GLOBAL WHINING SMACK-DOWN IN AUSTRALIA
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Australia’s Parliament voted down legislation Wednesday to set up a greenhouse-gas emission trading system, according to reports.
Lawmakers in the upper house voted 41 to 33 against the plan, which had targeted a 5% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 from levels benchmarked against turn-of-the-century levels.
The defeat was widely viewed as a political setback for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose government does not hold a majority in the in the Senate, and who will now head to U.N. summit in Copenhagen this month for climate talks without a showcase domestic emissions trading program.
This is the second time the legislation has been voted down, which means the government has the right to call an early election. It wasn’t immediately clear what direction the Rudd government would take, reports said.
Australia is considered a relatively minor producer of greenhouse gases in global terms, but is one of the worst on a per-capita basis because of a heavy reliance on co