By Brad Gardner | July 23, 2010Prime Minister Julia Gillard today outlined her policy on climate change that will be implemented if she is elected on August 21.
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) will still be delayed until at least 2012 but will now involve the establishment of an expert commission and a community assembly.
The Climate Change Commission will be responsible for explaining the science of climate change, while the Citizens’ Assembly will be given a year to examine the evidence and look at possible consequences of introducing emissions trading.
“Their work would be supported with evidence, analysis and access to the views and positions of a wide range of advocates,” Gillard says of the assembly.
“If we are going to meet this pollution challenge, we need the consensus on a market-based solution to reducing carbon emissions to be like the kind of consensus we have about Medicare.”
Under the CPRS, fuel retailers will need to buy fuel permits to pollute. The costs will be passed down the chain, leading to higher fuel prices for the trucking industry and motorists.
The industry will be given a one-year reprieve from price rises, with the Government committing to cutting one cent from the fuel excise for every one cent rise due to emissions trading.
During her speech Gillard warned of the consequences of not addressing climate change, citing rising sea levels and an increase in global temperatures.
“Each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the last,” she says, adding that her government will cut pollution levels by at least 5 percent by 2020.
While saying the case for emissions trading will not convince everyone, Gillard says she will not allow the country “to be held to ransom by a few people with extreme views that will never be changed”.
The Citizens Assembly will be made up of volunteers selected by an independent body to inform the Government on concerns that need be addressed before the transition to a lower pollution economy.
Gillard has also committed to rewarding businesses that reduce their pollution levels.
She also pledged to ensure all new power stations will have to meet best practice standards on carbon emissions and that the baselines for industry assistance already outlined in the CPRS will not be increased.
The Greens want a $23 tax per tonne of carbon from July 1 next year until the CPRS is introduced.
Under its plan, the rate will increase by four percent plus CPI each year until a global scheme for reducing emissions is negotiated.