Top scientist backs carbon emissions tax.


The head of a group of international scientists tracking the effects of greenhouse pollution says climate change cannot be stopped while the most polluting fuels remain the cheapest.
A climate change report by former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern says 1 per cent of the world economy should be spent tackling climate change.
The report also recommends a global carbon emissions trading scheme.
The Australian Government has ruled out taxing carbon emissions.
But the executive director of the Global Carbon Project, the CSIRO's Dr Pep Canadell, says a carbon emissions tax is the only way to go.
"If there is not a price signal for polluting carbon, for using fossil fuel, it is not possible that any industry or government would change what they've done until now," he said.
"They would keep using what's the cheapest solution."
Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane says it would be extremely difficult to implement a global carbon emissions trading scheme.
He says it is an extraordinarily ambitious plan, and governments have to look at other options in the meantime.
"That's why our Government released the Energy White Paper two-and-a-half years ago, which contained the policies we are now seeing implemented in a practical sense," he said.
"The $250 million in four projects announced over the past week, we'll see $1.5 billion invested by industry in a public private partnership."
Environment Victoria executive director Marcus Godhino has backed calls for the introduction of a carbon emissions tax.
"Ideally we'd see the Federal Government introducing a charge on pollution, perhaps an emissions trading scheme that would take place at a national level," he said.
"But in the absence of that, the states need to get together and push for an emissions trading scheme."
Urgency
The Stern report also warns that the economic consequences of climate change could be greater than a combination of World War I and II and the Great Depression.
Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese says Australia cannot afford to put off signing the Kyoto protocol.
Mr Albanese says climate change could have a severe impact on Australia.
"We face a 30 per cent drop in rainfall in southern Australia, more extreme weather events in the north, a loss of our iconic areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu," he said.
"And Sir Nicholas points towards the fact that early action will save money."
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello says the Government is already taking action to address the problem, but it cannot do it alone.
"We are on track to meet our Kyoto targets - and let me underscore that again for about the fourth time," he said.
"But the biggest issue here is to get countries like China and India and other countries, which have huge impacts on the globe, into these international arrangements."
Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says Labor has developed a plan with real solutions to fix the problem of climate change.
"It's there for ratifying Kyoto, it's there about emissions trading, it's there for setting realistic but necessary targets, it's there for focussing on renewable energy, it's there for focus on Australia's advantage in developing those renewables and Australia's advantage in ensuring the development of things like clean coal coal technologies," he said.
In other developments:
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello says there is no point in Australia reducing its greenhouse gas emissions when China and India are such major global polluters. (Full Story)