by Greg Jericho
Let’s not beat around the shrubbery: the review of the renewable energy target (RET) led by Dick Warburton was a sham designed from the very start to conclude that the RET should be wound back. If you don’t agree with the overwhelming scientific view on climate change you are not going to feel any great need for Australia to bother about pursuing renewable energy. Instead, you’ll view renewable energy as an optional extra – and that view permeates the RET review.
The RET was not implemented because of some random desire to force businesses to use electricity generated by a more expensive method. It was introduced by the Howard government in 1997 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It was included as part of “the largest and most far-reaching package of measures to address climate change ever undertaken by any government in Australia”.
Thus, if you think climate change is all a bit of a scam driven by the UN and NASA with an assist from the Bureau of Meteorology and a vast majority of the world’s scientists, media and governments, then your position on the need for renewable energy is rather altered.
Which brings us to Dick Warburton, a man who told the ABC in February that he was “sceptical” of “the claims that man-made carbon dioxide is the major cause of global warming”.
Warburton of course says his views had “no bearing on this report at all”. But it is clear that they did, because throughout the report there are logical inconsistencies which have the RET judged against different criteria than its purpose. The review is also founded on the view that renewable energy is something needed only if the demand for electricity requires it.
Warburton even told the ABC last week that he did not think “there needs to be a large scale of renewables being made into the market at a time when there is so much supply”.
For the full article please visit: http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/sep/01/the-ret-review-only-cares-about-coal-profits-not-renewable-energy
