The Abbott government has just released the Warburton review of the Renewable Energy Target. The report ignores the aspirations of Australians and would be a disaster for jobs and investment.
The Warburton Review has made two key recommendations that will devastate Australia’s renewable energy sector. The Review recommends the Abbott government:
- Limit the Renewable Energy Target to new entrants – which is effective to the immediate abolition of the scheme.
- Drastically cut the fixed 41-terawatt-hour Renewable Energy Target and set yearly targets based on forecast electricity demand – which will kill the renewable energy sector through uncertainty.
This sham review recommends the Abbott government cut the Renewable Energy Target by up to 100 per cent.
Australians will be shocked that there are no options to increase the RET, only options to axe it.
The Warburton Review’s recommendations will kill off thousands of jobs and billions worth of investment in the Australian economy.
Research commissioned by the Clean Energy Council shows the 41-terawatt-hour Renewable Energy Target would unleash $14.5 billion worth of investment and create more than 18,000 jobs.
The renewable energy sector promises thousands of jobs at a time when national unemployment has hit a 12-year high. The Warburton review’s recommendations amount to economic vandalism.
If the Abbott government will break two election promises if it acts on recommendations to cut the Renewable Energy Target. Members of the government promised to keep the Renewable Energy Target in tact and create two million new jobs.
In April, Friends of the Earth invited Dick Warburton on a fact-finding RET Review Road Trip to meet with communities affected by fossil fuels or benefitting from renewables. Dick Warburton refused the invite.
The Warburton review is out of touch with the views of Australians. It ignores the community’s aspirations for a clean energy future.
Polling shows 73 per cent of Australians think the Renewable Energy Target target is ‘about right’ or ‘not high enough’. For Coalition voters the number is 64 per cent. A recent poll in The Australian found 95 per cent of respondents thought renewable energy was a “good idea.”
The Abbott government’s posturing to weaken the Renewable Energy Target puts a sharper focus on state government plans for renewable energy.
With a Victorian state election on the horizon, voters want to know what plans the major parties have to secure renewable energy jobs and investment.
With PM Abbott threatening to axe the Renewable Energy Target, Victoria needs an insurance policy. Reestablishing a Victorian Renewable Energy Target will create jobs and unleash investment, which is something all political parties can support.
TAKE ACTION:
- Sign our petition calling on Premier Napthine and opposition leader Daniel Andrews to support a Victorian Renewable Energy Target.
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yes2renewables.org 
Unfortunately the Warburton review is exactly what we expected from a climate change denialist and Abbott stooge. Now we have to pressure states to enhance or enact their own RET while hoping the Senate blocks any changes. I hope this is the death knell for the Abbott government.
Blair
Jeremy Rifkin summed it up, nicely.
“Australia is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. There’s so much sun, there’s so much wind off the coast . . . We have enough of these renewable energies distributed in every square inch of Australia and the world to power our species needs till kingdom comes, at near zero marginal cost, without pollution to the planet.
So what kind of cockamaimy thinking, if I may say this, keeps us in these old polluting dinosaur energies and technologies of the 20th century, when we could be in the new energies of the 21st century and have unlimited amounts of renewable energy.” [4Corners, ABC/TV]
“Cockamaimy Chris” won’t understand (it’s a vision thing, or lack thereof in his case) — fortunately he’s in the depleting minority.
Cockamaimy Chris is what Simon Sinek calls a “late adopter” — (paraphrasing): “the only reason late adopters (laggards) buy touch-dial phones, is because they can no longer buy rotary phones”.
And that is that!.The end of inappropriately sited wind farms.In the mean time Stevie Donaldson you will have no worries talking to yourself.Hope you two can find another job.
No Blair it is the death knell for wind farms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.