THE AUSTRALIAN - Matthew Franklin and Matthew
Warren - September 24, 2007
Link: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22469553-601,00.html
JOHN Howard has shed his distaste for climate change targets and rejected
the advice of his own experts by committing to new national clean energy goals
by 2020.
The plan, which
consolidates different state-based targets, aims to ensure that by 2020 about
15 per cent of electricity will be sourced from low-emission sources such as
solar, wind and clean coal.
Expected to
cost about $7.5billion in subsidies to low-emission suppliers, the move was
questioned by business and criticised by Labor and
environment groups for not going far enough.
It is
understood the Prime Minister's announcement was designed to undermine an
impending election campaign announcement by Labor of a renewable energy target
of about 20 per cent.
Just hours
earlier yesterday, Kevin Rudd met climate change campaigner and former US
vice-president Al Gore, who endorsed the Opposition Leader's policy stance on
climate change.
Under existing
arrangements, most state governments have mandatory renewable energy targets (MRETs).
Until now, Mr Howard has spurned the notion of targets. In June his
own emissions trading task group said these types of programs should be
"abolished or phased out" unless they were targeted at specific
policy gaps or were necessary to build capacity in the lead-up to a trading
scheme due to start in about 2011.
In 2004, the
Howard Government rejected a doubling of its existing 9500 gigawatt
hours MRET, arguing that the expansion would cost the economy $5billion.
But speaking in
Under his new
standards, 30,000 gigawatt hours each year would come
from low-emission sources by the year 2020, covering about 15 per cent of the
nation's power needs.
"What this
initiative will do is gather up all of the different state schemes, many of
which are contradictory or at the very least dissimilar," Mr Howard said.
"What in
essence we want is to consolidate all of the states' schemes into a single
national scheme. This will reduce costs for business, and ultimately for
households."
Low-emission
energy sources are those producing less than 200kg of greenhouse gases per
megawatt of electricity produced.
This includes
sources such as solar and wind power as well as fossil fuel-fired generation
which employed carbon capture and storage.
Mr Howard made no mention of nuclear energy but his spokesman said last night
this was because nobody envisaged nuclear power being used by 2020.
Mr Howard has consistently rejected mandatory greenhouse gas emission targets
without a strong economic case, insisting that each country should contribute
to reductions according to its own capacity.
Business
Council of Australia policy director Maria Tarrant said the use of targeted
strategies should be used only to address specific market failures identified
within an emissions trading scheme. "What is unclear is the existence of
the market failure that this particular policy is responding to," she
said.
Ms Tarrant said
business would welcome a broader definition to include clean coal and other
low-emission technologies and the simplification of national schemes.
Clean Energy
Council chief executive Dominique Lafontaine
cautiously welcomed the announcement, saying it showed the Government recognised the need for clean energy targets to complement
its national emissions trading scheme.
"For
investors, this announcement demonstrates the Government's confidence in our
sector's capacity to deliver clean electricity to drive the economy," she
said.
Labor
environment spokesman Peter Garrett said the announcement had little substance.
"This is
just piggybacking on the hard work of state Labor governments," Mr Garrett said.
"The
Howard Government has an appalling record on renewable energy and cannot be
trusted to deliver on this commitment.
"What
matters is not what promises are made weeks before an election, but what the
Government has done over the past 11 years."
Climate Change
Institute director of policy and research Erwin Jackson said the target was
about half of what was required.
"The point
of these mechanisms is not to reduce emissions," Mr
Jackson said. "It's to drive the cost of deploying these measures down.
This is a standstill target."
In
Mr Gore, who won an Academy Award for his climate change documentary An
Inconvenient Truth, said that whoever won the election, if
Asked about the
Australian election, Mr Gore said if he was an
Australian citizen and cared about "the climate crisis" he would see
a stark difference between Mr Howard and Mr Rudd. "One supports ratification
of the world treaty to solve the climate crisis, and the other opposes
it," Mr Gore said.
"That
would weigh very heavily on my vote if I did have the privilege of voting here."