The Australian Labor government has yet again ignored climate change in its latest budget. Treasury’s forecast for the Australian carbon price in 2015 (when it is scheduled to become an internationally-linked emissions trading scheme or ETS) has been revised downward from $29/tonne to $12.10/tonne, a belated implicit admission that its decision to link to the …
Category Archive: News
Apr 18 2013
Is it time to abandon emissions trading?
Yesterday the European Parliament voted down a European Commission proposal to postpone the auction of 900 million permits for the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) from 2013-2015 until 2019-2020 (called “backloading”). The proposal was predictably opposed by Poland and other eastern European countries, and unfortunately also met resistance from conservative forces within some …
Mar 16 2013
Australia’s angry summer
Figure 1: Examples of extreme weather records broken during Australian summer 2012-13. (Source: Climate Commission) Australia is recovering from its hottest summer on record, dubbed the “Angry Summer” by the Australian government’s independent Climate Commission. Australia has been experiencing record heat since September 2012. Central Australia suffered a spate of heatwaves during spring, culminating in …
Mar 03 2013
Liberals’ climate policy just got stupider
This week as Australia concluded its hottest summer on record, the climate change policies of the Liberal/National Coalition got even sillier and more contradictory. According to Climate Spectator, Liberal climate spokesperson Greg Hunt reconfirmed on Wednesday that the Liberals’ proposed Direct Action Emission Reduction Fund (DAERF) is (as I’ve explained in detail before) like a …
Feb 19 2013
Greens denounce Gillard Labor government
The Greens have publicly distanced themselves from the Labor government in the leadup to the Australian federal election on 14 September. Last month, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Liberal leader Tony Abbott each launched their party’s election campaign with a National Press Club speech. (Gillard discussed economic policy, hinted at more budget cuts, and …
Feb 13 2013
Australia’s Minister for Greenwash
Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke – or as the Greens call him, Minister Against the Environment – on Monday signed conditional approvals for three new coal and coal seam gas (CSG) mines in New South Wales. The three projects are Whitehaven’s Maules Creek coal mine (despite Burke having said last week he would defer that …
Feb 07 2013
Good news from China (maybe)
Last week China announced what might be a rare bit of good news on climate change – or is it too good to be true? The Chinese government State Council has set a cap on total energy use for 2011-2015, which it claims will cause Chinese coal consumption to peak below 4 billion tonnes per …
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