Browsing: Federal

The Ai Group won't sacrifice its members 'to a scheme that is a folly', its chief executive Heather Ridout this morning told a Senate inquiry. Plus Senator Steve Fielding on 'nosediving' with the ETS and the ACTU on what would really put jobs at risk.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has this afternoon accused those who want the CPRS delayed of being either dishonest or in denial, warning that derailing the scheme would render it more difficult to secure a global climate change deal.

Coalition members of a Senate inquiry into the Rudd Government's trading bills have delivered a crushing appraisal, but independent Senator Nick Xenophon concludes there is 'scope to build on'.

If the Rudd Government's proposed CPRS remains unchanged, 'it would be a line-ball call' whether to proceed, professor Ross Garnaut today told a Senate climate policy committee.

The Rudd Government's 2020 targets are 'insufficient', China would like Australian uranium to help wean itself off conventional coal and claims that Australia's actions don't matter are wrong, an adviser to China's climate negotiators said today. But Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and a senior Australian negotiator defended the targets.

The Government will cut fuel taxes as carbon prices rise over the first three years of emissions trading, but it won't increase them if carbon prices happen to fall, say draft bills released by Treasury yesterday.

• Garrett moves on national waste policy
  
• SA environment court fines waste firm $460,000
  
• Former World Bank chief to head Rudd's CCS advisory council
  
• NSW launches biodiversity 'credits wanted' service
  
• More Gore – new book out in November

The CPRS would have calamitous consequences, Senator Nick Xenophon's favoured climate change economist tells a Senate committee, as the coal industry reveals ACIL Tasman is studying what the scheme will mean for more than 70 black coal mines and Senator Barnaby Joyce derides green jobs.

Delivering his first speech as sidekick to Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, Greg Combet has warned of a 'difficult and incoherent' policy mix if the CPRS fails, but the Coalition says Combet is simply indulging in 'union-style' scaremongering.

Despite public posturing by some, businesses 'almost universally' want the trading scheme to go ahead and are gearing up for it, Westpac tells the Senate trading bills inquiry. AGL, scientist Tim Flannery and others also back a 2010 start in their testimony to the committee.