Waiting for Gillard

A day is a long time in politics, they say… Prime Ministers can come and go in a day. Policies usually take a little longer.
The Gillard Government has not yet made a clear statement of its intentions with the carbon market yet, but we are confident that statements from Gillard supporters Tony Burke (Minister for Agriculture) and Greg Combet (Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) and from the Department of Climate Change itself will hold true – agricultural carbon offsets will soon be possible.
These are the reasons we are confident:
1.The majority of Australians believe Climate Change is real and man-made and expect something to be done about it.
2. The Government must face the people in an election before Christmas, possibly next month.
3. The Government must be seen to be doing something about Climate Change.
4. The Prime Minister has ruled out “putting a price on Carbon” until 2012 (which is code for introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme based on a cap and trade system or a ‘mandatory market’ mechanism.)
5. The Prime Minister wants to build a ‘community consensus’ on Climate Change before implementing a price on carbon.
6. Large corporations including ANZ, NAB, Qantas, Fosters and Lion Nathan have announced that they will buy offsets through the Voluntary Market launched on 1 July, 2010 (National Carbon Offset Standard or NCOS).
7. Soil Carbon Offsets are a good news story for the electorate – assisting with Climate Change, with environmental restoration and with supporting farm families.
8. Offsets cost the Government nothing.
So until the Mandatory Market emerges, the Voluntary Market is all there is to choose from. And if it has to wait until consensus emerges in the community, that could be a long, long time.
Which means we will have the market all to ourselves at least until 2013.