TURNBULL CONTINUES ATTACK ON RENEWABLES AND CLIMATE ACTION

The Turnbull Government’s attack on renewable energy and refusal to take real action on climate change has once again been made plainly clear.

Industry, experts, scientists, states and federal Labor have all been clear that a pollution reduction target for electricity of 26 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030 is woefully inadequate.

This was again confirmed last night when the Director of ANU’s Centre for Climate Economics and Policy called the Governments pollution reduction targets “completely out of line with what can happen and with what needs to happen”.

Tony Wood, the Director of Energy at the Grattan Institute not only strongly endorsed this view about the Government’s inadequate target, but added “It will change”.

Yet this morning, Energy Minister Frydenberg insisted “The intention is to lock into legislation the 26 per cent reduction in emissions”.

Analysis released this week has shown locking in this inadequate electricity sector target will result in not a single new renewable energy project being built in the 2020s, confirming the Turnbull Government wants to use their National Energy Guarantee to continue their war on renewables.

Added to this is the fact such low electricity sector ambition places the heavy lifting of pollution reduction on sectors like transport, which if also required to follow a pro rata pollution reduction like electricity, would need to cut pollution by 41 percent over the 2020s.  

Yet yesterday, the Acting Prime Minister insisted there would be NO pollution reduction in the transport sector, saying “The emissions at the moment are low. They are good”.

The Turnbull Government should stop pretending to have a plan to act on climate change, when it is clear their plan is to end the renewable energy industry, and pass the buck on climate change action to our kids and grandkids.