This report provides a summary of selected significant extreme weather and climate events which occurred across Australia in 2023. The report provides a description of each event and an explanation which
YOU can think of yesterday's green paper as a sandpaper job. Labor had already committed to introduce emissions trading as the best way to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Such a plan has sharp edges that stand to hurt voters and business alike. The green paper is about keeping the design while smoothing off the sharp edges.
THE Government's green paper on carbon trading uses adjectives like "smoother", "gradual", and "measured" to describe the scheme's implementation, because cutting Australia's emissions by 60% in four decades is going to produce profound structural change, and, inevitably, political repercussions. Like a dentist poised above you, drill in hand, the Government wants to warn us the process will be difficult and reassure us it will be no more painful than is necessary.
ONE of the first things Kevin Rudd did as Prime Minister was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to bring Australia into line with most of the world on climate change. It was a gesture loaded with good intentions and purpose. Yesterday the Government released its green paper on how to tackle global warming. In the face of this "daunting reality" as Climate Change Minister Penny Wong described it yesterday, how has Canberra reacted? It has spoken loudly and carried a small stick
Australian households will receive either tax cuts or increased family payments to offset higher electricity and fuel prices, as the government admits its climate change plan will drive up inflation. The framework of Labor's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme has been released in Canberra, detailing the government's plan to meet its target of bringing down greenhouse emissions by 60% by 2050. The higher family assistance may start before the trading system begins on July 1, 2010, possibly ahead of the next election.
THE Federal Government's draft legislation for a world-first regulated carbon capture and storage (CCS) system has failed to pass muster with the very groups it is meant to help, including backers of the $5 billion Monash Energy coal-to-liquids project in the Latrobe Valley. Complaints with the draft legislation raise doubts about the Government's plan to make CCS integral to Australia's move to an emissions trading system under a policy paper to be released today by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong.
The burden of Labor's climate change plan will be carried by Australia's big business, particularly those operating in the powerful resources sector. The government's Green Paper, released today in Canberra, outlines that the pollutions penalty will apply for businesses that emit more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon each year. Labor has guaranteed that it will apply protection towards domestic industries that are emission-intensive but could be threatened by overseas competition if production prices were to rise.
FOUR in 10 doctors are thinking of leaving their profession because of disenchantment with the Rudd Government's health-care reforms, a survey has found. The survey, in the doctors' journal Medical Observer, shows doctors have savaged plans to overhaul primary health care and found three-quarters of them believe proposed super-clinics will not lead to better patient care. Last month, Health Minister Nicola Roxon proposed opening up primary health care to allow nurses and allied health professionals such as psychologists and physiotherapists to do jobs that were the domain of doctors.
the verdict is finally out. Modern agricultural practices, espoused by the industrial farming model, and genetically modified crops are not good for the planet and its inhabitants, says the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development report. What lends weight to the conclusions of the report is the fact that these are not driven by greed; they
About 1,000 of Australia's biggest polluting companies will need to buy permits under an emissions trading scheme expected to be introduced in 2010 to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the minister for climate change, Penny Wong said on Sunday. Australia, highly dependent on coal for making electricity and generating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual export revenue, is scheduled to release a paper on Wednesday spelling out guidelines for how it intends to implement emissions trading.
$5 billion of federal taxpayers' money to create 900 gigalitres of water "savings" from the Victorian part of the Murray-Goulburn Basin. The water will be allocated a third each to the rivers, the Victorian irrigators and Melbourne (via the north-south pipeline). This is a lot of water. It is equal to three times Melbourne's consumption. The savings are achieved by preventing the leaks in the main channels that distribute the water to each irrigator.
