Leaders still avoiding the big issue

Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday 6/2/2007 Page: 11
Opinion:

The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change leads to the inevitable conclusion that deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are needed urgently, before 2020. While individuals can make a contribution, their potential falls far short of what is needed: targets, new policies, strategies and actions from all levels of government, especially federal and state.

It is governments that control taxation and funding, choose new infrastructure, and establish regulations and standards.

Unfortunately summits and further inquiries often delay real action. The Federal Government has been delaying greenhouse action for 10 years. Its principal strategy is to support coal-fired electricity with capture and burial of carbon dioxide. With a big subsidy, a pilot plant could be built within a decade. But this is a long way from a mass-produced, commercially available technology, which would take at least 20 years to roll out.

Knowing this, the Government is promoting nuclear power to divert attention from the clean energy technologies that are ready for implementation, given appropriate carbon pricing, regulations and standards: efficient energy use, solar hot water, solar space heating, wind power and bioenergy from crop residues, organic wastes and landfills.

Nowadays, nuclear power entails even greater risks of proliferation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. And there is still no long-term nuclear waste dump operating anywhere. High-grade uranium ore is scarce, while mining and milling low-grade creates big carbon dioxide emissions. The nuclear industry promotes a new generation of nuclear power stations that might be slightly safer and cheaper, but these will take at least 15 to 20 years to mass produce.

Clearly, the Government is attempting to delay efficient energy use and renewable energy for 15-20 years until its chosen technologies may become available. It combines token support for renewable energy with false claims that it cannot substitute for coal.

The federal Mandatory Renewable Energy Target for 2010 was so small it was reached last year. Several years ago the Government ceased to fund the Cooperative Research Centre for Renewable Energy, but it still funds three research centres for fossil fuels. Even efficient energy use, the cheapest and fastest set of technologies and measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, has received little support from the Government.

To give the right message to energy consumers, it is essential to expand and extend the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target and to introduce carbon pricing, either as a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. An effective scheme must have a strong cap on emissions, must include all the energy intensive industries and must distribute at least half the emission permits by auction. This will allow cleaner energy technologies to enter the market in competition with the existing fossil fuel technologies. As with water permits, emission permits should be temporary licences, not property rights.

The Federal Opposition promises to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, expand the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target and introduce an emissions trading scheme, without specifying its key features. Useful first steps, but not sufficiently specific to give us confidence that they will achieve big reductions in emissions by 2020.

The best action NSW has taken is to follow Victoria in establishing a Mandatory Renewable Energy Target. However, the modest emission reductions from this will be swamped if NSW permits a conventional coal-fired power station to be built. At least three such proposals are on the table. The NSW Opposition Leader, Peter Debnam, has indicated he favours a coal station. The Premier, Morris lemma, has avoided committing himself and has attempted to reassure the public by pointing to the Government's recent approval of a gas-fired power station.

However, this is merely a peak-load station and is not relevant to the choice of the next base-load station. The program to upgrade the state's 12 coalfired generators from 660 to 750 megawatts each will produce equivalent emissions to a new coal-fired station.

Under pressure from the property and housing industries, NSW has weakened the BASIX scheme for energy-efficient homes. On transport, it reneged on a promise to extend Sydney's light rail system, cancelled the Parramatta-Epping heavy rail link, failed to introduce an integrated ticketing system for public transport and has made negligible investment in a bicycle highway network - all indicators that it is ill-prepared for greenhouse response and for the imminent peak in global oil production.

Perhaps local climate action groups will exert sufficient political pressure to move contenders in the coming elections to adopt effective policies instead of diversions and delaying tactics.

Dr Mark Diesendorf researches and teaches sustainable development and greenhouse response strategies at the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales.