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  • Greens slams Tassie’s climate change response

    Let’s have a minister for climate change: Like some other States and like Labor federally, McKim proposed having a minister for climate change. It was Federal Labor Party policy to have a minister for climate change. In South Australia the Premier was the minister for climate change and in Victoria Thwaites was the minister. "When you have a minister for climate change you get a coherent response to the greatest public policy challenge facing us today. When you have the Minister for Primary Industries and Water overseeing Tasmania’s climate change response you get the deficient and minimalist response to the challenge of climate change that we have seen from Labor in Tasmania," he said.

    Strategy with good ideas, but vague: McKim wanted to go into a little more detail on the Greens’ suggestions for a coherent response to climate change based on their submission to the review of the Tasmanian Government’s draft climate change strategy. These suggestions were made in an attempt to be cooperative with the Government, he said. The Greens were glad that the Government chose to commission and publish a draft climate change strategy for Tasmania, but disappointed at its minimalist nature, although there were some good ideas in it. "We are not saying that we have managed to think of every response that the State should enact in relation to climate change, but we have had a good think about it and we have put together what I think is a pretty solid submission that took us some time and effort," McKim said.

    Reference: Nicholas McKim – Tasmanian Greens, Member of the House of Assembly, TAS; David Llewellyn – Member for Lyons, Minister for Primary Industries & Water, TAS, 12 June 2007

    Erisk Net, 12/6/2007

  • Whistle blower reveals the `Greenhouse Mafia’

    The politics of climate change: In the course of his PhD research into the politics of climate change, Pearse interviewed scores of key players in the greenhouse policy debate. Most enlightening and, ultimately the most politically damaging, was the information he gleaned from members of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network. "The AIGN is a highly influential collection of Australia’s biggest greenhouse polluters, consisting of a dozen industry associations and a similar number of individual companies that represent Australia’s largest fossil fuel producers and consumers.", Pearse wrote.

    The `greenhouse mafia’: Almost all, he discovered, were former federal bureaucrats and/or ministerial staffers from the industry portfolio. They openly called themselves "the greenhouse mafia and made it clear their effect on government policy was far reaching and profound." One even told him: “We know where every skeleton in the closet is. Most of them we buried."

    Fallout was swift and final: Even though he was on a fast track to Liberal party pre-selection, Pearse decided the dangers of climate change were too urgent to wait the 20 years it wjould take before he might be able to directly affect policy himself. In February 2006, he made his `greenhouse mafia’ allegations on the ABC’s Four Corners program. The fallout was swift and final. "The government just dismissed the claims the very next day," Pearse said. "I was told to forget about running for office, a couple of MPs who wanted to speak in my defence were told to shut up. The doors just slammed.

    "The whistle didn’t work," he said of his Four Corners interview, "so I had to get out my trumpet."
     

    Guy Pearse spoke at the Art Gallery auditorium on 6 July at 11.15am, http://www.festivalofideas.com.au

    The Advertiser, 6/7/2007, p. 27

    Source: Erisk Net  

  • NSW gov pressured to improve electricity investment

    The Australian Financial Review, 5/7/2007, 62p.

    Source: Erisk Net 

  • Smart Meters help reduce electricity consumption

    Country Energy trial of in-house Smart Meters in 200 homes in country NSW; households cut energy consumption by 5pc and their electricity costs by 16pc

    In a submission to the Owen Inquiry into Electricity Supply in NSW, Liberal MP Michael Richardson, Member for Castle Hill, said, the NEMMCO paper simply assumed a continuing growth in demand for electricity in NSW but this need not be the case.

    Smart Meters could cut usage: For example, electricity usage in NSW homes can be cut by progressively installing Smart Meters, starting with areas that that are facing blackouts because of inadequate transmission infrastructure.

    Peak load times effect: Smart Metering helped to reduce electricity consumption, particularly at critical peak load times, relieving the strain on both the generating and distribution systems as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    Regional NSW meter trial: Country Energy conducted a trial of in-house Smart Meters in 200 homes in country NSW. On average, households in the trial cut their energy consumption by 5 per cent and their
    electricity costs by 16 per cent. There was a particularly strong response to critical peak pricing events, with people turning off air conditioners and discretionary appliances such as washing machines and irons. Ninety-nine per cent of those in the trial wanted to carry on with the Smart Meters.

    Little effect on demand: However, while Smart Meters have the potential to reduce peak-load consumption they won’t significantly reduce the demand for baseload power. In the absence of major additional energy savings in the commercial, industrial and residential sectors and with the economy continuing to grow, additional baseload generating capacity will almost certainly be needed.

    Reference: Liberal MP Michael Richardso, Member for Castle Hill

    Erisk Net, 6/7/2007

  • Tamar Valley pulp mill fails to meet enviro guidelines

    Tamar Valley pulp mill fails to meet some air, water and waste pollution guidelines, but still looks certain to be built
    The Tamar Valley pulp mill fails to meet some air, water, and waste pollution guidelines, but still looks certain to be built, according to The Mercury (5/7/2007, p. 3).

    Report to be released: The report, ordered when Gunns withdrew from the Resource Planning and Development Commission, will be released publicly today with a second report into the mill’s economic and social benefits. Only the Government and Gunns have seen the report, which was delivered last Friday, and neither have commented on its contents.

    State Parliament to vote on building dates: State Parliament will study the Sweco Pic report before it votes on whether work can start on building the mill late August or early September. Yesterday Premier Paul Lennon continued to fend off criticism in Parliament about the assessment process and his decision to give Gunns the report before Parliament. Ms Putt, the Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation also criticised ITS Global, the consultant that did the social and economic study.

    Lennon defends ITS Global: Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley said the "corporate spin doctors" had helped a multi-national company justify controversial logging in Papua New Guinea. Lennon said ITS Global had also overseen the evaluation of the Visy pulp mill in Tumut, NSW, a project the Greens had "widely supported".

    The Mercury, 5/7/2007, p. 3

    Source: Erisk Net  

  • US Floats Carbon Tax

    “I sincerely doubt that the American people will be willing to pay what this is really going to cost them,” said Mr. Dingell, whose committee will be drafting a broad bill on climate change this fall.

    “I will be introducing in the next little bit a carbon tax bill, just to sort of see how people think about this,” he continued. “When you see the criticism I get, I think you’ll see the answer to your question.”

    The idea behind a carbon tax is to provide an incentive to reduce the use of fossil fuels like oil and coal, which are loaded with carbon, and increase the use of cleaner, renewable fuels like solar power, wind and fuels made from plants and plant waste.

    Many economists like the idea of a carbon tax, saying that it would be simple to administer and could profoundly affect energy choices.

    But most Democrats are staunchly opposed, saying that a tax would raise the costs of travel, commuting and heating and cooling homes, and that it would be wildly unpopular at a time when voters are already angry about high energy costs. Republicans, they said, would seize on any such proposal as proof that Democrats were bent on raising taxes and increasing the size of government.

    Indeed, many Democrats still cringe at the memory of President Bill Clinton’s trying to pass a broad “B.T.U. tax” in 1993 on most forms of energy. The measure passed the House but not the Senate, and more than a few Democrats believe the effort was one reason they lost their majority in the House in 1994.

    Now, House and Senate Democrats are writing bills that would require factories and power plants to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases through a so-called cap-and-trade system of mandatory requirements and tradeable pollution credits.

    Most of the proposals would impose mandatory limits on the amount of carbon dioxide that companies would be allowed to produce each year, and those limits would become steadily more rigorous over time. A factory or a power plant that is already below the limit could sell its unused allocations to companies that were over the limit.

    The United States already uses a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions of sulfur dioxide and other pollutants that cause acid rain.

    The European Union has adopted a system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, though the system has come under considerable criticism for letting companies game the rules and for failing to reduce emissions in line with European goals.