The Australian Labor government has yet again ignored climate change in its latest budget. Treasury’s forecast for the Australian carbon price in 2015 (when it is scheduled to become an internationally-linked emissions trading scheme or ETS) has been revised downward from $29/tonne to $12.10/tonne, a belated implicit admission that its decision to link to the …
Tag Archive: Renewables
Mar 11 2013
Caps Review Part 7: Complementary measures
This is the seventh part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis, Part 2 explained the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it, Part 3 outlined the role Australia should …
Mar 07 2013
Caps Review Part 4: Economics
This is the fourth part in a series about the Caps and Targets Review being conducted by the Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) this year. Part 1 summarized the global climate crisis, Part 2 explained the importance of the review and how CCA should approach it, and Part 3 outlined the role Australia …
Mar 03 2013
Liberals’ climate policy just got stupider
This week as Australia concluded its hottest summer on record, the climate change policies of the Liberal/National Coalition got even sillier and more contradictory. According to Climate Spectator, Liberal climate spokesperson Greg Hunt reconfirmed on Wednesday that the Liberals’ proposed Direct Action Emission Reduction Fund (DAERF) is (as I’ve explained in detail before) like a …
Feb 07 2013
Good news from China (maybe)
Last week China announced what might be a rare bit of good news on climate change – or is it too good to be true? The Chinese government State Council has set a cap on total energy use for 2011-2015, which it claims will cause Chinese coal consumption to peak below 4 billion tonnes per …
Jan 13 2013
Liberals Part 2: Their “Direct Action” is neither
This is the second part of a series examining the Liberal Party of Australia. Part 1 covers the party’s climate change denial and intention to abolish various existing climate policies. This part examines the climate policies they promise to introduce. The first question to ask about the Liberal Party’s climate policy is “what is it?” …
Dec 24 2012
Australia embraces Paris Hilton’s energy policy
The Australian government last month released the final version of its long-awaited Energy White Paper. Energy Minister Martin Ferguson’s speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) launching the White Paper was interrupted by Quit Coal protesters, one playing a fictional mining magnate thanking Ferguson for supporting the coal industry. After the protesters …
Dec 19 2012
Response to RET Review
Today the Climate Change Authority (CCA) released the final report of its Renewable Energy Target review. It repeats all the same arguments I debunked in my response to the discussion paper released in October, and makes similar recommendations (though some of the details have been refined). The RET Review fails to acknowledge that Australia and …
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