Page 245 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
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want them to. A number of local government regions in Australia have adopted the Kyoto targets and some have gone further; for example, Bega. New Zealand has just adopted a zero emissions target, the first country in the world to do so. Clearly, this country did not think it was too small to make a difference.
While Kyoto sets the target of 60 per cent reduction by 2050, and this is endorsed by the Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change, a great deal of scientific evidence suggests that this is not enough to avert the worst impact of climate change. Furthermore, any action must start now. There is a lag of decades before the impact of today’s emissions will have their full impact, and even then carbon stays in the atmosphere for around 200 years. The news is bad but we must be optimistic and put in place the right policy settings if we want to take people on this journey with us, as the Chief Minister says he wants to do in his foreword to the “Climate Change” discussion paper released at the beginning of last year.
Allen Consulting recommended that to save our economies we need to start acting now rather than making sudden changes later. New South Wales has set targets equivalent to the Kyoto targets. New South Wales has set a mandatory renewable energy target of 10 per cent by 2010 and 15 per cent by 2020.
Members interjecting—
DR FOSKEY: It will be interesting to see how you amend a motion when you have not even listened to my speech on that motion. That energy target is too little but it may be sufficient to kick-start the renewable energy industries which can then be picked up by the market, but governments must start the process.
The Howard Government’s dismantling of the MRET was a kick in the teeth for a very promising industry, much of it rooted in Canberra, and now our technologies are being developed offshore, and that is where the profits stay too. Because Canberra lacks heavy electricity using industries we can afford a higher target and sooner—perhaps 15 per cent by 2012, 20 per cent by 2016 and 25 per cent by 2020. We could develop our excellent solar industries, put research in the forefront and make the ACT a testing ground for renewable energy technologies for which the world is hungry.
Not having a coalmining industry is definitely a plus for the ACT in tackling the climate crisis. Our major energy industry is solar. Let us get behind it. Many Canberra businesspeople see the potential for a thriving sustainable technology sector in the ACT. We can turn the clever city to the service of the world. The ACT has the people, the institutions, the innovative entrepreneurs and, I believe, the funds to invest to become a centre of sustainability industries and a model for Australia and internationally in sustainable urban planning.
I see there is a problem with the amendment. I was trying to alert the minister’s office to that problem before I came into the chamber. This is an opportunity to expand our secondary industry sector, again with a kick-start, by supporting innovative structures like cooperatives and social partnerships. At the same time, we can augment our vocational education training centre to specialise in sustainability, training people not just for our city and region but for the rest of Australia and the world.
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