Carbon Rout Roiling Australia as Polluters Win: Energy Markets
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The unprecedented collapse in European carbon prices is shattering Australia’s budget assumptions just as corporate resistance to the market weakens in the developed world’s biggest per capita polluter.
The cost of permits on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange, fast becoming the benchmark price for Australia as the nation prepares for market-based trading in 2015, fell to a record 2.75 euros ($3.60) a metric ton last month. That’s about 12 percent of the $A29 ($29.50) Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s government was counting on, meaning tax cuts will be deferred and the budget will have to be revised before it’s delivered on May 14, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said today.