4-18-07, 9:05 am

The Howard Government remains unwilling to take serious steps to avert global warming, even following the release of another alarming report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report contains horrifying details of the global impacts of climate change, including the loss of hundreds of thousands of coastal dwellings in Australia, if inadequate action is taken to avert the impact of global warming.

In view of this, the State Premiers have agreed to establish their own carbon trading system if the Howard government does not do so. Establishment by governments of carbon trading schemes, which are aimed at rewarding industries which reduce their emissions and penalising those who do not, is one of the recommendations of the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

However, the task force set up by the Howard Government last November to examine the introduction of such a scheme appears to have made little or no headway.

'Clean' nuclear vs 'clean' coal

The government has long been under pressure from scientists, concerned community organisations and the leaders of a number of major industries to introduce a carbon-trading scheme. The uranium mining industry and nuclear power corporations have been particularly vocal, because they see this as a means of facilitating the introduction of nuclear energy. The Government's tentative and tremulous moves to examine carbon trading have primarily come about because of the pressure from the latter group.

However, to date carbon trading seems as far away as ever. Although Howard enthusiastically endorses nuclear power, the Government is still abjectly following the policy line emanating from the coal mining industry and other heavy industries, i.e. to refrain from introducing a carbon trading scheme.

This group's lobbying efforts have been led by the mining giant, Rio Tinto. Despite the brazen conflict of interest, in 2004 Howard appointed Rio Tinto's scientist, Dr Robin Batterham, as his own scientific advisor.

The Government was also heavily influenced by the ultra-conservative Lavoisier Group. This notorious organisation identified the real threat to humankind as coming not from global warming, but from the Kyoto Protocol itself, which it described as 'the most serious challenge to our sovereignty since the Japanese fleet entered the Coral Sea on May 3 1942'!

The government continues to back the development of 'clean coal' technology, despite clear evidence that it would take far too long, would require massive taxpayer funding, and would pose extremely serious environmental hazards. Howard has refused to raise the mandatory level of 2 percent for production of energy from renewable sources, and refuses to nominate a cap for emission of greenhouse gases in Australia.

'Log jam' hypocrisy

The Government's latest and most transparently hypocritical scheme is a major grant for tracking illegal logging operations in Indonesia, in the hope that the Indonesian Government will stop this activity.

The Government, which failed to deal adequately with massive land clearing operations in Queensland and NSW, has announced that it will publicise any information about imported items which have been made from illegal Indonesian timber, even though it will be virtually impossible to track its progress from raw lumber to finished item.

Moreover, in an amazing example of double standards, it has now backed a move to overthrow a Court decision which outlawed major logging operations in Tasmania's ancient Wielangta old growth forest.

Swimming against the tide

The Government and its heavy industry 'sceptic' advisers are losing the race because of concerned public opinion, and because of new technological developments.

New technologies are rapidly reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of solar and other renewable energy sources. One company is planning to build a pilot plant for production of extremely efficient 'silver' solar photovoltaic cells. Another company intends to exploit the geothermal energy of subterranean mineral deposits in Queensland and South Australia, which could possibly supply the country's power needs for thousands of years.

The Government's remnant credibility also suffered major damage two weeks ago after the release of a statement by the Secretary of the Australian Treasury, Dr Ken Hendry, in which he savagely criticised the economic viability of the Howard Government's water and climate change policies, including the intended takeover of the Murray-Darling river system.

Howard's petulant reply, that Treasury officials do not specialise in water conservation, appears to have done nothing to restore the Government's public standing. Opinion polls taken in the aftermath of the Stern Report and the latest IPCC report continue to indicate that the Howard government will be swept aside in this year's federal elections.

From The Guardian

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