I watched on ABC TV the Prime Minister's lunch-hour Press Club address 'Australia's Low Pollution Future: Launch of Australian Government's White Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme'.
Reaction was immediate and forceful. In less than one hour, the ABC News interactive website on Rudd's emissions target announcement received 181 comments, which must surely be a record, before closing the channel. Most comments seemed to be from younger people, bitterly indignant at betrayed hopes, in light of the highly conservative 5–15 per cent 2020 emissions reduction target range that Rudd announced today.
A young woman protester was ejected from the Press Club, due to her heartbroken screams of 'No!' as Rudd announced the target. This dramatic moment will define the day. By mid-afternoon, GetUp had launched an internet protest mobilisation campaign. New Matilda website carried a strong condemnatory article by Anna Rose, founder of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, who attended the just-ended UN Poznan conference.
Such rage is understandable. In Tony Blair style, Rudd today talked the talk but didn't walk the walk. His own lofty words are the best condemnation of his policies. He accepts the science of climate change, but thinks that by putting his government somewhere in the middle of the range of views in Australia, he offers 'balance'.
But on science-based issues, being balanced between right and wrong policies is not being right. The Government claims to accept IPCC science, but it has offered a policy outcome that will prove destructive for our children.
Rudd today tried to push real concern for the future out of mainstream political discourse in Australia, to again cordon it off safely in a politically powerless Green ghetto, as Howard did for 12 years.
He offered us greenwash. His policies announced today effectively lock Australia into 12 more years of tokenistic, half-hearted spending on mitigation and adaptation at home, while generously feeding the present coal-based economy. Rudd today guaranteed effectively unimpeded growth to 2020 in our worst carbon-emitting industries.
Globally, the announced policy is supine, waiting for other countries to lead, in which case Australia might follow — but only by lifting our 2020 targets, not to 25 per cent, the minimum recommended by the IPCC, Stern and Garnaut, but to a miserable 15 per cent. What an example to the world.
Rudd claims special treatment on grounds that Australia's population will expand by 45 per cent between 1990 and 2020.