Australia’s 20% clean energy commitment applauded at global summit

Clean Energy Council
Fri, 7 Mar 08

NATIONAL: Coming on the heels of today's COAG announcement reaffirming a national approach to renewable energy, Australian clean energy investors received another much-needed boost from the Federal Government – A public pledge to provide 20 per cent of Australia's electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020 at the 3rd International Renewable Energy Conference being held in Washington DC (WIREC 2008).

The pledge sets forth the Rudd Government's election policy announcement and puts Australian climate change policy alongside the European Union, China, California and other nations at the forefront of action. "This pledge, together with the COAG Working Group's announcement sends a strong signal to Australia's growing clean energy investment sector: Australia remains fully committed to fighting climate change with effective national policies," said Clean Energy Council CEO, Dominique La Fontaine.

The commitment was made at midday yesterday as part of an official Australian side event hosted by The Asia-Pacific Partnership (APP) Renewable Energy & Distributed Generation Task Force (REDGTF). This pledge will sit alongside official climate change pledges from other participating countries including the USA.

"It's vital for business to know that the key policy framework is secure; notwithstanding the Wilkins inquiry into rationalising climate change policies. An integrated set of measures, including an emissions trading scheme and energy efficiency targets, are essential for transitioning the stationary energy sector and substantially lowering Australia's dangerous greenhouse gas emissions," Ms La Fontaine said.

The consolidation of state schemes into a single target, and expansion of the national renewable energy target will begin by 2009. The target guarantees production of 45,000 gigawatt hours of clean, zero-emission energy from sources like wind, solar, bioenergy and geothermal – enough to power 6.25 million households or avoid 60 million tonnes of CO2 gas from coal-fired electricity.

The Clean Energy Council is working with industry and regulators to deliver a suite of sustainable energy policies that will effectively cut greenhouse gas emissions at least cost to the economy. These policies form the Council's five point plan.