Australia passes first climate legislation in over a decade
The bill, drafted by the Labor Party-led coalition that took power in May, mandates that Australia cut greenhouse gas emissions 43 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050. The country’s Energy and Climate Minister, Chris Bowen, will be required to provide lawmakers with a progress report each year, and government agencies must now take the new emissions targets into account when making financial and development decisions.
Although Australia’s new targets are still behind those of the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, officials have framed them as a symbolic breakthrough. The bill’s passage “sends a message to the world that Australia is serious about driving down emissions, and serious about reaping the economic opportunities from affordable renewable energy,” Bowen said in a statement.
The last time the country passed global warming legislation was in 2011, when it adopted a national carbon pricing scheme that was repealed two years later. Since then, a series of catastrophic climate-related disasters has highlighted the need for urgent action. Massive wildfires in 2019 and 2020 burned 42 million acres and killed nearly 3 billion animals. This year, record-breaking flooding forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Australia’s National Science Agency has predicted that natural disasters exacerbated by climate change could cost the country $39 billion a year by midcentury.
Although environmental advocates have applauded the new climate pollution targets, many have stressed that more work is needed to flesh out how to reach them. Over the next few months, policymakers are expected to make decisions on how to ratchet down climate pollution from industrial facilities and potentially block new coal mines and natural gas infrastructure. Read original full article
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#Greenhouse Gas Emissions
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Atlantis Viewpoint
It is good to see Australia making good strides towards less emissions, a huge turn away from the previous government’s direction. But as always, the figures are quite vague to the general reader and 'Net Zero' can mean still a lot of air pollution and greenhouse gases being released even by 2050.
Australia has a huge amount of solar potential and large areas of land that would be perfect for Concentrated Solar Power farms. These can provide the local area with clean water for farming or domestic use, clean electricity to power homes and businesses and even produce completely green hydrogen as an 'on demand' power source or a clean gas that can be transported and used nationally or internationally.
Australia needs to stop looking at coal as a way to support their economy and start selling the immense solar power that covers the land almost the entire year.
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