Making life easier for emitters
The unfortunate reality is that, having waited a decade for a government to express a willingness to do something about climate change, we are now faced with a choice between a policy that locks us into failure by dictating that emissions in Australia cannot fall by more than five per cent and abandoning the CPRS altogether. What could we do instead? The simplest thing to do in the short term is to introduce a carbon tax of around $25 per tonne. As luck would have it, the administrative infrastructure the government needs to run the CPRS is almost identical to that required for a carbon tax. If we can iron out the problems with the CPRS and establish decent targets, we can always move towards a CPRS down the track.
Related documents
Between the Lines Newsletter
The biggest stories and the best analysis from the team at the Australia Institute, delivered to your inbox every fortnight.
You might also like
5 ways and 63 billion reasons to improve Australia’s tax system
With a federal election just around the corner, new analysis from The Australia Institute reveals 63 billion reasons why our next Parliament should improve the nation’s tax system.
Labor’s pledge to depoliticise the public service is undermined by the government only hearing what it wants to hear on climate change
While last year’s robodebt royal commission exposed a shocking lack of ethics among senior ranks of the Australian public service, the systemic condition still largely seems to be regarded as an aberration.
Our crisis of integrity looms in the Pacific
“An Albanese Labor government will restore Australia’s climate leadership, and listen and act on Pacific island warnings of the existential threat of climate change.” Despite a clear election campaign commitment to listen to Pacific Island nations and act on climate change, the Australian government continues to enable and encourage new and expanded fossil fuel projects. When it