Slavishly following American policy on
greenhouse gases could leave Australia
feeling very lonely after the next presidential election if Paul Anderson is
right about where the US
is heading on reducing carbon emissions.

The man who turned BHP around and has
now done the same thing for one of the world’s biggest power companies, Duke
Energy, believes global warming will be one of the key areas of debate for the
next election.

“There’s a groundswell of concern about
global warming almost every place except the (US)
federal level,” Anderson
says in an interview for today’s edition of Eureka Report.

“In the meantime you’ve got the rest of
the world very intensely focussing on the issue and it’s starting to swell up
in the American population.”

Anderson
is pushing for the introduction of a carbon tax in the US
as a “no regrets” way of reducing emissions. Six states have already introduced
carbon emissions laws – a patchwork outcome that he views as the worst
solution.

“The debate is starting at the federal
level,” he says. “Sometime within the next 3 or 4 years we will see some sort
of Federal umbrella over this.

“I would imagine it will be a central
part of the debate for the next presidential election. It will be one of those
pivotal issues people will debate.”