100% Renewable has come out swinging after recently released Coalition budget costings revealed what it says is ‘a dark and dirty energy future’ for Australia.
According to the group, the costings show not only does the Coalition intend on shutting down the Clean Energy Finance Corporation; but they would also slash their “One Million Solar Roofs” rebate by half and make the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) responsible for delivery of the program. This would lead to a reduction of funding and resources available to ARENA to execute other projects.
National Director of 100% Renewable, Lindsay Soutar, has reminded the Coalition there are over 1 million solar households in Australia and millions of solar-supporting voters.
“Today’s announcement is clearly a capitulation to the big power companies who don’t want to see Australia take advantage of our abundant renewable energy resources. It will mean less innovation, less new jobs, and less small, medium and large scale solar projects.”
“By cutting funding to the only remaining clean energy funding body, the Coalition is again revealing it is no friend of renewable energy.”
Ms. Soutar also took exception to the Coalition’s Policy for Resources and Energy (PDF); which she says doesn’t mention the words ‘solar’ or ‘renewable’ even once.
What the Policy does mention frequently and favourably is fossil fuel.
RenewEconomy’s Giles Parkinson reports the document promises to “focus on restoring coal-fired power stations to profitability, boost exploration for oil and gas, and to produce another ‘white paper’ on energy.”
Where renewable energy related technology does get a mention; it isn’t positive – the Coalition promises yet another investigation into the health impacts of wind farms; even though so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome has been thoroughly debunked.
“Australians want more renewables,” says Ms. Soutar, “but this announcement again shows that the Coalition is out of touch with ordinary Australian’s vision for a wind and solar powered future.”
