Page 3232 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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The bill does not attempt to set any new targets for that extended period. I wonder why the government did not review these benchmarks in the light of achievements to date and the technological advancements we have had since 2004. Are there new measures that could be introduced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? What incentives, for example, are we providing to encourage consumers to use green energy? Are we pursuing all possible alternative green energy supply sources? Some interesting proposals have been put on the table. That is good, but a lot more needs to be done and can be done.
I know that Mr Gentleman intends to introduce—as an exposure draft—a bill that provides for solar electricity generation at private residences in the ACT and that includes paying participating householders a feed-in tariff designed to encourage uptake and reduce the cost recovery period. I look forward with interest to that bill.
I wish I could say that the Stanhope Labor government has got its priorities right on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the ACT, but, sadly, I cannot. For the most part the government has sat on its hands, only recently discovering the environmental and climatic effects of greenhouse gas emissions.
Back in 2000 the then Liberal government recognised the scientific evidence for the effect of greenhouse gases on our climate. It developed some groundbreaking tactics to address those challenges which put the ACT at the forefront. The greenhouse gas strategy of that year set a bold target to stabilise net greenhouse emissions attributable to the ACT—including emissions attributable to electricity consumed within the ACT but generated outside the ACT—at 1990 levels by 2008 and then reduce these emissions by a further 20 per cent by 2018.
The Stanhope Labor government initially embraced that strategy, but when it became the government it subsequently dumped it, saying that it was too expensive to implement. Only this year, some seven years later, did the Chief Minister suddenly come to the astonishing conclusion that the government needed to do something about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It is interesting to look at the reason the government gave several years ago for dumping the previous Liberal government’s strategy: it was the cost. It was going to cost, I think, $110 million or $114 million. The cost of the Stanhope government’s strategy is not vastly different from the cost of the Liberal strategy from the year 2000; in fact, I think it is only about $4 million more. It is very much in the same ballpark. Had the government stuck with the strategy it inherited, we would be a lot further advanced; we would have a lot less greenhouse gases emanating from the ACT.
The difference comes in the targets. In 1990 we were emitting 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Had the current government genuinely embraced the 2000 strategy, we would be on target to get back to that level by next year. As it is, we are emitting close to 4.5 million tonnes. That is an extra one million tonnes for the ACT. This plan will not turn the tide of emissions until 2020 and will not get us back to the 1990 levels—which, under the previous plan, would have kicked in next year—until 2025. That is 17 years after the Liberal strategy would have got us there.
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