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Saturday, June 27, 2009

America’s Top Climate Scientist Arrested

Dr James Hansen, one of the world’s most respected climate scientists (who raised the alarm on climate change in the US Congress 20 years ago) was arrested together with a 94 year old former congressman, Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah and around 30 others at a protest against mountaintop removal coal mining on the 22nd of June.

Dr. James Hansen arrested outside a coal plant (Rainforest Action Network)

The protesters sat down and blocked a road near the Goals Coal Plant in West Virginia, demanding that this destructive form of mining be stopped, due to the direct ecological damage it is causing and the urgent need to stop burning coal in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.

"I am not a politician; I am a scientist and a citizen," said Hansen, who is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.

"Politicians may have to advocate for halfway measures if they choose. But it is our responsibility to make sure our representatives feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not what is politically expedient," Hansen told a crowd of about 350 people gathered at Marsh Fork Elementary. "Mountaintop removal, providing only a small fraction of our energy, should be abolished."

Thank you Dr. Hansen.

For those of us that want to follow Dr. Hansen’s brave example, sign up at beyontalk.net and come along to the peaceful community protest at Hazelwood Power Station on 12-13 of September this year.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Climate Science Updated

The synthesis report from the March 2009 climate change conference has now been released. This is one of the most important publications since the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. Click here to download a copy.

The message from the world's climate scientists couldn't be clearer. The Earth is warming at an accelerating rate, and climate change is happening faster than previously predicted. To avoid ecological, social and economic catastrophe, we need to act now to reduce emissions, and that means, primarily, burning less fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable energy technologies.

The Yarra Valley Climate Action Group has prepared a summary of the synthesis report, available here.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

YCAN joins the Climate Justice Now network

Yarra Climate Action Now has recently joined the Climate Justice Now (CJN) network. The network was formed at the Bali climate negotiations in December 2007, and now has hundreds of organisational members from across the globe. It is led and coordinated by climate action groups and others in the developing world.

Climate Justice is based on the understanding that, while climate change requires global action, the historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions over the past 250 years lies with the developed countries like Australia. Cheap energy – in the form of oil, coal and gas – has been the engine of our rapid industrialisation and economic growth.

It is also the poorest communities that will face the worst impacts of climate change, and face them sooner than others. Climate Justice Now works to expose the false solutions to the climate emergency such as forest carbon markets, offsetting and agrofuels and pushes for solutions that will work, including:
  • leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate energy-efficiency and safe, clean and community-led renewable energy;
  • radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in the developed world, but also by developing world elites;
  • huge financial transfers from rich to poor countries, based on the repayment of climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, innovative taxes and debt cancellation;
  • rights-based resource conservation that enforces Indigenous land rights and promotes peoples' sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water; and
  • sustainable family farming and peoples' food sovereignty.

Yarra Climate Action Now has joined this network to show solidarity with those that are already bearing the brunt of climate change impacts, and to increase the pressure on the governments of the developed countries such as Australia, USA, Japan and Canada so they stop delaying and sabotaging a strong international agreement to reduce emissions and avoid runaway climate change.

If you would like to join the network, visit this website.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Time for Plan B

Condemning the Rudd Government’s response to climate change as ‘dangerously inadequate’, a coalition of environmental groups has put forward a compelling alternative response entitled Plan B: An Agenda for Immediate Climate Action.

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Wilderness Society and the state-based conservation councils including Environment Victoria were amongst the key organisations, together representing more than 400,000 Australians, backing the alternative plan.

Plan B puts forward a range of policies and actions that can be taken immediately to halve Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade. These include:

Prioritising saving energy
  • Cutting energy use in manufacturing, commercial buildings and homes by 30% using available technology, with an average payback time of four years
  • Minimum 7-star rating for new homes and 5-star for commercial buildings, schools, hospitals and warehouses

Fast-tracking the switch to a renewable energy economy
  • Doubling the Renewable Energy Target to 90,000 GWh by 2020
  • A moratorium on new coal-fired power stations

Driving the shift to low emissions vehicles and sustainable cities
  • Adopting an emissions intensity target for new cars of 130grams per km by 2012 and investing in electric vehicles and public transport

Protecting our forests and woodlands as a carbon store and making agriculture part of the solution
  • Ending logging of old growth forests and major land clearing of mature and regrowth forests, woodlands and grasslands by 2011
  • Incentives for minimising the carbon and energy intensity of farming and agriculture

Growing the green job economy
  • The creation of nearly a million ‘green jobs’

The environment groups behind Plan B have called on the Rudd Government to abandon the fundamentally flawed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) which rewards big polluters and includes loopholes such as allowing unlimited carbon credits to be bought overseas.

This strong condemnation of the CPRS in its current form is consistent with the message put forward by Yarra Climate Action Now alongside 65 other climate action groups around Australia in a letter sent to Kevin Rudd in May.

The Rudd Government needs to let go of its flawed and irredeemable CPRS – it’s time for Plan B.

National Climate Emergency Rally


Yesterday’s National Climate Emergency Rally saw thousands of Australians take to the streets to demand the Rudd Government recognise climate change for the emergency it is, take the Carbon Pollution Rewards Scheme back to the drawing board, and take much stronger action to create green jobs and a switch to 100% renewable energy by 2020.

Rallies were held in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart and Wollongong.

Damien Lawson’s opinion piece published in The Age today sums up the sentiments of protestors: Stop wasting time and save the planet Mr Rudd

For photos of the event click here, here and here.

The rallies received media attention in Australia and internationally, see:

BBC - Australians demand climate action
Reuters India - Australians demand more action on climate change

ABC Online - Wong defends policy amid climate change protests
The Sydney Morning Herald - Activists call for green jobs
The West Australian - Hundreds rally in Perth for climate action

...and compilation of TV coverage in Sydney


Thursday, June 4, 2009

Be there, or be Heather Ridout*!

6 months to Copenhagen and a crucial vote on the terrible Carbon Pollution Law in the Senate. Now is the time to show you care.

National Climate Emergency Rally
1pm, Saturday June 13, State Library, Melbourne



If you have thought of taking action on climate change, now is the time. Drought, bushfires, floods and rising seas are already hitting hard. It’s an emergency and we need emergency action.

In December 2009, governments of the world will meet in Copenhagen to create a new global climate agreement. Australia must support, not stop, strong global action.

We can tackle the recession and climate change together. Direct investment in renewable energy will create jobs, stimulate the economy and begin to create the carbon-free economy of the future.

100% renewable energy by 2020
Australia must make the shift from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy from wind, solar and other available technologies.

Green collar jobs not job cuts
We can renew our economy by creating hundreds of thousands of ‘green jobs’ and supporting workers to make a fair and just transition to sustainable industries.

Strong international action with climate justice
Australia must take the lead in global climate talks, not undermine them with an ineffective 5%-25% target. Globally, we must to listen those who are most affected by climate change and least responsible for it.

Don’t pass the Carbon Pollution law
We need climate policies that make the big polluters pay and not allow big companies to go on polluting. The CPRS won’t reduce Australia’s greenhouse pollution.

Protect Australia’s Forests
Logging and clearing vegetation are major contributors to climate change as forests and woodlands are essential carbon stores.


1pm Saturday, June 13, State Library
Only a strong and growing movement for change will make a difference. Come with your friends and family to the Rally. Help promote the rally in your community.

Speakers and entertainment includes:
Peter Marshall - United Firefighters Union, Emeretta Cross -Tuvaluan climate activist, David Spratt - author Climate Code Red, Greens leader Senator Bob Brown, Rod Quantock - Melbourne comedian and Taegen Edwards - Yarra Climate Action Now.
Music by Melting Pot.

Weldon, first published in The Big Issue

* Heather Ridout is the Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group. She has lobbied successfully against meaningful climate change action by the Rudd Government. She doesn't care how badly climate change will affect the world's people and species, as long as her members keep making massive profits.

We want a real solar feed-in tariff!

The Brumby State Government continues to support an ineffective solar feed-in tariff, that just won't do the job to encourage the take-up of solar panels across the state. As was reported in The Age this week, the Minister for Coal Industry Profits, Peter Batchelor has said that if the amendments to the tariff put forward by the Greens pass the State Upper House (with support from the opposition parties) then the solar feed-in tariff scheme will be pulled completely.

Yarra Climate Action Now has written to the State Member for Richmond, Richard Wynne, to ask the State Government to support the amendments and pass a scheme that will actually work to encourage clean solar energy. An abridged version of the letter is below. For the full version send us an email or leave a comment on this post.

This is a no-brainer really. We encourage all members of the public to email their local member in support of a gross solar feed-in tariff.

To see our previous posts on this issue with links to further information click here and here, and see Environment Victoria's web site.


Dear Richard,

The reason for this letter is the government’s failure to deliver on its clear election commitment to introduce an effective gross feed-in tariff to stimulate the growth of clean renewable solar electricity in the State of Victoria.

At the last election the Victorian State Labor Government committed itself to the institution of a ‘German style’ gross feed-in tariff to promote privately generated solar electricity. As is well known by now the institution of such a tariff which commits electricity generation and distribution companies to purchase all privately generated solar electricity at a premium rate was the centre-piece of the rapid expansion of photovoltaic solar electricity generation in Germany over the last decade and a half. This imposed small cost increases on conventionally generated electricity but created a great deal of employment in a rapidly expanding industry.

For reasons best known to itself after an acrimonious and difficult debate between proponents and opponents of such a scheme within the State Government, the Government finally adopted a position that committed the relevant industry bodies to purchase back from private generators only solar electricity generated in excess of requirement. In other words they would pay for that electricity that entered the grid and take as a free gift the reduction in overall demand generated by the installation of the equipment in the first place.

The government did this despite advice that such a scheme – known as a net feed in tariff – would do nothing to stimulate change to clean renewable solar electricity. It did this in the full knowledge that such a measure would discourage local investment by overseas producers of solar panels that the government was seeking. The rationale for rejecting a gross feed in tariff for a net feed in tariff was that introduction of the former would cost low income households too much in increased energy bills. This occurred despite credible informed advice to the contrary and the example of Germany where this did not happen. The justification for this action was a set of figures produced at the last minute by Energy Minister Peter Batchelor the source and basis for which are unknown and which Batchelor has consistently refused to discuss with the press, hiding behind spokespeople from his staff.

There is still an opportunity to salvage the solar laws as they pass through Parliament, so that we can develop a thriving solar industry in Victoria. The importance of making the Brumby Government’s solar laws meaningful for industry is now even more critical given the Federal Government’s plan to cut the solar rebate scheme as of 1 July 2009, and replace it with a less effective Solar Credits Scheme – effectively halving the support for small-scale solar installations. In Victoria this scheme must be complementary to any renewable energy target that Victoria has, it is not one or the other, but both. The climate science demands a transition to 100% renewable energy as soon as possible. We need to be taking emergency action now.

If the Government’s proposed solar laws pass through the Parliament in their current form, they will do little to support solar power, the solar industry development, or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We call on you, as our elected representative in the State Parliament, to work to implement the amendments to the legislation proposed by Environment Victoria, the Alternative Technology Association, the Moreland Energy Foundation and the Electrical Trades Union that are summarized below.

1. Allow business and community organisations to participate in the scheme.
The Brumby Government’s model excludes business, local government and community organisations like churches, from participating. This restriction should be removed to encourage all sectors to invest in renewable energy.

Premier Bracks made clear during the 2006 election campaign that small businesses would be included in the scheme. The Brumby Government must deliver on this election commitment, and also allow for the inclusion of community buildings in the scheme.


2. Increase the system size limit for the 60c per kWh tariff to 10kW.
The Brumby Government’s Bill excludes any solar systems of more than 3.2kW. This will effectively deter households from installing larger systems - a ludicrously perverse incentive for a scheme that is supposed to encourage solar power.


3. Make the 60c per kWh payable on gross, not just net generation.
The Victorian Government has shunned the experience of over 40 nations with feed-in tariffs and has decided to pay the tariff only on the excess generation of solar electricity that is fed back into the grid, rather than on all of the electricity generated.

The Government’s own departmental and independent advice (leaked to The Age earlier this year) stated that the proposed ‘net’ feed-in tariff would do nothing to increase the uptake of solar power in Victoria to 2020. This advice also found that the ‘gross’ feed-in tariff would lead to a seven fold increase in Victoria’s solar uptake to 2020.


4. Ensure that the small-scale renewable energy producers included in the scheme are actually paid for the electricity they generate.
Under the government’s proposed scheme, those eligible for the 60c tariff for feeding electricity into the grid would not actually be paid. The legislation suggests that a customer would receive a credit on their electricity bill if they fed energy into the grid. This amount would roll over to the next bill if it was not used.

However, if this credited amount of electricity was not used within 12 months, or if the customer changed retailer it would simply evaporate. The customer is left with nothing. For an energy efficient household with a 3.0kW system this lost credit could amount up to $600 and would establish a perverse incentive for the householder to consume more energy towards the end of the twelve-month period.


Failure to rectify these flaws in the proposed legislation would make it difficult to escape the conclusion that, despite its election commitments and the positive effects springing from them in terms of employment growth and industrial investment, this government is committed to avoiding meaningful action to promote the growth of clean renewable solar electricity.

Thus far the Brumby Government has a lamentable record on climate change action (as opposed to rhetoric). The voters in the Seat of Richmond are aware of the climate science and want urgent, emergency action to prevent runaway climate change and create green jobs. We hope that you will heed this letter and finally begin to fulfill a clear and unambiguous election commitment to support the growth of the solar electricity industry by introducing an effective gross feed-in tariff.

Yours faithfully,
Yarra Climate Action Now