TEC

Total Environment Centre described the negotiated amendments to the CPRS as a mix of small advances with major backward steps.

“We welcome the Federal Government’s intention to recognise the additional actions by households, in particular the one million customers of GreenPower. But the federal government’s “deal” with the opposition to further weaken the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will result in limited results for the climate, while giving billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to the biggest polluters: electricity retailers and coal mines,” said Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre (TEC).

“The more money you give the polluters, the less incentive they have to reduce their polluting activity. The Federal Government has failed to bite the bullet. Fixing the problems they created for GreenPower is little recompense for the complete bastardisation of the CPRS.”

Most of the changes to the CPRS agreed to by the government revolve around giving large extra amounts of money to the very industries responsible for most of Australia’s carbon emissions.

At the same time, the proposed deal to count all GreenPower purchases as additional lacks detail on how other individual actions will be counted. The deal appears to ignore the issues of counting voluntary actions by businesses, local councils and state governments.

“Local governments, businesses and state governments are making huge inroads into reducing their own emissions, but it is unclear whether the government’s scheme will continue to ignore these,” said Mr Angel.

“This scheme will not achieve anywhere near the emissions reductions we need. We urge the government and the opposition to grasp the challenge of global warming and match their rhetoric with the reality of the environmental challenge all face.”