Greens Leader Christine Milne said US President Barack Obama had shown up the Australian prime minister as completely out of step on global warming.
“Barack is moving forward but Tony is stuck in reverse,” she said.
“With the Chinese moving to a national emissions trading regime in 2018 and President Obama revving up action on global warming in the US, Tony Abbott is about to abandon the very policy the rest of the world is now reaching for – a price on pollution.”
Milne said the Abbott government should abandon plans to repeal Australia’s emissions trading scheme.
“Tony Abbott can no longer claim that the rest of the world is not acting,” she said.
“The Chinese are acting, the Europeans have acted and now the US is coming out strongly to reduce carbon pollution.”
Milne said the latest World Bank figures showed that a quarter of global emissions were covered by carbon pricing in 39 national jurisdictions and 23 sub-national jurisdictions.
