Is direct action enough?

Australian Federal, State and Local Governments could have taken or supported mitigation far more seriously but have not done so. Consequently the efficiency with which electricity is used has shown far less improvement than it could have.

It remains open to government to use LED lights for all public sector lighting, including street lighting and lighting in all offices owned or occupied by government or government-owned enterprises and public housing. Such a move would reduce the impost placed on tax and rate payers and increase the profitability of public enterprises.

The use of solar hot water and photo voltaic panels on private sector house roofs is becoming commonplace, yet no State or Territory mandates their inclusion on the roofs of new dwellings in their building regulations. Amendment of the regulations to ensure their inclusion would marginally increase the cost of housing but it would also improve their value on sale and reduce the need for electricity supplied from the grid, largely produced by coal fired power stations.

All cities in Australia include infrastructure for the distribution of gas primarily used for heating, both domestic and industrial. Irrespective of age or location, that infrastructure leaks methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas. These emissions have not been quantified and infrastructure owners are not required to prevent them.

Conclusion

Australia is at the cutting edge of advancing the efficiency of photovoltaic cells. It is a leader in research into development of high density, rapid charging storage devices. Rather than encouraging these developments, making Australia a leader in these areas and creating new industries, government actively works to ensure that the future is coal. It is very likely that the emissions described above displace the purchases made by Direct Action. This gives rise to the following questions:

• Why is public policy inimical to reducing carbon emissions, adoption of clean energy solutions and shoring-up the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal?
• Why spend $2.55 billion on Direct Action if it is unlikely to meet the very modest and totally inadequate carbon reduction targets set by the Australian government for 2020 and 2030?
• Can we really believe government assurances that Direct Action is the most cost-effective and efficient way of reducing the nations carbon emissions?

If Direct Action fails to adequately curb carbon emissions – as seems possible - it is open to States and Territories, acting individually or in concert, to introduce their own ETS schemes. They have previously done so. Their schemes generated useful revenue, now spurned by a debt-ridden Commonwealth government for ideological reasons. State schemes did reduce emissions. They were only abandoned when the Federal (Rudd) government determined that it would introduce a national scheme in 2007.

The Commonwealth may resist such moves but if they do one should ask why. Could it be that the ERF is being used inefficiently? Are its funds being disbursed in a way which amounts to little more than a hand-out (particularly for the farm sector) that achieves very little by way of new emissions reductions?