(more accurately, who gets the loot?)
We'll be seeing this in the U.S. shortly. It's already a topic of conversation from Montana to Ohio and points south.
From Agmates:
The Rudd Governments plans to meet its commitments under the recently ratified Kyoto protocol have been dealt a potentially lethal financial blow.
The Federal and ultimately the High Court of Australia is now to rule on whether the Commonwealth can use the 80 million tonnes of Carbon Credits accumulated from land clearing bans.
It had been the previous coalition governments intention and by default the Rudd governments plan to meet it’s commitments to limit the nation’s Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2008-2012 to the Kyoto Target of an 8% increase above the levels achieved in 1990, by using these accumulated credits without paying farmers for them.
The Federal Court in Sydney in December last year agreed that farmers have an arguable case against the Commonwealth over ownership of the 80 million Tonnes of carbon created from land clearing bans.
The credits will single handedly enabled the Commonwealth to meet its Kyoto commitments. The value of those credits has been estimated by leading authorities at $10.8 billion dollars.
The legal right of the Commonwealth to use those credits is now in question and is to be decided by the courts....MORE
