Isramart : Garnaut Calls for De Facto Carbon Tax in Australia, SMH Reports

Isramart news:
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s former climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, called on the government to press ahead with a plan to reduce greenhouse gases and consider imposing a de facto carbon tax, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Garnaut suggested the price of carbon could be fixed indefinitely, rather than floated according to market forces, at about A$20 ($18) a ton until a satisfactory international agreement emerged, the newspaper reported on its Web site.

Australia could lead the way by establishing a regional emissions trading scheme with like-minded neighbors, the Herald cited him as saying in a speech yesterday.

Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter, proposes to introduce carbon trading by 2011 to reduce its greenhouse gases by between 5 percent and 15 percent of 2000 levels in the next decade. Rudd’s government plans to reintroduce legislation to parliament next month after its bill creating a national carbon emissions trading system was rejected by the Senate.