The NSW Labor government is to consider a so-called new scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the May 4 Sydney Morning Herald, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) is working on a plan which will allow energy distributors to buy and sell pollution emission quotas. Proponents say such a scheme will help develop clean energy technologies, such as solar energy, and marginalise "dirty" energy producers such as the brown coal power stations in Victoria.
Last year NSW bought nearly $120 million worth of energy from Victoria. The EPA says that the quota scheme would force the state's power distributors to buy their energy from cleaner producers. The scheme would set statewide pollution emission quotas, which would be gradually reduced over the years. Distributors could also gain credits by buying from cleaner energy sources, and they would have the right to trade these pollution permits.
The scheme is flawed in a number of ways. Firstly, it relies on industry to self-regulate — something it hasn't proved very proficient at in the past. Secondly, it will allow polluting industries to continue to pollute. If distributor A manages to meet its quota for the year, it would be able to sell its emission quota — its "right" to pollute — to distributor B, which may have had trouble buying enough clean energy. This scheme will not help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, it will help to keep the polluters in business.
Far from being a "new" scheme, giving companies to right to trade pollution quotas has been lawful in the United States for some years. It was also being considered by the former federal Labor government.
Australia already has an international reputation for its recalcitrance on meeting the targets to reduce greenhouse gases. At every international climate change forum since the targets were first agreed in the late 1980s, Australia has dragged its feet. At last year's Berlin conference, Australia led the charge against the setting up of binding targets.
Per capita, Australia produces the largest amount of greenhouse gases in the world. Climate scientists say that Australia's fossil-fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions — 25% of its total emissions — are expected to grow at a faster rate in this decade than for any other industrialised country.
Neither of the major parties' pre-election environment packages mentioned how Australia would reach its international commitment to reduce the production of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2000.
Giving industry to right to pollute will not speed up the change that is so urgently required. The latest evidence from a majority of the world's climate scientists that the world is warming up, the result of human-induced changes to the atmosphere, is cause for real concern.
The NSW government would do well to reflect on the US experience. At the Berlin conference, the Clinton administration admitted that its voluntary agreements with industry were not helping.
If the federal and state governments are really serious about solving the greenhouse problem, they will have to commit themselves to targets. At a minimum, several steps need to be taken now. They include: allocating the funds to boost the fledgling renewable energy industry in order to begin to phase out coal-fired power stations; setting up an independent regulatory body to monitor industry's progress; an end to the slow privatisation of the public transport sector; and an injection of funds to rebuild and extend public transport to discourage the use of private motor vehicles.