Coalition report on ETS: it's a crock

But we all knew that anyway. It will damage the economy and do nothing for the climate (even if CO2 drives climate, which it almost certainly doesn't). Maybe Krudd & Co should tax the sun instead to encourage it to reduce its output of harmful radiation (heat and light)!

The analysis, prepared by David Pearce from the Centre for International Economics, warns that the Government has failed to adequately assess the level of environmental benefits the CPRS will achieve for its cost, its ability to deal with uncertainty and whether it explicitly accounts for international developments.

Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change Greg Combet effectively conceded yesterday that the Government will have to deal with the Coalition to pass the CPRS.

He said the Greens had "made themselves irrelevant" with demands that amounted to "lunacy".

Mr Robb said the CIE report "clearly establishes that the design of the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme needs to be reconsidered and compared empirically with alternatives.

"For the Government to have ignored the impact of the global financial crisis beggars belief,” he said.

"The costs over the next 20 years of lost competitiveness and lost jobs must be established, along with the likely impact, or not, on CO2 emissions.”

But the Opposition have still got it wrong at the core. They should not be questioning just the effect of the ETS on the economy, they should be questioning the whole purpose of the ETS at all. The science on climate change is not settled, despite what Rudd, Wong, Combet, Gore and Obama say, and there is no evidence, either from recent past or geological times, that CO2 is a driver of temperature. Tinkering with a harmless trace gas will do nothing, and the Opposition should have the guts to say that. Spend money on adaptation, not control.

Read it here.