TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE ON IPCC
REPORT
MARK BUTLER, SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE:
[audio cuts in] from the world’s leading climate scientists reaffirms
the importance of the world starting to reduce its carbon pollution over
time. It's quite clear now that Australia, as the largest
polluter per head of population in the OECD, must do its fair share.
It's also particularly clear that without a legal cap on carbon
pollution contained in the deal between Clive Palmer and Tony Abbott
last week, that this deal between the Palmer United Party and the Abbott
Government simply will not do the job. This report also reaffirms the
importance of the whole world starting to lift its renewable energy
investment and again, it just reaffirms the recklessness of Tony Abbott
walking away from his election promise to keep Australia's renewable
energy target in place. At a time when the scientific advice is only
becoming clearer, at a time when the rest of the world including China
and the United States are moving forward, it is utterly reckless of Tony
Abbott to put Australia in the position of being the only country
moving backwards on climate change.
JOURNALIST: Is it time for Australia to give up its coal?
BUTLER: We had a
very clear approach to the question of electricity generation including
coal generation versus gas and renewables and that was to put a legal
cap on carbon pollution that would limit the amount of pollution that
would be able to come out of the electricity sector and then let the
business community work out the cheapest, the most effective way to
operate. At the same time, we had enormous investment in renewable
energy technology to the point where last year, Australia was one of the
four most attractive places to invest in renewable technology. We have
plummeted on that index of global renewable investment, because of Tony
Abbott walking away from his promise to keep the renewable energy target
in place.
JOURNALIST: The report outlines a pretty scary-sounding scenario [inaudible] food shortages, shouldn't we be taking it more seriously?
BUTLER: The
Labor Party is taking this seriously. We are committed to there being a
cap on carbon pollution that is able to be reduced over time in
accordance with our international obligations. This is not particularly
an American challenge or Chinese challenge, or an Australian challenge.
This must be a challenge taken up by the global community and that is
why it is so distressing to see Tony Abbott recklessly walking away from
climate action, being the only country in the world really to start
moving backwards on climate change while the rest of the world is moving
forward. The scientific advice from today makes it crystal clear if we
don't start taking action now, the lives of our children and
grandchildren’s generations will be much, much harder.
JOURNALIST: How should Australia deal with growing demand for energy from countries like China and India?
BUTLER: Those
countries, China particularly and India under the new Prime Minister
Modi is making it clear they see renewable energy investment as a
critically important priority for their country. Chinese investment in
renewable energy is now by far the biggest in the world and Australia
had the capacity to be a part of that growing global market. As I said,
we were one of the four most attractive places to invest for renewable
energy last year, but we've since plummeted to 10th place. There is a
revolution happening across the world in the way in which energy,
particularly electricity is produced. Australia can either get with that
revolution or if Tony Abbott has his way, we can miss the boat
entirely.
Thanks very much, everyone.
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