Peter Gallagher

Based on the RBA’s esti­mate of the traded con­tract price, the income loss is equal to about 7¢ in every the dol­lar of pro­jected income in 2011 and 2012 and about 3¢ in the dol­lar every year there­after. But for what ben­e­fit?

The tar­gets pro­posed by the Rudd gov­ern­ment (cut­ting CO₂ emis­sions by a quar­ter from the 2020 business-as-usual level), although mod­est com­pared to the crazy designs of the IPCC will be worth­less ges­tures given that China, the world’s largest car­bon emit­ter (and grow­ing) has declined to limit car­bon out­puts more than is required by pro­duc­tiv­ity improvments?