Australian PM Hails U.S. Greenhouse Bill Passage
Date: 29-Jun-09
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Reuters
SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Sunday hailed as an example to Australia the U.S. House of Representatives passage of a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Rudd's Labor government is struggling to get its own emissions trading scheme approved by parliament, and the deadlock is being watched around the world ahead of climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.
Commenting on the U.S. bill's passage on Friday in Washington, Rudd urged Australia's opposition and other holdouts against his government's scheme to take note.
"That is good news for the world," Rudd told reporters. "And can I just say to those who are delaying action in the Australian parliament, look at what is happening in the United States."
The climate change bill backed by U.S. President Barack Obama passed the House by a relatively narrow margin, and still needs to get through the Senate.
Until Rudd's election in 2007, Australia and the United States were the only significant holdouts against the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Rudd moved quickly to join the protocol following his election.
But last week a vote on his government's plan was delayed until August.
The carbon trade scheme, which will cover around 1,000 of Australia's biggest polluters, is the central plank of Rudd's plan to curb carbon emissions and fight global warming and was a key promise from his November 2007 election victory.
The government wants carbon trading to start in July 2011, forcing business to pay to pollute, and wants the scheme locked in before the global talks in Copenhagen, which will consider a post Kyoto protocol framework to curb Greenhouse gas emissions.
The Senate will vote on the package of 11 bills on August 13, but is ultimately expected to reject the plan in its current form, with the government struggling to find the extra seven votes it needs to push the laws through the upper house.
The conservative opposition wants to delay a final decision on the carbon trade scheme until after the Copenhagen talks, and until U.S. actions to fight climate change are known.
In both Australia and the United States critics of carbon trading say proponents underestimate the economic costs involved and overestimate the economic and environmental benefits.
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
