*Pic: Bob Burton’s pic of coal in the Fingal Valley …
Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne says the UK cross party agreement to phase out coal and rapidly address global warming should be a wake up call for political parties in Australia; parties who have protected the big polluters’ profits at the expense of everyday Australians for too long.
“What a tragedy that the Liberals, Nationals and Labor are so blinded by coal dust, they won’t climb out of the coal mine,” Greens Leader Christine Milne said.
“We need leadership on global warming. It is time the Liberals, Nationals and Labor accept that there is no future, no jobs and no hope in this dying and polluting industry of last century.
“This is a wake up call. Coal is not good for humanity and it is not good for Australia. By failing to reduce pollution we are losing investment, jobs and huge opportunities for a clean energy economy.
“Any political party that supports opening up the Galilee Basin with huge open cut mines or building new mega coal ports is blinded by the coal dust that is driving global warming, destroying jobs and making life harder for our kids.
“The UK’s cross party agreement will shame Australia and our government that is ignoring global warming science in order to protect the profits of its big polluter mates. They are polluting the planet for free.
“The fact that this kind of agreement can be reached in the UK while the Liberal Party in Australia deny global warming science shows just what a millstone they are around the neck of the nation.
“The UK cross party agreement is hugely significant because it bridges the political divide, legislates for carbon budgets, accepts that we need to reduce pollution urgently and faces up to the reality that coal is bad for humanity.”
• Jon Sumby, in Comments: This announcement is about a ‘promise’ and a ‘pledge’ that has no action date, i.e. sometime in the future. Furthermore it applies only to coal-fired power stations that do not use ‘Carbon Capture and Storage’ (CCS). Ten years ago, CCS was a technology on the cusp of reality ‘in a decade’. It still is on the cusp of reality ‘in a decade’. The best CCS technology tests only gets around 1/4 of the carbon out of the emissions… and then that has to be stored somewhere; anyone remember the idea pumping it underground? To me this announcement, resoundlingly cheered by all and sundry, is very similar to the promise, made by Bob Hawke in 1987; ‘By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty.’
