National and peak state-based environment organisations, representing more than 400,000 Australians, will today unite in opposition to Australia’s proposed emissions trading legislation.
The national and state based environmental NGOs will be holding a press conference today outside Parliament House in Canberra.
Cate Faehrmann, Executive Director of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said the government’s approach to climate change was dangerously inadequate.
“There is emerging consensus among leading international climate scientists that there is already too much carbon in the atmosphere and that we need to pull out all stops to avoid reaching catastrophic tipping points within the climate system”.
The group will use the press conference to launch “Plan B: An Agenda For Immediate Climate Action”, which outlines policies and actions that will have an immediate impact to reduce greenhouse pollution, build Australia’s capacity for halving our emissions over the next decade and increase Australia’s resilience to the increasingly harsh impacts of climate change.
The report says that stationary energy emissions have increased by nearly 50% between 1990 and 2007, now accounting for more than half of Australia’s total greenhouse pollution. In order to halve our emissions in the next decade, a rapid transition to renewable energy will be essential according to the report.
The document recommends the government double the Renewable Energy Target to 90,000 GWh by 2020, introduce gross feed-in tariffs to ensure rapid industry development of all renewable energy technologies and impose an immediate moratorium on construction of new coal-fired electricity plant.
The environment organisations involved with the development of “Plan B: An Agenda For Immediate Climate Action” are: The Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Environment Victoria, Queensland Conservation Council, Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Conservation Council of SA, Environment Tasmania, Conservation Council WA, and Conservation Council ACT Region.
