Antinuclear

Australian govt can use carbon pricing to provide renewable energy infrastructure

The construction of new renewable energy grid infrastructure is one example of an investment-centred measure. Expanded electricity grid infrastructure would open up renewable resources for sustainable development and help overcome a non-market barrier to clean energy deployment……

The Gillard government and those in the parliament who support effective action on climate change can use carbon-pricing legislation to secure funding for an ambitious nation-building climate policy agenda.

Want to stop climate change? Move beyond carbon pricing, Rooted, Leigh Ewbank, October 7, 2010 by Crikey: It’s time for the government and climate change advocates to stop obsessing over carbon pricing and get behind an investment-centred climate policy.

….. it is fair to say the measure is still struggling to win strong public support.

The focus on climate change as a pollution problem obscures an alternative policy approach with greater potential to win public support than carbon pricing. In contrast to the pollution frame:

…the nation-building model provides Australians with a way of understanding the technological challenge at the heart of climate change. It also draws attention to the scale of engineering and can-do spirit required to transform the nation from a fossil-fueled economy to a renewable one. This approach will demonstrate the benefits of ‘green’ jobs, making the concept a reality for thousands of Australians.

Unlike the pollution/carbon pricing frame that leaves decarbonisation to the invisible hand of the market, the nation-building approach emphasises the role of government in providing energy infrastructure. In the context of climate change, our government has the capacity — and responsibility — to use the common wealth of Australians to drive our transition to a renewable energy economy. In practice, our government would invest strategically in the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of clean technologies, with the objective of making them cheaper than fossil fuels.
The construction of new renewable energy grid infrastructure is one example of an investment-centred measure. Expanded electricity grid infrastructure would open up renewable resources for sustainable development and help overcome a non-market barrier to clean energy deployment. This type of enabling infrastructure would not benefit from emissions trading because it does not directly reduce carbon or generate offsets. Building transmission lines to remote parts of Australia rich with renewable resources is cost prohibitive for the private sector alone. This area is ripe for government leadership………
While the new Carbon Pricing Climate Change Committee ensures that carbon pricing is on the agenda, there is room for Labor to move. The Gillard government and those in the parliament who support effective action on climate change can use carbon-pricing legislation to secure funding for an ambitious nation-building climate policy agenda.

Want to stop climate change? Move beyond carbon pricing – Rooted

October 7, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, energy, politics | antinuclear, Australia, carbon, climate change, climate change - global warming, energy, renewable