Relief for Flinders Ranges as Minister Matt Canavan scraps nuclear waste plans for Wallerberdina
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Nuclear waste plans for Wallerberdina Station in Flinders Ranges scrapped after community ballot, ABC North and West SA
By Gary-Jon Lysaght , Angela Smallacombe and Shannon Corvo 13 Dec 19, The Flinders Ranges will no longer be considered a potential site for a nuclear waste facility.
Key points:
The Federal Government was considering Wallerberdina Station, near Hawker, for a facility that would permanently store low-level nuclear waste and temporarily store intermediate-level waste. Hawker, along with other Flinders Ranges communities were given the opportunity to vote on whether they supported the facility. That ballot showed 454 votes opposing the facility and 408 supporting it. That represented a 52-48 split. “While the community ballot was just one of many measures I am considering, I have said that achieving at least a majority level of support was a necessary condition to achieving broad community support,” Resources Minister Matt Canavan said.
“I especially want to thank the communities of Hawker and Quorn for their patience and resilience through this process. They are a fantastic community that I have had the privilege to know better through this process.” ‘The result we were hoping for’ Greg Bannon lives at Quorn and has been a vocal opponent of the facility for the past four years. He said it was a “huge relief” the facility would not go ahead near Hawker. “It puts an end to four years of argument and debate and trying to make the case to preserve the Flinders Ranges,” he said. “It’s been a long process but in the end, we got the result we were hoping to.
“We’ve always said that the process was wrong, that it’s not fair to do this, to make one small community make the decision for the whole of Australia’s nuclear waste.”……. Kimba votes in favour The Flinders Ranges was only one of two sites being considered for the facility.The other one was Kimba, on the Eyre Peninsula. That town had a similar ballot, which found more than 60 per cent of voters were in favour of the facility going ahead. Mr Canavan said a final decision on where the facility would go would be made in 2020.
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Labor leader Anthony Albanese dismisses nuclear ambitions as a fantasy
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A 230-page report released on Friday by chairman of the parliament’s energy committee and Liberal MP Ted O’Brien said nuclear energy should be considered as part of Australia’s future energy mix.
The government-dominated committee called for further work on nuclear technology and the partial lifting of the current moratorium on nuclear energy to allow for “new and emerging nuclear technologies”…….
A dissenting report by Labor MPs said there was no economic case for pursuing nuclear energy and safety issues had not been addressed.
“Nuclear power has never overcome the dangers that we have seen played out around the world time after time,” Mr Albanese told reporters on Friday after finishing off his week-long trip to Queensland. https://www.9news.com.au/national/nuclear-ambition-a-fantasy-albanese-says/00946ea2-8c16-45ba-b76d-5c36c8de5785#close
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Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor rejects call for partial lift of nuclear power
 Taylor rejects call for partial lift of nuclear power ban, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/taylor-rejects-call-for-partial-lift-of-nuclear-power-ban-20191213-p53jsf.html By Mike Foley
December 13, 2019 Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor has poured cold water on calls to partially lift Australia’s moratorium on nuclear power to allow investigation of emerging technologies.
A Coalition-dominated parliamentary inquiry found next-generation technologies such as small modular reactors should be explored by experts for use in Australia. “If we’re serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we can’t simply ignore this zero-emissions baseload technology,”committee chairman and LNP MP Ted O’Brien said. “Australia should say a definite ‘no’ to old nuclear technologies but a conditional ‘yes’ to new and emerging technologies such as small modular reactors.” But Mr Taylor said the government had “no plans” to lift the moratorium, which has been maintained by Labor and Coalition governments since 1998. “Any changes to the moratorium would need bipartisan support and broad community acceptance,” he said. The House of Representatives’ Standing Committee on the Environment And Energy acknowledged public controversy around the nuclear debate in the title of its report – Not without your approval: a way forward for nuclear technology. “Rather than a total and immediate lift of the moratorium, only a partial lift for new and emerging technologies is proposed, subject to the results of a technology assessment and a commitment to community consent as a condition of approval for nuclear facilities,” it said. Labor committee members issued a dissenting report saying there was “no basis” for lifting the prohibition and no need for additional investigations into the science or economics of nuclear energy. Macnamara MP Josh Burns said it was “madness” to consider nuclear power given small reactors were not yet available, renewable energy was becoming cheaper and existing technology would need to be located in populated areas.
The only technology that is available now is the large nuclear reactors, which require an abundance of water to keep the reactors cool. And the only viable water supply is along the coastline,” Mr Burns said. “Australian experts have warned against being the first country to buy new nuclear technology. We don’t have the capability for nuclear energy now. We need to upskill and that comes with serious risk and cost. To do that with technology where we’re not confident in the safety would be negligent.” Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman David Sweeney said lifting the ban would start a “conga line of supplicants to Canberra promising low carbon energy and seeking high public subsidy”. |
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Prudent nuclear ban should remain: ACF
Prudent nuclear ban should remain: ACF, https://www.miragenews.com/prudent-nuclear-ban-should-remain-acf/ 13 Dec 19, Australia’s bipartisan, long standing and prudent prohibition on nuclear energy should remain in force as it stands.
In response to the release of the House of Representatives standing Committee on Environment and Energy’s report into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s (ACF) Nuclear Free Campaigner, Dave Sweeney, said:
“ACF strongly holds that the bipartisan, long standing and prudent prohibition on nuclear energy in Australia should remain in force as it stands.
“From the heartland to the harbour, the terrible drought and bushfires we are experiencing leave no doubt that Australia must quickly transition away from climate-wrecking fuels like coal, oil and gas.
“The Australian Energy Market Operator’s roadmap for the efficient development of the National Electricity Market makes it clear that Australia’s energy transition is heading towards small and large-scale renewables.
“Australia’s long standing, sensible moratorium on nuclear energy, enacted by John Howard, does not preclude discussion or debate on nuclear. There has been plenty of both.
“But while no commercial operator will touch nuclear, the moratorium remains important as it prevents a reckless government pouring public money into this economically and environmentally risky industry.
“Australians know nuclear reactors overseas cost a fortune, take decades to build and come with the possibility of disastrous accidents and the certainty of eternal radioactive waste.
“Cheap, clean, safe reactors don’t exist outside the minds of nuclear true believers. Flirting with nuclear is no basis for a credible national energy policy.
“The climate crisis we are living through is too serious and too urgent to fiddle at the margins with nuclear.
“We need to avoid the distraction of a nuclear cul de sac and take the renewable path.
“Australia’s future is renewable, not radioactive.”
In September a broad coalition of faith, union, environmental, Aboriginal and public health groups, representing millions of Australians, issued a strong statement opposing nuclear power.
Residents vote against nuclear waste dump near Hawker in South Australia
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Residents vote against nuclear waste dump near Hawker in South Australia
Green groups say 52% vote against federal government facility should rule out region as potential site, Guardian, Australian Associated Press, Thu 12 Dec 2019 Residents in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges have voted narrowly against having a nuclear waste dump in their region.About 52% of the people who took part in the ballot voted against the federal government’s facility being established on land near Hawker. The result came after a similar poll of residents on SA’s Eyre Peninsula voted almost 62% in favour of the dump being built on one of two sites near Kimba. The federal government is yet to respond to the poll, but environmental groups said it should rule out the Flinders Ranges as a potential dump site. Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Dave Sweeney said the result came amid clear opposition from regional pastoralists and the area’s native title holders. “There is no broad community support for a national radioactive waste facility in the Flinders Ranges,” Sweeney said. The Friends of the Earth said it was time for the federal government to abandon the dump plan altogether. “The government has previously stated that 65% would be a figure that would indicate the broad community support they need to select a site,” spokeswoman Mara Bonacci said. “These ballot results show that the minister does not have that support.”…… The community ballots are not binding on the government, which has promised to provide financial incentives to the community around the selected site. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/12/residents-vote-against-nuclear-waste-dump-near-hawker-in-south-australia |
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250m tonnes of CO2 emitted from Australia’s bushfires
Australia’s bushfires have emitted 250m tonnes of CO2, almost half of country’s annual emissions. Forest regrowth can reabsorb emissions from fires but scientists fear natural carbon ‘sinks’ have been compromised, Guardian,Graham Readfearn @readfearn, Fri 13 Dec 2019
Bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland have emitted a massive pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere since August that is equivalent to almost half of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, Guardian Australia can reveal.
Analysis by Nasa shows the NSW fires have emitted about 195m tonnes of CO2 since 1 August, with Queensland’s fires adding a further 55m tonnes over the same period.
In 2018, Australia’s entire greenhouse gas footprint was 532m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Experts say the pulse of CO2 from this season’s bushfires is significant, because even under normal conditions it could take decades for forest regrowth to reabsorb the emissions.
But scientists have expressed doubt that forests already under drought stress would be able to reabsorb all the emissions back into soils and branches, and said the natural carbon “sinks” of forests could be compromised.
The figures were provided to Guardian Australia by Dr Niels Andela, a scientist at the Nasa Goddard Space Flight Center and a collaborator in the Global Fire Emissions Database……….
Prof David Bowman, a fire ecologist at the University of Tasmania, said that under normal conditions the regrowth would reabsorb the CO2. But he said the ongoing drought, combined with climate change, meant conditions were not normal.
“Drought-stressed trees recover less well – carbohydrates reserves are exhausted – and under climate change tree growth may be slow and fires more frequent, meaning less tree biomass and even loss of forest cover.
“This is a nasty negative feedback cycle of a biosphere carbon sink becoming a source [of carbon].” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/13/australias-bushfires-have-emitted-250m-tonnes-of-co2-almost-half-of-countrys-annual-emissions
Kimba now the likely site for nuclear waste dump
Resources Minister Matt Canavan says after a ballot of local residents voted narrowly against hosting the facility, the site near Hawker is no longer an option.
More than 860 people cast a ballot in the poll with 454, or just under 53 per cent, voting against establishing the dump on Wallerberdina Station.
“This ballot does not demonstrate a sufficient level of support and I will no longer consider this site an option for the facility,” Canavan said in a statement on Friday.
A similar poll conducted on Eyre Peninsula recently returned a 62 per cent vote in favour of the idea, with two sites near Kimba in the running.
Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Dave Sweeney said the Hawker result also came amid clear opposition from regional pastoralists and the area’s native title holders………https://indaily.com.au/news/2019/12/13/kimba-firms-as-nuclear-dump-site-after-hawker-vote/
Even within a pro nuclear propaganda article, admission that renewables are a better bet
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“…… Roger Dargaville, a Senior Lecturer in Resources Engineering with the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University, is more confident of the standalone capability of renewables. In 2018, the proportion of Australia’s total electricity generated from renewables passed 20 per cent for the first time, with clean energy contributing 21.3 per cent of total electricity generation. This was an increase compared to 2017, when renewables were responsible for 17 per cent of total electricity generation. And there’s more in the pipeline. “As we approach the 2020 renewable energy target of at least 33,000 GWh per year, we have seen a rush of new projects. After that, most of the states have renewable targets of 50 per cent or more that, combined with the continuing falling prices of PV, should lead to a continuation of the trend.” Dargaville said many published studies already show that 100 per cent renewable systems are technically achievable, cost-effective and reliable, without having to resort to nuclear power….” Australia’s review of its energy mix resurrects the nuclear power debate, by Create Digital, 10 Dec 19 |
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Rio Tinto appeals Takeovers Panel decision on uranium miner ERA
Rio Tinto appeals Takeovers Panel decision on uranium miner ERA, THE AUSTRALIAN, NICK EVANS, RESOURCE WRITER, 13 Dec 19,
Rio Tinto has appealed a Takeovers Panel decision preventing it from taking complete control of uranium miner ERA, as the fallout from the company’s hard-ball tactics to fund the clean-up of the Ranger uranium mine continues.The Takeovers Panel handed dissident ERA investor Richard Magides a moral victory on Wednesday, declaring ERA’s decision to accept a Rio offer to underwrite a $476m equity issue was made in “unacceptable circumstances”…...(subscribers only)
Coalition MPs squabble over climate science as Australia burns
, New Daily, Daniel McCulloch 13 Dec 19, Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie has blasted an “irrational” state colleague for daring to link the NSW bushfires to climate change.
Their ugly public stoush has dragged on for several days.
He inflamed the internal spat after suggesting he would rather listen to climate scientists than the federal frontbencher on the effects of global warming.
But Senator McKenzie said “I actually have a science degree – I am one of the few in parliament that does”.
Coalition pushes for nuclear ban to be lifted, Labor says its madness,
Coalition pushes for nuclear ban to be lifted, Labor says its madness, https://reneweconomy.com.au/coalition-pushes-for-nuclear-ban-to-be-lifted-labor-says-its-madness-43980/, Sophie Vorrath, Federal Coalition MPs have called on the Morrison government to lift the ban on nuclear energy and pave the way for “emerging nuclear technologies to be introduced into Australia’s energy mix, despite their enormous expense, huge environmental risks, and as-yet unproven technical status.
The controversial push comes with the tabling of a 230-page report on Friday, the result of the inquiry into nuclear power called by energy and emissions reduction minister, and ex anti-wind campaigner Angus Taylor.
It was conducted by the Liberal dominated House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy and chaired by pro-nuclear MP Ted O’Brien. See also: Federal nuclear inquiry report: Loopy lunatics in charge of the asylum
The finding from the Coalition MPs is unsurprising, but it should be noted that it goes against the advice from some of Australia’s foremost energy market authorities, including the Australian Energy Market Operator, who – as part of an expert panel including representatives from the market regulator (AER) and rule maker (AEMC) – told the inquiry that nuclear power just didn’t stack up against firmed renewables.
The nuclear report – entitled Not without your approval – was unveiled by O’Brien on Friday, who said it was “informed” by months of evidence-taking and the assessment of over 300 submissions on the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia.
In a statement released with the report, O’Brien urged Australians to “say a definite ‘No’ to old nuclear technologies but a conditional ‘Yes’ to what he called new and emerging technologies such as “small modular reactors,” which the inquiry was told by nearly all experts would not be commercially available for at least a decade.
But the Coalition report largely skated over the costs, and the delays in new technologies, and the projections from AEMO that Australia’s grid could reach 90 per cent renewables by the time that nuclear could be built in Australia, and instead relied on the highly contestable submissions from a group of nuclear proponents and ginger groups.
The focus on small modular reactors, or SMRs, is in line with the advice to the Committee from Ziggy Switkowski, who headed up the Coalition’s last nuclear thought bubble.
In fact, Switkowski told the Committee that the only hope for nuclear in Australia hinged on the future of Small Modular Reactors – which, as Jim Green explains here, are currently “non-existent, overhyped, and obscenely expensive.” The CSIRO and the AEMO agree – at least on the expensive bit.
O’Brien appears to have taken Switkowski’s advice and spun it into something resembling action on climate change, which is a new angle for the federal Coalition.
“If we’re serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we can’t simply ignore this zero-emissions baseload technology,” he said, ignoring AEMO’s and other advice about the potential of emission cuts from renewables, something backed up by the latest government report.
“But we also need to be humble enough to learn lessons from other countries who have gone down this path. It’s as much about getting the technology right as it is about maintaining a social license based on trust and transparency.” No mention of the massive cost blowouts and delays in every other western country that has tried to build new nuclear.
O’Brien said “the Australian people should be at the centre of any approval process, and refer to a separate and possibly self-defeating recommendation of the report, that the partial-lift of the moratorium be subject to a technology assessment and a commitment to community consent as a condition of approval for any nuclear power or nuclear waste disposal facility.
The federal opposition has slammed O’Brien’s recommendation, which it says has been made “despite clear evidence nuclear power is enormously expensive, slow, inflexible, and dangerous to the environment and human health.”
The Committee’s deputy chair, ALP MP Josh Wilson, said O’Brien’s view was not supported by Labor – which has argued in a dissenting report that the pursuit of nuclear power is “madness.”
Senate Inquiry recommends consideration of nuclear energy, but public must approve
Dave Sweeney, 13 Dec 19, A parliamentary committee has released a report into nuclear energy that puts the Australian people at the centre of any approval process for a future nuclear plant. “Nuclear energy should be on the table for consideration as part of our future energy mix”, said Member for Fairfax Ted O’Brien who chairs the House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy. “Australia should say a definite ‘No’ to old nuclear technologies but a conditional ‘Yes’ to new and emerging technologies such as small modular reactors. “And most importantly,” said Mr O’Brien “the Australian people should be at the centre of any approval process”.
Scott Morrison and the Coalition are fiddling as Australia burns
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Scott Morrison and the Coalition are fiddling as Australia burns On climate action, the Coalition is the party of wreck, defer and obfuscate, the party with a shameful and indefensible record, Guardian Katharine Murphy Political editor, @murpharoo, Tue 10 Dec 2019 “………… Swathes of the country are burning, and we’ve only just entered summer. While Christian Porter was working through his various concessions on religious discrimination on Tuesday, trying to contain blowback from the churches and from colleagues, dot point by dot point, thick smoke was choking Sydney. In Canberra, the heat is also blistering, and the smoke from Braidwood rolls in and out, triggering memories of that traumatic January in 2003 that many of us lived through, our treasured possessions tucked in boxes, babies on hips, sheltering friends displaced from the western suburbs of the city; a city ready to flee, watching a red sky, raining ash and burning cinders, houses on fire, trees on fire. I flew to Brisbane on Sunday. The ground below me was dust for a thousand kilometres and the sky was a milky fog of smoke and heat haze. Dear prime minister. The country is not parched but desiccated, and it is burning like a tinderbox, and people are frightened. They are frightened about today and the terrible business of defending property and saving lives, and they are frightened about whether this is what spring and summer in Australia now looks like as droughts lengthen and deepen, and the fire season extends and intensifies because of climate change – which is what scientists have been trying to tell us all these years, so many times, in so many different ways, experts maligned and mangled in a culture war, pleading to be understood. Fear has accompanied the dry, and the heat and the flames, and that is a difficult and frankly politically unwelcome development for a prime minister who won an election just a few months ago at least in part by telling people to calm down about climate change, because the Coalition had things under control. It wasn’t true of course. That pitch has no basis in fact because the Coalition has done more than any other political party in Australia to frustrate climate action. If anyone is inclined to think wrecking is behaviour of the past, a vestige of Abbottism rather than behaviour of the present, because Morrison is so much more sensible, just remember this very week, in Madrid, Australian officials are making the case we need to use an accounting loophole to meet our Paris target. Far from meeting our 2030 target in a canter, Australia will not meet the target at all unless we invoke carryover credits to carry about half the abatement load. By taking this stance, we not only defer corrective action in our own country that should be happening now, in orderly fashion over this decade, we also validate the inclination of other countries, with higher emissions than us, to hunt for workarounds too. To cut a long story short, we make it less likely that the world will deliver the ambition we need to avert the worst of warming. So let’s be very clear. On climate action, the Coalition is the party of wreck, defer and obfuscate, the party with a shameful and indefensible record, the party that only last year bundled Malcolm Turnbull out of office in part because of a policy idea that might have settled a decade of partisan warfare that the Coalition believes is helpful to its re-election prospects. Morrison pursued an electoral strategy in May of telling voters in the cities the Coalition had climate under control, there was no need for hysterics, while in the regions, out of sight of the metro campaigns, the government weaponised climate change against Labor. So the Coalition in 2019 is the party of placate where necessary and punch on where politically profitable – which feels like the grimmest story of all. It might be grim, but it will remain the model as long at there’s enough voters in enough regional seats either not buying the science, or more worried about their immediate material circumstances than the science, to swing an election in the Coalition’s favour. As long as the status quo delivers a pathway to victory, the climate war in Australia will go on being an artefact of partisan politics rather than a practical problem to be solved. It’s hard, that truth, so hard I flinch. But truth is hard, and it’s past time truth won this argument rather than being obscured in the emoting, and the bobble head ranting, and the posturing, and the dissembling, and the clever strategising. Now by carrying on resolutely while the country burns, and being seen to carry on while things are being managed, Morrison is not avoiding the issue so much as trying to set the tone. The prime minister doesn’t want to validate the rising fear in the community by looking perturbed about the disaster currently in progress, because that obviously makes a lie of the Coalition’s “everything is fine” messaging. He wants to be getting on with ordinary business in full public view, not flapping about with special summits with the premiers just because Turnbull said he should do it on Q&A. …… The obfuscation, the false comfort, the changing of the subject, the head-patting, will keep happening as long as we let it. It will keep happening as long as soft and hard denialism is enabled in mainstream media outlets, as long as journalists prioritise other lines of inquiry over rigorously pursuing accountability on this issue, and as long as Australian voters abdicate responsibility by telling themselves all political parties are as bad as each other so it doesn’t matter who you vote for. The only way things will change is if we choose, as a country, to do something else. To take responsibility. To demand something better. Because, ultimately, this, the future, is on us. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/10/australia-is-burning-like-a-tinderbox-and-the-coalition-wont-acknowledge-voters-rising-fears |
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NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP DECEPTION
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Kim Mavromatis No Nuclear Waste Dump Anywhere in South Australia, 11 Dec 19, The whole of SA should wake up to what ANSTO and the Fed govnt is proposing. ANSTO and the Fed govnt are not being honest about what they are going to dump at the proposed sites near Kimba or in the Flinders Ranges near Hawker. ANSTO state that spent nuclear fuel from the Lucas Heights reactor is Intermediate Level Nuclear Waste – but it’s really High Level Nuclear Waste. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Definition of High Level Nuclear Waste : “High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLW) is produced from the burning of uranium fuel in nuclear power reactors. It is of two kinds: spent fuel, declared as waste and ready for disposal, or waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent fuel. Due to its high radioactivity and very long half-life, HLW has to be well contained and isolated from the human environment.” Even after 30 years, spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors is still 10,000 times more radioactive than uranium ore. And the waste that is shipped back to Australia from France from the reprocessed spent nuclear fuel still contains 95% of the radioactivity. As well as low-level waste, ANSTO are proposing to temporarily dump High Level Nuclear Waste in SA (deceptively classifed as Intermediate) for up to 100 years until a permanent solution can be found. If a nuclear waste accident occurs, it’s likely to be catastrophic for the region and South Australia. The Spencer Gulf is connected to aquifers from the Flinders Ranges and floodwaters from significant flooding events at the proposed site end up in the Spencer Gulf via Lake Torrens. Why on earth would ScoMo’s Federal Liberal govnt want to dump nuclear waste in the Flinders Ranges, on a floodplain, in a seismically active region, bordered by natural springs, in an iconic tourism destination, or on Eyre Peninsula farmland, near Kimba and next to Lake Gilles Conservation Park????? The govnt have stated that there’s never been a nuclear material transport accident in Aust – but there has been, and the people affected were treated badly and many died of cancers – watch our film : “NUCLEAR WASTE CRASH COVERUP – POISONED POLICE SPEAK OUT” https://vimeo.com/372781616 |
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Australia at the bottom of the list in global assessment of climate action
 ‘Cause for great concern’: Australia ranked last in global assessment on climate action, Australia’s record on climate change has been panned in the latest Climate Change Performance Index tracking nation’s efforts to combat global warming, SBS NEWS, BY TOM STAYNER, 1 Dec 19, Australia’s climate change record has been ranked among the bottom five nations in the world in a global assessment of countries’ emissions trajectories.
The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) measures the emissions, renewable energy share and climate policies of 57 countries and the European Union. It has been released at COP25, the UN climate summit being held in Madrid, as nations attempt to thrash out the way forward on the global Paris framework responding to the crisis. According to the report, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States give “cause for great concern” over their performance on emissions, renewable energy development and climate policy. Australia’s climate policy rating was ranked the lowest in the world with analysts noting that “the newly elected government continued to worsen performance at both national and international levels.” Its policies were given a 0.0 rating, in comparison the United Stated ranked one position higher held a 2.8 rating and the top-performing nation Portugal received a 98.7. National experts observe a lack of progress in these areas with the [Australia] government failing to clarify how it will meet the country’s insufficient 2030 emissions reduction target and inaction in developing a long-term mitigation strategy,” the report reads. “While the government is not proposing any further targets for renewable energy beyond 2020, it continues to promote the expansion of fossil fuels and in April 2019 approved the opening of the highly controversial Adani coalmine.” Across the assessment, Australia ranked 44th on emissions, 50th on renewable energy, 52nd on energy use and 61st on climate policy. National experts observe a lack of progress in these areas with the [Australia] government failing to clarify how it will meet the country’s insufficient 2030 emissions reduction target and inaction in developing a long-term mitigation strategy,” the report reads. “While the government is not proposing any further targets for renewable energy beyond 2020, it continues to promote the expansion of fossil fuels and in April 2019 approved the opening of the highly controversial Adani coalmine.” Across the assessment, Australia ranked 44th on emissions, 50th on renewable energy, 52nd on energy use and 61st on climate policy……. HTTPS://WWW.SBS.COM.AU/NEWS/CAUSE-FOR-GREAT-CONCERN-AUSTRALIA-RANKED-LAST-IN-GLOBAL-ASSESSMENT-ON-CLIMATE-ACTION |
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1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 