Energy giant backs 20% renewables

Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday 30/8/2007 Page: 7

WIND, solar and other renewable energy should make up 20 per cent of power needs within 12 years if Australia wants to seriously cut the carbon emissions causing climate change, the head of the energy giant AGL said. AGL's chief executive, Paul Anthony, is calling on the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, to set a renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020, a far more ambitious goal than either side has agreed to so far.

"Look at the rest of the world," Mr Anthony told the Herald. "You can't effectively have a carbon abatement scheme without a very, very strong national obligation for renewable energy." Mr Anthony's comments come as the major parties are examining targets for renewable energy in the lead-up to the federal election.

For a decade, the Howard Government has resisted raising the mandatory national target for renewable energy above 2 per cent. Labor is expected to release its target soon. Mr Anthony has been appointed chairman of the sustainable energy pressure group which is about to become the Clean Energy Council. His company has one of the largest retail energy businesses in Australia, with 3.6 million customers. He also criticised the Howard Government approach to a carbon emissions trading scheme, which is supposed to set a price on carbon from fossil fuels that are causing pollution.

While committed to a trading scheme by 2012, neither Mr Howard nor Mr Rudd will set national targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions until after the election. Without targets, the emissions trading scheme cannot operate. Mr Anthony said business was concerned that there was still so much confusion over how the scheme would work. "The piecemeal disclosure of the Government's thinking worries us," he said. "We are finding it difficult to understand the logic." Most concerning, he said, was the plan by the Government to auction some permits to emit greenhouse gases but give permits or exemptions to particular industries.

Questions were raised about AGL's commitment to renewable energy recently when it dropped its plans to build the Dollar Wind Farm in Victoria. Mr Anthony insisted this was simply because there were better sites elsewhere. "We've got a strong appetite for wind," he said, pointing to plans to build a $600 million wind farm at Macarthur in Victoria. Mr Anthony said he believed Australia could economically make deep cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.