Climate change policy

Solar Flagship shortlist comes up short

FOSSIL fuel pirates and other opportunists have commandeered Energy Minister Martin Ferguson's Solar Flagship program.

The short-listed bidders for a slice of the $1.5 billion booty, courtesy of the Federal Government, was buried in a press release issued on Budget night.

It's not that the Solar Flagship concept is wrong. It's just that the companies that have been selected for the shortlist are second-tier, or worse, in terms of global solar energy.

The shortlist demonstrates an audacious tilt by gas, oil, coal and wind specialists, who should stick to their knitting and leave the large-scale solar sector to the large-scale solar sector.

Frustrated by Rudd’s ETS Backflip, Thousands Call for Massive Federal Budget Investment in Renewable Energy

MELBOURNE - Frustrated by the Rudd Government’s inaction on climate change, a broad coalition of prominent Australians and organisations representing hundreds of thousands of people have signed an open letter (see below) calling for the government to massively increase renewable energy investment in tomorrow’s federal budget.

Notable signatories include:

  • Progressive online campaign organisation Get Up!, boasting over 350,000 supporters
  • Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics
  • Leading climate scientist Professor David Karoly
  • Guy Pearse, Research Fellow at the Global Change Institute and author of High and Dry
  • Major national environmental organisations Friends of the Earth, Environment Victoria and Greenpeace Australia
  • The Australian Youth Climate Coalition, with a membership of over 50,000
  • Renewable energy advocate the Alternative Technology Association
  • Renewable energy industry group the Australian Solar Energy Society
  • The independent think tank The Australia Institute
  • The Electrical Trades Union Victoria
  • Over 30 community-based climate groups from around Australia.

Australia Needs a Solar Snowy Mountains Scheme

By Leigh Ewbank. Published by the ABC, Australia's national broadcaster.

Australia needs a Plan B for climate policy. We need a nation-building project on the scale of the Snowy Mountains Scheme to invest in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. This is the fresh approach needed to drive Australia's transition towards a clean economy and protect the nation from dangerous climate change.

The Prime Minister's announcement yesterday that the government will delay its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme until 2013 is a tacit admission that pricing carbon is not viable in the current political environment.

Labor and proponents of emissions trading have been living a fantasy for too long. They have ignored the realities of politics to pursue a policy that had no reasonable chance of being implemented at a time when climate change experts agree we must act. Now, Australia is set for yet more inaction.

Greens call for $20 billion carbon tax to break emissions trading impasse

THE Greens have called on the government to back a $20 billion interim carbon tax proposal to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Greens leader Bob Brown and climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne unveiled the plan today, which would impose a carbon price on polluters of $20 a tonne from the first of July this year.

Rudd's green vision may yet be his undoing

KEVIN Rudd might pull it all off - contribute to a meaningful agreement at Copenhagen, follow through with a greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme next year and then win a federal poll in which environment issues play strongly. But it's looking dicey.

Two years after Rudd was voted in as Prime Minister - The Economist recently called it the world's first climate change election - there is growing uncertainty about his Government's direction.

Rudd got a standing ovation in Bali in 2007 after signing up to the Kyoto Protocol but is now among those rich country leaders working to replace it.

Greens Senator Christine Milne on the Hypocrites and Deniers in the Australian Parliament

Christine Milne, Australian Greens Senator, compares the Labor Party Climate Change Hypocrites (do almost nothing) with the Liberal Party Deniers (do worse than nothing), and compares them with Britain, where the Conservative Party has 'leapfrogged' the Labor Party in ambitious Climate Change policy, and in the polls.

Beyond Zero talks to Senator Christine Milne Greens Deputy Leader

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KC Golden on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the 'confidence gap' and more

KC Golden discusses the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the 'confidence gap' in which the general public understands that fossil fuel dependence is a bad idea, but they are still unaware of the existing renewable energy solutions that can replace it, and much more.

Beyond Zero speaks to KC Golden

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Janet Larsen, Director of Research at the Earth Policy Institute discusses 'Plan B 3.0 – Mobilizing to Save Civilization'

Janet is a co-author of a book called, ‘The Earth Policy Reader’, which tells us about how the global economic accounting system does not account for ecological deficits such as overfishing and unsustainable logging, and the large economic cost we suffer as a consequence.

Janet Larsen podcast

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Al Gore calls for 350ppm in Poznan meaning too much carbon in the atmosphere already

As governments come to grips with the very difficult work that has to be performed in order to reach even a goal of 450 parts per million, the task can seem very daunting. But for those of us who do understand that the goal should be tougher still, let us remember that the early steps in a process of reaching a goal of 450 parts per million and a process to reach 350 parts per million, the early steps are very similar, and we know from experience that once the process of change begins, once the momentum shifts, once the decisions are arrived at, then the task often becomes easier in the doing.

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