In an historic move, several of Australia's key environment groups have abandoned peak environment group the Australian Conservation Foundation for it's support of carbon trading. They have formed a new alliance they are calling "Plan B".
Friends of the Earth Australia (FoEA) said in a statement that, "We’re concerned the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are already above safe levels, and the CPRS will not effectively reduce carbon pollution."
"We’ve put together a Plan B of measures that could be enacted in the next two years and would set Australian up to meet the vital target of halving our greenhouse pollution over the coming decade."
Plan B includes FoEA, The Wilderness Society and others with a combined support base of over 400,000 people.
They are calling on the Rudd government to abandoning the CPRS as being "fundamentally flawed".
The Plan B document can be read here: http://www.foe.org.au/resources/publications/climate-justice/Plan%20B%20...
More info on the ills of carbon trading here: http://www.carbontradewatch.org/
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Re: Key environment groups dump ACF over carbon trading
Peter Garrett, once rock star in Australian band Midnight Oil, then President of the Australian Conservation Foundation and board member of Greenpeace International, then parachuted into federal politics, and now, following the elevation of Kevin Rudd to the position of leader of Australia's Labor Party, the Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
Re: Key environment groups dump ACF over carbon trading
Peter Garrett, once rock star in Australian band Midnight Oil, then President of the Australian Conservation Foundation and board member of Greenpeace International, then parachuted into federal politics, and now, following the elevation of Kevin Rudd to the position of leader of Australia's Labor Party, the Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change.
On ABC radio this morning Garrett talked about the need for "targets and timelines" to address climate change. He didn't mention alternative energy sources.
Some say that the only real greenhouse neutral alternative to coal, for baseload power generation, is uranium. The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, recently commissioned an inquiry into nuclear energy and is likely to make nuclear power an election issue next year. Interestingly Peter Garrett has always been an ardent critic of nuclear power and uranium mining.
Re: Key environment groups dump ACF over carbon trading
However, the country does experience serious problems with the logging sector. The recently reported results of a five-year study, using satellite imagery, showed logging had destroyed almost 4 million ha of rainforest over 30 years. The World Bank, PNG authorities and others conclude that much of the logging was illegal. Furthermore, government ministers have recently been implicated in corruption allegations surrounding bribes from the logging industry.