"This is a strong climate change policy package. It will allow Australia to do its fair share in an effective global effort to reduce the risks of climate change, and to do so at reasonable cost."
- Prof Ross Garnaut
The Conversation website has been rounding up expert reaction to the Govt's Carbon Pricing package, while Prof Ross Garnaut's full response is here.
Like Prof Garnaut, the majority of experts have reacted favorably to the scheme on the whole. There seems to be general agreement that this is a better scheme than the CPRS.
The method to provide much of the compensation by raising the income-free threshold to $18 000 has been widely praised as good policy in that it compensates people, simplifies the tax system and also means ~1 million people won't need to file a tax return.
Other experts like the renewables money, the formation of mostly-independent agencies to recommend future policy to government, the money for carbon sequesteration in the land etc.
For more, see the linked articles.
Update: Prof Frank Jotzo chimes in, again he's pretty positive about the package
Maybe folk should catch up on the reality of cap and trade: http://vimeo.com/7908590
ReplyDeleteWatch the 'Story of Stuff" video and think again about their unconditional support.
Hi Dave, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the "Story of Cap and Trade" video you link to is quite misleading (compared to Annie Leonard's excellent "Story of Stuff")
See
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-01-annie-leonard-misses-the-mark-her-new-video-story-cap-and-trade
and
http://www.grist.org/article/cataloguing-the-errors-in-the-story-of-cap-and-trade
To put it simply, flaws in any carbon price generally represent the lobbying power of industry and vested interests. Since this will affect any attempt/method to address climate change we will never get a perfect policy. The more important question is whether this policy is a worthwhile start? Personally I think the answer is yes.