Coal-Fired Australia, Buffeted by Climate Change, Enacts Carbon Tax

Australia’s enormous coal deposits long seemed like an unmitigated gift in an expansive land of sweltering summers. On the planet’s driest inhabited continent, fossil fuel delivered cheap, reliable electricity through both extreme heat and torrential storms.

But drought, rampant wildfire in the outback, and the degradation of the treasured Great Barrier Reef have forever altered how Australia views its energy endowment. Facing a future as one of the places on Earth most vulnerable to climate change, and one of the nations with the world’s highest per capita carbon emissions, Australia has taken steps to change its fate. (See interactive: “Four Ways to Look at Global Carbon Footprints”)

This week the government issued its first ever carbon emissions permits, a milestone in implementation of a new climate and energy law that is expected to …

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• Christine Milne, Wednesday 10 October: Greens move to cut coal cash

The Greens will today move an amendment to the legislation before the parliament linking Australia’s emissions trading scheme with Europe’s to require the Government to immediately refer compensation payments to coal fired power stations to the Productivity Commission.

“When polluting coal fired power stations found it more profitable to stay in business rather than accept payments to close down, it became clearer than ever that they are getting too much support, and the Productivity Commission should look into this straight away,” Australian Greens Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.

“The Clean Energy Act is about making polluters pay for the damage they cause and using the revenue to help householders and invest in clean, renewable energy. These handouts to coal fired power stations make the pollution price less efficient, taking money away from where it is needed more and reducing the investment signal for renewable energy.

“The Productivity Commission has an important role in assessing compensation payments to polluters throughout the Clean Energy Act and that role should be brought forward now that it is so obvious that coal fired power stations are being overpaid.

“The $4.5 billion in free permits allocated to coal fired power stations should be put on the market and the funds channelled into the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation or the $3.2 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency.”

The amendments would require the Government to refer the payments to coal fired power stations to the Productivity Commission to report by 31 December 2012, and to respond to the Commission’s recommendations within seven sitting days of receiving the report.

Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Adam Bandt MP, who will move the amendments in the House of Representatives today, said “Labor breached its commitment to the community when it ditched the agreement to close down coal fired power stations like Hazelwood but continued giving out corporate coal welfare. Supporting these amendments would go some way to rebuilding the community’s trust.

“Without changes to the compensation, there is a danger Australia’s dirtiest power stations could make windfall profits from the Energy Security Fund.

“Australians want to see revenue from the price on pollution used to help them and roll out clean, renewable energy, not to prop up polluting power stations.”

• Christine Milne and Adam Bandt joined representatives of Australian environmental groups at a press conference to release details of Greens amendments to remove the federal government’s excessive compensation to coal fired power plants and call for greater investment in renewable energy.

Please see attached audio of the press conference (at bottom of the page)

http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/greens-move-cut-coal-cash

The press conference included Gary Rowbottom, a coal power station worker from Port Augusta, Tony Mohr, Climate Change Manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, Mark Wakeham, Campaigns Director at Environment Victoria, and Ellen Sandell, National Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition