Australia appears to be ready to run down the Carbon Rabbit Hole, from the WUWT Tips and Notes page
A PRICE is set to be put on carbon from July 1, 2012, under a deal announced today by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Ms Gillard has announced a two-stage process for pricing carbon, which will start with a fixed price period for three to five years and then shift to an emissions trading scheme with a “flexible” price linked to international carbon markets.
Ms Gillard said that the new deal would be the “cheapest and fairest way to cut pollution and build clean energy economies”.
She said she didn’t believe Australia needed to lead the world on the matter, but added it couldn’t be left behind.
Ms Gillard said she anticipated that the Opposition would “launch a fear campaign” on a “great big new tax”, but said she would “not take a step back” on the issue.
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The quickest “consensus” evah! and all in the name of “climate change” with never a mention of AGW:
24 Feb: ABC: Gillard to lay out carbon price policy
In the aftermath of last year’s election, Ms Gillard established a multi-party climate change committee to build consensus on what form a carbon price should take.
The ABC understands the committee has now come to an agreement and Ms Gillard will reveal more details at 11:30am AEDT…
The Government abandoned its previous emissions trading scheme last year after it failed to get it through the Senate.
This backdown is widely believed to have led to former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s slide in the polls, and his eventual sacking…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/24/3147523.htm?section=justin
fyi, the former PM’s sacking is not “widely believed” to have been sacked over his failure to get an ETS through; in fact, the Opposition leader at the time, Malcolm Turnbull, lost his job for backing such a scheme. also note no member of the main Opposition party sat on the “multi-party” committee, and the Opposition is leading the incumbent party in the polls at present. our present Prime Minister promised there would be no carbon price if she was voted in and changed her mind the second she got in. plus the following is from just six days ago!
18 Feb: ABC: Carbon price deal is months away
The Government’s multi-party climate change committee, which is chaired by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and includes the Greens and independent MPs, held its fourth meeting in Canberra this morning.
Ms Gillard and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet were widely expected to unveil their preferred model after the meeting.
But the committee says no final decisions have been taken on how to price carbon or what assistance will be offered to industry and taxpayers.
It says the final design of the carbon price will only be decided when all the elements of the policy can be considered together, and that should happen in the coming months.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/18/3142797.htm?section=justin
Ric Werme writes about New Hampshire:
The New Hampshire House has passed a bill that would have NH withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, RGGI. Next step is Senate (maybe a stop at a Finance committee, and then the Governor. He may well veto it, but the house passed it 246 to 104. The senate will like pass it by a veto proof majority too.
All in all, looking promising!
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/23/new-hampshire-smacks-down-cap-and-trade/
RGGI was supposed to segue directly into a national cap-and-trade system, and was designed by Lisa Jackson, now EPA administrator, when she ran New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection. The pitch to industry was that they could get a head start on buying cap-and-trade permits for two or three dollars each, and make a fortune when a federal bill passed with permit prices ten times that or higher. Now that a federal bill is dead, RGGI is a lose-lose for everyone except the politicians who get to spend the money and the special interests receiving subsidies.
The overwhelming veto-proof, bipartisan vote today means that New Hampshire is now on a path to doing something that looked impossible just a couple years ago — repeal a cap-and-trade program. In the process, it could deal the death blow to cap and trade both regionally and nationally.
While RGGI can survive the loss of a small state like New Hampshire, it could probably not survive the loss of a large state like New Jersey, where a repeal effort is picking up steam fast, with at least 37 co-sponsors.
