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THERE IS A SIMPLE test of just how seriously Kevin Rudd takes his repeated claim that global warming presents the “greatest moral challenge of our generation.” All that’s required is to contrast his spending priorities. The federal government is now likely to give over $25 billion to big polluters to help them keep on emitting during the first five years of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or CPRS. Well over $30 billion will be paid to households as compensation for the relatively minor impact of the scheme. This dwarfs the funding announced in the May budget for the clean technologies that are essential to reducing, rather than subsidising, the production of greenhouse gas emissions. The budget’s Clean Energy Initiative allocated $2 billion for carbon capture and storage projects over nine years, $1.5 billion for solar energy over six years and $465 million for all other renewables over four years.
The comparison is even less favourable when it becomes clear that the clean energy funding includes $1 billion left over from existing programs and $2.5 billion snatched from the Education Investment Fund. Nor, with the government committed to imposing a strict 2 per cent cap on the overall increase in government spending to help restore the budget to surplus, is there any realistic chance that this funding will be increased in future budgets. The cap is expected to start in next year’s budget, or in 2011–12 at the latest...
