Thanks to the support of the Greens and New Zealand First, Helen Clark's Labour Government yesterday secured passage through Parliament of its emissions trading bill, but the National Party have vowed to make major changes to the scheme if they win this year's general election.
The Greens, the Climate Institute and the ACF have all attacked Professor Garnaut's proposal for a 10% cut by 2020, but he insists it will best 'nurture the slender chance' that the world can beat the threat of dangerous climate change.
We need tougher targets than the world is yet ready to accept, so in the meantime Australia should set course to cut emissions by 2020 to 10% below 2000 levels, says Ross Garnaut's long-awaited report on targets and trajectories.
The report's economic modelling concludes the costs of unmitigated climate change would be far higher than previously thought, involving a 10% fall in GNP. But tackling climate change will mean only about a 0.1% reduction in Australia's rate of annual economic growth.
Decisions at UN talks completed yesterday have paved the way for December's global ministerial meeting to review something 'pretty close' to a first cut at a negotiating text, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said yesterday.
Ahead of a new global agreement, nations could agree to tax at the same level new emissions-intensive projects, says an AIGN submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the Kyoto Protocol. AIGN CEO Michael Hitchens told CE Daily such a move would avoid creating the 'bureaucracies of benchmarking' envisaged in current thinking on international sectoral agreements.
