Rudd betrayed trust on ETS: Flannery

An internationally renowned climate expert has savaged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for
a "profound betrayal of trust" on climate change.
Tim Flannery, a former Australian of the Year, said he was unlikely to vote Labor
again after Mr Rudd shelved plans for an emissions trading scheme.
"It's a profound betrayal of the person I voted for," Professor Flannery told AAP at
a conference in Canberra.
"Politicians only have one thing that they trade in, which is trust ...
unfortunately my trust in the party's been corroded."
Prof Flannery is a scientist and author who is heavily involved in international
efforts to tackle global warming.
As fresh data showed Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are rising again after
dipping during the financial crisis, Prof Flannery berated Australia for being a
"wooden spooner" on climate change.
He accused both major parties of a failure of political leadership, but said the
problem went deeper.
The political system was captive to big business and dominated by old men.
"They seem to have a fossilised mindset ... not all the fossils are in the ground,"
the 2007 Australian of the Year told a green business conference in Parliament
House.
Just across the corridor, more questions were being raised about the government's
ETS delay in a Senate estimates hearing.
Labor promised to start an ETS this year, but now says it may start some time from
2013.
The bureaucrat in charge of the scheme, Climate Change Department head Martin
Parkinson, said delaying the ETS would cost money and discourage action on climate
change.
Australia has promised to cut emissions by 5 to 25 per cent by 2020. Delaying the
ETS means there was less time to achieve it, Dr Parkinson said.
"The longer you delay, the more international units you have to purchase, or the
higher the domestic cost," Dr Parkinson said.
"If there's continuing uncertainty about whether there will ever be a price on
carbon, then people won't act."
Dr Parkinson said the cost of delaying the scheme from 2010 to 2013 would be
"relatively minimal, I would have thought", but the government had not done any
estimates.
Meanwhile, a report card shows that the financial crisis had a silver lining - it
managed to bring down Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the latest annual National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, emissions dropped
by 2.4 per cent in 2009, bucking a long-term upward trend. That's because the
economy slowed - especially the steel sector - so less coal was burned to make
electricity.
Last year's emissions were 537 million tonnes, the same as in 2005.
But conservationists are not celebrating. The inventory shows emissions started to
rise again at the end of last year as the economy bounced back.
Australia is on track to stay within its Kyoto target of capping emissions growth to
an eight per cent increase in 2012, from 1990 levels.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the data showed an ETS was needed to bring
down emissions, and the government was committed to such a scheme.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott painted himself as an environmentalist in a speech to
the same audience Prof Flannery addressed.
He presented the opposition - and himself - as greener than Labor.
Mr Abbott said he was confident that humans were affecting the climate, but he
emphasised that environmental action should not dampen economic growth.
While rejecting an ETS, Mr Abbott talked up his party's alternative plan to spend
money directly on green programs and said Labor had no climate plan now it had
shelved the ETS.
But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hit back in question time, accusing Mr Abbott of
backflipping on his climate scepticism.