Australia’s Pollution Plan Starts to Look Like Trading

Australia’s newly elected leaders, claiming a mandate to dump the old government’s climate policies, would actually protect programs the defeated Labor party was using to prepare for emissions trading.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt is working to shield the agencies that monitor and regulate greenhouse gases from cuts proposed for other climate units, according to a policy paper he issued on Oct. 24. The outline reaffirms a pledge to pare Australia’s emissions by 2020 and calls for a “carbon buy-back fund” that might include penalties as well as credits based on industry targets, Hunt said in an e-mail last week.