The draft report of Professor Ross Garnaut's Climate Change Review will be released at 12.30 today here.
For overseas readers, this review has been described as the Australian version of the Stern Review. The report will look at the economic impact on Australia of climate change and the design of a domestic emissions trading scheme (ETS), as well as suggestions for Australia's role in international negotiations. The findings will be a major input into the government's ETS which is to be unveiled by the end of the year.
The next 6 - 12 months are likely to be a time of furious debate in Australia about what the ETS should look like. The debate has begun with whether and how petrol should be included in the scheme.
3 comments:
David, do you have a view on whether petrol could be included but excise reduced so as to have no immediate impact? I was originally directly opposed, but now I'm in two minds. If the carbon price replaced a flat excise, then it can fluctuate with the market.
Kymbos
Hi Kymbos,
I guess there's no reason in principle why you shouldn't do that. It's more a practical issue that cutting the petrol excise removes any immediate price increase on petrol and therefore means you have to raise the price of everything else more to achieve the same cuts.
The spike in petrol prices would have helped cut Australian emissions already (though probably no impact on world emissions because the oil price has risen largely due to increased use by other countries) but who knows where the petrol price will go now - if back down then cutting the excise won't have been a good idea.
Hi David,
I come across your blog today and it's great to see that there are a number of Australians who are taking environmental issues seriously in the blogosphere.
We all have a part to play and any little difference we can make is undoubtedly going to be good for the planet.
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