One Small Step Toward Cutting Greenhouse Gas Pollution. (July 11, 2011)

Don Henry, Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, after emerging from the 3-hour lock up during which the Government's package for the introduction of carbon pollution mitigation was examined by the the media, summed up matters in a couple of sentences: This agreement lays the foundation to finally cut Australia’s pollution and do something about climate change. More bricks certainly need to be laid, but today we’re moving from talk to action.

It remains to be seen whether the future ushers in a retreat back to current practice or moves to embracing what will become a 21^st century industrial economy.

The promised legislation incorporates a $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to drive large-scale investment "to get innovative clean energy proposals and technologies off the ground", in addition to an Australian Renewable Energy Agency to manage $3.2 billion in existing Federal Government grants for research and development into renewable energy technologies and initiatives to bring them to market. There is also promise of a $200 million program for Clean Technology Innovation by proving grants to support business investment in renewable energy, low emissions technology and energy efficiency.

The CEFC is also to invest in the transformation of existing manufacturing businesses to re-focus on meeting demand for example for manufacturing wind turbine blades and solar photo-voltaic panels.

With sardonic humour  Professor Graham Farquhar of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute commented: "The aim of the carbon tax is to reduce Australian emissions by 5%. In turn the aim of that reduction is to put political or economic pressure to encourage or shame other countries to reduce their emissions by 5%. If we are successful and all the countries of the world reduce their emissions to five per cent below what they would have been, then the anthropogenic climate that we would otherwise have seen in 2031 will be postponed until 2032."

On the other hand Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation sounded a more optimistic note: "Today's announcement is a very important step forward. There will at last be a price on greenhouse pollution. While it does not start high enough to drive a rapid transition to a clean energy future, it is a beginning and a clear signal to the business community. I particularly welcome the establishment of a new Climate Change Authority to advise on pollution caps after 2015, improving the chance they will be based on science rather than political expediency. We need [however] to do much better than a 5% reduction by 2020 to meet the urgent challenge of climate change. The National Energy Savings Initiative needs to be rapidly implemented, as energy efficiency is by far the most cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse pollution... [and] an urgent priority should be the phasing out of subsidies for fossil fuel production and use."

Snow Barlow, professor at the Melbourne School of Land and Environment, The University of Melbourne said that : The specific Creating Opportunities for the Land package provides a welcome $1.9 billion over six years to support emissions reduction and carbon sequestration in the land-based sector. More than $200 million over six years is allocated for research and development to develop strategies, technologies and methodologies to achieve these emissions reductions. The implementation of these measures will be guided by natural resource management (NRM) plans for each of Australia’s 56 NRM regions to ensure that carbon emission reduction measures do not result in perverse outcomes for land use and Australia’s unique biodiversity. Most importantly there is a clear market for the carbon credits developed in these activities either directly into the Tax scheme or through a scheme regulator in the case of activities not currently covered by the Kyoto Protocol.

In just on 2-year's time Australia's voters will demonstrate whether or not Tony Abbott, leading a Liberal-National coalition, is truly representative of the national viewpoint or is seen as John Clarke would suggest, a contributor to The Flat Earther Monthly.