Off target: Rudd Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is fundamentally flawed
In December 2007, just weeks after being elected, Prime MInister Kevin Rudd said: "Australia now stands ready to assume its responsibility... Climate change is the defining challenge of our generation."
Twelve months later, the federal government released its long-awaited White Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
With a miniscule emissions reduction target of only 5-15 percent, the response from environmentalists was shock and dismay.
The federal government then made some changes to the CPRS, including an increased emissions reduction target of 25 percent from 2000 levels, but only if the world agreed to a goal of 450 ppm or lower at the Copenhagen climate negotiations.
