Howard Government Unveils $150 Million (With An "M") For Solar Subsidies - Reuters

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CANBERRA - Australia's government, criticised as a Kyoto pact holdout, on Tuesday unveiled a solar-friendly budget aimed at lifting renewable energy use, but which critics said ignored the country's pressing climate crisis.

With the government facing an election this year and polls showing drought-ravaged voters want action to fight global warming, Treasurer Peter Costello outlined A$1.5 billion (US$1.2 billion) in new spending over four years to cut water use and greenhouse gas emissions. "Our responsibility is to manage the environment for future generations," Costello said in the first of his 12 budgets to mention climate change. Australians are the world's biggest per head greenhouse emitters.

The budget centrepiece was A$150 million to subsidise solar panel installation in homes and businesses, along with A$18.5 million to cut coal mining methane emissions and A$7.9 million to phase out incandescent light bulbs. Costello also promised tax deductions for tree-planting programmes to help cut atmospheric carbon levels, and detailed Prime Minister John Howard's A$10 billion program to reform and protect waterways in the food bowl Murray-Darling river basin.

But critics said the conservative government's 10-year timeframe was too long when climate scientists had predicted temperatures rising by up to 6.7 degrees Celsius (12 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2080 in the country's vast outback interior. "This is the minister for the environment changing the lightbulbs on the Titanic," Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown said. "We are in an age of crisis with climate change, with the world alarmed about the prospects for the future."

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