Green future could mean more welfare

[stephanie]

FAMILIES hit with soaring petrol and power prices as a result of an emissions trading scheme could be compensated, a government enonomics expert said yesterday.

And coal-dependent communities such as the Latrobe Valley may be eligible for big payouts if the power industry is hurt by federal plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Federal climate change economics expert Ross Garnaut yesterday released a discussion paper on development of a national carbon emissions scheme. Under the scheme, to begin in 2010, caps will be placed on the levels of greenhouse gas pollution emitted by industry.

Prof Garnaut said most Australians did not yet have a concrete idea of how an ETS would work.

He said electricity and petrol prices would rise under an ETS, necessitating government welfare to low-income families.

"One of the intended effects of an ETS is to make emission-intensive goods and services more expensive," Prof Garnaut said. "Electricity and petrol prices will rise."

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government was determined to ensure carbon trading did not harm communities.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23409949-2862,00.html

[diuretic]

Makes sense. Those who can afford to pay will pay, those who can't will be compensated for the increased prices. There you are, market forces at work (assuming that market forces are the correct ones but Garnaut is an economist so he'd go there) and the illustration that there's no such thing as a free lunch - a subsidised lunch yes, but not free.

And it's better than having a federal government sitting on its hands while we - and we are the biggest per capita producers of CO2 in the world I think - continue to screw the environment.