Grass-root action against pollution lobby

As Parliament resumes the debate on the emissions trading scheme this week, a grass-roots movement, claiming to represent ‘everyday Australians’, is behind a full-page advertisement to appear in The Australian newspaper tomorrow, aimed to counter fearmongering by what it calls the ‘pollution lobby’.

The Rudd government, which was elected on a policy platform which included action on climate change, has proposed the introduction of a carbon trading scheme from mid-2011 in an effort to curb emissions, but laws for the scheme have stalled in the Senate.

GetUp, describing itself as ‘an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation’, is asking supporters for donations to pay for the ad which says 500,000 jobs are waiting to be ‘unlocked’ by the ETS.

The group says the ‘pollution lobby’ acting for the country’s biggest polluters are swamping parliament with over 100 lobbyists. It accuses the lobby for undermining Australia’s transition to a clean-energy economy and ’strong-arming’ politicians into giving them extra tax-payer funded handouts.

The Opposition is hopelessly divided on the issue, putting any meaningful action by the Australian Government on climate change at risk and leaving the possibility open for a double dissolution of Parliament.

In a deja vue of when he led the republic movement, Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull is plagued by a polorised flock. Ian MacFarlane, Opposition spokesman on emissions trading, is in despair over the National Party’s refusal to agree on any ETS, contrary to the National Farmers Federation which has been urging the Opposition to support it.

Any deal on a trading scheme now needs majority support of the Liberal MPs, who themselves are divided between those supporting action on climate change and those who believe it is a left-wing myth as revealed at ABC’s Four Corners program last week by Senate leader Nick Minchin.

One Liberal frontbencher was cited in The Australian, saying Senator Minchin ‘came across as a complete fruit loop’, while Western Australia Liberal Mal Washer said the senator ‘wouldn’t have a clue’ about what most Liberals thought about the issue of man-made climate change.

The government, which needs seven more votes to pass the scheme, is in talks with the opposition over amendments and according to The Sun-Herald of today, it has signalled preparedness to exempt farmers from the ETS in the hope this will enable the laws to pass before the Copenhagen summit.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd lashed out at the climate sceptics in his address to the Lowy Institute in Sydney, warning vested interests were hampering global action against climate change at the Copenhagen climate summit.

‘They are a minority. They are powerful, and invariably they are driven by vested interests,’ Rudd said. ‘They are powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond.

‘Their aim is to erode just enough political will that action becomes impossible. By hampering decisive action at a national level, they aim to make it impossible at an international level.’

The Opposition wants a vote delayed until after Copenhagen. Rudd said negotiations were continuing in good faith, but slammed the Opposition for delaying its final position seven times since late 2007.

‘It is an endless cycle of delay, and I am sure that with December almost upon us, the eighth excuse cannot be far away, which will be to wait until the next year or the year after until all the rest of the world has acted,’ Rudd said.

Further Reading:

Read the Four Corners transcript

Read The Australian story

Read The Sun-Herald story