AS A Tamworth resident who cares about the future of our children and grandchildren, I welcome the price on carbon pollution.
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I also congratulate our federal independent MP, Tony Windsor, for his role in achieving it.
The federal government’s carbon pricing package began on Sunday.
The price on carbon pollution marks a new era of big polluters taking responsibility for the most extreme contamination of our atmosphere.
Until now, businesses have been free to fill our environment with pollution.
The costs to our health, safety and our environment are obvious and too great to bear.
As Sunday approached, however, there was a concerted and aggressive campaign of misinformation, intended to confuse and upset the public.
It’s time to set the record straight.
n Effectively, the “carbon tax” is the beginning of a price on carbon pollution in Australia. It is completely false to suggest pricing pollution is designed to tax us as individuals: this tax is an incentive to motivate the biggest polluters to find cleaner, less harmful energy alternatives. Reducing pollution will reduce the effects of dangerous climate change – ultimately better for business, and so much better for us all.
n Average weekly household spending will go up around $9.90, including $3.30 a week on the average electricity bill and $1.50 a week on the average gas bill. Yet the government’s compensation package ensures most households will actually be better off, receiving an average of $10.10 a week in assistance. What is there to complain about that?
n Rather than hurting employment, putting a price on carbon pollution will create jobs, helping spur a boom in renewable energy that will assist northern NSW regional economies. A report by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Creating Jobs – Cutting Pollution: the roadmap for a cleaner, stronger economy, shows a price on pollution and other complementary policies have the potential to generate up to 3.7 million new jobs by 2030.
In the northern NSW region alone, such combined activity has the potential to generate 12,972 additional local jobs by 2030 through strong action against carbon pollution.
More than 30 countries around the world already successfully operate with carbon pollution pricing laws.
Pricing carbon pollution is critical if we are to avert the worst economic, environmental and health impacts caused by carbon pollution, and to take advantage of the economic opportunities available to countries that move early on pricing carbon pollution.
DR ROBIN GUNNING
THE CLIMATE REALITY PROJECT PRESENTER
TAMWORTH
