Tony Abbott’s unlikely win in the tussle for leadership of the Opposition continues the tradition started when Australian speed skater Steven Bradbury won Gold in his event at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 when the rest of the field crashed out of the race 15 meters from the finish line. He had been running last.
The election of a climate sceptic to the leadership of the main Opposition Liberal party in the Australian Parliament will have no significant impact on the introduction of a carbon trading system which includes soil carbon credits, according to the Carbon Coalition, the soil carbon farm lobby. There are several major reasons for this:
1. Agriculture was always going to be ‘uncovered’, ie. not affected by the legislation. The Voluntary Market needs no legislation to operate. Cap-and-Trade legislation is not needed to see the trading start on the voluntary market. These private trades can take place even in the absence of the Government’s Voluntary Market Standard. A link to the CPRS Cap and Trade system was always expected to be somewhere in the future.
2. The demand from industry is growing rapidly, creating opportunities for trade in carbon credits, especially those produced as a result of farmland restoration through changing land management practices.
3. The Government now has the option of calling a special election of both houses of Parliament – on the issue of taking action on Climate Change – that can give the Government a clear path to get its CPRS legislation through. The narrow position of the anti-Climate Change forces that have captured control of the Opposition will make it hard to retain seats in any snap election the Government may call on the issue. The strong support in the electorate for action on Climate Change. More than 65% are in favour of action. This holds true for the majority of electorates which are concentrated in the suburbs of the major cities.
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