GE believes Australian carbon tax 'courageous and gutsy'

John Rice, vice chairman of the world’s largest industrial conglomerate, thinks that the Australian Government is “gutsy” to follow through on its pledge to introduce a carbon tax. He said the $23 per tonne tax, applying from 1 July, would prompt the company to allocate more resources to carbon-reducing technologies.

Rice said GE, which made the nuclear power plant reactors at Fukushima and was heavily involved in renewable energy, had long believed in a trading mechanism to reduce carbon emissions and encourage the development of new technologies.

“It was courageous for the Federal Government to move before the rest of the world in introducing a price on carbon emissions”, he said.

"I applaud the Australian Government for having the courage to go through with it because I think, over the long run, the world is going to be better served if there is a cost associated with the production of carbon," Rice told ABC Television on Sunday.

"It takes gutsy politicians and so we applaud the Australian Government, the Prime Minister for following through. It takes leadership and if you wait for the world to act in unison, it will never happen."

He also indicated that he believed it would take some time for China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, to introduce a national carbon emissions trading scheme.

"There's so many people in the country that don't have access to basic forms of power generation," Rice said. "You've got a lot of people that have to get access to the basics before you can do more sophisticated things like what you see here in Australia, like what you see with the carbon tax."

Source: AAP NewsWire