MAKE CLIMTE CHANGE A TOP PRIORITY
NSW ELECTIONS MARCH 24th LETTER WRITING KIT

Please write a letter to Premier Iemma and to Mr. Peter Debnam, Leader of the Opposition. Send to Parliament House, Macquarie Street, Sydney 2000 or email thepremier@www.nsw.gov.au & peter.debnam@parliament.nsw.gov.au. Please also write or visit your local Member of Parliament. Details at http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au.

The NSW public deserves action to keep us below the danger threshold for climate change of a 20C global rise.  Best estimates are that developed countries such as Australia need to reduce greenhouse pollution by at least 30% by 2020, if we are to avoid crossing this threshold. There is a window of only five or six years to act.

A 30% by 2020 target for NSW is ambitious and will need a heroic effort: but without it we are committing ourselves and our children to a perilous future. We need the NSW government to make this target law and introduce measures to reach it. These include:

1) ZERO ENERGY GROWTH BY 2010 WITH ANNUAL REDUCTIONS FROM THEN ON. We must make it against the law for greenhouse gas emissions to go up any further, and instead aggressively drive them back down.  Energy efficiency measures are the most effective and cheap way of gaining rapid cuts in greenhouse emissions. There is an urgent need to set targets to stabilise and then reduce energy use in residential, commercial, industrial and government buildings.

Australia's emissions have increased 10 per cent in the last decade, and are set to rise by an additional 17 per cent by 2020 according to the Australian Greenhouse Office, mostly because of coal-fired power plants and land clearing. Meanwhile, experts agree we need deep cuts of at least 60 per cent by 2050.

The NSW Government's Energy Saving Fund is considered by many to be too small to facilitate a significant shift or incentives for investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy technology in residences or workplaces. The Government also removed the requirement of achieving 40% reductions of greenhouse emissions from apartment's buildings and does not apply to renovations.

2) A LEGISLATED TARGET FOR 25% OF ELECTRICITY FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY BY 2020.  Some environment groups have called for a renewable energy target for NSW of 25% by 2020, claiming that this is not only feasible but would create 4,000 permanent jobs, $9 billion of new investment, enough renewable energy capacity to power every house in NSW, and would also reduce electricity sector greenhouse emissions by 13%. Other groups are calling for a 50% target by 2020,

Because of lack of government incentives and investments, Australia is lagging behind a global clean energy market worth $74 billion in 2005, and the proportion of electricity we receive from renewable energy is in decline. Current NSW Government policy is for a renewable energy target of 15% by 2020 and an interim target of 10% by 2010, if re-elected in March. This is clearly inadequate.

3) A MORATORIUM ON NEW OR EXPANDED COAL POWER STATIONS OR COAL MINES. The consensus among scientists is that fossil-fuels are the primary cause of climate change, with the burning of coal contributing almost 30% of global greenhouse pollution from all sources. Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter. We need to scale back our coal generation, and in the long term phase it out. Expanding coal fired generation at all will make it impossible to meet even the current NSW target for emissions to equal 200 levels in 2025, let alone reaching the reduction targets we need.

4) A TRANSPORT STRATEGY TO REVERSE THE GROWTH IN GREENHOUSE POLLUTION. We need a visionary strategy to reverse the growth in greenhouse pollution by 2010, including public transport fit for the 21st century, a program to incentivise low emission transport choices, and a removal of all subsidies which encourage car use.

5) AN END TO LANDCLEARING AND OVERLOGGING AS WELL AS A HALT TO LOGGING IN NATIVE FORESTS STRSSED OR THREATENED BY DIEBACK. Right now, greenhouse gas pollution from land Clearing across NSW and logging in southeast NSW equates to the greenhouse pollution of 3 million cars on the road in NSW, all year round.

*prepared by Ruth Rosenhek at Rainforest Information Centre ~ www.climate.net.au ~ ruthr@ozemail.com.au
(*compiled from various NGO's draft papers on election asks)