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The Climate Institute report card on the parties’ climate change policies shows a stark contrast between the successful Greens (90%) and failed Coalition (23%) and Labor (40%). The environment and climate change tops the economy as a voters’ concern in 2007. "The Climate Institute’s methodology is conservative. For example, it overlooks the huge greenhouse gas Continue Reading →
The Western Corridor recycled water pipeline would be pumping the most expensive water in Australia when it started full operation at the end of next year, wrote Tuck Thompson and Robert MacDonald in The Courier Mail (16/10/2007, p. 4).
Costing more, delivering less: The cost per litre was expected to increase as more businesses introduced water savings plans, further reducing the amount of water available for recycling. The pipeline had been initially expected to deliver 230 million litres of water a day at a cost of $1.7 billion. Now it was expected to deliver an initial 130 million litres a day for $2.4 billion.
The British claim to part of Antarctica was likely to be vexed – it already overlapped with claims by Argentina and Chile, wrote Andrew Darby in The Age (18/10/2007, p. 5).
Oil and gas: Britain’s Antarctic claim covered a "pie slice" of the frozen continent, including the Antarctic Peninsula eastwards, and including the Weddell Sea. The British Foreign Office was reported in The Guardian to have said that data was being gathered and processed for a submission to the UN, which could extend oil, gas and mineral exploitation rights up to 560 kilometres offshore. According to Antarctic analyst Alan Hemmings, any submission by Britain to the UN Commission could be shelved as Australia’s was.
Official September quarter inflation figures were expected to show a spike in food prices, with the drought squeezing supply and farmers facing rising water, energy and labour costs, wrote Adrian Rollins, an economics correspondent, in The Australian Financial Review (19/10/2007, p. 18).
Should get used to paying more for food: The fall in food production was expected to fuel a sharp rise in food prices, with an 18 per cent jump in the cost of fruit and vegetables and a more modest 2 per cent increase in bread and cereal prices. And, according to research by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, consumers should get used to paying more for their food, even when the drought eventually broke.
Companies, state and federal regulators, coastal industry groups and the public questioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) proposal for a 5-year pilot license for new technologies such as wave and tidal energy at an all-day meeting in Oregon last week.
In July FERC issued a proposal to speed up the permitting process for pilot projects producing 5 megawatts [MW] or less that are not in sensitive environmental areas—and could be pulled out of the water if environmental concerns rose.
Under the plan, a 5-year license would be issued after a six-month review. Currently under the Federal Powers Act, the permitting process involves an intensive three-year pre-filing process and a two-year review. But those licenses are issued for 30 years or more.
Doubts were raised about how a state scheme would merge with any national emissions trading scheme when the Prime Minister, John Howard, released his emissions trading report in May, according to The Sydney Morning Herald (11/9/2007, p.2). Energy-saving devices no longer economical: The New South Wales carbon price, already languishing around $11 a tonne, had Continue Reading →