Page 3575 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
activities in the land use sector than plantation forests, activities like preserving mangroves, stopping land clearing and letting old growth forests either remain standing or regrow, having gone through the logging process.
For the reasons I have outlined, I need to challenge Ms Cody’s premise that wood products in building and construction offer a pathway to achieving zero net emissions. There is a little more complexity to it than that. Certain types of wood can be sustainable, depending on where they come from, but not necessarily.
I also note that there are considerable advancements being made in zero emissions technology in the building and construction industry, including right here in Canberra. A local company called Mineral Carbonisation International, for example, has developed technology to capture carbon and transform it into building materials such as cement. Considering technologies like this, Ms Cody’s suggestion that wood is better than other building materials is not necessarily correct. But it is an evolving space.
The motion asserts that wood derived from forests can be a renewable source of energy. I point out that in the ACT we will very soon be powered by 100 per cent renewable electricity. A preferred source of energy in the ACT is, therefore, the electricity that we are deriving from the wind and solar generation we have contracted to be built.
We do not need to talk about using wood for energy, which, as I have already explained, is quite complex. I would even challenge whether it should be considered as a sustainable renewable energy source at all. This has been a very hotly contested debate over a number of years around people attempting to build, essentially, furnaces to burn the by-products of native forests and, of course, it then becomes a question of feeding the beast and driving more forest harvesting to then continue to feed the so-called renewable energy generators. It is a really tricky area and one we certainly do not support.
One other complexity, of course, in the whole wood-for-energy thing is: I note that smoke from wood heating continues to be a problem in Canberra, causing air quality issues and health problems, particularly in Tuggeranong where the smoke is trapped in the valley. This is also an issue in some other parts of Canberra but is most prevalent in Tuggeranong.
The preference is to minimise the use of these heaters, and the Greens have done quite a lot of work on this over the past 2½ decades. Members would know that the ACT government also runs a wood heater replacement program for this reason.
Mr Parton: I am just about out of wood at my place.
MR RATTENBURY: Mr Parton quips that he is almost out of wood at his place. As is his wont, he is trying to be funny but I hope that Mr Parton does not have any neighbours who suffer from asthma because that is exactly the issue that is a problem here in Canberra.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video