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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/03/are-the-climate-wars-really-over-or-has-a-new-era-of-greenwashing-just-begun>
"Although the 2022 federal election ushered in a new era of progressive
politics in Australia, as Labor’s first term in power has progressed many
people are now wondering if the political deadlock on our nation’s climate
policy has really been broken.
Although some good ground has been made, the federal government’s actions still
don’t reflect the urgency of the planetary-scale crisis we are in. Australia’s
greenhouse gas emissions are rising and enormous fossil fuel projects continue
to be approved to meet domestic and international demand.
While any reasonable person understands that Rome wasn’t built in a day, the
truth is that we are still not doing enough to address the root cause of our
rapidly warming planet. The IPCC – the world’s authority on climate science –
has very clearly demonstrated that the burning of coal, oil and gas is the
primary cause of climate change. No matter which way you look at it, fossil
fuels are cooking the planet.
And right now Australian taxpayers are footing the bill to keep the fossil fuel
industry on life support. According to the Australia Institute, the government
collects more money from the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) than
it does from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), a federal tax levied on
petroleum, oil and gas projects in Australian waters. In 2022/23 the government
collected nearly $2.3bn from the PRRT, less than half the $4.9bn generated from
student loan repayments.
In his National Press Club address in January 2024, Richard Denniss, the
executive director of the Australia Institute, said: “Consider the fact that in
Norway they tax the fossil fuel industry and give kids free university
education, in Australia we subsidise the fossil fuel industry and charge kids a
fortune to go to university.” And it’s not just young people doing it tough. In
2020/21, nurses paid more than three times the income tax the gas industry paid
in income tax and the PRRT combined. Clearly we have things backwards."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
