Yarra Climate Action Now!

The Rudd Government's Carbon Polluters Rewards Scheme (CPRS) is going to be voted on in the Senate this week. It is most likely to fail, as all other parties apart from the Labor Party will be voting against it (the Greens for good reasons, everyone else for bad reasons).

Yarra Climate Action Now (YCAN) has gone on the record in this blog and in other forums numerous times since the CPRS was announced in December last year. To see our past entries on this issue click on these numbers - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

As this issue is all over the news this week, we would like to reiterate that together with the 150 grassroots climate action groups that met in Canberra in February, and most environment groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, we oppose the CPRS and hope it does not become law.

The reasons can be summarised as follows:

1. It will not reduce Australia's emissions (most reductions will come from buying dodgy overseas offsets)
2. The targets are nowhere near what scientists say is necessary to give us a chance of avoiding runaway climate change.
3. It will result in a massive transfer of wealth from the Australian taxpayer to the big polluting corporations.
4. It will render voluntary action to reduce emissions practically meaningless.
5. It will sabotage international negotiations by showing the world that Australia isn't serious about fighting the climate crisis.

If the Rudd Government was serious about fighting climate change, rather than just saying it is, it would create a scheme that addresses the above concerns.

For further information to back up the five points above, please see our past entries on this issue.

PS - it goes without saying that the proposal that Malcolm Turnbull released yesterday is even worse!