SYDNEY, Aug 22, 2018 – The dogged resistance of ordinary Australians who love renewables has combined with Victoria and other state and territory Labor states to kill off Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s renewables-wrecking National Energy Guarantee (NEG).However, the debacle has also exposed the depth of climate denialism within the Coalition, which has once again torn itself apart in a seemingly perennial quest to stifle the action on climate change that our drought and bushfire-stricken nation desperately needs.
“Pressure from tens of thousands of Australians who want a healthy planet and clean reliable energy has seen the Labor states and territories stick to their sensible demands and withstand pressure from Turnbull to pass the NEG, which we know would have put the handbrake on renewables and done nothing to address climate change,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigner Alix Foster Vander Elst said.
“Stopping the NEG is a victory for renewable energy and the jobs in that growing industry – but now we need to see real climate action take its place. The whole fiasco has laid bare the Coalition’s complete inability to make sensible climate and energy policy in the best interests of the nation.
“The NEG would have done nothing to help the planet, but Turnbull’s pandering to the climate deniers has now created a situation where calls for the government to ramp up pollution by subsidising coal with taxpayer money are being openly canvassed. Turnbull has not only stopped progress on climate policy but has actually taken us back – energy policy is once again being made without any consideration of climate change, and we will all suffer as a consequence.”
States like Queensland and Victoria are leading the transition to renewable energy and were right not to give the federal government a blank cheque on the NEG; however, their admirable efforts risk being undermined by an increasingly denialist federal government that appears to have made the decision that short term political victories are more important than the environment.
The NEG now joins the Gillard government’s short-lived price on carbon pollution, the Clean Energy Target, the Emissions Intensity Scheme, and a host of other policies on the growing scrap heap of Australian climate policy. This situation is completely untenable and leaves the nation vulnerable to more coal pollution, higher power prices caused by the uncertain environment and climate change inaction, which manifests itself in epic droughts and the winter bushfires we are now seeing across NSW.
“The tens of thousands of Australians who opposed the NEG want renewables protected, and that goes hand in hand with an ambitious climate policy that that comes as close as possible to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030,” Ms Foster Vander Elst said.
“This should be a priority for whoever leads the Coalition going into the future. However, the ascendancy of climate sceptics makes Coalition leadership on this issue seem unlikely. It is now more important than ever that Labor seize the moment, and for Bill Shorten to deliver a policy that incentivises clean energy production to bring down prices and emissions.”
For interviews:
Martin Zavan, Greenpeace Australia Pacific Communications Campaigner
0424 295 422