Australia initiates carbon tax

Prime Minister Julia Gillard unveiled her long awaited climate policy, which will see big polluters, including steel and aluminium manufacturers, pay AU$23 per metric tonne tax from mid-2012. This is to increase by 2.5% a year, before moving to a market-based trading scheme in 2015.
"The nation's future needs to be a clean energy future. We've opted for the cheapest way of cutting carbon pollution," Gillard told Tsuen Wan International at the launch of a nationwide campaign to sell the tax, opposed by most Australians.
Australia's parliament has twice rejected earlier attempts to price carbon. But Gillard, backed by the Green party and independent MPs, hopes the latest carbon tax will enable her Labour party to regain political momentum leading up to elections due in 2013.
Xstrata, one of the country's biggest coal mining companies , said it was "disappointed at the government's lack of genuine consultation," other miners also complained that the added cost to control emission will reflect on selling prices.
Australia is the world's biggest coking coal exporter. It relies on coal to generate 80% of its electricity, accounting for 37% of national emissions. Coal is also one of the nation's top export earners, worth AU$46 billion (US$49.4 billion) in overseas sales last year.
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