Things getting a little warmer around your neck of the woods?

 

Maybe not in Adelaide at the moment (where we had our coldest morning in 25 years today), but lately Kevin Rudd’s definitely been feeling the heat.

 

By now, the phrase “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” should be tattooed onto the brain of anyone who follows the news in Australia. Controversy surrounds the Federal Government’s decision to implement the environmentally-conscious plan by 2010. Instigated by the results of the Garnaut Climate Change Review study, the Rudd government this earlier month released a ‘green paper’ which lays out the design for an Australia carbon emissions trading scheme.

 

So what’s that carbon-pollution-trading-whatever all about? Essentially a ‘cap and trade’ system, it aims to use the free market in order to reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Under the scheme, polluters are issued ‘carbon pollution permits’, which allow them to emit up to a certain amount of pollution. If they wish to emit more C02 than their number of permits, then they can buy more permits from other polluters. In this way, businesses are given an incentive to reduce their emissions – by polluting less, they have spare permits to sell to larger polluters.

 

Although businesses affected directly by the scheme are limited to the largest polluters, the indirect affects for the everyday Aussie are many. By putting a price on emissions, the biggest polluters will have to increase the cost of their goods and services in order to cover the expense of buying pollution permits. Consequently, living expenses in Australia will go up – with anything from petrol and food to electricity expected to increase in price. The Liberal Party have also criticised Labor of having produced a ‘flawed scheme’ that would be a ‘disaster’ for the economy. Indeed, the tide appears to have turned on the Labor Party, whose previous successes in championing environmental causes have this time apparently hit a snag.

 

In response, the Rudd Government have announced a series of support systems to help out with everyday cost increases, and has reassured big business that the transition will be a smooth one. On the threat to the economy, the Government retorts that by taking no action on climate change, the Australia economy stands to be devastated by mass changes to agriculture, water supply and tourism. Problems within the Coalition Opposition on a unified stance also played political turmoil, with Brendan Nelson today saying they are closer to a united policy.

 

Other criticisms of the scheme include that – compared to developing nations like China and India – Australia’s relative carbon emissions are quite low, and any reduction of ours would not hold back the expected mass increase of global pollution over the next ten years. As the debate rages on, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will be released as draft legislation in December, to be enacted into law in 2009 and commence 2010.

 

With climate change in Australia and around the world a reality, expect these kinds of thorny debates to crop up more and more. If only we were able to use all that hot air as an energy source.