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30 000 Australians signed a statement against carbon capture and storage (CCS). The statement calls for world governments to stop the climate crisis by urgently investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency rather than CCS. Today the petition was delivered to Treasurer Wayne Swan at the Treasury offices, Canberra, Australia.
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Thanks to you, this petition is one of Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s most successful ever reflecting the 90% of Australians who, in March this year, told a Newspoll survey they want equal or more public money spent on renewables than fossil fuels. In Australia, 28 times more public money is currently spent on encouraging fossil fuel use than is invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency.
The petition delivery coincided with the launch of a Greenpeace International report on carbon capture and storage which says CCS is a scam. The report entitled “False Hope: why carbon capture and storage won’t save the climate”, is being released at the 7th Annual Conference on Carbon Capture and Sequestration, in Pittsburgh, USA today.
114 international NGOs and climate groups from 21 countries, including 40 from Australia, have signed a statement supporting the report, which calls for world governments to stop the climate crisis by urgently investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency rather than CCS.
“We know we need to urgently cut greenhouse emissions and we know we don’t have much time to do it in,” said Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s head of campaigns Stephen Campbell. “It is beyond dispute that CCS cannot play a role in cutting emissions within this timeframe so why is the federal government ploughing money into CCS at the expense of the technologies that work right now? Public funding should go into further developing and rolling out solar, wind and other renewable energy technologies, not this distraction that allows ‘pollution-as-usual’.”
The unproven technology for capturing the global warming gas carbon dioxide from power station smokestacks and then dumping it underground is still on the drawing board. However, the concept is being exploited by coal and power companies to justify building new coal-fired power plants, the single largest contributors to climate change, says the report.
Fraught with uncertainties over practicality and cost, CCS technology is not expected to be commercially available before 2030. If CCS ever becomes a mature technology, it will be too late to play a role in combating climate change over the crucial next few years, or even decades. The consensus among climate experts is that global greenhouse gas emissions must be reducing after 2015.
Futile investments in CCS are starving existing renewable energy technologies of much-needed funds. The Rudd government is set to hand a further $500 million to a ‘clean coal’ fund in its first budget.
In contrast, Greenpeace’s Energy Revolution scenario shows that greatly improving energy efficiency and relying on renewable energy could halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the timeframe for preventing the worst impacts of climate change. Global renewable energy resources are sufficient to meet the world’s energy needs six times over.
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific and 30,000 Australians are calling for a public enquiry into subsidies to fossil fuel industries. Next week’s budget will be a test for the federal government to end the Howard tradition of subsidising fossil fuels by redirecting them to the renewable energy and energy efficiency measures that can deliver immediate emission reductions,” Campbell said.
The petition delivery coincided with the launch of a Greenpeace International report on carbon capture and storage which says CCS is a scam. The report entitled “False Hope: why carbon capture and storage won’t save the climate”, is being released at the 7th Annual Conference on Carbon Capture and Sequestration, in Pittsburgh, USA today.
114 international NGOs and climate groups from 21 countries, including 40 from Australia, have signed a statement supporting the report, which calls for world governments to stop the climate crisis by urgently investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency rather than CCS.
“We know we need to urgently cut greenhouse emissions and we know we don’t have much time to do it in,” said Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s head of campaigns Stephen Campbell. “It is beyond dispute that CCS cannot play a role in cutting emissions within this timeframe so why is the federal government ploughing money into CCS at the expense of the technologies that work right now? Public funding should go into further developing and rolling out solar, wind and other renewable energy technologies, not this distraction that allows ‘pollution-as-usual’.”
The unproven technology for capturing the global warming gas carbon dioxide from power station smokestacks and then dumping it underground is still on the drawing board. However, the concept is being exploited by coal and power companies to justify building new coal-fired power plants, the single largest contributors to climate change, says the report.
Fraught with uncertainties over practicality and cost, CCS technology is not expected to be commercially available before 2030. If CCS ever becomes a mature technology, it will be too late to play a role in combating climate change over the crucial next few years, or even decades. The consensus among climate experts is that global greenhouse gas emissions must be reducing after 2015.
Futile investments in CCS are starving existing renewable energy technologies of much-needed funds. The Rudd government is set to hand a further $500 million to a ‘clean coal’ fund in its first budget.
In contrast, Greenpeace’s Energy Revolution scenario shows that greatly improving energy efficiency and relying on renewable energy could halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the timeframe for preventing the worst impacts of climate change. Global renewable energy resources are sufficient to meet the world’s energy needs six times over.
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific and 30,000 Australians are calling for a public enquiry into subsidies to fossil fuel industries. Next week’s budget will be a test for the federal government to end the Howard tradition of subsidising fossil fuels by redirecting them to the renewable energy and energy efficiency measures that can deliver immediate emission reductions,” Campbell said.
