A GetUp! and Yes2Renewables organised rally will be held in Canberra on Tuesday to raise awareness of looming potential threats to Australia’s renewable energy industry.
The action is in part designed to offset another event being held in the nation’s capital that seeks to destroy Australia’s wind energy sector and will also draw attention to a document being circulated promoting the event that contain a number of inaccuracies concerning wind power.
In the other event creating concern, Yes2Renewables says Coalition MPs will stand with controversial radio shock-jock Alan Jones at Parliament House on Tuesday to demand a halt to wind power development and to push for the scrapping of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target.
In what Yes2Renewables calls a “Tea Party-style rally” against wind farms; organisers of the Alan Jones MC’ed event allege wind energy is the “greatest economic fraud in Australian history.”
Yes2Renewables says while Shadow Minister for Climate Action Greg Hunt has voiced support for Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, his reluctance to commit to the 41,000 GWh target is creating policy uncertainty and opportunity for anti-renewables’ members of the Coalition to actively campaign against wind farms.
The group states, “Tony Abbott and Shadow Environment minister Greg Hunt should condemn these MPs as a rogue element but instead they have been silent.”
It’s believed the current political environment in Australia may be hampering investment in renewables; particularly given Coalition threats to “tear up” some government contracts signed with renewable energy companies if elected.
According to Yes2Renewables, 73 percent of Australian support the Renewable Energy Target and 76 percent support constructing more wind farms.
“On Tuesday we can counter fear-mongering with hope, look to the future, not the past and show the way to a clean energy future,” says the group.
The GetUp!/Yes2Renewables Rally For Renewables will be held at Garema Place, Canberra at noon Tuesday, June 18.
