This CRAP won’t save earth
Piers Akerman
THE Rudd Labor Government’s newest program - the Carbon Reliance Abatement Program (CRAP) - makes no sense.
It is a complex form of taxation designed to enhance the moral vanity of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and those who believe Australia can make a difference to human-induced global warming.
Even if there were any evidence beyond the IPCC’s faulty modelling to demonstrate that humans are responsible for global warming - which the last decade’s weather would indicate has stalled or even reversed - it should be noted that Australia is responsible for approximately 1.3 per cent of the total anthropogenic global emissions.
The 18 nations ranked ahead of Australia (the European Union is shown as one) by CO2 emissions account for 89 per cent of the total.
Sydney University’s Professor Tom Hubble explained in 2005: “Natural climate change, of similar and greater size as that projected for anthropogenic greenhouse warming, has occurred many times during the last million years and as far as we can tell throughout the history of the planet.”
This is of no consequence to Environment Minister Penny Wong, who launched the Rudd Government’s Green Paper on emission trading yesterday and recommitted Labor to reducing Australia’s emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 - that is, cutting by slightly more than half our 1.3 per cent contribution of the globe’s emissions.
May we ask for what purpose, and at what price to the nation, are we to endure this?
Rudd, internationally noted for his ability to speak Mandarin, seems hell-bent on ensuring that Australian jobs will now go to other Mandarin speakers.
CRAP is a new tax on the nation but the Government lacked the guts to call it what it is. Unlike the GST, which was debated for 17 years before introduction, there is no promise that the burden imposed on already crippled businesses and taxpayers by CRAP will be eased.
Professor Ross Garnaut, Labor’s default reformist of choice, threatens the nation with tragedies of biblical proportions if we don’t go along with his plan. The Murray-Darling system will dry up, the Barrier Reef will die, Kakadu will be swamped.
But paying more taxes will not put water in the Murray - that will only happen if the Rudd Government tells Labor states to buy out water rights contracts, or the river system receives the sort of deluge God promised Noah.
New taxes won’t save Kakadu or the Reef, either, nor will any action we take in Australia have any effect on global temperatures.
The argument that Australia should provide a lead to the rest of the world was effectively ignored by the G8 nations and the other 10 countries which sent observers to Hokkaido earlier this month.
But it is a tribute to the awesome egos of Rudd and his Cabinet that they believe other nations, or even neighbouring countries, stand poised, holding their breaths, until they see which course Australia takes.
However, Australia already leads the world in observing a number of treaties which are resolutely ignored by others.
Look no further than the raft of regulations that govern Australian fishing vessels operating beyond the 200-mile zone, the limits on species, the permits and so on.
Yet, in the same zones, foreign fishing vessels operate without any restriction. Why don’t the other nations order their fleets to observe our rigid rules? The reality is, they don’t because it is not in their interests to follow our lead.
Under CRAP, every Australian will suffer an increase in the cost of living, though this will initially be massaged and lubricated to make it as painless as possible to those at the lower end of the income scale, those on $53,000.
They will be compensated, in a fashion, for around five years (through the next election) at periodic intervals which Wong could not define.
Much has been made about a reduction in fuel excise to accommodate the CRAP cost on fuel, but this will just make it easier for the Government to increase its tax take in the future as it will be levying both the CRAP tax and the fuel levy on motorists.
Industries will be compensated but assistance will be reduced over time. Australians who think their action will somehow save the planet just because they’ve paid their CRAP taxes, should ask themselves who, if anybody, will pay for emissions on Australia’s exports when they reach their destinations?
The Government says its climate change policy is built on three pillars: Reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions; adapting to climate change that we cannot avoid; and helping to shape a global solution that both protects the planet and advances Australia’s long-term interests.
It should concentrate on the first two goals and forget the third. It lacks the ability to have any effect on the planet, as heady as its ambitions may be.