Climate change and the consequential development of climate policy has run at times parallel pathways when comparing Australia to New Zealand. Both countries have consistently supported the need to reduce greenhouse gases and have developed policies to implement carbon trading schemes. In New Zealand, carbon trading was initially proposed by the then Labour government, however an election intervened, the Labour party lost office and the incoming National party parked the proposal until a thorough review was completed. Subsequently, National has adopted a revised version of the carbon trading policy and the New Zealand ETS came into effect on 1 July 2010. Whilst independent of Australian policy in a formal sense, New Zealand politics is very mindful of the Australian political situation and the development of Australian policy is carefully studied. Of significance is a commitment of the NZ government to review the ETS in 2011 to determine targets post 2012 and other matters such asthe penalty price and scheme coverage. Australia too had a bipartisan commitment to a national carbon trading scheme. Both major political parties took to the 2007 federal election policies to implement an ETS. The Labor party won in a landslide and the prime minister rode a … Continue reading A tale of two cities