Get ready for it: the New South Wales (NSW) Government is set to massively expand the state’s coal power industry. In fact, it’s proposing the biggest expansion for 30 years. Not only is it planning to refurbish and expand two existing polluting dinosaurs (Munmorah and Eraring pwer stations in the Hunter region), it is going […]
Today we saw the appalling revelation in the Age newspaper that Exergen (the company that wants to start up a brown coal export industry in Victoria while the world tries to forge an international agreement to cut greenhouse pollution) paid for Premier John Brumby’s time just before a crucial cabinet meeting was held to decide […]
With everything that we know about climate change, it is hard to believe that Australia is still proposing to build polluting coal power stations. The good news is you have a chance to lodge your opposition.
The NSW Rees Government has recently announced plans to build two new massive power stations, one in the Hunter valley […]
We received another reminder today of the passion, enthusiasm and spirit that we will all need to overcome political barriers to change, as separate community demonstrations in Victoria and Queensland protested the madness and immorality that is export coal.
In Melbourne, several hundred people put off their lunch break to converge at Victorian Parliament House, home […]
On Sunday October 11th, the Australian community will again voice its opposition to the coal industry, in the next of a series of protests at coal infrastructure around the country.
This time the protest is in Helensburgh, south of Sydney, at Australia’s oldest coal mine. Despite the fact that coal is Australia’s biggest contributor to climate […]
After spending nearly 36 hours hanging like fruitbats, the four Greenpeace activists are preparing to come down from the massive coal loader at Hay Point. The Esperanza has joined the blockade and is moored a stones throw away, with three police boats between it and the wharf.
We’re hearing reports from the Pacific Islands Forum that […]
How far would you go for what’s right? Would you risk arrest? How high you would climb to save a planet?
In 2007, six volunteer activists scaled a 220-metre chimney at a UK coal power station to protest against government plans to build new coal plants. If the action wasn’t breathtaking enough (vertigo sufferers be warned), […]
Slowly but surely, electricity retailers in Australia are moving away from coal. Just last week, Red Energy, ruled out buying electricity from any new coal power stations. Their owner, Snowy Hydro, has also committed to not building new coal-fired power stations.
This is great news. It proves again that electricity retailers and generators can rule out […]
First posted on Crikey’s Rooted blog
It seems as though Malcolm Turnbull has finally managed to align the coalition on climate change at least enough for them to stop kicking own goals and bridge their credibility gap with the ALP. With the coalition and ALP now supporting the same conditional emissions reduction target, the public will […]
At 9am this morning, 14 Greenpeace activists arrived at the offices of Simply Energy in Melbourne to present them with the award of Australia’s Dirtiest Energy Retailer.
“There has been some tough competition over the past 12 months,” said head judge and Greenpeace campaign director Steve Campbell, “but Simply Energy’s steadfast commitment to powering climate change […]
With everything we know about climate change, and the role that coal is playing, it would seem fairly obvious that Australia shouldn’t be building any new coal power stations. We’re a smart country, right?
A couple of weeks ago, Coolimba Power called for public comment into an environmental review of their proposal to build a new […]
We’ve just got in the first batch of photos from this morning’s blockade of Hazelwood Power Station by Greenpeace activists. Seven of our activists shut down a massive coal digger at the power station in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley. Hazelwood is the most polluting power station in the developed world. For every hour these massive […]
Seven Greenpeace activists have occupied one of the massive coal excavators at the Hazelwood Power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. Hazelwood is a polluting dinosaur built with 1950s technology . It is the dirtiest power station in the developed world and was supposed to be closed this year.
If we are going to have any hope […]
I’ve had quite a lot of time to contemplate tonight’s federal budget, having spent four hours in the Treasury lock-up with papers open to pages numbering into the 300s and a confused look on my face shouting: “WHAT? … HUH? … OK, so it’s $100 coming from this department, but only allocated after the first […]
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse …
Yesterday the government performed a policy back flip on its emissions trading scheme. Unfortunately the acrobatic feat landed us even further in the mire. Instead of showing some much needed leadership, Prime Minister Rudd delayed and watered down his already dismal plans. It couldn’t have […]
When scientists start speaking out against climate policy, you know they’re getting serously worried. Just last week, Dr James Risbey from the CSIRO said that the Government’s greenhouse gas targets were like “playing Russian roulette with the climate system with most of the chambers loaded” and we should phase out coal in the next 20 […]
When Labor was elected in 2007, Kevin Rudd described climate change as the great moral challenge of our generation.
A year down the track, Rudd’s market-based Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is struggling to get through Senate with the support of either the Greens or the Coalition.
So what happened in between? In an essay published last […]
Today the big bad news, again, is the failure of the Australian Government to do something decisive on climate change. The Melbourne Age reports that ‘State emission cuts ‘futile’ and would aid polluters’.
Our CEO, Steve Shallhorn writes in the Sydney Morning Herald, where he asks ‘Why is the Federal Government failing to live up to […]
The news yesterday that the proposed coal mine at Konin, Poland has been suspended is a huge relief to all of us at Greenpeace. The mine became the focal point of our international coal campaign as Poland hosted the United Nations Climate Change meeting last December. We took our Climate Rescue Station to the site, […]
‘The hand speaks
The hand of a government man…
All I want is to breathe…
…and the heat goes on…(goes on) and the heat goes on’
‘Born under punches’, Talking Heads, 1980
The news today that the coal industry is lobbying Parliament again raises the grave but tedious question, when will Australia’s Coal Mafia give in to climate science and/or […]