Australia goes green and goes green quickly

Source: Agencies  |   2008-7-15  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

AUSTRALIA'S government said yesterday it would not delay the 2010 kickoff of an emissions trade scheme expected to reshape the A$1-trillion (US$969 billion) carbon-intensive economy, as farmers warned against "arbitrary" start dates.

"The longer we wait to take action on climate change, the sharper the adjustment to the economy will be when we are forced to act. The Australian economy simply can't afford to wait," Treasurer Wayne Swan wrote in the Herald Sun newspaper.

The government's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong unveils tomorrow an options paper for how the Emissions Trading System, or ETS, could work in an economy reliant on coal for electricity and on billions of Australian dollars in export revenues.

Wong is expected to include fuel to make the regime as broad as possible, curbing greenhouse gas output by the world's top per-head emitter. But her paper will not have any short or mid-term emissions targets, with those due later this year.

Instead, the paper will provide direction for an ETS that will be among the world's most comprehensive, with the government to offer payments to motorists and households compensating for the inevitable price rises the regime will place on top of inflation, already racing at 16-year highs.

Introduction of the scheme poses significant risks to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's six-month-old Labor government, potentially alienating the working voters who backed it after more than a decade of conservative rule.

An Australian Workers' Union report yesterday said a poorly designed emissions scheme could result in 15,000 job losses in the aluminium industry, driving it offshore.