Australia - Business Council denies seeking free ride on climate change
Updated - 28/8/2008 - abc news online.
Stung by criticism that it is shirking its responsibility to bear some of the costs of addressing global warming, the Business Council of Australia (BCA) has launched a spirited defence of its climate change policies.
In an address to the Sydney Institute on Wednesday night, BCA president Greig Gailey insisted that business is not looking for a free ride in a carbon constrained economy.
He wants a national debate about how much Australians are prepared to pay to address climate change, and he urged both sides of politics to work through their differences to give long-term certainty to business.
Since the BCA released a report last week, conservationists have warned that the Government’s planned emissions trading scheme would cause widespread business closures and profit downgrades.
The critics say businesses are trying to wriggle out of doing their fair share about climate change and that they are trying to slow down the introduction of an emissions trading scheme.
But Mr Gailey says that is not the case.
"We actually support emissions trading and we support Australia addressing the global challenge that climate change represents," he said.
"We are quite realistic and we accept that business has to bear part of the burden of addressing climate change."
But first, he says, there will have to be a serious debate about how much Australian consumers are prepared to pay for action on climate change.
"We have the opportunity to show other countries that you can do it and you can do it in a way that doesn’t damage your economy," Mr Gailey said.
"That, to my mind, is the real prize that we should be seeking here."
Environment v economy
So how can Australia address climate change without hurting the economy?
The BCA says one of the essential issues is getting the right model for compensating emissions intensive industries that trade overseas.
Mr Gailey is also a director of the oil company Caltex.
"If Caltex faced a $100 a tonne for carbon, then based on accounts we’ve seen that would push the price of petrol up by about 20 cents a litre," he said.
"Now if Woolworths then turned around and said ’tomorrow I can buy it from Singapore and I don’t have to pay the 20 cent impost’, you can imagine what will happen to the refinery at Kurnell. It would disappear."
So far, the political debate about the Government’s response to climate change has been split pretty much along party lines.
But Mr Gailey says the design of the carbon pollution reduction scheme is probably the most significant economic decision any government has made since the introduction of the GST, and it needs bipartisan support.
"It would not be desirable in my view for us to have a situation where we get the design of the scheme, and then we’re waiting for an election to find out whether the next party coming into power will determine to introduce something completely different," he said.
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