Roof caves in on Garrett’s green house plan
Roof caves in on Garrett’s green house plan
TOM ARUP ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT
February 10, 2010
THE government’s Green Loans scheme will be subjected to an external audit after months of allegations of mismanagement and favourable treatment.
And in a double blow for the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, who ordered the audit, he has suspended rebates for foil batts under the government’s $2.45 billion insulation program.
The moves preceded Senate estimates hearings yesterday that revealed problems with the Green Loans scheme, including late payments to assessors and a low uptake of loans.
Labor at crossroads in test of Rudd’s character
Labor at crossroads in test of Rudd’s character
- From: The Australian
- February 10, 2010
The pivotal question, inconceivable a few months ago, is unavoidable: does Rudd stay the path with a double dissolution on his emissions trading scheme, or does he search for a fall-back to avoid the wild and populist confrontation that awaits his government.
Senior Labor figures are divided on the best tactic, an ominous sign. Labor’s policy is in trouble. It is exposed by a rapidly shifting electoral sentiment; and it faces in Tony Abbott a re-energised
Coalition machine capable, for the first time since the 2007 poll, of hurting Rudd Labor.
Help the Greens break the climate deadlock
Help the Greens break the climate deadlock
The Greens are now in serious negotiations with the government towards our interim carbon price proposal.
You can help us deliver that climate breakthrough by getting your support for the proposal onto the letters pages of newspapers around the country.
After having been rebuffed by the government many times over many months in our attempts to turn the CPRS from a barrier to action into an environmentally effective and economically efficient scheme, we are now pleased to say the government has finally agreed to enter good faith negotiations towards the interim proposal we released last month.
The more we can demonstrate public support for our deadlock-breaking proposal, the more the government will need to work with us towards a successful outcome!
Please take the time to get the message out.
Israel takes lead on electric cars with nationwide-grid plan
Israel takes lead on electric cars with nationwide-grid plan
Better Place, the Californian company that is launching the grid, said at a news conference north of Tel Aviv that 70 to 100 recharge stations would open across the country by 2011 to service a fleet of electric vehicles.
Beginning in September, the company will test hundreds of cars and install a preliminary infrastructure before the project’s commercial launch.
When the grid is complete, drivers will be able to recharge their vehicles using plugs installed next to parking spaces. On longer trips, motorists can stop at stations where a machine can replace the car’s lithium ion battery. The cars, developed with Renault-Nissan, have a range of about 160 kilometres.
Govt accused of paving way for pulp mill pipeline
Govt accused of paving way for pulp mill pipeline
The Premier David Bartlett has been forced to reaffirm it is not his government’s policy to buy land for the Gunns pulp mill.
Land the Infrastructure Department has acquired for the Dilston bypass includes areas that farmers had refused to sell to Gunns for the mill’s pipeline.
The case for climate action must be remade from the ground upwards
The case for climate action must be remade from the ground upwards
With the science under siege and the politics in disarray, it may fall to civil society to keep this still crucial fight alive
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- guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 February 2010 23.09 GMT
- Article history
What a difference three months makes. Back in November, the world broadly agreed that emissions of carbon dioxide were heating up the planet and that we needed to do something about it, even if we couldn’t agree exactly what. And though we’d had the usual pre-summit rollercoaster ride of dire predictions and naive exhortations (yes, I plead guilty to some of those), even hardheaded types dared to hope that Copenhagen might produce the basis of a global climate treaty.
As late as 7 December, 56 newspapers around the world could declare in a common, Guardian-led editorial: “The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it.”