Pirate Congress 2015/Motions/Policy and Platform/Energy, Environment and Climate Change Update

Preamble
Although human progress has yielded immense outcomes, it is possible that enormous and exponentially growing changes to the environment may destabilise our planet's ecology and life support systems. It is wise to apply a precautionary principle and align policy to science as best we can, since we have no back-up planet on which to repeat the experiment. Two essential tasks exist – for Australia to play its part in mitigating climate change, and for our country to preserve it's unique ecology for future generations.



Climate change and renewable energy
Technology is revolutionising global energy markets. In the near future, onsite production and storage of energy will become cheaper than traditional grid power. This opens the way for consumers to become ‘prosumers’ – energy users capable of independently generating their own power. Pirate Party Australia believes we should accelerate towards a system in which energy markets are democratised and consumers directly compete with utilities. Accordingly, research and development into on-site generation and storage should be stepped up, and regulations which hinder independent power generation should be removed. The potential for a ‘death spiral’ for utilities should be managed by supporting transition into new business models such as provision of trading platforms between distributed energy users and producers. Existing funding allocated to the Government’s ‘Emissions Reduction Fund’ can be re-purposed to support grid restructure and retirement of unnecessary infrastructure.

At the 'macro' level, Pirate Party Australia supports carbon pricing as long as revenue is matched with equivalent tax cuts in other areas. Carbon pricing opens up incentives for efficiency and investment all across the economy, and has provides the cheapest means to bring about emissions cuts. We believed a fixed price is preferable since volatile prices fail to provide the certainty needed to underpin long-term investment. Additionally, it applies a polluter pays principle: pollution embodies privatised profits and socialised losses, and coal mining has a significant cost to national water reserves, agriculture, and general public health. , . Pirate Party Australia will support a final extension of other measures including the Renewable Energy Target but believes our domestic climate change policies should ultimately simplify and converge on straightforward carbon pricing supported by technological change and voluntary action.

Domestic emissions are high in Australia, but exported emissions make up the bulk of our carbon footprint. Pirate Party Australia would require coal exporters to purchase carbon offsets through the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). CDM offsets offer an extremely cheap way to protect pristine forests in developing countries. They also fund technology export and direct destruction of extremely potent heat-trapping gases such as HFC-23. A two dollar levy will not destroy the coal industry, but will allow for a full offset of exported emissions at no cost to Australian taxpayers.

Anything which creates the conditions for technological improvement will have magnifying benefits in future. A distributed grid open to 'prosumer' competition will yield lower power prices, enable communities become more self-sufficient, and allow individual action on climate change to substitute where political action falls short. Demand 'spikes' will be fewer in a decentralised grid, allowing utilities to adopt ‘probabilistic’ (risk-based) power models and reduce costs significantly. The need for wastefully long and expensive power connectivity will diminish. And grass-roots roll-out of community power will create thousands of skilled jobs and enable communities to be more self-sufficient. Policies which drive renewable energy uptake represent an important economic reform.

Preserving Australia’s ecology
Management of our environment should be holistic and reflect the best available scientific knowledge. Cases such as the Murray-Darling system show that ecosystems are deeply interconnected and cannot be managed in different ways across state borders. Accordingly, we will press for the development of a comprehensive national Biodiversity Matrix to better classify land and ocean ecosystems. This will underpin a more scientific approach to land management, which can be further enhanced through expanded Federal environmental oversight conducted under an independent authority. A Biodiversity Matrix will provide planners and general public with essential information about Australia’s progress in environmental management.

Pirate Party Australia will seek to expand the area available to national parks, while also seeking to ensure more avenues are open for engaged communities to assist with maintenance and management of the land. We will also propose long-term research and short-term improvements in land use to control feral animals.

Pirate Party Australia also urges greater protection for farming and sustainable land use in Australia. In particular, we seek a halt to coal seam gas (CSG) extraction, which is currently being undertaken from a position of profound ignorance regarding its impacts on rivers, groundwater, and food security. Given the evidence of fugitive emissions leaks and other unforeseen impacts, a moratorium is necessary until more meaningful evidence is available to demonstrate that extraction can be done safely.

Questions of ecology and energy adjudicate between the rights of current and future generations. We need an open and scientific framework to help inform these difficult questions.

Offset and reduce carbon emissions

 * Strengthen price incentive to pollution
 * Restore a carbon tax with pricing set to the 2014-15 level and price increases fixed at CPI + 5% p/a.
 * Extend coverage to include heavy on-road transport.
 * Remove exemptions for coal-generated power stations.
 * Temporary funding may be provided from the Emissions Reduction Fund to temporarily sustain power stations in cases where grid stability is threatened.
 * Remove waste levy exemptions applying to coal power and abolish fossil fuel subsidies.
 * Levy thermal coal exporters $2 per tonne of exported coal to purchase carbon offsets through the UN clean development mechanism.
 * Expand large-scale renewable energy.
 * Provide a final extension in the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to 80GwH by 2025.
 * Increase the number of renewable certificates offered for generation at peak periods to encourage baseload renewable generation.
 * Include waste-to-energy in RET certificate allocations.
 * Extend small and micro-grid renewable energy.
 * Remove regulations to ensure power purchase agreements, solar services agreements and virtual net metering and other forms of decentralised grids are not hindered.
 * Extend Clean Energy Finance Corporation loans to provide startup funds for community solar.
 * Provide an online community solar portal to provide legal, financial and program management support.
 * Re-purpose $500 million funding from the 'Emissions Reduction Fund' (ERF) to sponsor research and development of micro-grid and power sharing technology, storage and portable generation.
 * Re-purpose remaining ERF resources to support transformative technology, maintain grid stability, and provide connections for community generated power.
 * Begin negotiations for a merged, national solar tariff.
 * Undertake measures to improve energy efficiency.
 * Ensure non-residential buildings are subject to transparent disclosure of energy ratings, with performance-based standards applied to all retrofits and new buildings.
 * Allow Clean Energy Finance loans to be collected through utility meters, and extend loan availability to homeowners and landlords.
 * Reduce emissions from liquid fuels.
 * Adopt EU 2020 vehicle fuel efficiency standards including the passenger vehicle target of 95g CO2/Km by 2023.
 * Form a panel of government and industry representatives to develop a plan for roll-out of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and development of an Australian standard for EV rechargers.
 * Offer assistance to private operators who wish to operate recharging stations through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
 * Create a corporation with joined State and Federal Government ownership to lease recharging sites on public land.
 * Invest $50 million per year in long-term research to explore alternative ways of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Improve land management to protect biodiversity

 * Expand the environmental oversight of the federal government to cover mining approvals, rivers and water areas, and national parks.
 * Provide independent statutory status to areas overseeing environmental approvals.
 * Ensure clear channels exist for local and community input, with autonomy devolved to regional communities and expert bodies in matters of purely local impact.
 * Provide $50 million to develop a biodiversity matrix to classify nationwide land and ocean ecosystems and species distribution.
 * Information collected will be published, and will inform land use changes, development approvals, and management of biodiversity issues and national parks.
 * Expand and improve national parks.
 * Increase national park thresholds to cover 15% of land in Australia, with a representative sample of at least 80% of regional ecosystems protected in each bio-region.
 * Review national park legislation to remove restrictions on volunteerism and community engagement in improving parks.
 * Amend Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to insert specific requirements for accountability and monitoring of Recovery Plans.
 * Increase resources to protect endangered species.
 * Provide additional funding of $100 million per year to sponsor endangered species plans and community group projects including sanctuaries and land management initiatives.
 * Provide $50 million per year to support long-term research and adaptive management aimed at curbing feral cats and foxes.
 * Initial funding of $10 million per year will be deployed to fund regular updates of threatened species information - species reported as being at risk of extinction will be listed as “notifiable”.
 * Protect agricultural and farming land.
 * Grant landowners rights to refuse exploitation of coal and coal seam gas deposits on land they own.
 * Permanently ban extraction and exploration of coal seam gas around water catchment areas and aquifers.
 * Apply a moratorium on new coal seam mines and additional use of existing mines in metropolitan areas, with periodical reviews to assess evidence and present recommendations on the scientific case for lifting or modifying the moratorium.
 * Ensure 'Green Army' resources are made available for reforestation and re-vegetation of marginal land.