Abbott's slush fund for polluters
Nov 7, 2014
Tony Abbott’s plan to deal with climate change is very worrying. It gives incentives to burn native forests and will term this as ‘renewable energy’! Abbott is handing a slush fund to industry dressed up as climate action.
To date no one has wanted to build a forest furnace to generate electricity because they are not economically viable. Currently they are not allowed Renewable Energy Certificates nor can they earn carbon credits under the Carbon Farming Initiative Act which states they aren’t allowed to destroy forests to burn.
But the Abbott- Palmer deal wipes this clause. They can now rewrite the rules to claim forest destruction is good because burning trees they say, will take the place of burning coal so has to be positive – therefore can gain carbon credits (ie money).
This provides the long-sought after business support for the destruction of more forests.
Combine the above with the likely change that would allow burning forests for power to gain Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) (more $) and these two new income streams going into the pockets of logging enterprises would be huge encouragement to build forest furnaces.
The Greens forced a reluctant ALP to include a prohibition on RECs from native forest as part of the Clean Energy Future Package some time ago. So, will the ALP keep this prohibition in place to at least stop one of these two dodgy income streams?
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Tony Abbott’s plan to deal with climate change is very worrying. It gives incentives to burn native forests and will term this as ‘renewable energy’! Abbott is handing a slush fund to industry dressed up as climate action.
To date no one has wanted to build a forest furnace to generate electricity because they are not economically viable. Currently they are not allowed Renewable Energy Certificates nor can they earn carbon credits under the Carbon Farming Initiative Act which states they aren’t allowed to destroy forests to burn.
But the Abbott- Palmer deal wipes this clause. They can now rewrite the rules to claim forest destruction is good because burning trees they say, will take the place of burning coal so has to be positive – therefore can gain carbon credits (ie money).
This provides the long-sought after business support for the destruction of more forests.
Combine the above with the likely change that would allow burning forests for power to gain Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) (more $) and these two new income streams going into the pockets of logging enterprises would be huge encouragement to build forest furnaces.
The Greens forced a reluctant ALP to include a prohibition on RECs from native forest as part of the Clean Energy Future Package some time ago. So, will the ALP keep this prohibition in place to at least stop one of these two dodgy income streams?
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