Australia said yesterday the world expects it to do its part to reduce pollution linked to global warming as the nation counts down to controversial new taxes on carbon emissions and mining profits.
We are the highest polluters of greenhouse gases among advanced economies
Hard-fought levies on corporate pollution and so-called “super profits” of iron ore and coal mining take effect tomorrow after years of heated debate and campaigning, which cost former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd his job.
The conservative opposition has warned that key resources industries, whose exports to fast-growing Asia helped Australia dodge recession during the financial crisis, face ruin under the new tax regime.
Opposition leader Tony Abbott has vowed to repeal both the mining and pollution taxes if he wins office in elections due in 2013.
Some 350 entities, many of them power generators and coal miners, will be liable to pay the AU$23/tonne (€18.59/tonne) pollution tax in its first year, according to the government’s Clean Energy Regulator.
The carbon levy is expected to bring in AU$4 billion in the 2012-13 financial year, increasing the cost of living per household by about AU$10 per week but funding a raft of compensation measures including tax cuts.
Climate change minister Greg Combet said the tax was an essential step in transforming the economy of Australia.
“We are the highest polluters per person of greenhouse gases among the advanced economies. We’re in the top 20 greenhouse gas emitters internationally,” he said yesterday.
Mr Combet added that Australia’s major trading partners, including China and South Korea, were introducing mitigation measures such as emissions trading schemes, and “other countries are taking action as well”.
“The international community expects Australia to play its fair part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.
Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of the iron ore and coking coal used in steelmaking, and the second-biggest exporter of thermal coal used in power stations.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard described the passage of the tax in November as the result of 37 political inquiries and “years of bitter debate and division”, which saw her replace Mr Rudd in a party-room coup.
Also instrumental in Mr Rudd ’s downfall was an ambitious plan to levy the “super profits” of Australia’s booming mining sector at 40 per cent, a watered-down version of which will also kick in tomorrow.
Intense lobbying by mining giants including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata against Mr Rudd’s tax saw him axed in favour of Ms Gillard, who scaled it back to just the iron ore and coal industries and lowered the rate to 30 per cent.
It is expected to bring in net revenues of AU$3 billion in 2012-13.