At U.N. everyone in suspense waiting for Australia's Gov to vote on carbon tax. It will be the world's first country to implement carbon tax regime.

United States and Canada are next !

Australian Cabinet to vote on carbon tax

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CANBERRA, Australia, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Australia will introduce a carbon price in Parliament next month and it is expected to become a law by the end of the year, the federal government said Wednesday.

Under the controversial tax, Australia's 500 highest-polluting companies will pay $24 per ton of carbon pollution they emit beginning July 1, 2012. In addition, a market-based carbon trading scheme would be introduced in 2015, allowing major polluters to buy offsetting shares in companies producing emissions less than target levels.

Wednesday's announcement follows a protest by about 2,000 Australians on Tuesday -- the anniversary of a pledge that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard made during last year's federal election not to introduce a carbon tax – demanding that the government scrap the plan.

The latest Nielsen poll indicates that 56 percent of Australian voters asked said they are against the tax scheme and an Institute of Public Affairs survey showed that 70 percent of accountants polled said small business would be negatively affected by a carbon tax.

Australian Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said Wednesday the government has ruled out putting off the carbon tax.

"This is a reform that is in our economic interests to make," he told Sky News.

"This will drive investment in new technologies, innovation, it will improve the productivity of our economy over time -- there is no case for delaying it here."

The Institute of Public Affairs, a free market think tank, urged the Gillard administration to scrap the carbon tax in light of the looming economic downturn of China.

The world's largest exporter of coal and iron ore, Australia is China's largest supplier of iron ore.

"The recent stock market roller coaster and the European and U.S. debt crises have shed light on the risks associated with Australia's reliance on China's thirst for our resources," Hugh Tobin, director of the Northern Australia Project at IPA, said in a release.

Tobin said that once global demand drops in the resource sector, commodity prices would fall from the current high levels. The combination of falling commodity prices, along with Australia's introduction of proposed mining and carbon taxes, he warned, would make many Australian projects unprofitable.

"China is deliberately moving to reduce its reliance on Australian minerals in favor of increasingly cheaper markets in parts of West Africa and South America," Tobin said. "Why would we want to add on new taxes and make ourselves uncompetitive at a time like this?"

A Cloud Over Turkish Candidate’s Chances to Lead I.M.F.

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By LANDON THOMAS Jr.

Published: May 19, 2011

LONDON — On paper Kemal Dervis would seem to be the perfect candidate to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as leader of theInternational Monetary Fund.

Currently a vice president at the Brookings Institution, he was Turkey’s economy minister from 2001 to 2002 and was widely credited with bringing Turkey out of a severe financial crisis by privatizing state assets and slashing budget deficits amid fierce political opposition.

He speaks fluent French, German and English and is a veteran of I.M.F.-style bureaucracies like the World Bank and the United Nations. Earlier this week, London bookmakers were giving Mr. Dervis the second-best chance to get the I.M.F. job after Christine Lagarde, the finance minister of France.

But, Mr. Dervis, it turns out, has a secret that could disqualify him from being considered for the job. Years ago, while a senior executive at the World Bank, he had an affair with a female subordinate who now works at the I.M.F., according to a person with direct knowledge of the affair.

This person’s account was confirmed by Stanislas Balcerac, a former World Bank staff economist who worked on the same floor with Mr. Dervis and the woman.

In a brief interview Thursday, Mr. Dervis declined to discuss the details of his personal life. But after Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s departure over allegations of a sexual assault, questions of past impropriety could be enough to hurt a candidate’s chance.

On Friday, after word of the affair was reported, Mr. Dervis issued a statement through Brookings saying, in part, “I have not been, and will not be, a candidate” for the I.M.F. job.

Mr. Dervis, 62, was not married at the time of the affair, but the woman was, according Mr. Balcerac, who says he bears no ill will toward either person. In fact, he praises Mr. Dervis as one of the brightest, most adept and bureaucracy-beating executives at the World Bank at the time.

“He was not your standard bureaucrat,” he said. He made “decisions quickly and was extremely dynamic.”

Indeed, the professional talents of Mr. Dervis are a reason he has been widely mentioned this week as a possible candidate for the top job at the I.M.F. He would represent a potential bridge between the European establishment from which the I.M.F. chief has traditionally been chosen, and the emerging-economy countries that are now demanding to play a bigger role in global financial institutions. Turkey, with its 9 percent growth rate last year and its ambition to become a major regional actor in the Middle East, would certainly fit that bill.

Most intriguingly, perhaps, Mr. Dervis is a close friend of George Papandreou, the prime minister of Greece, whom he has been informally advising over the last two years.

The two men became acquainted in 2001 when Mr. Dervis was in charge of the Turkish economy and Mr. Papandreou was foreign minister for his government. Since then, Mr. Dervis has provided counsel in a variety of ways.

He has been an active participant in Mr. Papandreou’s annual summer ideas conference held on different Greek islands each year. He has huddled with him at the Brookings Institution in Washington. And he has, insiders say, shared many late-night phone calls with the Greek prime minister.

And Mr. Dervis has many professional admirers.

“He is the man for the job,” said Dani Rodrik, an expert on globalization and development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. “He would be a truly meritocratic appointment.”

But Mr. Dervis said on Thursday that he was in no way prepared for this sudden burst of publicity. “Look, I have not put my name forward, nor has anyone called me about the job,” Mr. Dervis said. “I am flattered, of course, but that is all I can say at the moment.”

In his Friday statement, indicating he would not be a candidate for the I.M.F. post, Mr. Dervis said, “I am fully engaged in, happy with, and focused on my global work at the Brookings Institution and look forward to continuing my research and policy work, including work on Turkey.”

No doubt, the affair in question is very old news. Mr. Balcerac points out that years ago the culture at the World Bank was looser and it was not uncommon for senior executives to have affairs with those working for them.

All of this changed in 2007, when the World Bank had its own, more minor scandal: Its president at the time, Paul D. Wolfowitz, promoted a woman he was involved with.

The I.M.F. has not said publicly who it is considering to succeed Mr. Strauss-Kahn.

John Lipsky, an American, has taken control as acting managing director and while there had been an expectation that Mr. Strauss-Kahn would leave before his term ended in October 2012 to run for the French presidency, it is not clear what type of short list, if any, the fund board has drawn up.

British MPs publish report on Department for International Development accounts

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03 February 2011

MPs from the Commons International Development Committee examining the Department for International Development's (DFID) annual accounts have said that the Government’s commitment to channel more UK aid toward fragile and war-torn states will make it difficult to ensure that every pound is well spent and that less aid money is likely to reach some poor countries where it may be able to achieve more.

• The International Development Committee
• International Development Committee report: Department for International Development Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2009–10 (PDF)

The cross-party International Development Select Committee publishes its report on the work of DFID in 2009–2010 today. The Chair of the Committee, Malcolm Bruce MP, said:

"We support the Government’s bid to focus more aid on fragile states.

Of the 34 countries furthest from reaching the Millennium Development Goals, 22 are in or emerging from conflict.

But there is no getting away from it, this is going to pose severe difficulties when it comes to make sure every pound is well spent.

War-torn or fragile states are inevitably more vulnerable to corruption and maladministration."

How does Papal visit count as aid?

When scrutinising DFID’s accounts the MPs were also surprised to discover that the Pope’s visit was paid for in part by money supposed to be for overseas development aid (ODA).

The Committee is demanding a response from the Government as to what the £1.85 million, transferred to the Foreign Office for the papal visit, was spent on and an explanation as to how this was ODA compliant.

Malcolm Bruce MP added:

"Many people will be as surprised as we were to discover that UK aid money was used to fund the Pope’s visit last year.

Ministers need to explain exactly what this was spent on and how it tallies with our commitments on overseas aid."

Back office budget cuts

The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announced reductions in DFID’s running costs to 2% of the total budget. If achieved, this would make DFID the most cost-efficient development organisation in the world.

This is to be achieved by a large reduction in back office administration costs (which excludes front-line staff) of £34 million over the CSR period. The International Development Committee supports the proposals to make savings in back office staff, but the MPs are warning that Ministers must ensure that reduced administration budgets do not affect the ability to deliver aid programmes on the ground.

Mr Bruce said:

"In the last few years DFID has already made some big savings in administration costs - for example shedding over a third of its HR staff.

The savings set out in the spending review should make it one of the most efficient development organisations in the world - with fewer back office and more frontline staff - provided they do not undermine DFID’s ability to do its work effectively."

Savings being made at DFID

While declining as a share of total costs, running costs will increase in real terms over the next four years because the total budget will rise so much.

The increase in running costs, together with the reduction in administration costs, will allow DFID to recruit 300 to 400 more frontline staff.

The report urges the department to ensure it recruits staff with the right skills to work in fragile states and with multinational organisations.

There has already been a reduction in staff working on the Department’s corporate functions. Staff working on communications have been reduced from about 100 to about 60 this year and there has been a significant reduction in the number of Human Resources (HR) staff from 150 in 2005 to 89 in 2010.

The number of senior staff, including Director Generals has fallen from four to three and the number of Directors from 14 to 12. This reduction will continue the downward trajectory of corporate costs which have already been reduced from £57m. in 2006–07 to £38m. this year.