Earth Hour Now, ETS Next | BTalk

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Greg Bourne, Michael Salvatico

(Episode 463; 15 minutes 33) Earth Hour is a Sydney innovation, started by the World Wildlife Fund in 2007. Since then it's adoption has spread and it is now a truly global event, held on the last Saturday in March between 8.30 and 9.30pm, local time. Businesses have been strong supporters from the beginning.

Of course, one hour is just a start. There are 8,760 hours in a year, but in this edition of BTalk Greg Bourne, the Aussie CEO of the WWF, says that it's all to do with changing attitudes.

Good corporate citizenship is one thing, but will it go far enough? Do we need an Emissions Trading Scheme if we really are to control climate change? Michael Salvatico is the CEO of Climakind, a new business enabling Australian companies to trade on the EU's ETS.

In the programme I ask Michael and Greg what they think of (former Shadow Finance Minister) Barnaby Joyce's view, shared by Australia's Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, that an ETS is just an excuse to introduce a new tax on business that will do nothing for the climate but cost business big-time.

Who's view do you support? Leave a comment at the bottom of this post.