Over 400 residents from Central Victoria are putting last minute pressure on the state government to set the Victorian Renewable Energy Target at 30% by 2020, significantly higher than the government’s stated minimum of 20%.
A petition with over 400 signatures from concerned local people was today presented to Maree Edwards, State Member for Bendigo West, by Jo Kaptein from The Hub Foundation Castlemaine, organisers of the petition.
“We are asking Maree to pass our petition to Premier Daniel Andrews as his government prepares to announce a new state target for renewable energy generation. Our message is aim high: 30% by 2020 and 50% by 2025,” Kaptein said.
The petition also calls on the government to close Hazelwood power station.
“The recommendation in the state government’s independent Climate Change Act review, released last week, are flawed because the scenario they are based on —cutting emissions to zero by the mid to latter part of this century in order to limit global warming to below 2 degrees — has a probability of success of around 66 percent, according to the IPCC.
“Would you get on a plane that had a one in three chance of crashing? Of course not! That’s why we must get to zero emissions much more quickly, starting with the closure of Hazelwood now as it is Australia’s – and perhaps the world’s — dirtiest power station.
“We should all be urging the government to act with haste in getting its climate strategy and low carbon plans ready in far less time than the five years proposed by the Review,” said Kaptein.
Petitioners also called for greater incentives to save energy. “Besides saving money,” Kaptein said, “using less energy is the quickest and easiest way to reduce emissions.”
The final ‘ask’ on the petition is a fair price for the solar feed-in tariff. “People feel it is unfair that they have to buy back power from the grid at around five times what they get for their own solar exports,” said Kaptein. “They know that this does not reflect the true value of what they are exporting and it really riles them.”
“We want government to lift it so that people with solar get a decent return as they do in other parts of the world where governments are serious about solar like Germany and California. Instead of 5c it should be closer to 20c per kWh”, said Kaptein.
“Finally, we would like to thank everyone who signed this petition, as well as Mount Alexander Sustainability Group who helped with this project”, said Kaptein.