Greens party climate spokeswoman Senator Christine Milne told
reporters in Canberra today. "China has said it intends to move
on a carbon price in the next five years, so Australia is being
increasingly left behind."
The Greens, who could hold the balance of power in the
upper house Senate after the Aug. 21 election, want the price
set now. Gillard "intends to have the community talk under wet
cement for the next three years while she does nothing on
climate change," Milne said.
"It's high time that the prime minister show some real
leadership on this, not fudge the issue until after the
election," Tony Abbott, leader of the main opposition coalition,
which opposes any form of carbon tax, told reporters in Perth.
"Gillard looks very much like the man she deposed."
Labor, leading the coalition in opinion polls, is committed
to cutting greenhouse emissions by 5 percent by 2020 and would
source 20 percent of the nation's power from renewable sources
in the same period, Gillard said during the speech interrupted
by hecklers.
Polluters Pay
"The principle is that the biggest polluters should pay,"
Gillard said. "We have not abandoned our commitment to take
action on climate change."
Under Gillard's plan, all new coal-fired power stations
would have to meet new regulations on emissions standards and
have carbon capture and storage mechanisms ready. Existing coal-
fired plants will also be required to reduce gas emissions.
Companies that reduce emissions before a trading plan will
also be rewarded when the system goes into effect, Gillard said,
without providing details. Australia is the world's biggest coal
shipper and driest inhabited continent.
Gillard's proposal is "completely meaningless," Richard
Denniss, executive director of the Australia Institute at the
Canberra-based Australian National University, told ABC radio
today. "The economy can handle a price on carbon."
Rudd's climate plan would have taxed companies with high
emissions, such as energy, steel and cement makers, and offset
the charges with free emissions permits and financial
compensation. The assistance package would have cost the
government A$20 billion, the Grattan Institute, a Melbourne-
based think-tank, said in a report on April 22.
Citizens' Assembly
Gillard said her government's market-based system to make
polluters pay will be based on Rudd's plan. Labor will also set
up a Climate Change Commission and a citizens' assembly made up
of "ordinary Australians," to build support for action on
climate change, she added.
"We already have a citizens' assembly," said Abbott.
"It's called parliament."
For Related News and Information:
Top Stories: TOP <GO>
Climate-change news: NI CLIMATE <GO>
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
Most-read environmental news: MNI ENV <GO>
--Editor: Ben Richardson.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Marion Rae in Canberra at +61-2-9777-8679 or
mrae3@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Gemma Daley at +61-2-9777-8683 or
gdaley@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Iain Wilson at +61-2-9777-8645 or
iwilson2@bloomberg.net
