At COAG yesterday, our ‘leaders’ agreed “to develop a National Strategy for Energy Efficiency”.
Are they really so ill-informed (not to speak of ill-advised) that they do not realise that we already have one!?
Our PM emerged from the meeting to tell the waiting press conference the astounding news that:
“This is important, always referred to in the public debate as the low-hanging fruit of the climate change agenda. (It’s) the best way, the most effective way, and the earliest way, of bringing down greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course energy efficiency is the best, fastest, cheapest option to reduce emissions, of course it’s the low-hanging fruit! So how’s about we get on with picking it, guys?
Apologies for the sarcasm, but this is exactly what many of us mean when we bemoan the fact that our governments these days are spending all their time dealing with the ‘politics’ of issues instead of actually dealing with the issues.
A little history: (which you can check here)
Back in June 2001, COAG established the Ministerial Council on Energy (MCE), one of the key aims of which was to investigate and promote energy efficiency through regulatory and other mechanisms at State, Territory and Federal levels. What a great idea! Considering how cheap, obvious and beneficial many of these measures are, one might have thought that something would get done. Sadly not.
On rolls November 2002, when the MCE decides to move forward with the National Framework for Energy Efficiency. NFEE provided some superb analysis and suggestions, led by UNSW’s Hugh Outhred and other leading energy experts. If you’re interested in energy efficiency (which you should be!), I strongly recommend reading the Discussion Paper NFEE produced 12 months later, setting out how we could cut energy use across Australia by a full 30% using off-the-shelf technologies that, back then, would already have paid themselves off in 4 years.
Action? None.
5 years have passed. More than enough time for us to have implemented the recommendations of the NFEE paper, reduced Australia’s energy use (and therefore energy-related greenhouse emissions) massively, and have it all paid off. Instead of now bemoaning how our high per capita emissions mean we need another lax deal, we’d be up there with California as a respected leader in the climate field, pointing the way for others to save emissions and save money.
I’m being perhaps a little unfair. In August 2004, COAG “committed to implement a package of policy measures comprising Stage One of National Framework for Energy Efficiency, noting the significant benefits that can flow from enhanced energy efficiency in Australia.” And in December of that year, they “approved eight high level implementation plans for the NFEE Stage One policy measures for the period 2005-2007.”
A pity they never actually implemented them.
More recently, last September, Stage 2 consultation was launched! I challenge anyone to find and post a link to a more infuriating bunch of bureaucratic twaddle, making motherhood statements with absolutely no purpose than this stuff.
Now comes yesterday’s COAG communique setting out the current objective:
COAG has agreed to develop a National Strategy for Energy Efficiency, to accelerate energy efficiency efforts across all governments and to help households and businesses prepare for the introduction of the Commonwealth Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). Streamlined roles and responsibilities for energy efficiency policies and programs are to be agreed by end December 2008, and implementation of this Strategy will be finalised by June 2009, to ensure that programs assisting households and businesses to reduce their energy costs are in place prior to the introduction of the CPRS.
As a first step towards establishing a truly national approach, COAG has agreed to develop, subject to a regulation impact statement, national legislation for appliance energy performance standards and labelling to simplify enforcement and ensure consistency, and to direct officials to develop this option for COAG consideration as part of the National Strategy for Energy Efficiency. This will reduce transaction costs for business and accelerate the rollout of new standards and labels for products.
Groundbreaking stuff, guys. Perhaps the NFEE process does need to be euthanased and replaced with something new. But forgive my cynicism about it getting done.
Energy efficiency is easy! It’s really not hard to agree on and put in place stringent appliance standards. It’s easy to set up something like the Greens’ EASI scheme to retrofit homes across the country. It’s not that hard to require industrial energy users to actually implement the findings of the energy audits they are already required to do.
There is no reason not to get cracking on energy efficiency. It is pure laziness, incompetence and lack of care that stops our governments getting on with it.
Come on, all of you - enough talking! Let’s do it!
6 Comments
G’day Tim,
Great post. I hope COAG is better able to deliver on this than they have at any point over the last 13 years on the Murray Darling.
We’ll see. Keep the press on them. Well done.
I would point out that any easier way to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (AND all our resource use) would be to limit immigration. Immediately. Why the insanity of growing our population? So that we can all experience more housing stress? Or water shortages?
twobob,
Although limiting our immigration level might reduce Australia’s emissions it would not reduce global emissions. In fact it might make them worse.
The fertility rate of a person who shifts from a developing country to a developed one is reduced. If this does not happen in the first generation it certainly does by the second. Whilst, per person emissions are certainly less in developing countries at the moment, large families are the norm. And remember, the people who are the product of these large families will be still around when their country’s per/capita emission levels rise due to the country’s development.
This is a global problem which requires a global response, stopping people shifting countries will not solve the emissions problem only a fundamental restructuring of the way we all produce things and the way we all consume them.
twobob, agreed that population is a key driver of emissions over decades, but it is not a way to reduce emissions fast.
Generally, environmental impact is seen as a factor of affluence X technology X population. Population is something we can affect over time - generally quite a long time. Affluence, obviously, moves quite dramatically over time and over regions (and I acknowledge that this is your point about immigration). Technology choice is something we can change radically and very fast, particularly with things like energy efficiency - the subject of this post.
Certainly, we need to discuss population and move towards a coherent and sustainable global population policy. But the urgency of this issue is such that we must deal with technology choice fast. It is our only short-term way of buying time to prevent runaway climate change.
Words! Words! Words! We have passed the tipping point. Methane is now going into the atmosphere from permafrost. This is an international and national emergency! Why is there not a sense of urgency!