Yesterday the Rudd Government demonstrated very clearly where its climate and energy priorities lie – not with the proven renewable energy solutions, but with the geosequestration pipe-dream that Al Gore has recently called “too imaginary to make a difference in protecting either our national security or the global climate”.
Fresh from burying Christine Milne’s feed-in tariff Bill with a majority Senate Inquiry report saying it’s a “great idea, but let’s not do it”, the Rudd Government went on last night to push through a Bill which gives a huge benefit to those who seek to bury CO2 under the sea floor – letting them make profits without having to carry the liability. This is a recipe for a new sub-prime crisis, telling industry that they can make significant profits safe in the knowledge that they will not need to carry the can for more than 20 years.
The debate on this bill is worth reading in its entirety if you have time. It exposes quite how blinded by industry rhetoric the Government and Opposition both are. Perhaps the pinnacle of this is to be found in
Senator McLucas’s statement that, as far as leaks from storage are concerned, “we do not predict that will happen”. Considering it is widely acknowledged by government, industry and bodies such as the IPCC around the world that leaks will happen, at the rate of at least 1% a year on average, this is a rather heroic prediction.
The Bill is largely about settling arguments between the petroleum exploration industry and the geosequestration industry, but the sting in its tail is how it deals with the planning approvals and long-term liability issues that arise from dumping massive quantities of a dangerous substance under the sea bed – what Christine has called a “21st century landfill strategy”. The original Bill left the issue open, as discussed in this media release. After a closure certificate was issued for a burial site, the liability was to be settled under common law – not an ideal solution due to the uncertainties, timelines and costs involved.
The Greens’ proposal was that, acknowledging that companies will not be around for the lengths of time the carbon needs to be stored for (ie perpetuity), we should take a leaf out of the book of mining regulation and require companies to post a bond to cover potential liability into the future. This, however, was not acceptable to the Opposition, who negotiated with the Government an amendment that keeps liability on the company for 20 years after a closure certificate has been issued, and then passes all liability onto the taxpayer.
Christine Milne moved an array of other amendments to try to make the legislation somewhat more environmentally responsible, only to be told by Liberal Senator David Johnston that the changes were unnecessary because “This whole act has the environment as its fundamental objective.” Only people who have no idea about environmental protection could say such a thing, as their efforts to be ‘green’ are frequently self-contradictory. It is not uncommonly their actions that purport to be about environmental protection that need the most scrutiny. The whole advocacy for geosequestration (let alone nuclear power) is testament to this fact.
Those who elected the Rudd Government on a platform of climate action need to know just how much they are bypassing renewable energy in favour of coal. But, when the Government deliberately tabled the feed-in report at 6pm and scheduled the debate on the geosequestration bill to conclude at 9.50pm, it is no surprise that there has been virtually no media coverage of either. We have to work hard to make surepeople understand what is happening.
