-Source:Crikey
ETS is dead, where to now?
Friday, 30 April 2010
No point mourning the premature death of ETS at the hands of the Rudd Government. As First Dog pointed out in his cartoon, its fate was doomed a long time before Wednesday’s announcement. The pressing question climate campaigners are asking themselves is: where do we go now that politics have failed us miserably?
The 100% Renewable Community Campaign has started the ball rolling by calling on all concerned citizens and disappointed voters to demonstrate their support for a carbon neutral future this Sunday 2nd May.
Rudd on Rudd: I’m a coward on climate change
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
The problem with performing a political backflip of such spectacularly high degrees of difficulty as Kevin Rudd shakily negotiated today is the haunting rhetoric which can come back to bite you in the ass.
In dumping Labor’s commitment to introduce an emissions trading scheme (ETS) this term, various media reports have pinned Rudd to comments he made in a speech to the Lowy Institute for International Policy last November. It’s worth republishing his remarks at length . . .
Copenhagen summit ends with a watered-down political accord
Saturday, 19 December 2009
After two weeks of around the clock negotiations and the participation of over a hundred world leaders, the Copenhagen climate change summit has ended in failure, producing a flimsy political agreement far weaker than even the most pessimistic observers expected at the start of the talks.
The agreement – hastily cobbled together on the last day of the talks by 28 nations, including host Denmark, the US and Australia – drew fierce criticism by developing countries left out of the meetings, claiming rich countries had staged a “coup détat” of the UN process.
Australia accused of cooking the books in Copenhagen
Monday, 14 December 2009
When the draft texts were presented in Copenhagen last Friday with proposed emissions reductions of between 30-45%, you could almost feel the wave of panic juddering through the delegates of the Annex 1 countries.
Cut emissions in line with the science? That would be insane. We might actually have to take action to cut our industrial pollution.
Almost immediately, the ‘umbrella group’ led by Australia rolled out the sadly predictable ‘blame China’ strategy. ‘Wong’s message for Beijing: Heat on China,’ bellowed The Australian’s front-page headline.
Image/Info: www.aph.gov.au/library/Pubs/BN/sci/KyotoAccRules.htm
‘Carbongate’ - The Great Carbon Heist
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Exclusive to Crikey – Possibly the greatest Scandal of this decade “Carbongate” – the theft of billions of dollars in Carbon Credits.
" . . . The Howard Government . . . set about having the Carr and Beattie State Labor Governments introduce Vegetation Management laws that effectively locked up 109 million hectares of privately owned land into the world’s largest privately owned carbon sink. The “trick’ is with the Native Vegetation laws being passed by State Governments. Under the Constitution the State Governments have no obligation to pay private landholders compensation. Brilliant, they’d created the world’s largest carbon sink – at no cost to the Commonwealth. . . . . "
