Renewable Energy and other national climate policies

The Federal Government released its 2010/11 budget. One of the three challenges highlighted by the Treasurer was climate change, with the main focus in this sector on renewable energy. Savings from the now-shelved Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme have been reallocated to the Renewable Energy Future Fund, part of the expanded $5.1billion Clean Energy Initiative.

To celebrate:

• $350 million is promised for international climate finance. This international climate finance will be directed to adaptation initiative ($178.2 mill over 2 years), forest carbon/REDD ($56 mill over 2 years), multilateral institutions ($101.2 mill over 2 years) and climate change partnerships ($15 million). However, the funding will not be provided in this financial year and this delay is a concern
•  The Clean Energy Initiative (including solar flagships and clean coal) will total $5.1 bill. Within the CEI, the Renewable Energy Future Fund will have $652 million over four years directed to small and large scale renewable energy, and also to energy efficiency.
• Within the CEI's Solar Flagships Program is a proposal to convert the Collinsville coal-fired power station in Queensland into a 150MW solar thermal plant. http://minister.ret.gov.au/TheHonMartinFergusonMP/Pages/!budget_renewable.aspx.html

But on the downside:

• The CPRS is definitely shelved, to be reintroduced only “when there is greater clarity on the actions of major economies including the US, China and India”. Hence, the 'savings' from not going ahead have been reallocated.
•  There is no action on Fringe Benefit Tax reform, nor action on halting perverse subsidies promoting consumption of fossil fuels.
• The majority of transport funding is going to rail projects that support mining activities.
• The net balance of cuts in cuts versus new spending suggest an overall cut to environment programs of approximately $60 million.

CANA member responses:

• ACF: ACF welcomed the Renewable Energy Future Fund but said the budget did not deliver anywhere near the scale that a price on pollution would.
• Climate Action Centre: “There is still more money in the Budget for the fossil industry than for climate change ... There is no vision for a zero carbon economy in this Budget”.
• The Climate Institute: “This Budget and CPRS delay combined will see Australia’s pollution rising at a time when it should start falling. … There is also no move on commitments made at the G20 to remove subsidies to fossil fuels including those in company car fringe benefits and fuel rebates”.
• WWF: “According to the budget papers the government may never legislate an emissions trading scheme, yet there is no contingency plan to meet the government's commitment to reduce emissions between five to twenty five per cent by 2020”.

Henry Tax Review thin on climate change (3/5/10): The Henry Tax Review, a product of two years of research, was release on May 2. As Crikey.com stated, there was 'not much thought for the environment or climate change here, by the way -- this is all about getting better road, rail and port facilities to help dig up our stuff and ship it out to booming Asian economies'. The central plank of the Government's response to the review will be the introduction of a Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT) but the system won’t be introduced until 2012. While the Henry Review strongly recommends that big business pay for their carbon pollution and that tax breaks for big polluters are ended, the Government has chosen not to take them up. CANA member ACF welcomed the RSPT, but considered the Government’s silence on climate change ignores the 'crucial economic and moral issue of our day'.

CANA groups welcome boost to renewable energy target (26/02/10): The Rudd Government’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) had key design flaws which has meant that no new renewable energy projects have proceeded since the legislation was passed in 2009. On February 26 2010, Minister Wong confirmed a change to the Target that would see 41,000 Gwh (out of 45,000 Gwh) targeted at large scale RE technologies, although further details have yet to be released. This change is expected to provide greater investor certainty needed for large-scale renewable energy projects, such as wind. While CANA's member groups have welcomed this change, they have highlighted the need for a stronger mix of policies:

• ACF: “This announcement is a step in the right direction, but we need to see more detail about how these changes will work. [For example,] a strong price on greenhouse pollution is also essential to make sure coal-fired power doesn’t have an unfair advantage.”
•  The Climate Institute: “The RET alone would achieve the equivalent of just one twelfth of the total emission reductions needed to achieve the 25% emission-reduction target, that both parties agree is in Australia’s national interest”.
•  Environment Victoria: “A guaranteed Renewable Energy Certificate price of $40 MWh for household solar electricity and hot water will mean that prices will not fluctuate wildly from month to month and make consumer investment more attractive”.
•  Greenpeace Australia Pacific: “These changes mean that people will still be able to install small-scale solutions around the home and at the same time a green light is being given to wind and other technologies.
• CANA RET Submission Feb 09
• CANA Media Release on 2020 RE Target (Dec 08)
• CANA policy on wind farms 

CANA Policy overview

• CANA's core policies: 'Turning Down the Heat' (2007) (print version) and (web version)
• CANA's climate change strategy: 'The Real Way Forward' (2004)

Energy Efficiency

Fossil fuels

• Polluting brown coal plants get the green light in Victoria...: After 18 months of negotiations, the long-term contracts until 2036 to supply electricity from Loy Yang to Alcoa's two Victorian smelters have been finalised. The Alcoa and Loy Yang entities will not release the "carbon reduction agreement" that forms part of the contracts to supply about 820MW of baseload power to Alcoa's Point Henry and Portland smelters, but we know it requires Loy Yang Power to provide an annual report to Alcoa on opportunities for the generator to cut emissions. The contracts will take effect in 2014 for the Point Henry smelter near Geelong and in 2016 for the Portland smelter. Loy Yang Power chief Ian Nethercote said he did not believe the certainty provided by the contracts weakened the case for providing coal-fired generators with more money to compensate them for asset value loss associated with the introduction of the proposed CPRS. But ACF said that Alcoa and Loy Yang Power should make it clear that they had factored in a carbon price and that they did not expect government to underwrite any carbon price, and Environment Victoria called for clarification on whether taxpayers would be exposed "if the deal falls through at a future time when we get serious about climate change". Discussions among CANA members have suggested that maintaining brown coal on the grid could be a terrible precedent and that it is now very difficult to imagine how we can be achieve serious emissions reduction targets by 2036. Surprise has also been expressed that either side would agree to anything fixed over such a long timeframe, given the current uncertainty over the CPRS. Under most forward projections Loy Yang has to be looking at retiring one or both of their power stations around 2030, so perhaps they are looking into replacing that capacity with gas generation (or perhaps some renewable energy?) to fulfill the contract.

• ...while black coal gets going in NSW: The NSW government has approved two concept plans for new 2,000 MW power plants at Mt Piper near Lithgow and Bayswater in the Upper Hunter. The Greens and conservation groups doubt that further power is required for baseload electricity, noting that the latest data from the Australian Energy Market Operator shows that NSW has sufficient baseload capacity for reliable supply beyond 2016. CANA member, Institute of Sustainable Futures, has used the latest projections of NSW’s electricity use by Transgrid to demonstrate that there is no need for new power stations and that energy efficiency,demand management and renewable energy can easily satisfy NSW's energy needs. They also note that more coal-fired stations will increase the state’s greenhouse gas emission by 15.1 per cent and gas by 7.1 percent as carbon capture and storage will not be available in the time scale needed to respond to global climate change. The NSW Nature Conservation Council has stated that the decision to fuel new power stations by coal or gas has huge consequences for NSW’s emissions, and is a decision that should be made by government, not left to the market.

• Australian Energy Resource Assessment released: 
CANA and other member groups attended the consultation events and made a submission to Minister Ferguson's Energy White Paper. They've just released the 'national prospectus for energy investment and exports'. The coal chapter of this report offers some intriguing statistics, including "major increases in production over the past 40 years has seen the resource life of Australia’s black coal resources fall from about 300 years to around 90 years" - and this is over a period of only three decades. It's not hard to see why: in the last thirty years, we've gone from exporting around the same amount of black coal as we consume domestically to exporting three times as much (as they get much more money per tonne that way). Another item to note is that "Coal’s share of domestic electricity generation is projected to decline from around 75 per cent in 2007–08 to 43 per cent in 2029–30", which amounts to a small net decline in total consumption, while world consumption is still set to grow over that time. Although they state they are looking for more coal resources, if exports continue to grow as they have done, there might not be much coal around to burn in new (black) coal fired power stations in twenty years' time. That would be a neat way to achieve the goals of the 'no new coal' campaign!. The assessment is available at: https://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=GEOCAT_DETAILS&catno=70142.

• New coal fired power stations: Greenpeace has compiled a list of all of the proposed new coal power stations around the country - as well as an estimate of their greenhouse emissions. If they are all built they will increase Australia's emissions by around 39M tonnes/year - around 7 percent of Australia's total emissions. Of course some of them are probably speculative - others definitely aren't. The NSW Government is proposing to approve two massive coal-fired power stations, one in the Blue Mountains and the other in the Hunter Valley.  If built, they will churn out over 20 million tonnes of emissions into the atmosphere every year. Greenpeace is coordinating a No New Coal campaign. To kick off the campaign, they're holding a rally at NSW Parliament on Thursday 25 February at 1pm at the NSW Parliament House (main gate) Macquarie St Sydney. Also, a petition for No New Coal is being circulated to be signed and sent to Greenpeace to be tabled in NSW Parliament.

• CANA: No Coal National Statement

Fuels

• CANA Biomass Policy: CANA recognises the potential environmental benefits in the use of biomass energy to replace the use of fossil fuel generated power.
• CANA Gas Policy
• CANA submission to the Fuel Tax Inquiry

Electricity

• CANA National Electricity Market Policy
• CANA Sinks Policy Final and Sink Brief: CANA members agree that preventing deforestation and the preservation and enhancement of native forests are crucial strategies for avoiding climate change.

Technologies

• CANA Position: Carbon Capture and Storage (aka geosequestration)
• Presentation: CANA Mitigation Potential for Australia

Biodiversity protection

• EPBC Review: Greenhouse trigger not adopted: The Final Report of the Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act) – ‘The Australian Environment Act: Report of the Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999’ was released on 21 December 2009. The most striking omission from this review is the 'greenhouse trigger', first drafted by Government officials in the late 1990s, and recommended in many submissions to the Review, including that by CANA. A greenhouse trigger is an important mechanism for assessing and approving or rejecting major projects that contribute to carbon pollution. The ALP promised a greenhouse trigger before the last election and than delayed while the Hawke report was done. Friends of the Earth condemned the trigger's omission, stating "Coming on the back of the Kevin Rudd's Copenhagen debacle, we again see the fossil fuel industry rules the roost in Canberra."

• EPBC Review Submission Climate Action Network Australia (Dec 08)

• Government ends its troubled insulation scheme (23/4/10): Following advice received from Dr Allan Hawke in his Review of the Administration of the Home Insulation Program, the Minister Greg Combet has decided it will not proceed with the insulation component of the Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme, which was due to commence on 1 June 2010. Hawke cited the 'safety and quality risks' as the reason for his recommendation, and the Government wants to help restore confidence in the home insulation retrofitting segment of the industry. Instead, the Home Insulation Program 'wind-up', involving the safety inspection programs for the Home Insulation Program is the Government's priority.  Under the wind-up, the 50,000 homes that had foil insulation installed under the HIP will have the option of having the foil insulation removed, or alternatively on the advice of a licensed electrician, having safety switches installed. A $15 million Insulation Industry Assistance Package will be released soon to provide financial assistance to eligible insulation firms to help meet the cost of retaining insulation stock that was held at the termination of the Home Insulation Program. The Australian Conservation Foundation, a CANA member, has called on the Government to fix up and re-start, not shelve, its insulation program, and prevent thousands more families making their homes more energy efficient. The HIP was a key plank of the Government energy efficiency measures, which now makes submissions to the Prime Ministers Energy Efficiency Taskgroup more critical.

• Roundtable on Energy Efficiency Communique: A new and helpful document that could help you structure your submission has been produced by the Total Environment Centre's Roundtable on Energy Efficiency which recommends energy efficiency key action areas should include setting mandatory national energy efficiency goals for 2020 and beyond with clear annual targets; creating incentives in the National Electricity Market (NEM) to foster energy efficiency and distributed energy; strengthening institutional support for the ‘smart grid’; building energy efficiency trade skills and workforce capabilities through national training programs; creating strong incentives and regulatory drivers for energy efficiency in industry, commercial buildings and households; mandating stringent vehicle fuel consumption standards and recognise the contribution from recycling and materials resource efficiency; and requiring best-practice energy efficiency in government operations. For more, see http://www.tec.org.au/ge-latest-news/866-energy-efficiency-roundtable-communique.

• Federal Energy Efficiency Task Group (23/4/10): Although the Government states 'energy efficiency is a key plank of the Rudd Government's climate change agenda', the home insulation disaster means that this key plank is looking a little unstable. Coming in the nick of time to collate new ideas is the Prime Ministers' Energy Efficiency Taskgroup tasked with reporting on the most economically and environmentally effective mechanisms to deliver EE, and consulting with industry and community groups and seek their input on policy ideas and mechanisms to drive these changes. The Taskgroup's advisors include John Connor from the Climate Institute and Greg Bourne from WWF, both CANA member groups. The Prime Minister's Task Group on Energy Efficiency's Issues Paper is seeking submissions (due May 3). Details are available at: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/government/submissions/pm-task-group.aspx.

• Garrett's green schemes paused: ACF welcomes (19/2/10): Environment Minister Peter Garrett has announced that a new household renewable energy bonus would replace the insulation program and the solar hot water rebate.The Australian Conservation Foundation has welcomed the decision to pause, fix and re-start the program of Government support for household insulation, but criticised the reduction of the solar hot water rebate and the green loans scheme. Insulating houses cuts greenhouse pollution, helps people save money and is very popular. But cutting the rebate for solar hot water will slow down the solar roll out of solar across the country and the ending of ‘green loans’ means the Government will not be providing any support for people to implement the recommendations from household assessments.