Page 1620 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 2 June 2021
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renewable energy? And why do the Greens continue to support more diesel fossil-fuel buses to the ACTION fleet, even though these buses will be around beyond our zero emissions target date?
The International Energy Agency’s landmark report Net Zero by 2050—A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector states that even by 2050 fossil fuels will play a role as we reach net zero. It is worth noting what the IEA reveals that net zero means a huge decline in the use of fossil fuels, dropping from almost four-fifths of the total energy supply today to slightly over one-fifth by 2050, and that fossil fuels that remain in 2050 are used in goods where carbon is embodied in the product, such as plastics, and sectors where low emissions technology options are scarce. It also notes that fossil fuels will continue to play a role in heavy industry, construction and transport where emissions are hardest to abate, and that we need to invest in technologies to mitigate those emissions rather than banning them outright. This includes carbon capture and storage, which Labor’s national platform is committed to but the Greens oppose.
Critically, the IEA has been crystal clear in stating that action is required. The executive director of the IEA has remarked in the Sydney Morning Herald that the gap between rhetoric and what is happening in the real world, is just getting larger. He has said:
When I look at all the countries which have come up with targets and commitments, very few of them have credible energy policies put in place.
There is no point in feel-good targets with no road map to achieve them. As I said earlier, there is no point in climate acts when the Greens, Labor and the minister ignore the legislative requirement to review their own laws. The Canberra Liberals support a target of net zero emissions by 2045 and we agree that we need a comprehensive plan to get there—one that is achieved with genuine community input, tripartisan consultation and legislative review. Finally, it says everything about the priorities of this Labor-Greens government that they would rather make believe that the ACT Legislative Assembly is the UN General Assembly instead of taking genuine action on pressing issues that directly affect Canberrans, including rising electricity prices, increased costs of living, housing and homelessness, hospital waiting times and worrying education standards.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (3.41): I am proud to speak in support of this motion today. We face a climate emergency—as we recognised here in the Assembly in May 2019—and we need urgent and transformative change to protect life as we know it. For too long we have been burning fossil fuels and damaging natural ecosystems in the name of industrialisation and continued economic growth, with little thought for future generations, other species or the Earth that supports us.
The consequences of these actions are shockingly clear. Our climate is changing. Here in the ACT, as Ms Clay has outlined, we are already experiencing some of those projected impacts, including extreme heat, intense and devastating bushfires, and impending loss of native species. Globally, the impacts are equally stark, and they are reported on a regular basis in the media—sea-level rise, the loss of ice, the thawing of the tundra and the retreat of glaciers. All of these are being reported and measured at
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