[LINK] Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green paper online

[Tom Worthington]

The Australian Government released its Carbon Pollution Reduction 
Scheme Green Paper today (Wednesday 16 July 2008). There is a 
Summary, Fact sheets, and media release available, as well as the 
Full report <http://www.climatechange.gov.au/emissionstrading/>. The 
report is, in part, a response to the Garnaut Climate Change Review. 
The government is inviting submissions on the green paper.

My comments are at 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/07/australian-government-carbon-pollution.html>. 
In summary:

Too Much PDF

The summary of the report is an efficiently coded as an accessible 
web page, but most of the other documents are large PDF files. The 
chapters of the report have been provided as separate files, for 
individual download, which helps, as well as the full 3 Mbyte 
document. The summary has been offered first, then other chapters and 
the full report last. This is a good approach as many people will 
only need the summary, but will tend to click on the full report, if 
it is offered first. However, it is a little confusing as three 
versions of the summary are provided: a HTML version, a PDF version 
and the summary chapter of the report in PDF. It would be better if 
the HTML version of the summary had been offered, before the PDF 
version. Apart from the cost and inconvenience to the reader, large 
PDF files contribute to carbon emissions, due to the need for 
increased electricity use in transmission, processing and storage of 
the documents.

Exclusion of Transport Fuel Questionable

The Government proposes an emissions trading scheme, with a limit set 
on how much carbon pollution industry can produce, and the price set 
by the market. Funds from the initial sale of permits will be used to 
help households and businesses reduce carbon emissions. However, the 
government proposes to cut fuel taxes to offset the initial increase 
due to the permits for the first three years. This will remove the 
incentive for fuel users to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and so 
remove much of the value of the scheme. The three year review for 
this seems to place it just past the next election, removing 
political pressure from the government. It is unfortunate the 
government has taken this cynical political approach to an important 
global issue and so placed the lives of millions of people at risk.

No Online forum

The government is inviting submissions on the green paper by 
electronic means, which is to be commended. But all that is provided 
is an email address to write to. This would be a good opportunity for 
the government to show leadership and sponsor an online forum for discussion.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University