Bullet dodged – Australian ETS was due to start today

Just like Neo (The Matrix)

Unlike other countries which have succumbed to emissions trading schemes, all of which:

• have significantly damaged the host country’s economy;
• have wasted precious resources that could have been spent on health, education, you name it;
• are mired in fraud and carbon scams by organised crime gangs; and,
• most importantly, will have no discernible effect on the climate,

Australia has, for the time being at least, been spared. Sky News tearfully mourns the ETS that wasn’t:

Australians were supposed to be waking up today to life under an emissions trading scheme.

But that birthday has been delayed by years, pleasing critics of the scheme and disappointing conservationists.

Former Labor leader Kevin Rudd said climate change was the great moral challenge of our time and promised to start an ETS on July 1.

The ETS would have forced up the price of dirty products like coal-fired power and gas and possibly petrol and beef to encourage people to use less. [Actually, it wouldn’t have forced them to use less, it would have forced them to pay more – big difference]

The scheme would also have allowed Australia to reduce greenhouse pollution. [No, it wouldn’t.] (source)

Good riddance, and let’s hope we never see it again.