A QUEENSLAND Church social justice agency has welcomed the Australian Government’s commitment to compensate poor people for the cost of carbon pollution reduction – but says the compensation will need to be carefully targeted to avoid causing further problems to the environment.
Catholic Social Services and other agencies also earlier this month welcomed the Government’s commitment to provide such compensation, saying that the initiative would help avoid “carbon poverty”.
While welcoming the Government’s compensation initiative, a spokesperson for Catholic Religious Australia (Queensland) warned the plan had the potential to increase the burning of fossil fuels and worsen the plight of the world’s poor.
Project officer for the organisations’ Social Action Office (SAO) Angela Ballard said the compensation scheme would need to be well targeted.
“Such targeted spending would require that compensation be put towards energy efficiency measures such as house insulation, solar power and energy efficient appliances,” she said.
“This could lead to carbon reductions of up to 30 per cent.
“Another big issue is if you compensate people for the higher price of fossil fuel, what incentive is there for them to cut their consumption?”
The Rudd Government made the proposal for compensation to those on lower incomes in a green paper on climate change released earlier this month.
The paper was released in response to a Government-commissioned report by Professor Ross Garnaut.
Executive director of Catholic Social Services Australia Frank Quinlan welcomed the proposal for compensation in a statement released soon after the Government’s announcement.
“Many people face the impact of disadvantage on many fronts, including health inequities, access to education and the cost of living,” Mr Quinlan said.
“We don’t want to add carbon poverty to the list.”
