“Green” budget passed and pasted in Australia
“We are in the midst of an extreme climate crisis and the [Kevin] Rudd government’s first budget was an opportunity to show voters that they truly mean business on climate change. Instead they have let Australia down by not delivering the climate solutions that are at their fingertips right now - renewable energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal.”
“The government’s flagship renewable energy fund will not get a single cent over the next year whilst the clean coal scam will receive AUD 31 million. Over the next three years, renewables will get half as much public money as wealthy coal companies pushing carbon capture and sequestration,” wrote Greenpeace head of campaigns, Stephen Campbell.
An independent political campaigning group, GetUp, is turning its criticism into practical action. It’s asking its 286,000 members to donate to a publicity campaign kicking off with a huge billboard (pictured) outside Rudd’s official residence, where he’ll see it every day as he heads to work. GetUp’s membership is bigger than that of all Australian political parties combined. Using new technology and funded only by voluntary donations , its campaigning has changed many political decisions. "Budgets like these will not prevent the climate crisis. We need to go much further, and we need to get there much, much faster," members were emailed. The ambitious public campaign ranges from viral online vignettes to newspaper ads that land on the prime minister's desk to nation-wide grassroots climate events.
Under the budget delivered on 13 May by Treasurer (finance minister) Wayne Swan households and businesses will receive a windfall in rebates, grants and low-interest loans if they become greener. Spending on climate change initiatives will reach AUD 2.3 billion. But many may miss out on the incentives because money has only been set aside for several hundred thousand households and businesses. Swan has also unveiled an AUD 20 million Clean Energy Enterprise Connect Centre and an AUD 15 million Clean Energy Export Strategy to help businesses capitalise on a new industry. Clean-energy exports are to be promoted and liaison officers will help clean-energy firms become export ready. The new centre will help small and medium firms use latest research and technology to improve products. Households and businesses will be eligible for immediate relief. Low-interest loans of up to AUD 10,000 per property for water and energy-efficient products will be available to 200,000 existing homes and rebates of up to AUD 1,000 will be offered to entice 225,000 homes to install solar and heat-pump hot-water systems. Businesses that retrofit existing buildings to reduce their carbon footprint will be subsidised 50 per cent of the cost, up to AUD 200,000. And grants of up to AUD 500,000 will be available to small and medium manufacturers to become more environmentally friendly.
Swan said he had received "a fair bit of free advice" from his three children about the budget. "At the top of the list is always climate change," he said. "And fair enough, because it really will be perhaps the greatest threat to our economy, our environment and our living standards in future generations." Swan foreshadowed a tough time for Australia's top income earners, saying the largesse handed [by the previous Conservative government] to a few at the expense of many had to be pulled back.
Not for a long time has Australia’s business elite been so anxious about a government's intentions. One by one, the fossil fuel company executives have been knocking on climate minister Penny Wong's door or using their lobbyists in a relentless campaign to shape the government's two far-reaching plans to cut Australia's soaring greenhouse gas pollution. These plans are a new carbon emissions trading scheme, which is to put a lid on the amount of pollution Australia can emit, and a national, enforceable target for 20% of Australia's power to come from renewable sources by 2020. Emissions trading is central to the government's plan to shrink the giant carbon footprint that makes Australians one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters per person on the planet. By 2010 most companies that emit greenhouse gases will need permits to do so. They will be issued by the government or bought on a carbon market at anything from AUD 10 to AUD 20 a tonne or more, at a cost across the economy of billions of dollars.
The election of the Rudd government has encouraged IFE Engineering, one of Germany's biggest renewable energy investors, to take part in a plan to build an AUD 250 million north Queensland wind energy plant that could power a city the size of Cairns, which has a population of about 145,000. While Australian renewable energy firms, such as Babcock & Brown Wind Partners Group, have turned overseas to invest in the sector, local and foreign-owned companies are now increasingly eyeing up investments in Australia. "The Rudd Government's election and Kyoto Protocol signing gave us the confidence to move forward," says Edwin Cywinski, managing director of eco-Kinetics, a Gold Coast-based renewable energy firm part-owned by IFE. IFE has signed a letter of intent with the Brisbane-based company Wind Power Queensland to build within about two years a 120 megawatt, 60-turbine wind farm at Archer Point, 15km south of Cooktown. Cywinski says Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, and Aktiva Group, a major European renewable energy sector investor, wish to join IFE and WPQ in the Archer Point wind farm. He says the group is already mulling stage-two expansion and additional Queensland wind farm sites.
And Australia’s Governor-General, whose role is almost entirely ceremonial as the representative of the British queen, has called for research and development into solar power. Speaking at a Future Summit in Sydney, Major General Michael Jeffrey suggested water, food and the environment would be among Australia's top issues in 50 years time, all of which could be in-part addressed by the availability of cheap, renewable energy. He said that thorium, a naturally occurring and slightly radioactive material, should be considered as an alternative nuclear fuel to uranium. But he stressed that improving solar technology should be the priority. “The Australian scientists suggest that they could meet the total energy needs of Australia with a solar panel array of around 50 kilometres squared,” he said.
The first sod has been turned at a multi-million-dollar solar technology centre in central Australia. The Solar Technology Demonstration Facility in Alice Springs will include a range of solar power products and a "solar forest" and "solar compass". The centre will be used for training, education and research and its backers hope it will also become a tourist attraction. The senior project manager Lyndon Frearson says the project will attract worldwide interest.
“The government’s flagship renewable energy fund will not get a single cent over the next year whilst the clean coal scam will receive AUD 31 million. Over the next three years, renewables will get half as much public money as wealthy coal companies pushing carbon capture and sequestration,” wrote Greenpeace head of campaigns, Stephen Campbell.
An independent political campaigning group, GetUp, is turning its criticism into practical action. It’s asking its 286,000 members to donate to a publicity campaign kicking off with a huge billboard (pictured) outside Rudd’s official residence, where he’ll see it every day as he heads to work. GetUp’s membership is bigger than that of all Australian political parties combined. Using new technology and funded only by voluntary donations , its campaigning has changed many political decisions. "Budgets like these will not prevent the climate crisis. We need to go much further, and we need to get there much, much faster," members were emailed. The ambitious public campaign ranges from viral online vignettes to newspaper ads that land on the prime minister's desk to nation-wide grassroots climate events.
Under the budget delivered on 13 May by Treasurer (finance minister) Wayne Swan households and businesses will receive a windfall in rebates, grants and low-interest loans if they become greener. Spending on climate change initiatives will reach AUD 2.3 billion. But many may miss out on the incentives because money has only been set aside for several hundred thousand households and businesses. Swan has also unveiled an AUD 20 million Clean Energy Enterprise Connect Centre and an AUD 15 million Clean Energy Export Strategy to help businesses capitalise on a new industry. Clean-energy exports are to be promoted and liaison officers will help clean-energy firms become export ready. The new centre will help small and medium firms use latest research and technology to improve products. Households and businesses will be eligible for immediate relief. Low-interest loans of up to AUD 10,000 per property for water and energy-efficient products will be available to 200,000 existing homes and rebates of up to AUD 1,000 will be offered to entice 225,000 homes to install solar and heat-pump hot-water systems. Businesses that retrofit existing buildings to reduce their carbon footprint will be subsidised 50 per cent of the cost, up to AUD 200,000. And grants of up to AUD 500,000 will be available to small and medium manufacturers to become more environmentally friendly.
Swan said he had received "a fair bit of free advice" from his three children about the budget. "At the top of the list is always climate change," he said. "And fair enough, because it really will be perhaps the greatest threat to our economy, our environment and our living standards in future generations." Swan foreshadowed a tough time for Australia's top income earners, saying the largesse handed [by the previous Conservative government] to a few at the expense of many had to be pulled back.
Not for a long time has Australia’s business elite been so anxious about a government's intentions. One by one, the fossil fuel company executives have been knocking on climate minister Penny Wong's door or using their lobbyists in a relentless campaign to shape the government's two far-reaching plans to cut Australia's soaring greenhouse gas pollution. These plans are a new carbon emissions trading scheme, which is to put a lid on the amount of pollution Australia can emit, and a national, enforceable target for 20% of Australia's power to come from renewable sources by 2020. Emissions trading is central to the government's plan to shrink the giant carbon footprint that makes Australians one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters per person on the planet. By 2010 most companies that emit greenhouse gases will need permits to do so. They will be issued by the government or bought on a carbon market at anything from AUD 10 to AUD 20 a tonne or more, at a cost across the economy of billions of dollars.
The election of the Rudd government has encouraged IFE Engineering, one of Germany's biggest renewable energy investors, to take part in a plan to build an AUD 250 million north Queensland wind energy plant that could power a city the size of Cairns, which has a population of about 145,000. While Australian renewable energy firms, such as Babcock & Brown Wind Partners Group, have turned overseas to invest in the sector, local and foreign-owned companies are now increasingly eyeing up investments in Australia. "The Rudd Government's election and Kyoto Protocol signing gave us the confidence to move forward," says Edwin Cywinski, managing director of eco-Kinetics, a Gold Coast-based renewable energy firm part-owned by IFE. IFE has signed a letter of intent with the Brisbane-based company Wind Power Queensland to build within about two years a 120 megawatt, 60-turbine wind farm at Archer Point, 15km south of Cooktown. Cywinski says Germany's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, and Aktiva Group, a major European renewable energy sector investor, wish to join IFE and WPQ in the Archer Point wind farm. He says the group is already mulling stage-two expansion and additional Queensland wind farm sites.
And Australia’s Governor-General, whose role is almost entirely ceremonial as the representative of the British queen, has called for research and development into solar power. Speaking at a Future Summit in Sydney, Major General Michael Jeffrey suggested water, food and the environment would be among Australia's top issues in 50 years time, all of which could be in-part addressed by the availability of cheap, renewable energy. He said that thorium, a naturally occurring and slightly radioactive material, should be considered as an alternative nuclear fuel to uranium. But he stressed that improving solar technology should be the priority. “The Australian scientists suggest that they could meet the total energy needs of Australia with a solar panel array of around 50 kilometres squared,” he said.
The first sod has been turned at a multi-million-dollar solar technology centre in central Australia. The Solar Technology Demonstration Facility in Alice Springs will include a range of solar power products and a "solar forest" and "solar compass". The centre will be used for training, education and research and its backers hope it will also become a tourist attraction. The senior project manager Lyndon Frearson says the project will attract worldwide interest.
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