Antinuclear

Australia’s climate policies – vested interests rule

Common sense is in the eye of the beholder, The Drum, 9 Jan 12, “……Climate and energy: Australian energy policy is another example of vested interests trumping the national interest. For decades, our strategy has essentially been about digging cheap energy out of the ground – and burning it.

Australia is abundantly supplied with cheap, accessible coal. As a result, three-quarters of our electricity comes from burning the brown or black stuff, in vast power-plants that spew millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere annually.

If burning coal had no consequences for the future of the planet, there would be no problems with this state of affairs. Unfortunately, coal is made from carbon, and burning it is warming the planet. A warming climate is starting to seriously affect Australia’s agriculture, tourism and insurance industries. Australia faces a stark choice in the way it generates its energy: continue down the high-carbon path, or seek to decarbonise our economy.

At this point, the usual arguments against decarbonisation are trotted out. Climate change isn’t real. Or, Australia is too small to make a difference. Or, renewable energy doesn’t work. Or simply that it’s all too expensive. None of them stack up.

Climate change is not just real, but well underway, as the melting glaciers and permafrost attests. Australia contributes around 1.5 per cent of the world’s emissions, so we can’t solve the problem on our own. But we can work diligently in international negotiations to persuade big polluters to join us to make a difference, and we can’t do that if we aren’t walking the walk.

Finally, renewable energy can’t provide base-load power now, but it certainly could in the medium-term future. Renewable technologies are rapidly maturing, particularly in large-scale wind and solar photovoltaic, and could rapidly expand if given the right incentives.

Ultimately, energy policy is a subset of more general problem of perverse incentives in our economy. Fossil-fuel energy users don’t pay anywhere near the true cost of their damage to the environment, and hence this energy is unfairly cheap. But making dirty energy more expensive means taking on hugely influential vested interests in mining, business and the media. It also means forcing consumers to pay more for their electricity. Neither option is politically palatable. But the true costs to the economy of the changing climate are likely to be much greater….. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3762920.html

January 9, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News