Australia’s clean energy industry today called for the Federal Government to ensure the 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target remains unchanged in order to retain its investment-grade stability and drive job creation along with lower costs for consumers.
The Climate Change Authority is currently undertaking a review of the target, to source 20 per cent of Australia's energy from renewable sources by 2020.
“The Renewable Energy Target is the single most important policy measure for the entire Australian renewables sector,” Clean Energy Council Chief Executive David Green said. “Since its introduction, it has generated some $18.5 billion of investment and thousands of jobs – many of them in regional and rural areas where most of Australia’s abundant clean energy resources are found,” Mr Green said.
“It has seen more than 1.7 million Australian households moving to protect themselves from fossil-fuel-driven price rises by installing small-scale systems such as solar panels and solar hot water.
“In addition, the equivalent of more than 2.1 million households is now powered by large-scale renewables such as hydro and wind.
“To date, it has also been the single largest carbon abatement scheme in Australia and without it Australia would not have achieved its emissions reductions target under the Kyoto Protocol.”
Mr Green said the Renewable Energy Target in its current form stood to generate up to $30 billion more in investment and a total reduction of 380 million tonnes in carbon emissions over the life of the scheme.
But the ability of the Renewable Energy Target to deliver more investment, jobs, carbon abatement and energy security would be severely undermined if fundamental changes are made to it or the legislative and economic mechanisms underpinning it, Mr Green said.
Enough said I think!
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