John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The whole idea of this scheme is to reduce global greenhouse gases. I have been doing some figures today. China have said that it will reduce some 45 per cent. Putting that in context, China produce about seven billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year and they forecast that by 2020 that will grow to 14 billion—double. They said they were going to reduce that around 45 or 50 per cent and that it will grow from seven billion to 10 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases. We are going to see China increase their greenhouse gases by three billion tonnes from now to 2020.

Under the plan put forward by the Prime Minister and Minister Wong, Australia will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from roughly 550 million tonnes to 520 million tonnes. The point I make is that with this whole Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, including the emissions trading scheme, Australia is going to go down 30 million tonnes at a cost of $114 billion-plus-plus-plus, depending on the world price of carbon and the strength of the Australian dollar. So when we go down 30 million tonnes, China is going to go up three billion tonnes. I found it frightening when I read an article titled ‘India says greenhouse gas pollution to jump’ which said:

NEW DELHI ... – India said it expects its greenhouse gas emissions to jump to between 4 billion tons and 7.3 billion tons in 2031, a report said on Wednesday.

Australia is rushing ahead to be the first cab off the rank to introduce an emissions trading scheme, when India will increase its emissions by four to seven billion tonnes by 2031 and China will increase its emissions by three billion tonnes by 2020. Australia will reduce its emissions by just 30 million tonnes.

Minister, going on those figures—and I believe I have got the figures right—what Senator Boswell is saying and what 60 per cent of Australians are saying is: ‘Please do not make a decision on this before the election.’ What are we actually going to achieve when these developing countries are going to increase their gases by billions and billions and we are going to reduce ours by 30 million? Surely, Minister, shouldn’t we reconsider this whole plan before these other countries sign up to doing something? Our forecast reductions are simply a drop in the ocean, while the forecast levels for these other countries just go up and up and up. What are we going to achieve?