30% greenhouse cut call to parties

Friday, 09 February 2007 01:04

“All parties have finally started talking about climate change. Now it’s time for them to act. We need laws to cut our greenhouse pollution by 30 per cent by 2020,” Cate Faehrmann, Director of the NSW Nature Conservation Council said today.

“If Iemma and Debnam are serious about showing leadership on climate change, both need to commit to introduce laws to reduce our greenhouse pollution by 30 per cent before the state election,” Ms Faehrmann said.

“We are proposing to spend billions to cater for increased electricity use production when we are among the most inefficient energy users in the world. We could spend much less on dramatically increasing our energy efficiency, and not burn more coal. NSW should set a binding efficiency target,” Jeff Angel of the Total Environment Centre said today.

“If we’re going to reduce greenhouse pollution by 30% we need to move on from burning and exporting coal,” Greenpeace climate campaigner Mark Wakeham said.

“The proposed Anvil Hill coal mine is a key test of the whether or not Labor and Liberal are fair dinkum about reducing greenhouse pollution and making the shift from coal to clean renewable energy,” Mr Wakeham said.

“We have excellent renewable energy potential in NSW, but home-grown companies like Solar Heat & Power are moving overseas. We’re spending big on prime-time renewable energy TV ads, but all we’ve seen is a weak policy proposal that won’t keep renewable energy companies in NSW,” Phil Freeman from the Australian Conservation Foundation said today.

“Land clearing is also contributing to greenhouse gas pollution in NSW as trees are bulldozed and burnt or left to rot. Currently, 2 million cars worth of greenhouse gas pollution is created every year this way”, Reece Turner of the Wilderness Society said today.