Turnbull promises $40m to tackle greenhouse gas threat

Age
Thursday 3/5/2007 Page: 4

PROJECTS to reduce methane gas emissions from underground mines and store electricity from wind and solar sources will receive almost $40 million in the budget as the Federal Government continues to try to sell its green credentials in the lead-up to the election.

Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday Labor's pledge to cut emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 would "put lead in the saddlebags of Australian business". Mr Turnbull said Australia would meet its Kyoto targets "through our own actions within our own national borders".

But critics said figures released by the Australian Greenhouse Office that showed there had been no growth in greenhouse gas emissions between 2004 and 2005 were nothing to boast about. "Emissions from energy have continued to climb and the only reason for the drop in overall emissions is a decline in emissions from metal production and prescribed burning of savannas and an increase in forest sinks," the executive director of the left-leaning think-tank The Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton, said.

Mr Turnbull said the Government would spend $18.5 million to work with China, which produced more than 40 per cent of the world's coal, on projects to reduce methane emissions from underground mines. "This funding will support the safe capture of waste methane gas, which will then be used to generate electricity or be converted to less harmful gases," he said. Underground black-coal mines, which are mainly in NSW and Queensland, emit 12 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions each year.

Mr Tumbull said that where there were high concentrations of methane, the projects could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 900,000 tonnes annually. The Government will also spend $17.5 million on projects to trial more efficient ways of storing electricity from renewable energy sources. Mr Turnbull said more renewable energy could be used if the electricity generated from sources such as solar and wind was available continuously day and night.

Speaking at the National Press Club, he said that moving into a less carbon-intensive world would be costly for Australia, which would be disadvantaged compared with countries that had large supplies of nuclear power, such as France, or hydroelectric power, such as Brazil.

Labor said the Government's only answer to climate change was to gamble Australia's future on 25 nuclear reactors. Meanwhile, in an open letter in The Australian Financial Review, five economists, including ANZ chief economist Saul Eslake, warned that climate change made it crucial that the Government took urgent action to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.