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National Climate Emergency
Rally Adelaide June 2009
THE RALLY
FOR:
GREEN COLLAR
JOBS NO JOB
CUTS
- 100%
RENEWABLE
ENERGY BY
2020
GLOBAL
CLIMATE
JUSTICE
- AUSTRALIA
SHOULD TAKE
THE LEAD
CLIMATE
POLICIES
THAT MAKE
THE BIG
POLLUTERS
PAY
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STOP PRESS
Friday 5th June
Concerned Adelaide
citizens occupy Penny Wong’s Adelaide Office
Today being World Environment
Day, a deputation from CLEAN went to Penny Wong's office and
demanded that the Senator hear the reading of the Declaration of a
Climate Emergency. They remained in the office for over an hour,
until receiving a call from her Chief Adviser in Canberra, who
promised to take the group's concerns and a copy of the Declaration
to Penny Wong.
Click here for
Photographs and media releases.
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Why we need to oppose the Carbon Pollution Reduction
Scheme (CPRS)
The CPRS locks us into inaction on climate change until
2020.
The CPRS includes the pathetic emissions targets of 5%
by 2020, with the potential for up to 15% depending on
international targets. These targets completely
ignore the science that tells us we need to reduce
emissions by a minimum of 40 -60% by 2020 to be on the
road to achieving the safe climate level of 300ppm
atmospheric CO2.
But the scariest aspect of the CPRS is the major flaw
inherent in the Emissions Trading Scheme. When
Emissions Trading comes in, every tonne of carbon
dioxide saved by households will simply free up a tonne
that can be used by industry.
What does this mean? That if a homeowner spends money
putting a solar panel on their roof, the energy savings
will be reflected in a lower price for permits due to a
lower demand. So any action taken by individuals
or communities to reduce emissions will have NO
EFFECT
on Australia’s overall emissions, and will simply free
up permits for big polluters to buy at a cheaper price,
allowing them to pollute more.
Therefore emissions can’t be reduced beyond the
pathetic 5% target locked in until 2020. So
the targets are not a cap over which emissions will not
rise but rather a floor below which emissions cannot
fall.
The ‘’Carbon Polluter’s Rewards Scam’’ rewards
significant polluters in 4 main ways:
1/
Under this scheme
if individuals,
communities or state governments try to do their bit for
the environment, all they will achieve is the freeing up
of permits for the big polluters to increase their
emissions.
2/
Companies producing over 2000t CO2 per $1m
revenue will receive 90% of their permits for free and
the 1000-2000t band will receive 60%.
3/
The Agriculture sector is fully exempt.
4/
Very generous compensation packages are given to
non-exempt sectors, especially the most important
polluters of all, coal-burning power generation -
$3.9billion
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