After years of squabbling over climate policy, do we now have a prime minister prepared to clean up the mess? Given a fair wind at the Paris summit and an election win, Turnbull might just pull it off.
From Hawke-Keating to Rudd-Gillard, climate policy has an uncanny ability to cost Australian political leaders their jobs. And it was a key element in the rivalry between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
The term ‘carbon tax’ is a political poison in Australia, thanks to the previous carbon tax which was actually an emissions trading scheme. Yet ironically, many economists prefer a tax over an ETS anyway.
Environment minister Greg Hunt hasn’t asked for any more money for the Emissions Reduction Fund. So what is actually in the budget, as far as climate change is concerned?
Australia’s emissions target will inevitably be compared with other leading nations. But a fair target should be calculated not on a basis of comparison, but on the world’s shared 2-degree climate goal.
UN climate chief Christiana Figueres has hinted that Australia risks becoming an outsider at this year’s Paris climate talks if it doesn’t match the ambition of many other countries’ climate pledges.
Federal environment minister Greg Hunt has hailed the first round of Emissions Reduction Fund auctions as a “stunning result”. But extrapolating the numbers puts Australia behind on its carbon targets.
James Whitmore, The Conversation; Michael Hopkin, The Conversation, dan Emil Jeyaratnam, The Conversation
The first round of contracts for Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund have been awarded, at an average price of just under A$14 a tonne. How do the numbers stack up, and what projects are the big winners?
A report from Australia’s Climate Change Authority recommends cutting greenhouse emissions by 30% by 2025 if the country is to be seen as a good global citizen in this year’s climate negotiations.
Want a single word to sum up environmental affairs in 2014? Let’s go with “heated”. The year began with the realisation that 2013 was Australia’s hottest ever (and yes, it’s because of us), and ended with…
The Climate Change Authority has recommended that the government move back the deadline for the large-scale Renewable Energy Target by three years, from 2020 to 2023, rather than risk jeopardising investment…
Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop will have a lot of explaining to do when she arrives here in Lima, Peru, ahead of her address to the UN climate summit tomorrow. It will take all of her diplomatic…
The federal government has now achieved passage of its Direct Action plan through the Senate. Some wheeling and dealing with the cross-benches was required of course – but while the government may oppose…
There’s little point in getting too excited just yet about the details of Direct Action and its merits (or otherwise) as compared with emissions trading. Why? Because all of the current debate about Australia’s…
With the passage of the Emissions Reduction Fund through the Senate last night, the federal government has taken a step towards achieving Australia’s minimum target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to…