Australia Is About Approve A 'Terrible' Policy For Curbing Pollution | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - Australia is set to approve measures giving polluters financial incentives to reduce emissions blamed for climate change, in a move critics described as ineffective environmental policy. The so-called "direct action" plan, which will see the government pay companies to increase energy efficiency, passed through the upper house Senate early Friday following a marathon debate. The bill is expected to be approved next month by the lower House of Representatives where the conservative government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott has a majority. It comes after Abbott axed a tax on greenhouse gas emissions introduced by the previous Labor administration, fulfilling a central pledge from last year's elections. "We have delivered on our promise to implement an emissions reduction fund to ensure that there is real and practical action to achieve our emissions goals and targets without a carbon tax," Environment Minister Greg Hunt told reporters. China and the United States are the biggest greenhouse gas polluters, according to a report by international scientists issued last month, but Australia's output is considered high per capita. The Aus$2.55 billion (US$2.25 billion) Emissions Reduction Fund is part of the government's plan to meet its emissions reduction target of five percent below 2000 levels by 2020. Under the plan, competitive auctions will be held, with the government entering into contracts to buy emissions reductions from successful bidders at the lowest cost, Hunt said. He added that the emissions reductions would be "real and significant" as payments would only be made when the pollution cuts occur. - 'Not the right way to go' -But the Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten criticised the scheme, describing it as "paying big polluters to keep polluting, which is terrible policy". "In terms of 'Direct Action', Labor just doesn't believe it is the right way to go. We believe in trusting the marketplace to set the price signal," Shorten said Friday. The policy has also been slammed by the Greens party, with leader Christine Milne saying there was "no modelling or any evidence to suggest it will do anything at all to reduce pollution". The plan passed with the backing of the Palmer United Party. As part of the government's deal with mining magnate Clive Palmer's party, Hunt agreed to keep the Climate Change Authority (CCA) and set up a three-stage, 18-month inquiry into an emissions trading scheme (ETS). The government had been planning to abolish the CCA, an independent climate change agency set up by the previous government. The University of Queensland's John Quiggin, a CCA member and economics professor, welcomed the inquiry into an ETS. "The overwhelming view of economists is that a price-based measure such as an ETS is a critical component of a carbon mitigation policy," Quiggin said. Although the government rejected setting aside some of the fund to purchase international carbon credits, environmental economist Caroline Sullivan said similar offset schemes within Australia should be considered. Carbon offset schemes allow individuals or firms a way to reduce their carbon footprint by investing in projects that absorb greenhouse gases. "This relatively large sum of money (from the fund) can not only help to motivate carbon reductions from large emitters, but could also provide a hugely important -- and much needed -- economic stimulus for rural and regional Australia," Sullivan, from Southern Cross University, said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now | ||
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1. The Bank of Japan unexpectedly announced Friday morning that it would ease monetary policy due to concerns about falling oil prices. 2. Israel is reopening a holy site in Jerusalem, which was closed on Thursday for the first time in many years "after an Israeli counterterrorism unit killed a Palestinian man suspected of trying the night before to assassinate a leading agitator for increased Jewish access to the site," The New York Times explained. 3. Sweden has become the largest European nation to recognize Palestine as a state. 4. A Human Rights Watch report released on Thursday describes a horrific incident in which ISIS militants lined up 600 Shia, Christian, and Yazidi male prisoners and executed them at point blank range. 5. Apple CEO Tim Cook has publicly come out as gay. 6. After months of drawn-out negotiations, Russia has guaranteed it will deliver gas supplies to Ukraine through March. 7. Andy Rubin, the Google executive who created Android, is out of the company. 8. Doctors Without Borders warned that its "too early to draw conclusions" about the spread of Ebola following the World Health Organisation's promising announcement that Ebola might be slowing down in Liberia. 9. In an effort to curb climate change, Australia said it was going to pay companies to reduce emissions, a plan that has been harshly criticized as being ineffective. 10. Beijing has banned the wearing of Halloween costumes on the subway because it might cause "panic." And finally... People are upset that the mannequins at Top Shop have legs that are unrealistically thin. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Good morning! Here's what you need to know for Friday. German Retail Sales Fall Through The Floor | ||
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Germany's retail sales just hit a wall: they dropped 3.2% in September, the worst monthly decline since May 2008. The eurozone's powerhouse economy didn't see anything this bad during the financial crisis, or in the years of the euro crisis that followed it. This all follows the grim news earlier in October that the country's industrial sector seems to be grinding to a halt. There's no doubt that this data point is going in the pile suggesting that Germany might be about to fall into recession. Here's what Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics had to say about the grim numbers:
SEE ALSO: The Analyst Who Predicted Germany's Horrible Industrial Numbers Has Another Terrifying Forecast Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Royal Bank of Scotland sets aside £400m for forex probes | ||
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London (AFP) - State-owned Royal Bank of Scotland has set aside £400 million ($639 million, 509 million euros) to settle allegations of price-rigging in foreign exchange markets, it said Friday. RBS also revealed in a results statement that net profits rebounded to £896 million in the three months to the end of September, buoyed partly by cost-cutting, after a net loss of £828 million in the same part of last year.
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Japan Just Boosted QE And The Nikkei Exploded To A 7-Year High | ||
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The Nikkei closed up 4.83%, hitting a seven-year high after the Bank of Japan (BoJ) unexpectedly announced it was expanding its monetary easing policy Friday morning. In a tight vote, the BoJ backed an 80 trillion yen ($720 billion) target for expanding the monetary base (a measure of the amount of money held by the central bank and in the economy). That's up from a 60-70 trillion yen target before. Analysts were basically not expecting anything today: this one is a genuine surprise. No prizes for spotting the announcement on this graph of the Nikkei:
This was a major unexpected move by Haruhiko Kuroda, the Bank of Japan's governor, and a big new chapter in the country's 'Abenomics' experiment, named after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It's all in reaction to a slowdown in inflation: the BoJ has committed itself to reaching a 2% inflation target, but core inflation dropped from 1.1% to 1% in October, the lowest in nearly a year. Kuroda has repeatedly expressed this goal but it seems like markets only halfway believed him. The dollar and yen are reacting pretty much as you'd expect too. Here the dollar is is, up 1.76% against the dollar. 111 yen to the dollar is the highest since 2008.
It's not just Japanese markets getting hit. After tanking yesterday, gold is getting smashed again. It's down to just $1,171.80 an ounce, down 2.26% on the news. See below:
SEE ALSO: GREENSPAN: QE Has Not Worked Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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