BP chief economist Christof Ruehl has endorsed the Federal Government’s support for a carbon emissions trading scheme over a carbon tax. Having examined data from world energy markets, Ruehl says the scheme can later integrate with other financial markets.
“If you have these trading markets they’re much easier for them to link up with each other and to become globalised than will ever be the case for national taxation laws,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Australia Institute of Management (AIM) has warned SMEs that they must prepare themselves for the carbon market, even if many will not participate directly in the scheme.
Susan Heron, AIM’s Victorian and Tasmanian branch CEO, says SMEs should look at possible follow on effects from big business. “Now that the details of the government’s plans for its emissions reduction scheme are known, we can expect that more and more of our bigger companies will follow suit and require their suppliers, many of which are SMEs, to prove that they too are reducing their carbon footprint.”
The carbon emissions trading scheme is likely to commence on July 1, 2010.
