Green future could mean more welfare
FAMILIES hit with soaring petrol and power prices as a result of an emissions trading scheme could be compensated, a government enonomics expert said yesterday.
And coal-dependent communities such as the Latrobe Valley may be eligible for big payouts if the power industry is hurt by federal plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Federal climate change economics expert Ross Garnaut yesterday released a discussion paper on development of a national carbon emissions scheme. Under the scheme, to begin in 2010, caps will be placed on the levels of greenhouse gas pollution emitted by industry.
Prof Garnaut said most Australians did not yet have a concrete idea of how an ETS would work.
He said electricity and petrol prices would rise under an ETS, necessitating government welfare to low-income families.
"One of the intended effects of an ETS is to make emission-intensive goods and services more expensive," Prof Garnaut said. "Electricity and petrol prices will rise."
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government was determined to ensure carbon trading did not harm communities.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sto...9-2862,00.html
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."
Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)