Australia’s center-left government is under pressure to water down its plans to tackle climate change as the global financial crisis threatens jobs and economic growth, experts say.
Less than a year after winning office on a strongly pro-green platform, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faces calls to amend his vision for a carbon emissions trading scheme to begin operating across Australia in 2010.
Opinion polls show wavering public support for dealing with climate change if the economic cost is too high and a number of the firms that will be hit hardest by the plan have urged the government to proceed cautiously.
“I think people have thought, ‘hey, we’re facing a serious problem with this economic crisis, let’s deal with that first and then we can start looking at climate change,’” University of Melbourne economics professor John Freebairn said. “The only problem is, you can’t put off dealing with climate change because if you do, you’ll have to take far more drastic measures five or six years down the track.”
Rudd insists his government will proceed with its plan to introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010, despite the global market turmoil and opposition calls to delay its implementation for up to two years.
The “cap and trade” scheme would involve the government setting a limit on carbon emissions and granting permits to industries to cover the amount of greenhouse gases they are allowed to produce each year.
Companies wishing to emit more carbon dioxide than their allocated quota would have to buy permits from companies with a surplus, thereby creating an economic incentive to reduce pollution.
With Australia already suffering its worst drought in a century, the prime minister said failure to act on climate change could be disastrous.
“The problem of climate change and global warming doesn’t disappear because of the global financial crisis,” Rudd said. “Unless we deal with this the roll-on consequences for the economy over time in the rural sector, agricultural production and overall security of water supply is huge, and huge for the Australian economy.”
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government had a “moral” duty to preserve the environment for future generations, regardless of prevailing economic conditions.
“There will never be an easy time to make the transition to a low-carbon economy,” she said.
Canberra’s long-term aim is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050.
Critics including the Business Council of Australia and major industry players such as BHP Billiton and Chevron Australia have warned that the plan could drive up costs and force investment offshore.
Woodside Petroleum chief Don Voelte said the government would be taking a major risk.
“You can’t put something like that in at this time until we get this whole fiscal chaos that’s going on in the world straightened out — no government can risk jobs and the economy until we get stabilization in the world marketplace,” he said.
A recent poll conducted by the foreign affairs think tank Lowy Institute also indicated public support for drastic action on climate change was waning, even though it was one of the major issues in last November’s election.
The poll found that the number of people who supported immediate action on climate change even if it involved significant economic cost had fallen 8 percentage points to 60 percent since 2006.
The architect of the government’s plan, economics professor Ross Garnaut, said the issue of climate change should not be downgraded in response to the economic crisis.
“Climate change is a long-term structural issue,” he said. “It is bad policy to allow the approach to important long-term structural issues to be determined by short-term cyclical considerations.”
Freebairn agreed but said the government had only itself to blame for the rumblings about the economic fallout from its carbon plan.
“The government has been reluctant to explain to the public that it will cost them, it will push up electricity prices and petrol prices,” he said. “Under the emissions trading plan, the cost was supposed to be mystically carried by business. Or course, businesses pass on their costs, people are realizing that now.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS