CANBERRA – Australia pledged to cut its greenhouse emissions by 5-15 per cent by 2020 as it unveiled yesterday the world’s broadest carbon trading scheme, rebuffing business calls for a delay due to the global slowdown.
While Australia is now second only to the European Union in its drive to cut emissions by establishing a cap-and-trade system that puts a price on carbon output, critics said the target was too weak and blasted the trading plan that will give free credits to some of the economy’s most carbon-intensive industries.
Prime minister Kevin Rudd said the carbon scheme was vital for Australia, which has the fourth-highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and five times more per person than China, due to its reliance on coal for electricity.
“Without action on climate change, Australia faces a future of parched farms, bleached reefs and empty reservoirs,” Mr Rudd said.
But some carbon market participants said the system, details of which Canberra unveiled yesterday ahead of approval by parliament expected next year, may fall far short of what is required in the global fight against climate change.
The government said Australia would only target the full 15 per cent cutback if a global deal emerged from UN talks in Copenhagen in late 2009, angering environmentalists who had hoped Mr Rudd would follow through on his green electoral mandate by taking a leading role in cutting global emissions.
“It’s a total and utter failure. It’s madness. Climate change is happening much faster than people thought. Five per cent, which is what we are looking at, is an outrage,” Greenpeace climate campaigner John Hepburn said.
Friends of the Earth called the plan a “polluters’ paradise”. –
(Reuters)