In response to Climate Change & Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s announcement of an expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s CEO Kelly O’Shanassy said:
“The plan announced by Minister Bowen today locks in Australia’s renewable future.
“Breaking Australia’s fixation with climate-wrecking gas and coal and powering everything we can with renewables is an important and a massive task.
“The plan sets out a roadmap for the government’s target to get 82% of Australia’s electricity from renewable energy by 2030.
“It slashes climate pollution from our energy system while keeping the lights on.
“We have a long, hot summer coming and Australia’s old coal-fired power stations are not only adding to the climate crisis, they are also increasingly unreliable.
“This plan, to be delivered in cooperation with the states, should facilitate a big build of utility scale wind and solar power and make sure there’s dispatchable energy available when it’s needed.
“The big renewables build must be done in a way that is good for communities and nature.
“There is no place – and absolutely no need, on our over-cleared continent – to knock down forests or threatened species habitat for renewable energy projects.
“The government’s practical, ambitious roadmap to deliver 82% renewable energy by 2030 is in stark contrast to the Coalition’s nuclear fantasy, which is a disingenuous non-solution.
“Small modular nuclear reactors are not a commercial reality anywhere in the world and existing forms of nuclear power are expensive, unsafe and too slow to make a difference to the urgent problem of climate change.”
