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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Green Loans Scheme headed for collapse

    Green loans scheme headed for collapse

    Canberra, Wednesday 21 October 2009

    The Rudd Government’s Green Loans Scheme cannot handle the community
    demand and is headed for collapse, according to figures obtained in
    Senate Estimates hearings late last night.

    “Tens of thousands of Australian families and households have registered
    their interest in greening up their homes, but a pitiful 58 loans have
    been processed to date,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator
    Christine Milne said.

    “Demand for green loans outstrips the scheme’s capabilities by so much
    that it is headed for the same fate as the rooftop solar rebate, solar
    schools program and other green initiatives that have been
    unceremoniously dumped when they became too successful.”

    The Greens Loans Scheme was an election promise to provide zero interest
    loans to householders who want to green up their homes. It was
    originally intended to start in January 2009, but finally started in
    July, with technical hitches in the scheme’s web portal slowing it down
    even further.

    Under the scheme, accredited assessors conduct household energy audits.
    The audits are provided to the government which in turn provides the
    householder with an assessment report which they can then use to obtain
    a low interest loan from a financial institution.

    According to figures obtained in Senate Estimates hearings late last
    night:
    * the scheme is aimed at providing 75,000 loans over four years;
    * the scheme budgets for 20,000 loans in the current financial
    year;
    * to date, 44,000 households have registered for the home energy
    audits;
    * 27,044 assessments have been completed;
    * some 12,000 reports have been sent out in recent weeks;
    * 58 loans have been approved as at the end of September, with
    none at all before the beginning of that month;
    * as few as 317 reports are currently under consideration by
    financial institutions.

    “The mismatch between the demand for the loans, the number of loans
    budgeted for, and the number of loans actually processed shows just how
    much the Rudd Government has again underestimated the community feeling
    about dealing with the climate crisis.

    “I’m deeply concerned that, if the Green Loans Scheme can get over its
    serious teething troubles, it will end up collapsing under its own
    weight.

    “With 44,000 registrations and only 317 reports under consideration, you
    can guarantee that there will be a nasty crunch in the next few months.

    “Mr Rudd has followed closely in Mr Howard’s footsteps, closing down
    green schemes when demand outstrips budgeting, as the rooftop solar and
    solar schools programs show.

    “That approach has a major human cost, as well as environmental and
    economic, with thousands of people who had secured jobs thanks to the
    schemes tossed on the scrap heap.

    “The Green Loans Scheme must be urgently fixed before it meets the same
    fate.”

    Tim Hollo
    Media Adviser
    Senator Christine Milne | Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate
    Change Spokesperson
    Suite SG-112 Parliament House, Canberra ACT | P: 02 6277 3588 | M: 0437
    587 562
    http://www.christinemilne.org.au/| www.GreensMPs.org.au
    <http://www.greensmps.org.au/>

  • Power line to cut green corridor’s misiing link

     

    ”Cutting a 60 metre swathe, which is permanently kept clear of native vegetation, is like building a wall across the Serengeti plains,” the Greens MP John Kaye said.

    ”As long as this power line exists, it is cutting genetic groups off from each other, and also reducing the chances of species migrating to avoid the effects of climate change.”

    A consultancy, URS Australia, was hired by the electricity agency Transgrid to talk to people living near the power line route. It found ”most were generally opposed to the project”.

    Many residents also say new electricity infrastructure is not needed. Transgrid justified construction of the $227 million line on the basis that the population of the Far North Coast would grow significantly in the next two decades, and that each person would need significantly more energy.

    ”A lot of people are really mystified about why we need to spend so much money on this when there are other cleaner sources of energy that we could be using in the area,” Julia Harpham, a resident whose property lies in the path of the new line, said.

    Ms Harpham’s property harbours vulnerable Ovenden’s ironbark trees, which the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change recommends should not be disturbed.

    Transgrid said an environmental assessment was being done and would take into account all vulnerable species.

    ”The environmental assessment will describe the possible impacts of the transmission line, and any mitigation measures required to reduce those impacts,” a Transgrid spokeswoman said in a statement. The line would mainly follow the route of an existing, smaller power line and the amount of extra clearing would be small, the spokeswoman said.

    The Great Eastern Ranges Initiative encourages rural landholders to grow trees on areas of their properties so that a string of national parks and state forests along the Great Diving Range will be linked together. But the plan has no power to stop developments that interrupt the corridor.

  • Sun goes down on solar schools

     

    Those 700 would be funded if eligible, and additional money made available if required.

    But no more applications will now be considered until next financial year.

    Announcing the program in July 2008, Mr Garrett said “the Rudd Labor government wants every Australian school — primary, secondary, public and private — to have the opportunity to become a ‘solar school’ and the commencement of this half-a-billion dollar program delivers on our election commitment.”

    “… Industry too will benefit from the program from the $480 million federal funding injection, creating increased demand for large solar power systems for school roofs,” Mr Garrett said at the time.

    The suspension is the latest in a series of changes and cuts to government solar programs, including the introduction of a means test on the household solar panel rebate and the ending of the remote solar program.

    Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said it was “amazing that this government can waste $16billion on unwanted school halls but suspend a key solar program that every school appears to want”.

    The program has already hit implementation hurdles with NSW’s centralised tendering process meaning no school had installed panels more than a year after the program started, and many schools running into problems hooking their panels into the power grid.

    Mr Garrett’s spokesman said the Department of the Environment would contact every school registered under the program as well as those with applications on hand to advise of the suspension until next year.

    Under the program schools were eligible for up to $50,000 to install solar power systems, or energy efficiency spending on items such as lighting, fans or awnings. Rainwater tanks, small wind turbines, small hydro power generators and skylights were also eligible.

  • Oversubscribed solar panel scheme to cost taxpayers $440m

     

    Yesterday, Mr Garrett’s office revealed 55,000 of those applications had been approved, potentially at a total cost of $440m.

    The figure is well in excess of the $271m set aside at the last budget to fund the scheme to June 30.

    Mr Garrett said yesterday notifications to successful claimants would go out this week.

    He defended the scheme, which he said was part of an “unprecedented” investment in solar energy by the government.

    “Despite the claims and misinformation of the opposition spokesman, this government has funded over 11 times the number of systems funded in eight years of this program under the previous government,” he said.

    “We expect that the availability of solar credits will continue to drive a sustainable solar industry into the future.”

    Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the scheme had created a “boom-bust” mentality within the industry.

    “It’s another example of the government, and Mr Garrett in particular, having no management control of their systems.”

    He said: “They didn’t understand the program, they didn’t manage the program. They’ve cancelled it abruptly leaving everyone in confusion.”

    The $8000 rebate was introduced by the Howard government. The Rudd government means-tested it after taking office in 2007.

    Clean Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren said that in paying out the claims the government had honoured its election promise.

    “It did have a transformational effect on solar, which is now much cheaper as a result of the

  • Our swagger is big, but others are unconvinced

     

    But when it comes to self-belief, Australia is without peer; Australians are more positive about themselves than any other of the 33 nations that took part in the institute’s wider survey.

    Japan and South Africa registered the lowest self-image, and China, Russia and India recorded the greatest gap between how they perceived themselves and how others saw them. Oliver Freedman, the general manager of AMR Interactive, which conducted the research, said: ”When it comes to the physical beauty and overall lifestyle we are doing a very good job of communicating with the rest of the world, but there’s been a lack of communication about other areas such as our inventiveness and innovation.”

    Despite creating a good impression overall, coming behind the leaders Switzerland and Canada, Australia failed to make it into the top five in key areas such as innovation, technological advancement, culture and social welfare, the survey of 22,000 people found. That did not stop citizens of Group of Eight countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the US – from ranking Australia as the fourth most likely place to invest in.

    Mr Freedman said: ”My guess is that Australia has weathered the financial crisis very well; we are last in and first out. We have a very strong resources sector so from a general [shares] investor point of view Australia does make sense.”

    In August the Trade Minister, Simon Crean, sought to address this issue with a $20 million project to develop a new brand for Australia to encourage investment. Responding to the survey’s results, a spokeswoman for Austrade said Australia needed to ”leverage this confidence we have in ourselves” for the new brand

  • Copenhagen climate change talks are last chance,says Gordon Brown

     

    “If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late.”

    Brown said that, according to estimates from the intergovernmental panel on climate change, an extra 1.8bn people – a quarter of the world’s population – could be short of water by 2080 as a result of climate change.

    And the threat was not confined to people in the developing world, Brown said.

    “The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths. On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades’ time,” he said.

    “And within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe. In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods.”

    Brown said that he thought a deal at Copenhagen was possible. But negotiators were “not getting to agreement quickly enough”, Brown went on, which was why he was appealing for leaders to get involved personally.

    “We cannot compromise with the earth, we cannot compromise with the catastrophe of unchecked climate change, so we must compromise with one another,” he said.

    “I urge my fellow leaders to work together to reach agreement amongst us, recognising both our common and our differentiated responsibilities – and the dire consequences of failure.”

    Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, yesterday highlighted signs of movement, pointing out that last month India said it was ready to set itself non-binding targets for cutting carbon emissions, while China said it would curb the growth of its emissions by a “notable margin” by 2020, although it did not specify further.

    The US special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, said developing economies must boost their efforts to curb emissions, warning it was “certainly possible” that no deal would be agreed in Copenhagen. “What we need to have happen is for China and India and Brazil and South Africa and others to be willing to take what they’re doing, boost it up some, and then be willing to put it into an international agreement,” he said.