From The Where The Cheese Binds Dept. - Oz Government Facing Major Climate Plan Backlash

[hatrack]

KEVIN Rudd faces a savage backlash from unions and state Labor over an emissions trading scheme, with calls to offer free permits to polluters in order to protect electricity prices and prevent jobs moving offshore.

In his attack on the Garnaut report, NSW Treasurer Michael Costa has backed free permits for electricity generators, saying today in The Australian that "Chicken Little" warnings about the dangers of climate change are no substitute for a rigorous economic and scientific debate.

The Government faces growing calls to offer free permits to polluters to stagger the impact of putting a price on carbon, or embrace the Howard government option of a safety valve system that would place an effective cap on the price of carbon, allowing polluters to pay a fine rather than buy more permits once a certain price for carbon was exceeded.

Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes has also accused the Rudd Government of being "hell bent" on meeting a 2010 timetable, despite the risk of forcing jobs offshore, creating a new class of low-income earners and the effective reintroduction of trade tariffs "against ourselves" if China and Brazil are not dragged into international agreements.

EDIT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23979406-5013871,00.html

Just remember - human beings will do whatever it takes to protect the environment, provided it doesn't cost them any money or inconvenience them in any way.