Australia’s Carbon Policy – a Retreat from Core Principles

Successive Australian governments have been committed to the introduction of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) designed to mitigate climate change.1 In December 2006, the then-Prime Minister John Howard announced that Australia would move towards a domestic emissions trading system, to start no later than 2012.2 The subsequent Rudd government proposed an Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (ACPRS) in 2008. The proposed ACPRS had two objectives: first, to meet Australia‟s emissions reduction targets in the „most flexible and cost-effective way‟; and second, to sustain a global response to climate change.3 The ACPRS legislation was twice defeated in the Australian Parliament in 2009. As a result, at the beginning of 2010, the government put the ACPRS on hold. Later in 2010, the government announced its intention to propose a temporary carbon pricing scheme,4 and also, set up the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee (the Committee)5 consisting of members of the federal government and senators.6