Push to dump `dud emissions scheme

Courier Mail
Friday 12/6/2009 Page: 10

GREEN groups want emissions trading ditched in favour of direct and immediate action to tackle climate change. Groups representing 400,000 people have put forward an alternative dubbed "Plan B" which includes phasing out coal-fired power stations and an overhaul of public transport.

They say the country has become obsessed with emissions trading and described the Federal Government's planned scheme as a dud. Greenpeace spokesman Jeremy Tager, pictured, said voters thought Prime Minister Kevin Rudd understood climate change, but had not delivered on emissions trading. "This scheme could have been written by the big polluters," Mr Tager said at the launch of the groups' alternative plan in Parliament House yesterday, adding it was time for Plan B.
Their plan includes:

• Phasing out coal-fired power stations during the coming decade.
• Green makeovers for millions of homes.
• Mandatory fuel efficiency standards for cars.
• More and cheaper public transport.
• More cycle paths, more car pooling.
• An end to urban sprawl.
• Generating 40% of energy from renewable sources by 2020.
• Ending the logging of old growth forests.

As emissions trading was not due to start for two years, politicians could go back to the drawing board and devise an effective, green scheme to halve emissions by 2020, the groups said. Mark Wakeham, from Environment Victoria, said that other measures were ready to go now. "We've become obsessed with the carbon pollution reduction scheme and the debate in Australia," he said. "There are a lot of other things that we could be doing right now."

Organisations such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Wilderness Society and state based conservation councils have endorsed the alternative plan, but not all green groups are on board. The Australian Conservation Foundation believes the Government's emissions trading scheme is a good start and should proceed. Government legislation setting up the scheme goes before the Senate next week. Labor does not have the numbers to win parliamentary approval against Coalition and cross bench opposition.