PDC: updated energy policy
Climate change and energy
While the environment is perpetually changing, there is a risk that enormous changes imposed in a very short period of time can destabilise our planet's ecology. Greenhouse gas emissions are one such risk which urgently needs to be addressed. However, a well considered climate policy can do more than simply reduce risk. Successful climate change policy can support useful technological progress and foster improvements in Australia's dysfunctional energy market.
Fossil fuels do not merely generate greenhouse gases: particulate air pollution from coal burning kills millions of people every year and generates massive volumes of toxic waste[1][2],[3].[4]. Replacement of fossil fuels with cleaner technology thus offers environmental and human benefits for the entire world. Australia could become a laboratory for this transition: already, domestic energy markets are approaching a “crossover point”, when prices for on-site energy generation and storage are falling below the price of centralised grid power.[5] Technological progress will soon allow consumers to become ‘prosumers’ – energy users capable of independently generating their own power. A decentralised market where self-generating consumers directly compete with utilities will be freer and more productive for everyone.
A few simple changes could bring this future closer. Resources currently allocated to paying polluters could be re-targeted towards "blue sky" research and unexplored climate solutions. Utilities could be deregulated so they can adopt leaner 'probabalistic' power models and offer new services such as trading platforms between distributed energy producers. Forms of nuclear energy which present no melt-down risk (such as emerging reactor models that mix coolant with fuel to make loss of coolant impossible) could be considered in light of science and evidence. Underlying it all, the existing GST on energy could be replaced with a carbon pricing regime to immediately reduce costs for clean power.
Pirate Party regards a fixed carbon price as important. Predictable pricing provides the certainty which long-term investment requires[6], and would create a mechanism for energy efficiency and innovation all across the economy. Environmental externalities represent a form of privatised profits and socialised losses, which a properly run economy should reject. Pirate Party Australia endorses existing climate policies in the absence of a more efficient alternative. However, a holistic price on carbon and measures to support technology and competition represent the best model for long-term improvement in our energy systems.
Pirate Party Australia advocates the following reforms:
Enact measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, and to zero net emissions by 2050.
- Re-purpose the 'Climate Solutions Fund' to support 'blue sky' research into alternative climate solutions, such as carbon drawdown technology and food additives to reduce farm emissions.
- Extend Clean Energy Finance Corporation loans to support community power start-up costs and grid connections.
- Remove the GST on energy and substitute a carbon price based on the successful 2014-15 model.
- Apply a price on exported carbon, set to $2 per tonne of thermal coal, to purchase carbon offsets through the UN clean development mechanism.
- Remove waste levy exemptions currently applying to coal power.
- Adopt current EU standards for vehicle fuel efficiency and energy efficiency in consumer goods and buildings.
- ↑ Edis,Brown coal imposes $800 million health cost annually on Victorians,Business Spectator, 20 April 2015,http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2015/4/20/science-environment/brown-coal-imposes-800m-health-cost-annually-victorians-0(Accessed 22 April 2015)
- ↑ Will Steffen and Lesley Hughes, 'The Critical Decade 2013: Climate Change Science, Risks and Responses' (Report, Climate Commission, 2013) 86–87.
- ↑ ExternE, 'Externalities of Energy: Extension of accounting framework and Policy Applications' (Final technical report, ExternE, 2005) 35, 39; Doctors for the Environment Australia, 'How coal burns Australia: The true cost of burning coal' (Report, Doctors for the Environment Australia, 2013) 2–4; Ruth Colagiuri, Johanne Cochrane and Seham Girgis, Health and Sustainability Unit, The Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders, The University of Sydney, 'Health and Social Harms of Coal Mining in Local Communities' (Report, Beyond Zero Emissions, 2012) 11-12, 32.
- ↑ Wendy Wilson, Travis Leipzig and Bevan Griffiths-Sattenspiel, 'Burning Our Rivers: The Water Footprint of Electricity' (Report, River Network, 2012) 14.
- ↑ Vorrath, Energy storage to reach cost 'holy grail', mass adoption in 5 years, March 2015, http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/energy-storage-to-reach-cost-holy-grail-mass-adoption-in-5-years-18383 (Accessed 4 April 2015)
- ↑ Department of the Treasury (Cth), Strong Growth, Low Pollution: Modelling a Carbon Price (2011) 91; Sam Meng, Mahinda Siriwardana and Judith McNeill, 'The Environmental and Economic Impact of the Carbon Tax in Australia' (2013) 54(3) Journal of Environmental and Resources Economics 313, 321–322.