11 March 2009

Cutting global emissions is a marathon: we need to get fit enough to finish it says clean energy industry

NATIONAL: Cutting global greenhouse emissions is an international marathon that will only be achieved if developed economies like Australia are fit enough to finish the race on time.

Australia’s priority should therefore be to immediately commit to an aggressive training regime of energy efficiency and deploying and developing clean energy technologies to speed up the transition to a carbon costed economy.

Clean Energy Council (CEC) Chief Executive Matthew Warren said the release of the federal government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) draft legislation today highlights the importance of getting on with effective renewable energy targets and other complementary measures.

“This is a marathon, not a sprint. Developing a national trading scheme ahead of a global framework is clearly challenging and may have significant consequences for emissions and the economy.

“It’s important to make a start but it’s more important to finish the race well and deliver the emissions reduction at the lowest possible cost.

Our first priority should be to get the economy fit enough to do this. Setting challenging targets might sound impressive but it doesn’t mean much if we can’t deliver them.”

The clean energy industry is working with government to resolve a number of specific design features in both the CPRS and the government’s draft Renewable Energy Target (RET) legislation.

“We should be realistic about the scale and complexity of the challenge at hand and stop pretending that there is a simple and perfect scheme that is easily deployed and ready to go,” Mr Warren said.

“We expect to be debating the details of domestic and global emissions trading scheme design for at least the next decade. But we can and should start saving energy and increase the take-up of clean technologies today.”

Attachment : CPRS draft legislation MR 100309.pdf (application/pdf - 94.88kb)