Archive for July 13th, 2008
The Emissions Trading Scheme Scam
Australia’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is the biggest snow job since trying to convince us that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of mass destruction.
Australia’s media would have us believe that Australia is leading the world in establishing the first ETS. The EU has already done that with a carbon tax and failed and is now trying to build a better model. The Rudd government seems intent on setting up this independent ETS quickly to avoid having to accept a global system that could be imposed on us.
It smacks of the Bracks/Brumby governments successful undermining of the Federal water scheme for the Murray Darling Basin (i.e. don’t sign until we have ripped the Murray system off for the benefit of Melbourne’s water supply)
The whole thing is nothing but posturing by the big polluters to seek exemptions and compensation at the expense of the consumer. We hear of excluding petrol from the ETS and compensating consumers for increases in energy bills. These are just sweeteners so the government can then exempt the export coal industry, inefficient power stations and any other major polluter that asks for exemption.
If it is all about protecting consumers voters, wouldn’t it be more efficient to simply exempt the end user and make the polluter pay rather than ripping us off and then setting up an expensive bureaucracy to give us a little back.
The whole idea of an Emissions trading scheme is nothing more than creating another ‘futures’ market to protect the economy the big end of town.
