The government has released its draft carbon price bill. The proposed legislation is actually contained in 14 separate bills, which the government refers to as its “Clean Energy Legislative Package”. The most important are:
- The Clean Energy Bill 2011, which sets up the carbon price mechanism.
- Clean Energy Regulator Bill 2011, which establishes a regulatory body to administer the mechanism – the so-called “carbon cop".
- The Climate Change Authority Bill 2011, which establishes a new authority to advise the government on the future design of the carbon price mechanism.
- The Clean Energy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011, amending existing legislation in the area to align it with the new bills.
The government is seeking comments on the draft bills until 22 August. It will then finalise them and attempt to get them through both houses of parliament later this year, so they can take effect from 1 July next year.
There have been the predictable howls of outrage from the opposition and the usual suspects. They have relied on their favoured tactics of obfuscation and downright lies to discredit the bill’s aims. Few of their arguments stand up to close scrutiny – the consensus of economists, scientists and most of those in the business world is that Australia needs a price on carbon, and that the community needs the certainty that such a price will bring.
The government is attempting to use – shock horror – facts and logic to counter these arguments. Number one salesman is Climate Change Minister Greg Combet. He has been travelling the country explain the legislation to whoever will listen. His, and the government’s, arguments are nowhere better put than an address he gave to the Sydney University Law School on 27 July.
“It is important to note that the Government’s clean energy future policy is a classic example of evidence-based policy,” he said. “In this case, the evidence is the science – another feature of the current debate that has also sadly attracted an extraordinary amount of mindless opposition. Climate change is on the national and international agenda because of the strong scientific consensus.”
Combet then outlined the arguments contained in the Climate Commission’s recent report “The Critical Decade”, which are worth repeating because they are a superb summary of the reasons action is necessary:
- There is no doubt that the climate is changing. The evidence is overwhelming and clear.
- It is beyond reasonable doubt that human activities - the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation - are triggering the changes we are witnessing in the global climate.
- With less than 1 degree of warming, the impacts of climate change are already being felt in Australia and around the world.
- The risks of future climate change – to our economy, society and environment – are serious and grow rapidly with each further increase in temperature.
- Minimising risks requires deep and ongoing transformational shifts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- We need to begin now to make these transformations; to decarbonise our economy and move to clean energy sources.
It’s really that simple. Time to cut to the chase and get on with the job.
