Whatever the final detail of the federal governments carbon emissions trading scheme the framework of which is contained in the green paper released by climate change minister Penny Wong on July 16 theres one thing we can be sure of: it wont be of much use in cutting Australias carbon emissions.
Analysis
Right at the beginning of his draft report on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut points out that global warming cant be beaten unless an international prisoners dilemma gets resolved.
The campaign to stop the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania’s south-west wilderness resulted in a historic victory for the environment movement in 1983. More than 1000 people came together on July 1 to mark the 25th anniversary of this victory in a night of celebration at the Grand Chancellor’s Federation Ballroom.
What’s the difference between a liberation movement and a terrorist organisation?
On May 5, Victorian Premier John Brumby announced that a deal had been struck with the Australian Education Union that would end the unions 16-month-long industrial campaign. Victorian state school teachers had campaigned to secure better working conditions and pay rises and to reduce contract teaching.
The Rudd government has asked the Productivity Commission to examine the economic, productive and social benefits of introducing a national paid maternity leave scheme. The Commission has heard submissions from a range of unions, business and community groups, and is due to release its report in February, 2009.
PM Kevin Rudd’s “education revolution”, a sad misuse of the word “revolution”, continues to starve public schools of funds. Meanwhile, wealthy private schools are given so much federal money they don’t know what to with it other than bank it or build Olympic-sized gymnasiums.
While the historic elections for a constituent assembly were held in April — a product of the pro-democracy uprising that has ended Nepal’s monarchy and created a republic — Nepal is still yet to have a new government sworn in.
Arctic sea ice reached a record minimum in the Northern summer of 2007, prompting the revision of scientists’ predictions of how quickly it will melt away altogether in response to global warming — perhaps as early as 2010-13, rather than the hundred years later estimated in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.
Some unionists are angry that despite all the warnings about the climate emergency and Australias high per capita greenhouse gas emissions, the Victorian ALP government has given the go-ahead to a $750 million 400 megawatt brown coal power station in the Latrobe Valley.
Professor Ross Garnaut’s draft review of climate change policy options for the Australian government was released on July 4, with climate change minister Penny Wong due to release a green paper canvassing policy options on July 16. Garnaut’s report looks at the “costs” and “benefits” of mitigating drastic climate change through a carbon polluting trading scheme. It suggests tax cuts and “welfare reform” to compensate low-income households, which will be hit hard by energy price rises.
The June 3 Apache Energy gas facility explosion on Veranus Island, 100 kilometres west of the port of Dampier in WA, is the latest in a long history of social irresponsibility in the global oil and gas industry.
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