Australia’s new NEG National Energy Plan hides a carbon tax, international carbon credits

Graham Lloyd points out we are back where started — a national plan involving international carbon credits:

RepuTex analyst Hugh Grossman says the NEG, in effect, will establish a de facto price on greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.

The government already has indicated that the electricity companies may be able to purchase international or domestic carbon credits to cover any overruns. This remains dangerous political territory for the federal government, which was forced to rule out unequivocally a carbon tax or market-based trading scheme when the review was first announced. A crucial decision will be how to manage the safeguards mechanism under which big emitter companies will be curtailed in growing their emissions.

This was the point that played a part in destroying two Prime Ministers here, and one opposition leader – Turnbull got tossed out in 2009 for Abbott over his support for the emissions trading scheme. Abbott pandered in too many respects to the carbonistas, but he always said emphatically “no” to international carbon credits. If we funnel money offshore for atmospheric nullities over China, we truly get nothing at all in return, and worse, we feed the crony crooks, the financial […]