Australia to Reintroduce Carbon Reduction Laws
The Australian Government plans to reintroduce carbon reduction laws in the Parliament after the opposition party demanded changes including more compensation for coal-fired power plants, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong announced. Talking to Australia’s ABC Radio, Wong said: “We’ll b
The Australian Government plans to reintroduce carbon reduction laws in the Parliament after the opposition party demanded changes including more compensation for coal-fired power plants, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong announced.
Talking to Australia’s ABC Radio, Wong said: “We’ll be introducing this legislation into the House on Thursday”.
In August this year, the proposed bill was blocked by upper-house senators.
The opposition, which is formed of a coalition of the Liberal Party and the National Party, wants permanent exclusion of farming emissions from the government’s climate-change legislations, Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull said.
The alliance favours an alternative cap-and-trade model that it claims will deliver the same greenhouse gas cuts with a smaller increase in power prices, according to Turnbull.
The opposition has demanded that coal-fired generators be given 390 million carbon emission permits worth US$9.2bn (A$10bn), over a 15-year period.
The government on the other hand, has asked for a third of this figure – 130 million permits valued at US$3.3bn (A$3.6bn) over a five-year period.
The Labour Party government in Australia is aiming to commence carbon trading by 2011 to help lower greenhouse gas output by 5-15% from 2000 levels in ten years time.