Lack of a carbon price exposes our industries: Letter to The Age

"Now that the US and the European Union are contemplating carbon adjustment duties on goods involving high carbon emissions in their production when no carbon price is imposed by the source nation, the lack of an Australian carbon price exposes energy-intensive industries, including those which could, but are not yet, taking best advantage of clean energy.

Faced with a changing geopolitical climate, the Morrison government’s response is to direct yet more public funds to a higher-polluting regime than we can afford at this time, including a gas power station that will operate for only a short period of the year at inflated cost (“Gas projects to receive a $40m boost in budget”, The Age, 7/5).

This is a reckless, unsustainable form of intervention demonstrating an alarming propensity for ideological expediency and favouritism.

The correct path is, of course, a carbon price. Instead, we see “clean energy” discourse deconstructed and appropriated by those who spend tax revenue on pet projects in the name of “technology not taxes”.

Jim Allen, Panorama, SA" 

The Age: Letters, 10-5-21

Alan Kohler: Scott Morrison, the Murdochs and the crime of the century (excerpt)

 "It’s not entirely Scott Morrison’s fault that he managed to look like a dissembling idiot at President Joe Biden’s leader’s summit on climate change last week.

He probably hasn’t read a word of the science about global warming and the grim future that awaits his children and grandchildren.

That’s not an excuse, but it tells us the scientists and bureaucrats who advise him and other politicians have been falling down badly on their jobs.

Those people who actually know what’s going on have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch and their bullies, who in turn have been collaborators in the crime of the century.

That the fossil fuel industry managed to turn global warming into a political issue – Left saying it’s happening, Right saying it’s not – might have been tactically brilliant, but it was also a vast global crime.

A looming catastrophe verified by scientists was turned into just another political debate to protect the profits of oil, gas and coal companies."

 

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