Prime Minister's Task Group on Carbon Trading Recommendations

Posted on 4/6/2007 at 4:23 PM in Letter to Politicians - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link

Hi,

If you want to tell your politician you want more action on Climate Change here's a letter you might send to them. Cut and paste into MS Word or whatever you use and address it to your politician. Their address can be found at the website www.saltshakers.org.au/html/P/13/B/82/

The more people they hear from the more they will take this issue seriously. Letters carry a lot more weight with those in politicians offices than email, it's worth the envelope and stamp.

Good luck, and don't forget to sign your letter.

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Goodmorning,

I’m writing to you because I want solid action on climate change.

The weakness of the carbon trading group recommendations released last week and endorsed by the government is little surprise given it’s makeup and terms of reference.

The emissions trading task group was hand picked by the PM to include some of the worst offenders in greenhouse emissions, comprising hugely profitable businesses, many headquartered overseas and with no interest in reducing greenhouse gasses. Environment groups were very much excluded.

In announcing the task group last December the PM made it clear what was expected of them.[1]

 “…we need to maintain the prosperity that our abundant fossil fuels have given us…”

TERMS OF REFERENCE
Australia enjoys major competitive advantages through the possession of large reserves of fossil fuels and uranium. In assessing Australia's further contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these advantages must be preserved.

Predictably there were no targets even mentioned in the recommendations, the time frame it to begin drafting legislation is 2009 and to begin phasing in a trading system in 2012. In the meantime the European system is sorting out it’s teething problems and will be live on January 1, 2008.

On Wednesday the 30^th of May the PM made it clear in Parliament that Australia would not be ratifying the Kyoto Protocol because according to him it was not in the nations economic interest. This leaves two countries with no intention of ratifying Kyoto: Australia, with the highest per capita emissions in the developed world and the USA, the world’s largest emitter. I am not comfortable with Australia being on this very short list.

Instead of working with the rest of the world, Australia and the USA have promoted distracting alternatives to Kyoto such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), the Clean Coal Partnership with China and endorsing[2] the May 31 proposal from George Bush[3] for the largest emitters in the world to set their own non-binding emission targets at talks that will be scheduled to coincide with (and distract from) the Kyoto talks later this year.

This is just not good enough and as my elected representative I’m calling on you to act. Australia needs to cease distracting the world by promoting alternatives to Kyoto, we should immediately ratify the Kyoto protocol and then set serious targets for emission reductions such as those proposed by Britain, Germany and Japan of cutting emissions by 50 percent by 2050.

Australia has had a free ride on greenhouse emissions by way of our 108% target and ‘The Australia Clause’ inserted at the last minute into Kyoto meaning that we don’t have to do anything to meet our target but stop clearing land for farming, something we were going to do anyway! We need to engage in the global action on this issue and I will be watching for your response to this issue as we approach this year’s Federal election.

Yours Sincerely,