By Adam Morton with comments by Robert MuirLABOR and the Greens will push to introduce a carbon tax next year, later evolving into emissions trading, under a compromise that avoids saying how rapidly Australia should cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The announcement sparked heated debate in Parliament on climate change, with Julia Gillard declaring, ''We will have this debate and we will win it,'' and Tony Abbott accusing the prime minister of betraying Australians by breaking a promise not to introduce a carbon tax.
The hybrid carbon scheme announced by Ms Gillard and Greens leader Bob Brown would force industry to buy a permit for each tonne of carbon dioxide emitted from July 1 next year.
A trading system, with the carbon permit price set on a market linked to other schemes overseas, could follow in three to five years.
Pitching the change as an economic necessity, Ms Gillard said countries around the world were moving towards clean energy and Australia would lose jobs and competitiveness if it failed to act.
''I do not believe that Australia needs to lead the world on climate change, but I also don't believe that we can afford to be left behind,'' she said.
She said ''the whole point'' was that there would be an impact on prices - products that generate a lot of carbon pollution would become more expensive, encouraging people to innovate and find cleaner alternatives.
Mr Abbott said the Labor-Greens deal showed government policy was being decided by Senator Brown. He contrasted Ms Gillard's language with her promise before last year's election that there would be ''no carbon tax under the government I lead'', and predicted a ''people's revolt'' against the government.
''I don't believe it will ever happen, because I think the Australian public will be so revolted by this broken promise, by this breach of faith,'' Mr Abbott said.
Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne said only a minority government involving her party could have delivered action on climate change.
''It is because the Greens are in balance of power working with the other parties to deliver not only the aspiration but the process to achieve it,'' she said.
The framework announced yesterday was discussed last week by the multiparty climate committee, but has not yet won the support of key independent MP Tony Windsor.
Few details were released beyond a timeline and a promise that all money raised would be spent on helping households and businesses and paying for climate change programs. Agriculture would be excluded, as it was under the emissions trading model shelved by former Kevin Rudd last April.
The most contentious decisions - the tax starting price, how much it would increase each year, the amount of compensation for coal power plants and whether to include transport emissions - are yet to be discussed by the committee.
A carbon tax was chosen as the preferred model largely because it meant Labor and the Greens did not have to agree on a 2020 emissions target. The government has a minimum target of a 5 per cent cut; the Greens argue for at least 25 per cent.
Trading schemes are linked to a target, with only enough permits released to meet it. In contrast, a tax offers no guarantee that greenhouse gases will be reduced. Industries can choose to either cut emissions or just bear the additional cost.
Ms Gillard said the carbon tax was ''hard-wired'' to become a trading scheme, but a committee communique said the start of trading could be delayed depending on the level of international action.
The plan received a mixed response from business and a cautiously positive reaction from climate economists and environmentalists.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said the plan would help frame the debate over a carbon price, but the ''sharp end of the debate is yet to come''.
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said: ''Without a credible initial pollution price of greater than $25 a tonne we will not unlock billions of dollars in new investments and thousands of new jobs.''
Economist Ross Garnaut, an adviser to the climate committee, said it was a ''sensible'' step forward, based on his 2008 recommendation to start with a fixed price if there was not a comprehensive global deal.
The independent members of the climate committee whose votes will be needed to introduce the tax had a mixed response. Rob Oakeshott said he would prefer straight emissions trading, but would back the Labor-Greens model if it came to a vote tomorrow. Mr Windsor did not guarantee his support, saying his decision would be shaped by international action to cut emissions. ''Nothing is settled, in my view,'' he said. End of Quote
This lovely planet we all have to share is a completely self regulating body so the reality is that there is nothing that mankind can do to alter how the planet regulates its temperature, either hot or cold, one way or another.
Therefore the Carbon Tax that was announced today in the Federal Parliament by the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has nothing at all to do with Climate Change, but has everything to do with creating a sludge fund so that the Australian tax payer could be slugged with extra charges on their electricity bills other essential services so that the money could be siphoned off to go towards setting up a World Government.
If there are those out there who are reading this piece and right now that may be thinking a New World Order is a great idea then those same people are quite clearly not Bible readers and are able to see what the outcome of this insidious plan for the total control of every individual on every planet is going to lead us to.
Total enslavement, that's what, as the personal liberties and freedoms of every individual on the planet are slowly but surely eroded for all time.
Even though it is not a theory that I personally relate to or run with, but the timing for the introduction of Carbon Tax July 2012 start date is impeccable, if those who run with the current notion the world is going to end on the 21st of December 2012 are correct?
What I really mean by that is that once we are being slugged that extra tax what that effectively means is the World Government is in place.
As the ancients tried to build a tower to Heaven and in his anger God destroyed the Tower of Babel and divided the peoples up into different nations speaking different languages He will also destroy its modern day version, the New World Order, of that certainty there really can be no doubts at all. Gods richest blessings.
