GreenPeace

The political drama around the Government’s ETS scheme misses one fundamental point – the legislation does not require Australia to cut its actual greenhouse pollution one iota.

“Regardless of what the coalition do, the scheme that is on offer from Kevin Rudd is a fraud,” said Steve Campbell, Greenpeace Head of Campaigns.

“The CPRS was bad before, doling out money to the big polluters hand over fist, but as it stands now it will lock in climate disaster,”

“The result of the Government’s negotiations with the Coalition turns the polluter pays principal on its head, while rewarding rent seeking, misinformation and manipulation. The designing principle seems to be “no polluter left behind”.

“The CPRS does not require Australia to cut our emissions one jot. It allows us to meet 100% of our paltry emissions reduction targets using dodgy forestry offsets in developing countries. It will do nothing to drive the transition to a low carbon economy we so urgently need.

“Australia, the biggest per capita polluter in the world, has thrown in the towel, surrendering completely to the interests of the big polluters.

“The lobbyists in Canberra will be toasting their results tonight – almost every big polluter and industry group that threatened, whinged and cajoled have had their hand-outs increased, with an extra $4billion in handouts to polluting coal power stations and an extra $750million to the export coal industry – some of the richest mining companies in the world.



“In his press conference today, Kevin Rudd was right to describe climate change as a fundamental, existential threat. If he was serious about addressing it, he would stop playing politics on climate change and would urgently implement measures to directly reduce greenhouse emissions and begin an immediate transition to a low carbon economy,” Mr Campbell said.