Fed: Market-based emissions trading scheme preferable - Costello

AAP General News (Australia)
02-18-2007
Fed: Market-based emissions trading scheme preferable - Costello

CANBERRA, Feb 18 AAP - Treasurer Peter Costello has backed Australia joining a global
greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme but remained coy on a timeframe.

Mr Costello disagreed with Finance Minister Nick Minchin, who said last week that there
was some doubt about the link between human activity and climate change.

"I think the scientific evidence is now accepted and that is that climate change is
occurring, that human activity is leading to carbon emissions which is slowly leading
to an increase in temperature," Mr Costello told the Ten Network.

"I don't think that's in dispute anymore."

What was still in dispute was the rate of change and what could be done about it, he said.

The government would take measures to attempt to meet its Kyoto protocol cap on emissions,
including a big investment in new technology such as solar power, he said.

"And the second thing that the government will be looking at is a trading system which
may help to allocate the cost in relation to carbon emissions," Mr Costello said.

Pressed for more details, Mr Costello said he thought the world would move to a trading system.

"I can't give you a time," he said.

"But I think the world will move to it. Australia should be part of it, we should be
part of negotiating the shape of it so that it suits Australian ambitions and our country
I think long-term in allocating the cost, and there will be a cost, of reducing carbon
emissions.

"A market-based system, a trading based system is better than a government intervention
based system."

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KEYWORD: CLIMATE COSTELLO

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