The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, MP
Leader of the Opposition
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Sir:

Re: Global Warming and Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)

In your statement regarding the ETS, you say that ‘The Coalition supports, and supported when in Government, an environmentally effective and economically responsible ETS being put in place in Australia as part of a co-ordinated global response to climate change’. You then set out nine points that define the Opposition’s policy on this critical question.

Missing from your list is recognition of a key alternative. Australia’s carbon footprint is about 1.0 percent of the global total. Accordingly, nothing that Australians do can have any effect on global warming. How then is it ‘economically responsible’ for us to incur the high costs of transition to ‘clean energy’ when it will have no effect on the reduction of global warming? Isn’t it, indeed, irresponsible to pursue this course?
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