Australia factories

"Landep News" 

Australia factories

On Sunday, the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, announced that Australia is planning to introduce an emission trading plan that if approved would compete with that of the European Union.

This plan is focused on the biggest 500 polluters in Australia and has as main goal the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 159 million tons until 2020. In 2010 Australia’s factories have been responsible for 577 tons of emissions released in the air.

Among the 500 companies that will be affected by the measure we can find mining giants like BHP Billiton or Xstrata, which are responsible for a large percent of the total pollution. The Australian emission trading plan will suppose a fee of 23 Australian dollars ($24.70) that every polluting company will have to pay for each ton of emissions released in the air. The measure is planed to be applied starting with July 1, 2012. The fee per ton of emission will increase gradually, each year, by 2.5 percent until 2015 when is planed to be transformed into a trading program dependent on the market.

The predecessor of Julia Gillard proposed a similar measure, but at that time no one agreed with his point of view and the entire situation contributed to his political downfall. The current prime minister said that the situation is different now because the level of pollution in Australia has reached figures that place Australia among the world’s biggest polluters. This acknowledgment has woken the desire of the Australian officials to support the environment and take care of their global responsibilities. As the Prime Minister says, Australia is now ready for the challenge and the entire nation wants “to do the right thing by the environment”.

Australia affords to implement such a measure these days when the world’s economy is facing serious challenges, mostly because Chinese manufacturers are interested in its natural resources, especially coal and iron ore.

There are also critics of the program that explain their position by declaring that this measure is most likely going to negatively affect the manufacturing and export industries that are important for Australia’s economy. The Liberal Party has also reacted to the announcement and considers that the program’s cost will end up affecting the budgets of Australian families. This party has criticized even the trading program that was proposed by one of its leaders, Tony Abbott, a few years back. Also critic was the reaction of the Minerals Council of Australia which considers the program to be “a dangerous experiment with the Australian economy”. On the other hand, the Australian airlines fear that the measure will increase the price of tickets.

The government seems to have thought about the consequences of this plan, because they put aside 9.2 billion dollars in order to protect the country’s largest polluters until 2015. The environment deserves the attention, doesn’t it?

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