It is worth reflecting on how far we have come in 12 months before launching a scathing attack on the federal government’s emissions trading scheme.

The fact that we have a scheme on the table that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5% below 2000 levels by 2020 is a remarkable achievement considering where we were just over 12 months ago.

However I think that many Australians will be dismayed by the pitifully small target, and by the significant flaw in the system which will see consumers like you and I and small business picking up the bulk of the burden for reducing emissions whilst the biggest polluters get “Get Out of Jail Free” cards.

Toni and I have made huge efforts to reduce our greenhouse footprint over the past three years.

To be truthful, we had a much larger footprint than average.

However we have reduced our emissions by 87% by limiting ourselves to one red-meat meal per week, ditching the 4WD in favour of a smaller, petrol-electric hybrid car, growing an increasing share of our fruit, vegetable and fish needs, slashing our electricity usage and purchasing 100% natural power.

We didn’t think that an 87% reduction was enough, so we’ve also offset  our remaining emissions, which means that our footprint is effectively zero.

I know many other people who have achieved similar reductions in their emissions.

Sadly, a serious flaw in the design of the emissions trading system means that all similar efforts by households in the future when the ETS is introduced will simply be lining the pockets of some of our biggest companies.

Analysis undertaken by the Climate Institute of the White Paper package, using Treasury’s CPRS-5 scenario, shows that emissions from industries receiving free permits under the ETS are projected to rise to 20% above 2000 levels by 2020. In order to achieve the 5% overall reduction, the rest of the economy, including small businesses and housholds would have to cut emissions to 18% below 2000 levels.

But it gets even worse. The White Paper is also explicit that if these polluters grow faster than expected the Government would have to bear the risk. By "Government" read you and I - the taxpayers of Australia. This is perverse in the extreme.

Even the Federal government’s own climate change advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut has been highly critical of a number of elements of the plan, including the $3.9b in compensation being given to electricity generators.

We now have some work to do to convince the government to correct these serious flaws before the legislation is introduced to parliament next year. Stay tuned for how you can help convince the government that it is making a serious mistake with the ETS design.

It is worth reflecting on how far we have come in 12 months before launching a scathing attack on the federal government’s emissions trading scheme.

The fact that we have a scheme on the table that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5% below 2000 levels by 2020 is a remarkable achievement considering where we were just over 12 months ago.

However I think that many Australians will be dismayed by the pitifully small target, and by the significant flaw in the system which will see consumers like you and I and small business picking up the bulk of the burden for reducing emissions whilst the biggest polluters get “Get Out of Jail Free” cards.

Toni and I have made huge efforts to reduce our greenhouse footprint over the past three years.

To be truthful, we had a much larger footprint than average.

However we have reduced our emissions by 87% by limiting ourselves to one red-meat meal per week, ditching the 4WD in favour of a smaller, petrol-electric hybrid car, growing an increasing share of our fruit, vegetable and fish needs, slashing our electricity usage and purchasing 100% natural power.

We didn’t think that an 87% reduction was enough, so we’ve also offset  our remaining emissions, which means that our footprint is effectively zero.

I know many other people who have achieved similar reductions in their emissions.

Sadly, a serious flaw in the design of the emissions trading system means that all similar efforts by households in the future when the ETS is introduced will simply be lining the pockets of some of our biggest companies.

Even the Federal government’s own climate change advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut has been highly critical of a number of elements of the plan, including the $3.9b in compensation being given to electricity generators.

But how does this affect you and I?

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Toni and I both attended a forum run by the Conservation Council of WA and co-sponsored by the Australian Conservation Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and the Wilderness Society.

To kick things off, representatives from the peak environmental groups had an opportunity to talk about what they saw as being the most critical environmental issues in this election campaign.

It was then the turn of representatives from each of the major political parties to talk about the approach of their respective parties to these issues and to answer questions from the almost 100 people in the audience.

Sadly, the Liberal Party did not deem the event important enough to send along the shadow environment minister and sent along Ray Halligan, MLC for the North Metropolitan region. Mr Halligan admitted to not being fully briefed on the environmental policy of his party, and drew gasps from the audience when he admitted that he thought that the jury was still out on the cause of climate change.

Minister for the Environment, David Templeman did a considerably better job and showed that he was well informed on most of the issues. He was unable however to justify the continued construction of new coal-fired power stations.

The Labor party has made a number of significant environmental announcements during this election campaign, which appear to be impressive at face value.

For example, discounts on the third party insurance for low emissions vehicles, free insulation for 20,000 low income households and a gross feed-in tariff of $0.60/kWH for households installing solar panels on their roofs. These are all excellent initiatives, and I support them whole-heartedly. Combined, they will have the impact of removing more than 50,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere each year.

However it is worth putting them into perspective. One coal-fired power station produces almost 3,000,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year. There are two new coal-fired power stations under construction, and more in the pipeline.

So, just one of these new power stations will completely offset the benefits of three of Labor’s biggest green election announcements with less than one weeks worth of production!!

And don’t think that the Liberal Party is any different. It isn’t.

Both Liberal and Labor are committed to continuing our reliance on coal as a source of electricity. This is simply unacceptable.