Government policy, once again, fails to take real action on climate change

What a disappointing Saturday it has been, to flick through the pages of the Age to read this:

Mr Brumby (State Treasurer) said Australia had one of the oldest car fleets in the world and any measure to increase the number of new cars on the roads was good news for the environment, driver safety and the Victorian car manufacturing sector.

"This is about cutting costs for families, encouraging the use of more environmentally friendly and safer vehicles, while at the same time supporting our car industry," he said.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/tax-cut-to-slash-new-car-prices-by-600/2007/04/27/1177459980661.html

If the state government was genuinely interested in the environment, stamp duty would have been radically reduced on low emission motor cars. To suggest that your typical 6 cylinder motor car is an environmentally friendly choice really shows no understanding of what actually constitutes an environmentally friendly motor vehicle.

Climate Change is the most serious challenge facing all of us, government has a great opportunity to make policy that supports environmentally friendly options, this latest decision is a slap in the face for the environment. How are we ever going to tackle greenhouse emissions with this sort of policy decision coming from the top?


And then it got worse…

"If we're fair dinkum about this climate change debate we have to open our minds to the use of nuclear power," Mr Howard told the gathering.

"We need to take action now to prepare the way for the contribution that nuclear power can make to challenging the problem of greenhouse gas emissions."

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pm-unveils-nuclear-plans/2007/04/28/1177460025234.html

I think we’ve moved on from a debate about climate change. Climate change is real, there is no debate, until the federal government truly accepts this they will never be serious about policies that support real action on climate change.

Nuclear power is not the answer to greenhouse gas emissions, clean, renewable energy is the answer. It is offensive that the Federal government links nuclear power with solving climate change. This latest announcement clearly confirms Mr Howard and his government are old world thinkers with old world solutions, these solutions will do nothing to solve climate change.

Nuclear power is too expensive, takes too long to build, results in nuclear weapon proliferation, creates dangerous waste and is not renewable.

There are some great opportunities and solutions to tackle climate change, nuclear power is not one of them.


If this is the policy direction being shown by state and federal governments to address climate change then our country will continue to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.