Australia: Alarm on carbon trading scheme

Jeffrey Sachs quoted in The Age:

ONE of the world's best-known economists, Jeffrey Sachs, has warned Australia against using an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change, saying it would never win global support....
...Australia should introduce a carbon tax as a simpler and less rort-prone system, and invest the proceeds in the development of new technology.

Professor Sachs said any attempt to get an international agreement had to start with the West assuring developing countries that their goals to achieve economic development would take priority over tackling climate change. "I think nobody is going to like this (emissions trading), frankly," Professor Sachs told the ANU's annual China Update.

"It's such a mess administratively. It covers only a fraction of what needs to be covered. It's hard to implement. It's hard to monitor. It's not transparent, it's highly manipulative - which is why the banks love it....MORE