The Australian: Climate change leader backs industry payout
It was entirely sensible to compensate some industries for the impact of a carbon tax, leading British climate change academic and economist Michael Grubb said yesterday.
"There will always be some vested interests that will fight their corner -- that is the nature of our democracy," Professor Grubb said.
"The real trick of policy in this area is to try to disentangle the half-dozen sectors for which a carbon price really does matter and in which it doesn't make sense to drive industries abroad," he said.
Professor Grubb, chairman of the international research organisation Climate Strategies, headquartered at Cambridge University, is in Australia on a week-long lecture tour to discuss the international progress made on measures to combat climate change.
His visit coincides with a stepped-up campaign by Australian industry for compensation to neutralise the impact of a carbon tax.
The booming liquefied natural gas industry has sought an exemption from the carbon pricing scheme, with Woodside Petroleum claiming the tax could jeopardise $130 billion of investments.
Professor Grubb said the world was a long way from developing a global market in emissions trading.
"What we are seeing is the emergence of discussions between the EU and California about how their systems may relate," he said.
The model of the world being led on the issue of carbon abatement by industrialised countries centred on the US was dead, Professor Grubb said.
"That is not going to happen," he said.
"The US is completely gridlocked and is unable to do anything."
Professor Grubb dismissed doubts about whether climate change was occurring.
"The only way you can say there is no warming is if you believe that hundreds of thousands of scientists with millions of data instruments and data points are involved in some fantastic global conspiracy, and I just think that is laughable."
