The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released its first detailed analysis of Australian energy market in five years. It is not complimentary. Australia’s energy policy, it says, is uncoordinated and falling behind the rest of the world on many measures. The IEA is not given to overstatement. It is an OECD agency established in 1974 […]
15 February, 2018
Local Government Super (LGS), the industry superannuation fund for NSW local government employees, has won two environmental awards for its property portfolio. It has been awarded a 5-Star Green Star rating for its entire direct property portfolio – the first portfolio in Australia to achieve the rating. It has also been named Australia’s ‘Best Green […]
11 February, 2018
The National Electricity Market (NEM) is under fire from many quarters. A new parliamentary report has criticised many aspects of its operation, and now Tasmania’s Liberal Government has said that if returned to office after the 3 March election it will withdraw the state entirely from the NEM by 20121. Tasmania, which has abundant hydroelectric […]
5 February, 2018
The Cities Power Partnership (CPP), a consortium of Australian local government authorities to encourage the use of renewable energy, has increased its number of members to 70, exactly double the number that signed up when the group was formed in July 2017. Numbers are likely to grow even more after the next round of applications […]
28 January, 2018
Record-breaking temperatures across Australia have seen no end to the continued bickering over climate and energy policy in Australia. The release of Keating-era cabinet papers from 1994 show that the Governmnet was struggling with how to address the issue even then. In 1992, Environment Minister Ros Kelly had signed Australia up to the new UN […]
11 January, 2018
The Federal Government’s current energy policy says it is ‘technology agnostic’, and that carbon fuels will have a continued role as energy sources well into the future. It talks often of ‘clean coal’ and of carbon capture, technologies that are intended to reduce the emissions of exist fossil fuel energy sources. Despite these technologies being […]
13 December, 2017
The Climate Council of Australia has called on the Government to release Australia’s latest quarterly carbon emissions data, saying that its failure to do so amounts to ‘climate censorship’. Meanwhile, independent modelling using the same methodology as that used by the Department of Environment and Energy shows that Australia’s emissions are rising. “Australia’s greenhouse gas […]
10 December, 2017
Widespread public sector usage of electric vehicles (EVs) has moved a step closer after members of the Climate Action Roundtable signed an agreement to accelerate their implementation in government agencies. South Australia, Western Australia, the ACT, Adelaide and Hobart signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Electric Vehicle Council at a meeting in Adelaide on […]
4 December, 2017
The City of Sydney, City of Darwin and Brisbane City Council have all joined the Cities Power Partnership, and initiative of the Climate Council to encourage Local Government Authorities to promote the use of clean energy. There are now 58 councils in the Partnership, representing 7 million people. “With almost 30 percent of the population […]
30 November, 2017
Australia faces at least six more months without a national energy policy. The meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Energy Council deferred until April 2018 any decision on whether to adopt the Federal Government’s National Energy Guarantee (NEG) plan. The states did not sign up for the NEG, but asked for more modelling, […]
26 November, 2017
The Council of Australian Government Energy Council meets in Hobart this Friday (24 November) to try to bring some order to Australia’s fractious energy policy. It will be the first meeting held since the announcement of the Federal Government’s National Electricity Guarantee (NEG). The Government is promoting the NEG as an alternative to the Chief […]
20 November, 2017
Australia is a laggard compared to other countries when it comes to encouraging the use of electric vehicles (EVs). The ACT is the only jurisdiction in Australia which offers any sort of incentive to motorists to go electric. This is in stark contrast to most of the rest of the developed world. Most countries in […]
5 November, 2017
Influential energy and climate economist Professor Ross Garnaut says Western Australia should adopt a state based emissions intensity scheme. He is recommending and Emissions Intensity Scheme (EIS) for the state. Professor Garnaut said WA could lead the world as a clean energy superpower. He believes its vast resources of renewable energy, and its isolation from […]
4 November, 2017
They didn’t make a big deal of it, but the Productivity Commission’s new five-year overview report, commissioned by the Federal Government, has recommended the introduction of a carbon price. The productivity commission is of course an advisory body, and the Government has explicitly ruled out a price on carbon or anything that can even remotely […]
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