5 December 2016, Renew Economy, Turnbull leads attack on wind as Coalition readies carbon price backflip. Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition government appears ready to throw the medium and long-term future of Australia’s large-scale renewable energy market under a bus, as the price to be paid for a back-flip on a carbon price for the electricity sector. Turnbull joined with The Australian and right-wing climate denying bloggers Andrew Bolt and Jo Nova on Friday in somehow connecting last week’s network fault in Victoria with the growth of renewable energy. Turnbull told a local radio station that the outage was the “fault” of the South Australian government. On Monday, a clearer picture of what the Coalition is up to emerged with the release of the terms of reference for the climate policy review in 2017. Importantly, this review is no longer a “sit rep” – situation report – flagged by energy minister Josh Frydenberg when he first took office. It will, in fact, consider a range of new policy mechanisms, such as an emissions intensity baseline and credit scheme for the electricity sector (effectively a carbon price), a sure sign that the Coalition now realises what Turnbull knew all along – that Direct Action is a fraud and a fig leaf for serious action on climate change. But to try to dance its way through internal politics, the demands of the fossil fuel lobby and comparisons with Labor’s own proposals, Turnbull and Frydenberg appear to have concluded that the best way to appease the far-right rump of the Coalition is to abandon direct support for renewables, help open up the Galilee Basin coal resource and push for more coal seam gas. Reports emerged on the weekend that the Coalition is considering offering a $1 billion concessional loan to help build a rail link between the Galilee Basin coal projects and the port at Abbot’s Point. The idea has appalled environment groups. It also comes as emergency talks are held in Melbourne about the “gas supply crisis”, and as the Coalition readies to receive the Finkel review of the National Electricity Market and prepares to again badger the states on the individual renewable targets at the COAG conference this Friday. The conflicting strategies comes as yet another report highlights the parlous state of the country’s climate efforts, noting that Australia is on track to use up its entire “carbon budget” under the Paris agreement in little more than a decade.Read More here
Category Archives: Australian Response
5 December 2016, The Guardian, Australia is blowing its carbon budget, projections reveal. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising despite global reduction efforts, according to detailed projections made by the consultants NDEVR Environmental. Australia’s emissions jumped by 2.56m tonnes in the three months to September, putting them 1.55m tonnes off-track compared with commitments made in Paris, and 4.06m tonnes over levels demanded by scientifically based targets set by the government’s Climate Change Authority. Emissions for the year to September are above those for the year to September 2015. The results mean Australia has emitted about twice what is allowed by the CCA’s carbon budget since 2013. In the three years and nine months to September 2016, the country emitted 19.8% of its share of what the world can emit between 2013 and 2050 if it intends to maintain a good chance of keeping warming to below 2C. If Australia continues to emit carbon pollution at the average rate of the past year, it will spend its entire carbon budget by 2031. Projected to the current second, the graphic shows how much of the carbon budget has been spent. Read More here
30 November 2016, The Conversation, Government response to Infrastructure Australia offers no grounds for optimism. How wonderful, you might think, that the Australian government is in furious agreement with its independent infrastructure advisory body on how to tackle the country’s present and looming infrastructure challenges. Of Infrastructure Australia’s 78 recommendations in its Infrastructure Plan, the federal government opposes only three outright. But, in reality, the government has ducked some hard choices by either supporting “in principle” or supporting with caveats. This means it can’t be criticised for being hostile to a good idea, but at the same time it doesn’t actually have to do anything. Ducking hard choices means avoiding change that could make a real improvement to the effectiveness of Australia’s infrastructure. A transparent and rigorous process is perhaps the most critical element underpinning an effective infrastructure investment program. Infrastructure Australia believes this, and so does the Australian government. That’s why the Infrastructure Plan recommends publication of full project business cases, including supporting data and analysis, and preparation and publication of robust post-completion reviews once a project has been delivered. How disappointing, then, that the government is silent on the first recommendation and passes the buck on the second. Read More here
18 November 2016, ECO, UNFCCC – Fossil of the Day – The first Fossil of the Day award goes to…take a deep breath…Turkey, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, France, Japan and Indonesia for duplicity at the UN climate negotiations. While representatives from climate vulnerable countries, cities, businesses, and civil society organisations are fighting to keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground, as well as preventing the expansion of polluting airports (hat-tip to France), these countries still aim to increase their domestic fossil fuel extraction. By doing so, they are quite literally drilling under everyone’s efforts to keep global warming below the critical threshold of 1.5°C. These countries helped forge the Paris Agreement which is now in force, committing them to halt climate change, so they really need to get the left hand and the right hand talking to each other. Put your money where your mouth is, please! Read More here