John Howard's Climate Policy Sleight-Of-Hand - Guardian

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Last week Prime Minister John Howard appeared to have changed the government’s policy on global warming by agreeing to set up a taskforce to examine introducing a carbon trading scheme. However, the government is still intent on serving the interests of the mining and other heavy industries, which will dominate the taskforce.

Since the Kyoto conference on climate change ten years ago, the government has refused to introduce a carbon trading scheme. Three years ago a government committee actually produced recommendations for such a scheme. It was endorsed by all major government departments, including that of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and by the Treasurer and the Ministers for Industry and the Environment. However, it was scrapped after a visit to Howard’s office by representatives of the mining, power, aluminium, paper and chemical industries.

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The government’s new taskforce is likely to recommend a scheme which is similar, but which lacks strong penalties for non-complying corporations. The government itself favours granting "long term credits", i.e. allowing companies lots of time to pay for excessive emissions. The focus would be on letting the big polluters off the hook, rather than on reducing atmospheric CO2.

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The French Prime Minister, Dominique De Villepin, recently suggested that the European Economic Union should impose a tax on industrial products imported from countries that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol. An obviously frightened Howard described this as "a thoroughly silly proposal … totally out of touch with reality". However, he is now facing a rapidly rising level of public concern over global warming, which is likely to wreak havoc in Coalition seats at next year’s elections. Moreover, the dominant mining, energy and heavy industry coalition with which the government is aligned, is being challenged by an alliance of other industrial organisations which fear climate change, and which see themselves profiting from a genuine carbon trading scheme. Who is "out of touch with reality"?

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http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve06/1300greenhouse.html