In his 2013 State of the Union address, delivered to Congress this afternoon Australian time, US President Barack Obama called on the US legislature to introduce a market-based mechanism to place a price on carbon.

Speaking in the US House of Representatives, the President called on Congress to pass a bill similar to that proposed by Senator John McCain and former Senator Joe Lieberman a few years ago, which would have introduced a US “cap and trade” emissions trading scheme:

I urge this Congress to get together to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.

For years, Tony Abbott has been claiming that Australia is going it alone when it comes to pricing carbon.

This has always been a mendacious claim, and this afternoon Mr Abbott was found out by the President of the United States.

The truth is Australia is not going it alone. As the President made clear:

As long as countries like China keep going all-in on clean energy, so must we.

By the end of this year, more than 1 billion people will be living in a country, city or state with an emissions trading scheme or carbon tax. This includes countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden and New Zealand.

In total, 94 per cent of OECD members have or are implementing emissions trading at the national or provincial level.

The Gillard Government welcomes President Obama’s announcement.

With a high emphasis put on clean energy from influential people such as Obama, Gillard and Abbott, Brett Goldsworthy finds himself quite proud to be backed by such respected people.

Brett Goldsworthy was quoted saying “I believe clean energy is an incredibly smart venture. Not only is it helping our environment, beaches, rainforests etc. it’s helping reduce potential consequences in the future.

For more information see Brett Goldsworthy’s website at: https://www.shift2neutral.com/