The Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading: An Assessment

The final report by the Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading is a critical turning point in the climate debate in Australia. This report is particularly important for a number of reasons. First, it offers a strategy for climate policy in Australia that moves away from the recent approach of specific subsidies for technology to reduce emissions, and towards a policy of pricing greenhouse-gas emissions so that all greenhouse-gas-reducing technologies are encouraged. More importantly, the Task Group approach offers a new framework for global climate policy to move beyond the approach followed in the Kyoto Protocol.