Page 3226 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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change is by cutting emissions sooner rather than later. The Greens will continue to argue for a reduction of overall emissions of 80 per cent of 1990 levels, as distinct from 2000 levels, by 2050.
The greenhouse gas abatement scheme was originally established as a temporary scheme, with the vision that it would be replaced by a national emissions trading scheme. As we know from the announcements of both aspiring prime ministers, it now looks likely that a national scheme will be in place by 2011. But three years is too long to wait, and we should be pushing for a national scheme to start as soon as possible. Given that the current abatement scheme continues until 2012, why on earth are we debating a bill to extend it until 2020?
The National Emissions Trading Taskforce will be recommending its preferred design for a national scheme in the next few months, and it would seem sensible to wait and see what type of scheme is recommended. After all, the current scheme already continues to 2012. With this in mind, and for many other good reasons which I will outline shortly, the Greens cannot support this bill in its current form.
Currently we in the ACT are bound by New South Wales electricity producers and retailers, so we are unable to make strident steps into forming our own independent scheme. However, there is nothing to stop the ACT setting lower benchmarks separately, which is exactly what I am proposing, and I will get to that later. Given that the ACT does not have large-scale industry or agriculture, we have ample opportunity to be a shining example of a jurisdiction with low greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, we continue to be one of the highest per capita emitters in the country, and still the Stanhope government continues with pathetically low emission reduction targets. I guess we are supposed to just be happy that we have any targets at all.
There are targets in the greenhouse gas abatement scheme, but they are minimal—they are Clayton’s targets; the kinds of targets you set when you do not really want to set targets. They are the targets you get when you allow the big polluters to dictate their own terms. In this age where we are all aware of the climate crisis, I believe these pathetic benchmarks are an indication of a lack of understanding of the economic realities of climate change.
I have yet to see evidence that the government really understands just how much change is needed to turn the climate change crisis around. I want to say that some of the measures in the appropriation bill that were announced today are much more significant measures to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and those I applaud.
Earlier this year the debate effectively ended about climate change when the world’s leading scientists made it very clear that there is more than a 90 per cent probability that human-induced climate change is responsible for the levels of global warming we are currently seeing. Members may have heard news reports over previous months about ice caps in the arctic melting irreplaceably. One such ice cap was the size of the United Kingdom. We have also heard the World Conservation Union telling us that at least 30 per cent of species will be extinct by 2050 purely as a result of climate change. This is not just hearsay; this is the actual indication of a crisis that requires urgent
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