An important effect of the recent Rudd backtrack on climate change policy is that it has reduced the credibility of government climate change policy. As Laura Tinkle remarks today ’One thing that is certain is that the changes this week have not helped rebuild any solid and noisy base of support for the government’s emissions trading scheme’ (AFR p.63).
Why is credibility important? Why is it important to know that the government will have the backbone to take tough decisions on climate change in the face of determined opposition and to carry through with its stated policy intentions? Continue reading Credibility & climate change policy
Kevin Rudd has further delayed the start of the emissions trading scheme to 2011 (after the next election), reduced the initial price of carbon to be charged from $20 per tonne to $10 per tonne (that is now about equivalent to a massive 2.4 cent per litre charge on unleaded petrol) and increased assistance to heavy industry (steel and aluminium previously would get 90% of their permits free – now they will get 95% of their permits free for the first 5 years – or really 1+5 years – of the scheme). The only a bonus is agreement to cut emissions by 25% by 2020 if all other nations agree to do the same in Copenhagen this year.
It is a major backflip for a man who said, last December, in the face of the full obvious force of the financial crisis, that there was no case for delay. But it is by no means an astonishing backflip. I think Rudd’s mouth runs ahead of his brain most of the time but, on climate change, he simply cannot be trusted at all. Continue reading Rudd on climate change
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