Carbon Footprints

In her first speech as Australian Prime Minister, the nation’s first female Prime Minister vowed to re-prosecute the case for a price on Carbon..

This is very encouraging news. Since the Rudd Government decided to shy-away from its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, it has been punished in the polls for its perceived spinelessness. Prime Minister Gillard, who seized power this morning in what has been termed a ‘bloodless coup,’ went on to say:

It is my intention to lead a Government that does more to harness the wind, and the and new, emerging technologies. I will do this because I believe in climate change. I believe human beings contribute to climate change, and is is as disappointing to me, as it is to many millions of Australians, that we do not have a price on Carbon. And in the future, we will need one. But first we will need to establish a community consensus for action. If elected as Prime Minister I will re-prosecute the case for a Carbon price, at home, and abroad. I will do that as global economic conditions improve, and as our economy continues to strengthen.

This is is excellent to hear. The carbon industry in Australia has been hammered by the government’s reversal on the CPRS with hundreds of millions of dollars in value collapsing amongst Australia’s listed ‘carbon companies’, in parallel to the rest of the world. Carbon Planet has not been immune from this either. Right now the carbon markets are a place for the true believers.

A formal mechanism for putting a price on Carbon is vital. Moreover that mechanism should be predicated on funds going towards projects with a minimum of friction, but with the highest standards of oversight, assessment and carbon accounting. I believe what we need is harder targets that harden to 110% below 1990 levels by 2050, fewer exemptions, limited free permits that are phased out quickly, a sunset on coal mining (30% of the world’s emissions come from Australia’s coal.) I doubt that stretch-target is achievable, but it’s what we need. — DS

Technorati Tags: #spill, #spillard Spillard, Australia, Australian Politics, Julia Gillard, politics, teamjulia

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 11th, 2010 at 2:46 PM and is filed under Carbon Planet News, Climate Change, Forces for Good, The Carbon Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.