Australia Unwilling To Even Try Carbon Trading - Market "Too Small"

[hatrack]

The government says a proposal by an OECD agency that Australia consider a greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme, as part of its solution to global warming, is impractical for now. Environment Minister Ian Campbell said there was no sense in having an international trading scheme until it could bring together the countries with a majority of the world's emissions.

He said the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, which Australia signed with five other countries last month, was currently too small with around 44 per cent of emissions. The technology-exchange pact links Australia, the United States, China, India and South Korea as an alternative to the global Kyoto Protocol, which the US and Australia have refused to ratify. International Energy Agency (IEA) executive director Claude Mandil urged the government to consider an emissions trading scheme to support its technology-based solution to the threat of global warming.

Emissions, or carbon trading involves heavy polluters buying credits from industries which pollute below a specified limit of emissions. But Senator Campbell said Mr Mandil's proposal would not be possible for a very long time. "I think it's a very long-term possibility," he said. Senator Campbell said the current European-centred carbon trading scheme was too small to be effective. "You've got a carbon trading scheme occurring in Europe now. It's a very small market," he said.

EDIT

Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said the IEA report released Tuesday confirmed Australia's greenhouse pollution was spiralling out of control. "Alarmingly, the report estimates emissions from Australia's energy sector will grow by more than 40 per cent from 1990 to 2010, and that Australian carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP are 43 per cent above the IEA average," he said. Mr Albanese said the government had no national climate change strategy despite its own predictions Australia would increase its overall greenhouse pollution by 23 per cent by 2020.

EDIT/END

http://seven.com.au/news/topstories/99202

Oh, but George's Secret Climate Technology Clubhouse, that awesomely powerful assemblage of techno-hubris, that'll really make a difference. :eyes:

[NNadir]

1. Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal.

It also has the world's largest reserves of uranium.

It is exporting both of these materials to China in huge volumes.

These facts are reported in today's Wall Street Journal.