Australian
Wednesday 29/4/2009 Page: 4
ENERGY-hungry industries could be offered exemptions from the federal Government's new 20% renewable energy target, as Kevin Rudd struggles to win support for his climate change policies in the face of the global economic crisis. The Prime Minister will ask premiers to sign off on the further concessions for the industries at tomorrow's Council of Australian Governments meeting in Hobart. The Government had foreshadowed an exemption for aluminium, but sources said it was now considering a broader partial exemption or compensation scheme t hat would cover other big electricity users such as pulp and paper, steel, cement and silicon.
Major industries had complained about the "double whammy" from both the planned carbon pollution reduction scheme and the renewable energy target, which requires that electricity retailers and large users source 20% of electricity supply from renewable sources by 2020. Some sources suggested the broader RET exemptions could soften industry resistance to the emissions trading law when its fate is decided in the Senate next month.
BlueScope Steel chairman Graham Kraehe yesterday launched a bitter attack against the emissions trading scheme plan, saying it was "dangerous", "flawed" and could lead to thousands of job losses. "It is very disappointing that the Government still appears stubbornly committed to its 2010 carbon pollution reduction scheme deadline, despite its obvious and serious flaws," he told a meeting of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in Brisbane.
He said the Government was on the one hand injecting more than $50 billion into the economy to soften the downturn and on the other hand potentially destroying employment for thousands of workers with a carbon tax that would have a serious destabilising effect on industry and regional Australia. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said clear domestic laws were crucial to the success of the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December to determine a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Speaking from Washington, where she is attending a meeting of ministers from major emitting nations as part of a process organised by US President Barack Obama to inject momentum into the Copenhagen negotiations, Senator Wong said: "The consistent message has been that international negotiations have to be underpinned by domestic actions."
A decision to exempt more electricity-hungry industries from the renewable energy target would anger environmentalists. The Australian Conservation Foundation, the ACTU, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Climate Institute Australia think tank wrote to Kevin Rudd last week arguing against any exemptions from the target.
1 comments:
The Rudd Government has greatly disappointed me. They went to the election promising big actions on climate change, but seem to have spent all their time since then doing as little as possible while not (technically) breaking their election promises.
Post a Comment