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News Archive - 2009

Target 300 News

Target 300 major website upgrade - Sep 09

You may have noticed that the Target 300 website is written in straight html on a text editor. To improve the look and feel of the site we are currently reediting the pages. A new "About" page has also been added and a number of pages updated.

Target 300 begins international campaign - Aug 09

In an effort to get the message out about the targets that might actually have a chance of saving us, Target 300 is beginning to have key parts of its website translated into other languages, starting with Italian, French and Japanese. More translators are needed to cover different languages, so if you are interested contact us.

Target 300 at Climate Emergency National Day of Action - Jun 09

Target 300's Adrian Whitehead was invited to be the lead speaker at the "Perth National Day of Action Climate Emergency" Rally. Around 500 people attended and listened to speakers before marching around the Perth central shopping area.

A key point in Adrian's speech was the ability to reduce our emission by 50% or more today if we truly believed that we faced a climate emergency. The gap between the mainstream approach and the climate emergency approach was highlighted by the second speaker, Greens WA Senator Rachel Siewert, who called for a 40% reduction by 2020 and then zero emissions as soon as possible after that.

The Green's position along with much of the mainstream environment movement highlights a continuing failure to accept the true nature of the problem and a failure to understand both what is possible and necessary in terms of a response to climate change.

You can see text of Adrian's speech here.

In the following week Adrian gave a presentation at the University of Western Australia on behalf of the Perth Climate Emergency Group.

National Day of Action - Australia - Jun 09

A national day of action on climate change is occurring around Australia calling for emergency action on climate change.

TASMANIA, HOBART: 12pm Parliament House Lawns
WESTERN AUSTRALIA, PERTH: 12.30pm Forrest Place Perth
CANBERRA, CANBERRA: 12:15pm at Garema Place Civic
VICTORIA, MELBOURNE: 1:00pm at State Library
NSW, SYDNEY: 10:00am at Bangaroo, Hickson Road, Millers Point to Sydney CBD
NSW, WOOLONGONG: Wollongong Mall Amphitheatre(cnr Crown & Church Sts, Wollongong)
SOUTH AUSTRALIA, ADELIADE: 11am, Tarndanyangga (Victoria Square)
QUEENSLAND, BRISBANE: 1pm at Queens Park, Elizabeth/George Streets

Visit the website

Target 300 Campaign success at Australian National Grass Roots Summit - Jan 09

The national grassroots "Climate Action Summit" in Canberra, held on the last weekend in January, adopted as one of their key campaign objectives for 2009 to: "Aim for stabilisation at 300ppm CO2 and strong international agreement in line with what science and global justice demands". Thanks to those such as David Spratt and Philip Sutton and many others who helped support the proposal at the conference. See the national summit website for more information.

Climate Campaign News

350.org's 24 October 2009 International Day of Action - Aug 09

Target 300 encourages people to get involved in the 350.org international day of action. We strongly encourage people running events not to state that the 350 ppm CO2 target is "safe", and instead refer to the 350 ppm CO2 target as a critical first step on the way to safe CO2 levels (or something to that effect). Some groups are already publicly doing so, others are still adopting the 350.org "safe" target line.

Even better would be to include references to 300 ppm CO2 or below or including the concept of reducing emissions below 350 to safer targets in your actual signs and displays - if doing a human sign consider changing 350 into 300 or even 280.

Some groups are already doing this. At a recent climate event held at Melbourne University, the Wilderness Society campaigner, Scott Alderson, supported the 350.org International Day of Action but immediately qualified this with the statement that we had to go much lower to achieve a safe climate.

It's great to see 350.org is modifying its messaging and as finally removed the 350 is "safe" climate graph from the front of their website. However the text associated with the graph still states "Scientists say that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity".

Old graph on left new on right.

What 350.org should be saying. Calling for the right climate target can be as simple as swapping some 5's for some zero's.

Also disappointing was Bill McKibbon's recent talk in Melbourne. Bill still managed to create the impression amongst the audience that 350 was the safe climate level, though he did briefly qualify this in a single sentence.

For those of you who wish to understand why Bill McKibbon's 350.org misinterpreted the science they claim their targets are based on and why 350 ppm CO2 is not a safe climate target please check out our article here.

New national group leads the way - Jul 09

For several years groups campaigning on zero emissions and below and the climate emergency response have been calling for a transition to negative emissions within ten years. A new group Safe Climate Australia was launched on the 12th of July by Al Gore at Docklands in Melbourne with a 1000 people in attendance. An initiative of Philip Sutton, from the Green Leap Strategic Institute, the group aims to "is to identify and catalyse action on the societal transformations and solutions needed to achieve a safe climate for Australia, and for the planet, at emergency speed."

Al Gore's support of Safe Climate Australia contrasts with his past support of the Australian Conservation Foundation, which has constantly run weak goals on Climate Change and is know for its close link to the Labor party.

National Gross Solar Feed-in Tariff Petition Presented to Parliament - Jun 09

The national petition was created by the Australian renewable energy company, Energy Matters (http://www.energymatters.com.au/), to call for a national gross solar feed-in tariff and was presented to Federal Parliament by Greens Senator, Christine Milne.

"The Government is bending over backwards to provide certainty to coal but seems determined to undermine any certainty for renewable energy." Christine Milne

Energy Matters says.... "Let's get Australia moving on solar feed in tariffs! A feed-in tariff is a premium rate paid for electricity produced by a renewable source such as a grid-connected rooftop solar system or wind turbine, usually over and above the market rate. National gross feed-in tariff programs have been established around the world, resulting in increased uptake of solar and wind power systems by homeowners and businesses. We've waited long enough for the Australian Government to act decisively - it's time to push the issue of national gross feed-in tariffs;"

Visit the website to sign and for more information: http://www.feedintariff.com.au/about.php

Climate technological news

The renewable energy target has finally passed the Senate after Labor stopped playing politics and unpacked the bill form the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Legislation.

Labor chose to side with the Liberal's senate rather than than the Greens to make a flawed bill event weaker.

What is wrong with the renewable energy target?

• Not large enough - we should be going for 100% not 20%.
• Allows burning of irreplaceable biodiverse native forest to be classed as renewable energy.
• Allows burning of methane gas from coal mines to be classed as renewable energy - this is a fossil fuel.
• Exempts some of the biggest polluters from having to pay for the scheme.
• Supports on the lowest cost renewables leaving developing technologies out in the cold.
• Creates four phantom megawatts of non existent green power, as renewable energy certificates for each real megawatt of renewable energy made by a solar PV.

Under the new renewable energy target, the winners are likely to be solar hot water, wind power, and Solar PV, while geothermal and other developing renewables will not be supported because their start up price is too high

With the introduction of renewable energy certificates created by the destruction of native forests, non existent power coming from Solar PV, and fossil fuels now being classed as a renewable, purchases of Greenpower must ensure that are signed up to a scheme that excludes any Greenpower produced from native forests, coal mine gas, and solar PV.

Also ask your power company where they are sourcing their renewable energy certificates from to meet their own federal government requirements (the 20% target) and change providers if they are sourcing from any of the above sources.

What does an effective renewable energy scheme look like?

In Germany and Spain a feed in tarif is paid to all renewable energy created that is connected to the grid. A different price is paid for each type of renewable energy, for example, wind, solar PV, geothermal or sustainable biomass. The price is design to make it economically viable to produced produce power for the grid and to encourage the growth and development of new renewable industries.

German has developed a range of subsidies for their renewable energy feed in tariff system. These subsidies were designed at a level to support each particular industry and are known as technology banding and are as follows:

“The Feed-in Law fixes tariffs for approved renewable energy projects for a 20-year period from the plant commissioning and will apply incremental price cuts. Tariffs were initially set at 48.1 cents per kilowatt hour for solar energy, 8.6 cents per kWh for wind, from 9.6 to 8.2 cents per kWh for biomass, 8.4 to 6.7 cents per kWh for geothermal and 7.2 to 6.3 cents per kWh for hydropower, waste and sewage gas” (Solarbuzz 2009)

Solarbuzz 2009, FAST SOLAR ENERGY FACTS: German PV Market, viewed 30 August 2009, http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsGermany.htm

Australian small scale solar industry in the balance - Jun 09

The federal government have proven yet again that it has no real commitment to renewable energy with the sudden and early cancellation of the two key small-scale solar subsidy schemes.

The sudden cancellation of the Solar Homes and Communities Plan scheme was made three weeks before the scheme was due to finish, giving solar energy providers just hours to complete complex paper work to make sure people wishing to apply for the scheme were included. Thousands of applicants missed out.

Two weeks later the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program scheme, designed for rural and remote energy systems, was also cancelled without notice. Not surprisingly the only state with a Liberal Government, Western Australia, was excluded from the shutting down of the scheme, showing either that people without grid power in WA are more deserving than those in the rest of Australia or that Labor is not ashamed about playing politics with renewables.

Labor has sought to replace these schemes with one that that creates phantom renewable energy certificates (RECs). These phantom RECs undermine the value of the National Renewable Energy Target scheme by creating 5 RECs for every 1 unit of renewable power actually produced.

Many people buy RECs through a Greenpower scheme. But because of these changes if people actually want to ensure they are buying real renewable energy and not phantom credits, they must insist their Greenpower is not produced by solar PV and instead from another renewable power source such as wind.

The federal government has also linked the scheme to the passing of the flawed "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme," (CPRS) opposed by all sides of politics except Labor. The CPRS, also know as the Carbon Pollution Rewards Scheme for the vast sums of money it will transfer back to the most polluting industries, has not passed the Senate and is being revisited in August.

This has left an solar industry without a financial security, treading water and endangering of drowning.

In other parts of the world, such as Germany, small scale renewable energy is supported through a feed-in tariff that is paid for by the production of electricity at a price appropriate to support the growth and development of each type of renewable energy. These policies have resulted in thriving renewable energy businesses and the creation of thousands of jobs.

Climate technological news

Origin Energy's sliver cell is still going nowhere, six years (see 2003 Origin press release) after Origin took over the technology from the Australian National University's Sliver Cell Team.

Sliver cells could reduce the cost of solar PV's by using only 10% of the high grade silicon, which is the most significant cost element of a solar PV cell.

It seems ANU made a huge mistake selling the rights to build their technology to a company that has a background in gas retail rather than manufacturing. Origin Energy also opposed the Victorian Renewable Energy Target, which casts doubt as to Origin's true commitment to renewable energy.

Origin states on their website (viewed 6/7/9) "2009 will see us evaluate a range of expansion options should the technology hit the challenging milestones required for international competitiveness." However we know the sliver cells will be significantly cheaper so only the milestone that really matters is if Origin can actually manage to start production.

The best thing for the project now would be for Origin to sell the technology to a company that has the technical expertise and intent to see the project to a successful commercial release of this important Australian technology.

Origin customers should consider changing your Greenpower account to alternative companies.

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300 ppm CO2 or below is the stabilisation target for a safe climate.