Crikey intern Patrick Tombola writes:
No point mourning the premature death of ETS at the hands of the Rudd Government. As First Dog pointed out in his cartoon, its fate was doomed a long time before Wednesday’s announcement. The pressing question climate campaigners are asking themselves is: where do we go now that politics have failed us miserably?
The 100% Renewable Community Campaign has started the ball rolling by calling on all concerned citizens and disappointed voters to demonstrate their support for a carbon neutral future this Sunday 2nd May. People will be asked to take a photo of themselves holding placards reading “Support 100% Renewable energy” next to a sign of their own city or suburb and invite local media along.
Lindsay Soutar, 100% Renewable Campaign spokesperson, believes this grassroots movement has the potential shake up the stale world of Canberra’s politics. “We know the community supports a shift to clean energy so we are launching this new campaign to mobilise public concern in the lead up to the federal election,” she told Crikey.
Far from being a one-off event aimed at cleaning our carbon dirty consciences, the campaign will follow up Sunday’s occasion with a national community survey on renewable energy. The results will then be published and handed over to the Government in an effort to highlight the huge public support the issue has despite the unwillingness of the Government to play a leadership role.
Will it work?
10 Comments
Great another grass roots movement no one has heard of that is going to shake up politics in this country. Like the Australian Youth Climate Coalition or Beyond Zero Emissions.
Of course the survey will say everyone wants 100% renewable power. But it won’t ask honest questions. The real question is how much are you prepared to pay for Australia to switch to 100% renewable power? 0-10% extra, 10-20%, 20-40%, 40-60%, 60-100%, 100-200% or 200%+?
How much is your employer prepared to pay? How much do you think raising electricity prices will increase the supermarket bill?
Do you want to pay more for public transport because they now have a power bill that’s tripled?
It’s great to see that environmental/climate advocates are now campaigning for what we need–renewable energy–rather that what we don’t need–carbon emissions. This positive approach will be more appealing than the target-centric carbon-pricing policies pursued by the Rudd government and large environmental groups.
While it’s great to aim for 100% renewable energy, how appealing will the abstract figure be to punters? Wouldn’t it be better to campaign for an iconic project that will advance us towards that objective?
Australia needs a Snowy Hydro Scheme for the 21st Century. One that builds a renewable energy system and sustainable infrastructure. This, I believe will win the hearts and minds of the Australian public:
http://therealewbank.com/2010/04/29/australia-needs-a-solar-snowy-mountains-scheme/
Cheers, Leigh Ewbank (@theRealEwbank)
It is interesting that despite the fact the governments are often failing to provide climate change solutions, there are private voluntary networks of people emerging who want to change their climate practices without any prompting from the government or any need for regulation. It shows that people are sometimes motivated out of a higher concern than their hip pockets, which is a refreshing difference. However, it is depressing that national governments have so far been abysmally bad at addressing a problem which is now global and really requires global response. The sadest thing is that the efforts of many people who reduce their carbon emissions will be in vain because the rest of the world that doesn’t care about this issue will go on polluting and the problem will never be solved because it is a problem which affects everyone and can only be solved if everyone works towards a solution.
The Real Ewbank has a strong point. Let’s be realists. !00% renewable is ideal but is it going to be a practical solution in the short term? To encourage the community to work with moving to renewable energy we need to give a tangible alternative to what is happening at present and a project as The Real Ewbank says sounds like a ‘goer’
The ETS is not dead and to suggest otherwise shows a serious degree of misinformation is going on.
Rudd has not only reaffirmed his commitment to an ETS, he has said that – were there to be the slightest flicker of interest from the Senate in passing it – the present bill would be back in Parliament as soon as he could get it there.
The government is still committed to achieving exactly the same targets and still open to adjusting these if the world adopts higher ones.
All that has happened – as was inevitable as soon as it became obvious the legislation wasn’t going through – is that the implementation date has been pushed out.
That’s all folks.
Clearly a one off photo and a few survey results will not be enough to make the government start taking action on climate change seriously. If this was the case – with the high levels of community support for action on climate – things would have got moving long ago.
If we are really going to see things change we need to be building a powerful movement capable of outweighing the influence of the fossil fuel lobby. Hundreds of local groups are already doing inspiring things to promote a clean energy future on the ground across the country. It’s now time to start promoting those groups more widely and to steadily and systematically build our collective power.
Today’s campaign launch – happening in over 70 communities in every state and territory across Australia – will show just how widespread support for a 100% renewable future is – and a survey is a great way for local groups to engage their local communities and get more people active.
But that is just the start. The real task is then for groups to build their power and influence at the local level so they can then hold their local members to account for representing community interests. The 100% campaign will support local groups in grassroots organising – doorknocking, street stalls, local alliance building and much more – as part of a fun, inspiring and coherent national campaign.
By working together, one by one we will get every politician in Australia on board with the 100% renewable vision. It’s an ambitious task, but essential if we want our 100% vision to be a reality.
‘Just a few more years’ before any remotely credible action on climate change – yeah, right, and i’ll buy the bridge as well thanks. I feel for the fools who ever thought Labor or LibNats would do anything to reduce some of the worst effects of business as usual, but really its past time we all grew up a bit and took responsibility for the catastrophic choices we have already made.
A couple of points here:
First of all as Zoomster said the ETS isn’t dead, its just on the back burner. There is no way we can go forward without putting a price on carbon and two governments have determined that an ETS is the cheapest and most efficient mechanism of doing so. Thus if there is going to be action on climate change, and from a risk management perspective alone there must, an ETS will happen. The only question is when.
Second of all 100% renewable energy simply isn’t a realistic goal. The ecological damage caused by a renewable energy sector of the size necessary would be very significant (far greater than nuclear), the capacity of renewable’s to meet projected energy needs over the next 50 years (5 fold increase to over 5TW) simply isn’t large enough and there are significant issues with efficiency and base load.
Wind on average collects 2MW/km2, so for a 1GW power plant we are looking at a combined wind farm size of 500km2. We would need to build 1,160 turbines a day spread over 340km2 to meet the worlds projected power needs by 2050. Solar thermal is worse; 15MW/km2 on average which would mean rolling out 520m2 of solar thermal power planets per second, every second until 2050 (655 million km2). That land use would effectively kill the desert eco systems underneath. Even a 100% increase in renewable output per meter would still make a 100% renewable energy plan an ecological and economic disaster. Fast nuclear reactors are far more green.
The most likely solution to the worlds future energy needs is a mix of renewable, fast nuclear fission (later fusion) and cleaner fossil fuels.
OBlizzard, it is simply not true to say “there is no way to go forward without putting a price on carbon”. What about cutting subsidies to fossil fuel industries? What about supporting retrofits to existing building stock via taxation & regulation? What about building PT and rural rail infrastructure? A price on carbon is the only option on the table because business can see how to profit from it, not because it is the only or even easiest action to take.
The ETS itself is unlikely to make any difference for decades; between the ?$20 billion in corporate welfare listed by the Grattan Institute and the pissweak 5% target, why bother?
We’re not convinced over here. We’re hosting an event taking the pulse of the ETS with experts from industry and elsewhere.
http://wheelercentre.com/calendar/event/emissions-trading-dead-or-alive/