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February 3, 2010
It's what you would expect from the Coalition on climate change after they dumped Malcolm Turnbull as their leader. The risk was that the opposition will be seen as having no policy clothes.Their problem was that they had to do something about addressing climate change, even though they are climate change sceptics and deniers.
They came up with a climate change plan to get the Coalition through to the next election, not a serious plan to refit the Australian economy so that it emits less carbon. It's a fig leaf designed to give them some green wash and a shield designed to protect Australia's coal, aluminum and cement industries from change.
Ben Cubby in the SMH says:
By failing to address the sources of rising greenhouse gas emissions, even the federal government's minimum target of 5 per cent cuts by 2020 would be likely to spiral out of reach, potentially exposing Australia to punitive action from other nations that are able to meet their targets. A 15 or 25 per cent cut by 2020 could no longer be contemplated, passing on much steeper costs into the following decade.In essence, farmers would be asked to plough carbon back into the ground faster than the coal industry can dig it up, and Abbott's volunteer ''green army'' would be asked to plant trees faster than the timber industry can cut them down.
There is nothing to make the polluters feel the cost of their polluting. Without any penalty for forcing emissions down, they would continue to increase because those who decided not to reduce their carbon footprint (coal fired power stations) would have no reason to change. They could keep their emissions at ''business as usual'' levels until 2020 without penalty. This would cause more taxpayers' money to be spent on incentives so the 5 per cent target would be met.
This is another indication that political leaders have proved so reluctant to make big polluters subject to the kind of price signals that are essential to force a shift to low carbon technologies. Neither of the major parties in Australia has adopted a cap that is deep enough to drive the industrial transformation.
The Coalition rejects any form of market mechanism to reduce carbon pollution from energy generation and transport fuels.The strength of the Coalitions' plan is on storing carbon in soils and vegetation and soils.
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A Coalition government would provide a $1000 rebate for either solar panels or solar hot water systems. The former costs $20,000 or more. Nothing about a feed in tariff. These guys aren't serious.