Thousands of ordinary Australians will form a human chain around Parliament House in Canberra on February 3rd to inisst that the government honour its election promise to significantly reduce Australia’s greenhouse emissions. Treasury estimates revealed last week that the Rudd government’s proposed emissions trading scheme will actually increase emissions by 5.84 percent. Tim Colebatch wrote in The Age that the government is deliberately misleading the public by reducing emission allocations while giving polluters the right to offset unlimited quantities of pollution overseas. Scientists, church leaders and environmentalists have called on the government to invest in renewable energy infrastructure and green jobs. Marches in capital cities will coincide with the activities in Canberra on the weekend before parliament opens.
