Pushing renewables
Which means more money wasted on subsidising solar panels and wind farms, both hopeless for baseload electricity generation. But at least she talks vague sense on an ETS and acknowledges that there isn’t a consensus for a price on carbon… yet.
Labor sources have confirmed the focus of her pitch for the environment vote will be on renewables — boosting the use of solar and wind power to help meet the government’s pledge to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
But arguing that community consensus is “not there yet” on an ETS, Ms Gillard yesterday backed the need to put a price on carbon to encourage businesses to change their practices; she offered no timetable on delivering one.
The newly-installed Prime Minister said yesterday she accepted “my fair share” of the responsibility for the decision to delay the introduction of an ETS, a policy backflip that coincided with a collapse in Kevin Rudd’s polling.
Asked if it were true she had argued for the ETS to be dumped as part of the Rudd government’s powerful kitchen cabinet, Ms Gillard confirmed she had.
“I was concerned that if you were going to do something as big to your economy as put a price on carbon, with the economic transformation that implies, with changing the way in which we live, you need a lasting and deep community consensus to do it,” she told the Nine Network.
“And I don’t believe we have that lasting and deep community consensus now.
“Now, I believe we should have a price on carbon, and I will be prepared to argue for a price on carbon . . . so that we get to that lasting and deep community consensus, but we are not there yet.”
Ms Gillard pledged that she would soon be making further statements on new policy measures to “address the challenge of climate change”.
“I am not a denier — I am not a denier, but I’m someone who believes that you have got to take the community with you when you make lasting and deep changes,” she said.
All I can say is that it’s extraordinary to hear Gillard use the word “denier” in the context of her own beliefs, especially after her post-ETS vote down speech (see here).
Read it here.
Australian Climate Madness 
I know this is probably a case of my being picky, but what gets up my nose is the way (most of) these politicians, (and also media commentators) refer to it as ‘Carbon’.
It’s Carbon Dioxide.
Just saying the word Carbon indicates that they have no real concept even of what they are talking about, otherwise they would give it the correct title.
I seriously wonder how they would react if a price was placed on Carbon, as they say it.
Set the Price at, say, Garnaut’s $25 per tonne.
Do the math for say, Eraring.
They burn 7.5 million tons of coal each year.
Each ton of coal produces 2.86 tons of CO2, hence 21.5 million tons of CO2.
$25 per ton makes around $540 Million, each year.
Eraring bean counters then say, well, all they want is for the Carbon content so 30% of $540 million means all we owe them is $162 Million.
I’m willing to bet they’ll start calling it Carbon Dioxide quicker than you can blink.
Incidentally, just to produce the electricity we here in Australia consume, then just from the coal fired sector alone, we burn 90 million tons of coal, producing 260 million tons of CO2. Add on the CO2 from the Natural Gas fired sector and that amount approaches 300 million tons of CO2.
At Garnaut’s $25 per ton that raise the Government $7.5 Billion each year.
Electrical power produces one third of emitted CO2.
So now that cost on Carbon (dioxide) comes in at around $25 Billion.
Sorta adds some perspective as to why the Government so badly wants to introduce the CPRS.
It’s not about the environment. It’s just about the money.
Prime Minister, please get it right.
It’s Carbon DIOXIDE.
@TonyfromOz: Completely agree. Sloppy language intended to mislead the public.
Central solar based power does not work. Also new techs, like
http://www.ecowho.com/blogs/56/Quantum_dot_solar_cells_-_is_this_the_breakthrough%3F/-f5c4e
are coming through – making it more likely to have local solar power generation in the future..
As for wind, its a very poor second compared to solar – we have lots of sun on most days, no moving parts to harvest solar energy, lasts for ages, etc
Perhaps she should be paying a weeeeeeee bit of attention to what’s going on in Toronto…
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/g-20-ministers-on-agw-payments-gtfo/