Forget the Atkins diet, here’s the ultimate new, pain-free weight-loss formula: instead of actually eating less, pay somebody else to go on a diet for you. What a plan!
Swap cake for carbon and you have a major part of the government’s current scheme to deal with climate change. Instead of cutting emissions at home, […]
I’m going to say it. Ready? Here it comes … Solar power is ready to replace coal-fired electricity!
OK, so we’ve been claiming this for a while, but a report released from Greenpeace and the solar industry this week leaves no doubt that solar power is able to provide electricity just as well as coal. […]
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 […]
It’s a day on from my initial report back on the budget and I’ve been trying to make sure I’m not getting carried away with the size of the renewable energy funding. After years of budgets being handed down that do the square root of not much for real climate solutions, I’m naturally inclined to […]
Following months of relentless criticism, the Government were forced last week to announce change to the proposed emissions trading scheme. Unsurprisingly, most business groups welcomed the changes while environmentalists, with a few notable exceptions, slammed it. The opposition continued to take their role literally despite the Government addressing virtually all of the concerns they had […]
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 […]
With the G20 meeting getting under way in London, the many faces of protest have been revealed. Over the last 48 hours, we’ve seen a range of tactics and messages from police and protesters. A call for justice and equality, for peace and safety has been issued to the rulers locked in their meetings.
I’ve been […]
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 […]
If ever we’ve been presented with a compelling reason for a tougher position on climate change, it’s the tragic events of the past few weeks. Extreme weather events have taken their toll on human lives in profound and significant ways.
The events are the latest in a sequence of extreme weather conditions to hit the Australia […]
On Friday, Kevin Rudd announced over half a billion dollars in funding for the NSW coal industry. Today, he announced an emissions reduction target and an emissions trading scheme that will have virtually no impact on reducing emissions and will give billions in handouts to the big polluters. This is a climate action plan that […]
People in the Greenpeace office in Sydney are still in shock that Australian PM Kevin Rudd has just announced an atrocious emissions target of 5% by 2020. Staff and volunteers put their heads up over the partitions, mouths agape, when the news went around.
This is one of those moments that puts a very powerful spotlight […]
UPDATE: Friday 7th 11.44 - Tarong Station in QLD underway
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In the last 5 days, there have been 3 4 people-power actions intent on shutting down coal-fired power stations - one each in QLD, NSW (Bayswater), WA (Collie) and VIC (Hazelwood). This comes on top of several other people-power actions at coal power stations […]
As Emma wrote a week ago, investing in a sustainable green collar economy makes sense.
But its not just environmentalists who are making the claims. A senior executive at the United Nations Environment Programme this week pointed out that current political efforts to curb pollution are simply not working. His solution was for governments to adopt […]
With the media running headlines about the “global emergency”, “threat to national security”, and need for a “war effort” you could be forgiven for thinking that the penny had finally dropped among world leaders about the seriousness of climate change.
But of course it takes the threat of economic meltdown, not merely planetary meltdown, to spur […]
There is a very real threat that the Rudd government’s proposed emissions trading scheme will only amount to more hot air – which would be disastrous for global warming. Greenpeace has made a submission to the federal government to make sure the scheme protects the interests of Australian households over big business. Of course, it […]
Professor Ross Garnaut - economist, government adviser, and climate policy reviewer - has today given his pronouncement about the way Australia should tackle climate change. Given that his last report heralded disastrous climate change impacts such as the loss of the Great Barrier Reef and the melting of the polar ice caps if the global […]
Yesterday Penny Wong released the government’s not-so-Green Paper outlining their intended emissions trading scheme (ETS), or so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The ETS is the mechanism the Rudd government wants to hang its hat on as the mark of their commitment to climate change action. Although the signs so far have not been promising – […]
Someone should explain to Michael Costa that the point of an emissions trading scheme is to reduce greenhouse pollution. It’s not a PR exercise so that it looks like we’re doing something about climate change. Because in the meantime, as Professor Ross Garnaut pointed out in his draft report on Friday, increased temperatures will wipe […]