11 June 2009
NATIONAL: Australia's clean energy industry should not be used as a bargaining chip in the high stakes game of political brinkmanship on climate change policy. The Rudd Government's Renewable Energy Target (RET) bill released this week links key elements of the scheme to the passage of the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS).The Clean Energy Council (CEC) wants to see both pieces of legislation pass. All major parties have indicated their strong support for legislation to immediately deliver 20 percent of Australia's energy from renewable sources by 2020. CEC Chief Executive Matthew Warren implored all major parties to find agreement on the RET legislation when it enters parliament next week or risk sabotaging the clean energy industry they all claim to strongly support.
"The lack of certainty created by this emerging political impasse may already be enough to trigger accelerated retrenchments across the solar PV industry, which now can have no confidence in the timely deployment of a new solar scheme to replace the rebates that were halted on Tuesday," Mr Warren said. "Unless parliament can reach agreement on this bill, AU$28 billion of new clean energy projects which would otherwise have made an immediate and substantial dent in Australia's greenhouse emissions will remain in limbo."
Mr Warren said policies to drive accelerated deployment of clean energy technologies and energy efficiency should be at the vanguard of Australia's accelerated response to climate change and not compromised by political brinkmanship. The CEC has commissioned urgent legal advice to draft the necessary amendments to repair this and other flaws in the bill and will provide these to all major parties at the start of next week.
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