Page 1624 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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but it seems to imply that its climate change strategy is the answer to our problems. Well, it certainly is an answer to some of our problems, but it is based on extremely low targets. A target to reach 60 per cent of the 2000 levels by 2050 is now, frankly, an embarrassment. No-one internationally talks about 2000 as a baseline, except, perhaps, the Australian Labor Party.
One gaping hole here is the ACT’s energy policy. This is the flipside of the coin. The government promised to develop an energy policy by 2008. It was originally being developed in tandem with the climate change policy. But we still have no guiding energy policy. The government is instead talking about a solar-powered plant—a fine idea but ad hoc in the absence of a strategy. Now we have a plan for a gas-fired power plant, but still no energy strategy. I would have thought it would be common sense to ensure that any significant energy investment, especially of more than $40 million, would be part of an integrated plan. It is not okay to have a climate change strategy without talking about this city’s reliance on fossil fuels.
The budget’s massive investment in bricks, mortar and roads does not come without equally massive greenhouse gas emissions, but there is little evidence that the government or its advisers fully appreciate the importance of minimising the emissions which these developments will entail. Some creative accounting and spin doctoring was certainly needed to include things such as urban tree planting and the arboretum as climate change initiatives. Has account been taken of the emissions involved in the massive earthworks needed to create the arboretum, of the energy used in pumping water around the arboretum or of pesticides or fertilisers used over the entire life of the trees?
You cannot burn tonnes of fossil fuels, build large structures that require energy to heat and cool as well as their embedded energy, and add the environmental cost of people travelling to visit the site, and then claim that the temporary sequestration of carbon in the bodies of the trees is a giant plus for the environment. To do so illustrates the gulf of understanding in the science of climate change and sustainable development.
In the sustainable future section of budget paper No 1—lovely language—the Chief Minister says that no effort is too small. Well, I am afraid that overall the effort is too small. The government’s claim that $50 million spent on replacement buses is equal to $50 million spent on climate change is ridiculous and dishonest. Money spent on buses is certainly welcome, but it cannot all be claimed as a climate change initiative. This is just spin, as is the claim that the arboretum assists the climate change strategy. I am not saying that spending on a more effective public transport system is not welcome or necessary as a response to climate change. It is also good urban planning, as fewer private cars mean less demand for car parks and roads, less air pollution and fewer health problems.
I am sure that very same spending could also be touted as spending to fix the public transport mess this government has presided over and which shows up in its polling and focus groups as an area that needs money thrown at it if it wants to win office in October. Getting more political mileage out of every dollar promised makes political sense as long as journalists uncritically accept it. But it does not equate to governance. There needs to be substance and a policy vision as well.
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