At a time when we have a government in Canberra that appears to be ideologically opposed to supporting Australia’s renewable energy industry, the news that Australia’s largest wind turbine manufacturer has been forced to sack over 100 workers owing to uncertainty around the renewable energy target is surely a sign of things to come.
The sacking of 100 workers from the Keppel Prince wind turbine factory in Portland is a massive blow for a region that already has a very high unemployment rate. These workers have become the latest victims of the Abbott government’s refusal to put its fossil fuel ideology aside and provide certainty for Australia’s fledgling renewables industry.
And it’s not only regional areas that are suffering from the dithering over the RET. The big end of town is anxious about the paralysis too. Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, which has significant interests in clean energy, has called for clarity on the RET, saying “certainty of rules” was crucial for investors.
Another energy giant, AGL, has delivered a blunter message to decision-makers on both sides of politics. AGL chairman Jerry Maycock said lack of certainty around the RET made investing in the sector risky.
“Frankly, unless the Government and the Opposition can get a meeting of the minds on this, we're not going to see much more investment in the meantime,” he said. “The uncertainty and the risk for investors is just too high and we need to get clarity and some certainty back into the government regulations.”
Yet earlier this week Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane put forward the government’s current position on the RET, and not only did it fail to provide any certainty, it actually reinforced the renewable energy industry’s gravest fears. Under Macfarlane’s plan the amount of renewable energy generated by 2020 would be nearly halved from 41000 gigawatt hours to around 26000. Moreover, the Coalition’s vision for the RET would potentially turn it into a ‘floating’ target, meaning investors would be denied any real financial certainty.
These amendments could have been written by the executives of Australia’s worst polluting power stations. They’ve got fair incentive. Research released this year by the ACF, WWF and The Climate Institute showed that if the RET is cut, the owners of Australia’s aging and inefficient coal-fired power stations would be set to increase their profits by up to $8 billion. Figures like this start to explain where the real pressure to cut clean energy might be coming from. It’s certainly not coming from the community, whose support for clean energy is at record highs demonstrated by numerous polling.
If the Government’s aim is to kill the renewable energy industry in Australia this sets us on the right path to do so. While Tony Abbott proudly touts the coal industry as being “good for the future of humanity” it would seem this hyperbole is contingent on the parallel death of the renewables industry.
These policies are not occurring in a vacuum. They are setting Australia on a course to be a global outlier on climate change, clinging to our dirty and inefficient fossil fuel past just as the rest of the world is waking up to the serious threat of climate change, making changes and moving forward. Germany for example has shown that it is possible to fast track moves away from fossil fuels and has recently achieved 25 per cent of its energy sourced from renewables.
Meanwhile, Australia now rates below Algeria, Myanmar and Thailand for clean energy investment due to the uncertainty caused by the Abbott government’s position.
The harsher political reality the Abbott government has not yet faced is that the Renewable Energy Target, originally a policy of the Howard Coalition government, was working as intended, with investors spending billions on new clean energy projects in Australia, creating jobs and cutting pollution.
The government’s RET proposal as it currently stands would squash Australia’s great potential in clean energy development. The Abbott government faces a clear and stark choice: listen to the vast majority of Australians who want less pollution, more clean energy and new jobs, or back a handful of big polluters whose only interest is increasing the profit margin from their aging infrastructure.
Victoria McKenzie-McHarg is Climate Change Manager for the Australian Conservation Foundation.
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