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

Preamble
For all the benefits of human activity, there is a risk that enormous changes to the environment in a short period of time may have a destabilising effect on our planet's ecological balance and life support systems. A precautionary principle is thus important to apply, since there is no second planet on which to repeat the experiment. Pirate Party Australia accordingly endorses efforts to reduce climate change and preserve our continent's unique environment for the benefit of future generations.



Climate change and renewable energy
Global energy markets are approaching a point of deep change. Prices for on-site production and storage of energy will soon 'cross over' with the price of traditional grid power, making it cheaper for a growing number of consumers. Embrace of technology will allow 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 in this way and consumers directly compete with utilities.

To bring this about, Pirate Party Australia would seek to redirect resources from the Emissions Reduction Fund and invest them directly into an expanded effort to research and develop clean energy technology and on-site generation. We will also remove regulations which hinder independent power generation and encourage utilities to expand into new services such as offering trading platforms between distributed energy users and producers.

These efforts would build on existing platforms. Pirate Party Australia supports carbon pricing as long as revenue is matched with equivalent tax cuts in other areas. Fixed carbon pricing creates incentives for efficiency and investment all across the economy and provides the certainty needed to support long-term investment. Pollution is the embodiment of privatised profits and socialised losses, and carbon pricing will ensure coal mining repays some of the cost imposed on national water reserves, agriculture, and general public health. , . Pirate Party Australia remains open to final extensions in 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.

Pirate Party Australia would apply a small carbon price on exported emissions, which make up the bulk of Australia's total carbon footprint. Coal exporters would be required 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, fund technology exports, and directly destroy extremely potent heat-trapping gases such as HFC-23. A two dollar levy used in this way will fund a full offset of exported emissions at no cost to Australian taxpayers.

Technological improvement offers magnifying benefits over time. A distributed grid open to 'prosumer' competition will yield lower power prices, partly as a result of increased competition and partly because falls in demand spikes will allow utilities to adopt 'probabilistic' (risk based) power models. The communities of the future will be more sufficient, and individuals will be far more empowered to act directly on climate change when political action falls short. The need for wastefully long and expensive power connectivity will diminish, and a roll-out of community power will create thousands of skilled jobs and enable communities to be more self-sufficient. Policies which drive clean technology represent an important economic reform and an investment in the future.

Preserving Australia’s ecology
Management of our environment needs to be more holistic in future. Cases such as the Murray-Darling system show that ecosystems are too deeply interconnected to be managed in different ways across state borders. Future management can be improved through the development of a comprehensive Biodiversity Matrix, which will provide planners and the general public with a unified information source on our land and ocean ecosystems. We will also press for oversight of land management to be transferred to a more independent authority in order to mitiate potential political interference in decision-making.

Pirate Party will also support practical measures to improve biodiversity at the grass-roots. We will seek to expand national parks, while also increasing avenues for engaged communities to assist with maintenance and management. Community groups also need more resources to tackle the growing problem of feral animals, which slaughter kill billions of native animals every year. These efforts should also be supported by long-term research to improve conditions in national parks and reduce feral animals over the longer term.

Finally, greater efforts are needed to support sustainable farming 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. Our policies will create a more open and scientific framework to help inform these difficult questions.

Offset and reduce carbon emissions

 * Expand investment in technological improvement and community power.
 * Re-purpose $500 million funding from the 'Emissions Reduction Fund' (ERF) to sponsor additional research and development of clean technology, including affordable storage for micro-grids.
 * Transfer remaining ERF resources to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ensure loans are available to offset community power start-up costs and grid connections.
 * Amend AEMC rules to ensure power purchase agreements, solar services agreements, virtual net metering and other forms of decentralised grids are viable and available.
 * Begin negotiations with states for a merged, national solar tariff.
 * Strengthen existing measures and price signals.
 * Restore a carbon tax with pricing set to the 2014-15 level and price increases fixed at CPI + 5% p/a.
 * Remove exemptions from coal-generated power stations excepting cases where grid stability is threatened.
 * Provide a final extension in the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to 70GwH 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.
 * Remove waste levy exemptions applying to coal power.
 * Levy thermal coal exporters $2 per tonne of exported coal to purchase carbon offsets through the UN clean development mechanism.
 * Require transparent disclosure of energy ratings for all buildings.
 * 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.

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.
 * 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.
 * Increase resources to protect endangered species.
 * Provide $100 million to sponsor endangered species plans and community group projects including sanctuaries and land management initiatives.
 * Provide $50 million to support long-term research and adaptive management aimed at curbing feral cats and foxes.
 * Provide $10 million per year to fund regular updates of threatened species information, with species reported as being at risk of extinction will be listed as “notifiable” in legislation.
 * Amend Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to insert specific requirements for accountability and monitoring of Recovery Plans.
 * 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.