Compensation for polluters 'abominable'

18 Feb 2010, 7:30 am   -   Source: AAP
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Professor Ross Garnaut says it is an abomination the amount of compensation given to big polluters (AAP)

Professor Ross Garnaut says it is an abomination the amount of compensation given to big polluters (AAP)

Australia's top climate adviser Ross Garnaut has rubbished as an abomination the amount of compensation the government plans give to polluters.

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Australia's top climate adviser Ross Garnaut has rubbished as an abomination the amount of compensation the government plans give to polluters.

But while its emissions trading scheme (ETS) may be flawed, the opposition's plan to curb global warming isn't any better, he says.

In a speech at the University of Melbourne on Wednesday, Professor Garnaut has rejected the idea of compensating business owners for greenhouse gas pollution.

The federal government's carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), now before parliament for the third time, includes billions of dollars in compensation to Australia's major polluters

"There's no good justification for it in the form that's being discussed for quite a while," Prof Garnaut told ABC Television later.

"Anything that involves a very large allocation of public money to private industry for no good public purpose is an abomination."

'Delusional'

Energy generators have had too much of a say in the climate change policy debate, Prof Garnaut said.

"Having being promised very large amounts of money, the generators no doubt felt a sense of entitlement and have struggled very hard for it every since."

But he still wants an ETS to be installed.

While the world slowly figures out how to tackle the issue, the best way forward would be to legislate an ETS and fixing the price of carbon pollution over a period of time.

Prof Garnaut - the federal government's key climate consultant - also bagged the opposition's direct action policy, likening it to communist "central planning".

"To think that regulation - decisions by bureaucrats and governments can reach the right conclusions is, I think,
delusional.

"I thought debates over governments taking huge decisions about resource allocation ended with the fall of the Soviet Union."

The government's ETS is due to go before the Senate next week.

 

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