The NSW Government will push for a national energy efficiency target scheme but, in the meantime, will press ahead with plans for its own scheme starting on January 1, according to a state government discussion paper.
To its fans, the Productivity Commission has provided a much-needed reality check on ill-conceived environmental policies. To its critics, it has too often failed to consider crucial environmental costs and benefits.
CE Daily talks to the commission’s sustainability commissioner, Neil Byron, about why it never initiated research into emissions trading, what its energy efficiency inquiry didn’t cover and its upcoming high-level conference on delivering better environmental outcomes.
As the G8 summit looms, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair releases a report telling G8 leaders the world needs a radical solution – involving cleaner coal and nuclear power – that steers the world away from carbon dependency.
Meanwhile, California outlines plans for a 30% emissions cut by 2020.
NSW is making it mandatory for companies to implement energy savings measures. But are the company energy savings plans that list these projects out of date? Has the state government ensured a level playing field by scheduling all companies that trigger the threshold? And has too much grant money been redirected from business to households?
Meanwhile, Australia's energy ministers are sitting on a cost-benefit analysis of the merits of a mandatory energy efficiency measure.
The NSW government will carve out and strengthen the energy efficiency component of its Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme into a new energy efficiency target scheme involving tradeable certificates.
It will also require the state's top 200 energy users to implement identified energy savings measures, under a plan unveiled by NSW Premier Morris Iemma today.
Australia's energy ministers have put on hold a national industry mandatory energy efficiency scheme that would require industry to make investments with a payback of three years or less.
Averting runaway climate change requires "nothing short of an energy revolution", according to a Greenpeace report to be launched in Sydney today by Australia Institute founder Clive Hamilton and Greens Senator Christine Milne.
