The Wire

Kevin Rudd once described climate change as “the greatest moral challenge of our generation” but today his Government announced that the Emissions Trading Scheme will be put on the back burner. Political commentators say that with an election looming Rudd is attempting to diffuse Tony Abbott’s comments that the ETS is a “great big new tax.” The Senate was expected to vote on the legislation next month and begin operating the scheme by July of this year, but that’s now been slated to begin in 2013.