In the lead-up to the UN leaders’ summit on climate change, China is shifting up a gear in its drive towards national emissions trading. Yet for carbon pricing to be effective, market reform in China’s…
Clive Palmer, with the unlikely backing of Al Gore, may have found a way to salvage something from Australia’s looming climate policy vacuum.
AAPImage/Alan Porritt
Climate policy is back on the agenda in Canberra this week, with the focus on the government’s centrepiece Direct Action plan. The Coalition will have to negotiate with the Palmer United Party, which will…
Forestry is credited under New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme.
World Resources Institute/Flickr
The Coalition government has recently axed Australia’s carbon “tax”, leaving us with no carbon price. Alternatives include the government’s “Direct Action” plan, or Clive Palmer’s proposed emissions trading…
Even before it was born, the carbon price had plenty of friends – and lots of enemies.
Shutterstock
The Carbon Pricing Mechanism, known to its friends as the carbon price and its critics as the carbon tax, passed away today in Canberra, aged two, after a long battle with slogans. While it won praise…
After more than a week of delays, the Senate has scrapped the carbon tax.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Carbon emissions in Australia’s national electricity market would have been 11 to 17 million tonnes higher if Australia had not introduced a carbon price. New research using the latest data indicates that…
Leader of the House Christopher Pyne and Environment Minister Greg Hunt when the carbon tax repeal passed through the lower house on Monday.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The bill to repeal Australia’s “carbon tax” is poised to pass the Senate, potentially leaving Australia without a working price on carbon. In the short term, the repeal may provide some relief for businesses…
Clive Palmer announced his climate policy at a press conference with former US vice president Al Gore last night.
AAPImage/Alan Porritt
In a surprising announcement last night Clive Palmer promised to abolish Australia’s current carbon price, and block the coalition’s Direct Action policy. But Palmer has said he will vote to retain the…
A new benchmark to measure the economic response to climate change.
Mario Sánchez Prada
The UK government’s senior adviser on science has made an entirely sensible call for researchers and policy makers to move the climate change debate towards workable strategies and solutions. The trouble…
A reform silver lining lurking behind the clouds?
Arnold Paul
Luca Taschini, London School of Economics and Political Science and Josh Gregory, Imperial College London
In 2008, the European carbon market crashed. Carbon emission allowances in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) plunged from €30 per tonne of C02 in June 2008 to €7 at the beginning of 2009. Prices have…
Politically, the carbon tax issue has been great for Tony Abbott, allowing him to position himself as a friend to business.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Nine years ago, I spent long days inside Downing Street working with the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair on how to position his government on the global climate problem. Blair was keen to work out…
The key to reducing carbon emissions?
Caroline Ford
What if carbon trading – where companies must bid for limited permits to emit pollutants, and so pay a price in order to do so – could be applied on an individual level? Personal carbon trading is a policy…
It’s about climate change, but it’s not ALL about climate change.
John Giles/PA
Erik Gawel, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research; Paul Lehmann, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, and Sebastian Strunz, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
The European Commission has presented a new climate and energy policy framework for 2030 that focuses heavily on emissions reductions. Currently the EU implements “20-20-20” targets, which require a 20…
Making too much money can be the undoing of an emissions reduction scheme.
Images_of_Money/Flickr
Carbon (emissions) taxes have proved unpalatable world-wide, compared to (carbon) emissions trading schemes. But taxes give stable carbon prices while prices in emissions trading schemes yo-yo, plunge…
Making an emissions market work in China will be entirely different to making one work in the west.
Dai Luo
This week, China will launch the pilots of its Beijing and Shanghai emmissions trading schemes. But the operating environment for these schemes will be vastly different to that in Australia or the European…
Tony Abbott can have an emissions trading scheme and be a good conservative politician.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Perhaps the Abbott government can solve its climate change problem by revisiting an old Coalition policy. Before the 2013 election the Coalition promised to cut the “carbon tax”, introduce direct action…
China’s industrialisation has followed the same path, but the rules of the game have changed.
Jonathan Kos-Read
What can two periods of industrialisation nearly two centuries apart tell us about how economies change and the demands their change place on the planet? Today, China leads the wave of emerging economies…
When officials in the northern Chinese province of Hubei recently declared their dedication to cleaning up air pollution by giving up smoking, few were impressed by their grasp of the problem. But China…
California isn’t just controlling its own emissions, but the emissions it benefits from.
Kenneth Lu
Australia will not be linking its emissions trading scheme to California any time soon. But Australia will have to increase its emissions reduction targets to between 15-25% below 2000 levels by 2020…
Cheap emissions permits means industry hasn’t traded in its polluting ways.
David Davies/PA
Raphael Calel, London School of Economics and Political Science and Cameron Hepburn, London School of Economics and Political Science
When the carbon price collapsed to below €3 in April this year, EU policymakers sought to prop up carbon prices by a deal that would delay the release of carbon allowances (known as “backloading”). This…