Emissions Trading: No Australian ETS In The Near Future
May 7th, 2010
Pressure on the Govt to drop NZ’s ETS is likely to increase with revelations the Aust Govt has shelved its emissions trading scheme for at least three years. It has been dropped to defuse Opposition leader Tony Abbott’s “great big new tax” attack in this year’s election campaign. The scheme has been dropped from the Labor Cabinet’s four-year forward estimates. The decision will save $2.5bn because household and industry compensation would have exceeded the revenue generated by the scheme in its early years.
The Aust Govt has reportedly decided not to start the scheme before 2013 at the earliest, hoping it will have gained support from the Coalition by then and international efforts to combat climate change will have become clearer. The Aust Greens are technically still negotiating with Labor’s Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, over a “compromise” plan to get the scheme through before the election, but the reality is the scheme is on the backburner.
Labor will insist it still believes an ETS is the best way to reduce emissions but will cite domestic and international pressures as making it impossible to introduce in the short term. The scheme had been due to begin with a carbon tax next year, moving to full trading in 2012.
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