Yarra Climate Action Now!

Steve and Naomi from Rising Tide reporting from Bolivia

Some countries around the world are feeling the effects of climate change more than others, yet most of us are unaware of these struggles. Australia is doing relatively well coping with the current effects of climate change for now, at least compared to some low lying island nations or communities reliant on the melt waters from glaciers.

This was made amazingly clear at the Bolivian hosted World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, April 2010. Throughout the conference, people spoke about losing human rights due to water shortages. Glacier-fed drinking water disappearing as global warming melts the snowy peaks away.

We learned that one of the glaciers in the Andes mountain chain, Chacaltaya was once a popular ski field, but has completely disappeared, years earlier than scientists predicted. And according to these same scientists, in the next 20-30 years most of the glaciers right across the Andes will go, affecting access to water for 70 million people.

One woman was very direct when talking us. “What can we do to stop this?”

We considered Australia’s contribution to these climate problems. In Australia, we mine and burn coal as our number one energy source. We have some of the world’s largest per person carbon emissions due to our dirty energy supply. Even this seems insignificant compared to the coal we mine and export, releasing more CO2 than all of our domestic emissions combined.

Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, and state and federal governments are planning to expand this deadly industry, building roads and railways so we can send the coal to the ports faster, and pushing for new mines to be opened. That is, unless we stop them.

After a little scratching of our heads we turned back to the woman, “We could paint a banner with a glacier-fed community that reads, Please Stop Mining Coal, Climate Change is Taking Our Water”.

There was no going back now. This woman’s question set us on a path high into the Andes Mountains in search of an appropriate community. We found ourselves in the meeting room of local NGO Aqua Sustentable (Water Sustainability) explaining our odd sounding idea to strangers we hoped could help us in our quest to share this message with Australians back home.

Our enthusiasm caught on and days later we took off further up the mountains with their team. Within three hours we arrived at the Khapi community, passing seemingly endless fields of fresh growing food along the way. We learned the Khapi community is made up of about 40 families, all working together to grow their food, live in mud brick homes and use the glacier-fed water supply that literally flows right past their houses.

Upon arriving at the community, we were greeted by 30 smiling faces at the primary school. To begin, we gave a short presentation about Australia (and our world famous kangaroos) the coal industry, renewable alternatives and our climate change work back home. We spoke in English, another woman translated into Spanish, and then another young man spoke in the local Aymara language. Luckily, the photographs projected up onto the wall told most of the story.

It wasn’t a fun story to tell. Photos from near our home in the Hunter Valley NSW, showed open cut coal mining. Tiny spots in the dark hole were revealed to be enormous trucks hauling tones upon tones of coal. Huge smoke stacks spewing dark clouds of pollution. The more we told the story, the more the reality of what is going on really hit us.

The children seemed glued to the slides, including the photos of Australian banners. When we explained our banner idea they all cheered with excitement. They now had a chance to paint their own.



The kids loved it. We were very impressed with the way they concentrated to make the banner the best it could be. They were obviously very proud of their hard work, parading the banner around the community above their heads, laughing and carrying on.

They soon reached a special lookout where we could see the towering glacier in all its glory. Illimani.

After the laughter and joy we shared with the kids, it was sobering to hear the words of community leader Severino Cortez Bilbao. “Recently we've started thinking about our Illimani. Before it was pure white, right down to there. In the last 5 or 6 years it's suffered badly, it's all black. Some people don't think about it, but we are thinking about it, we're thinking about our children, those who will come after, because we're already getting on, we may not see what happens later on. If Illimani dries up, there'll be no water and no life, no life.”

This experience turned out to be far more than a banner painting exercise. It was life changing. We knew a little of warming events in mountainous regions of the world, but it was something else to visit a community where their glacier and water supply is disappearing before their eyes.

The challenge to support climate affected communities and to encourage action against climate change and coal mining is a large one, but the smiles of those children with the most to loose will stick with us for a while yet.

The campaign to Replace Hazelwood power station with renewable energy (and energy efficiency) is gathering strength. You may have seen the coverage in the media recently as well as Hazelwood’s owners’ outrageous attempt to sabotage energy efficiency programs.

Hazelwood brown coal-fired power station near Morwell is Australia’s most polluting power station. Replacing it with renewable energy and energy efficiency would reduce Victoria’s emissions by around 12% and Australia’s by 3%. If we want to reduce emissions, we must start by replacing Hazelwood.

To do this we need your help.

The state and federal Labor governments are now under pressure to act after Kevin Rudd's backflip on climate change.

So, now is the time to get the message out in the community.

http://www.climateactioncentre.org/iwanttodoorknock

Over the next two months local community climate groups are going to be doorknocking in the key inner city electorates of Melbourne.

Door knocking is easy, fun and one of the most effective ways of getting our message into the community and having an impact on politicians.

Here is how it works. We start at 1pm and do about an hour of training, we knock on doors for less than two hours (in pairs) and then get together for a cuppa or a drink and talk about how it went.
http://www.climateactioncentre.org/iwanttodoorknock

It's easy! Residents are friendly and usually very happy to take some information or sign the petition.

No prior experience or detailed technical knowledge about Hazelwood necessary – we will provide training and materials. Doorknocking will be done in pairs.

YCAN will be hosting two doorknocking sessions:
Saturday 19 June in Fitzroy, 1-4pm
Sunday 4 July in Richmond, 1-4pm

There is also doorknocking happening in Brunswick, Kensington, North Melbourne and Westgarth/Northcote.

So please join us on a coming Saturday or Sunday by clicking on the link below and registering to doorknock. There is also a video showing how it works below.

http://www.climateactioncentre.org/iwanttodoorknock

To find out more about doorknocking and the Hazelwood campaign go here http://www.climateactioncentre.org/replacehazelwood

Just under two weeks ago many of us at YCAN received a media release from Peter Batchelor, the Victorian Minister for Coal Industry Profits, trumpeting the recent Green Jobs Action Plan released in the State Budget on 4 May. As some environment groups had praised the plan, one of our members decided to investigate to see if the Brumby Government (as opposed to current form) had actually put forward a decent policy to tackle the climate crisis.

The State Budget announced several proposed water and energy efficiency measures. Most if not all of these initiatives are grouped under the heading ‘Jobs for the Future Economy - Victoria's Action Plan for Green Jobs’. Outside the ambit of the 'Jobs for the Future Economy' package Peter Batchelor proudly trumpets the hosting of the World Geothermal congress in 2015. Yes that's right a conference, in five years time.

The package allocates modest amounts to training and research but the proposed actions generally promote modest energy efficiency and water saving measures at the point of end use, the benefits of which are self-evident. These initiatives can be divided between limited term programs that last until the money runs out and a few driven by regulatory change and training programs that could be expected to have ongoing benefits. Modest but positive aspects of the package are the changes to landfill fees which seem likely to strengthen the recycling industry and the Green Door package from Planning Minister Madden which both tightens the climatic requirements of new housing and provides some training for builders relevant to the new regulatory regime. The rest however appears to be little more than pork barrelling. The total cost to government is projected to be $175 million and according to the Premier, “The program will achieve cost savings of more than $7 million per year through reduced energy and water consumption and save 130,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases each year”. Judging from the premier’s media release the package is projected to create ‘up to 700 (green) jobs’.

So how significant are these reductions in greenhouse gas emissions?

If we take the projected cost ($175 million) and divide it by the projected annual greenhouse gas emissions reduction (130,000 tonnes) we find the projected cost of mitigation is a staggering $1400/tonne.

If we compare the projected annual greenhouse gas emissions reduction (130,000 tonnes) to Victoria’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions (121.9 Mega tonnes) the projected reduction is about 0.1% of current total annual emissions. For Victoria to achieve its share of Kevin Rudd’s pathetic 5% emissions reduction using these measures would (by the Government’s own figures) cost $8.7 billion!

So to summarise – the major climate change policy of the Brumby Government in the latest state budget will reduce Victoria’s emissions by 0.1%!

Another example from this material is the seductively named ‘Solar Hubs’ program under which the Brumby Government proposes to allocate $5 million for the establishment of up to 10 ‘solar hubs’ around regional Victoria with grants of between $250,000 and $1 million. As these solar hubs are simply arrays of conventional domestic PV solar collectors the same as some of us have on our roofs it is not hard to do the sums. Approximately $15,000 buys about 1.6 kilowatts (kw) of generating capacity. Assuming that the government gets a good price from its suppliers perhaps $100,000 would buy 16kw of generating capacity. Scaling this up $1 million would buy 160kw and $5 million would buy 800kw of generating capacity. Allowing for 4 hours of collection this array of installations collects around 3.2Mw-hr daily. Multiply by 365 to get annual generation and we find that annual generation from this array would be around 1168 (say 1200) Mw-hr. Annual residential energy use in Victoria is around 164 Petajoules.

One petajoule = 277,778Mw-hr therefore annual domestic sector energy consumption, (164 petajoules) = 45,556,000 Mw-hr. The reduction in domestic energy demand resulting from the implementation of this program (1200Mw-hr) is miniscule. Given a projected annual rate of increase in domestic energy consumption of about 2.5% the solar hubs program would have to be multiplied by roughly 1000 to just cover the growth in energy demand! To follow this exercise in the absurd just one step further, just covering the projected annual increase in domestic (residential) energy consumption by expanding the Solar Hubs program would cost $5billion! These figures look incredible but we've checked several times.

The Brumby government is adopting a time-honored pre-election strategy of throwing money (as little as possible) at very carefully selected targets to give the misleading impression that they are addressing a problem that they think might impact on them electorally but which they have in reality chosen to avoid. Of course it can be argued that the primary intention of this package is the creation of environmentally responsible jobs. It is hard to judge whether $175 million spent on the creation of 'up to' 700 green jobs in regional Victoria is good value for money but as an exercise in emissions reduction (surely the primary measure of the 'green-ness' of a proposal) or as a demonstration of the government's ability to extract best value from green dollars invested, this package is very uneven.

In any case it is hard to take any policy seriously that proposes to reduce Victoria’s emissions by 0.1%.

Replacing Hazelwood Power Station with clean energy would reduce Victoria’s emissions by around 12%. It’s time Brumby committed to this.

The Federal Budget, handed down yesterday by Treasurer Wayne Swan, contains no significant climate change initiatives, and reduces funding for several existing programs such as the water tank and greywater system rebates, water recycling and stormwater harvesting programs, Landcare and the Natural Heritage Trust.

The much reported $652 million for renewable energy represents a tiny proportion of Australia's electricity consumption. This is so low as to be almost insignificant and pales in comparison with the call by over 40 organisations, including YCAN, for renewable energy funding at least as high as the national broadband network of $22 to $42 billion.

Funding for the fossil fuel industry is still higher under this budget than funding for renewable energy.

Below is a press release from the Victorian Climate Action Centre with some further information.


MEDIA RELEASE

Kevin Rudd's back flip on climate has not been addressed by Wayne Swan's Budget, the Climate Action Centre said today.

“Australian's angry and disappointed by Kevin Rudd's recent back flip on climate change will not be mollified by this Budget,” said Damien Lawson, coordinator, Climate Action Centre.

“Labor has again failed to take an opportunity to make polluters accountable by putting a price on carbon and cutting subsidies to the coal industry.”

“While there is some new money for energy efficiency and renewable energy in the Budget, it is only $652.5 million over four years, well short of what is needed.”

“The money does not really start to flow until 2012 and there is little detail on how it will be spent.”

“And there is still more money in the Budget for the fossil industry than for climate change, in fact those chasing the clean coal pipe dream still get about as much as the renewable energy sector.”

“Elsewhere the government has slashed $200 million from its Green Car Fund, and failed to put any money into the electric vehicle revolution this country needs.”

“There is no vision for a zero carbon economy in this Budget just more of the same quarry vision that we had under the Howard government.”

“The public will see through this attempt to green wash the Labor government after a hit in the polls because of its climate back flips.”

What dinosaur lives in the Latrobe Valley and suffers from terrible gas?


Hazelwood brown coal power station near Morwell in the Latrobe Valley is Australia’s most polluting power station and one of the dirtiest in the developed world.

Hazelwood produces a whopping 15% of Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions, and is a major consumer of our precious and scarce water (27 billion litres per year).

It was due to be closed down in 2009, but in 2005, in a shameful decision, the State Labor Government extended its life out past 2030.

If the Australian economy is to begin the transition to zero emissions, and thereby do our bit in avoiding the worsening droughts, fires, floods and sea level rises that will come from runaway climate change, then we need to start by replacing Hazelwood with clean renewable energy by 2012.

A number of groups have begun a campaign, calling on all parties to commit to replacing Hazelwood before the Victorian State Election in November this year. We have already held rallies and started doorknocking in inner Melbourne. This is a key election test – do the candidates in your seat support replacing Hazelwood with clean energy?

We need your help to make this happen!

What can I do?

• Send a letter to the Labor and Liberal Party leaders
• Sign up to the Environment Victoria or Climate Action Centre bulletins
• Join the campaign on facebook
• Follow Replace Hazelwood on Twitter
• Help with letterboxing or doorknocking (see video below)
• Print out and put a Replace Hazelwood poster up in your house or workplace
• Get more information

If you have any questions send us an email on yarracan@gmail.com

YCAN took part in yesterday's launch of the 100% Renewable Energy campaign by adding our voice to thousands of others via this photo of some of our members at the iconic "Fitzroy" sign on Johnston Street. Photos were taken by community groups all over Australia.

This new campaign is calling for an urgent transition to 100% renewable energy for Australia.

Is this possible? Is this affordable? The answer is yes and yes! Just one example of how we can do it is here.

Visit the campaign website for more information and to get inolved, or contact us at YCAN.

The Rudd Government now officially has no practical policy to tackle the climate emergency (just like the Howard Government).

This video is an excerpt from a recent ABC report. It speaks for itself.

GetUp is asking people to vote on the following no confidence motion:

"We the people have no confidence in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's leadership on climate change. He has failed to deliver action to address the greatest moral challenge of our generation."

Click here to add your vote.