PM announces $60m for clean energy

SMH


November 1, 2006 - 7:54PM


Australia has become the first country in the Asia-Pacific climate bloc to hand over money for clean energy projects amid concern about the future of the regional partnership.

Prime Minister John Howard has announced $60 million for 42 collaborative projects, ranging from a device to capture carbon from power stations, to highly efficient solar panels.

But environmentalists have criticised the selected projects, saying more than half the funding is going towards coal and other fossil fuels rather than renewable energy.

And a left-wing think-tank has cast doubt on whether any of the other five countries in the Asia-Pacific Clean Development and Climate Partnership (AP6) will match the Australian money.

Mr Howard announced the funding, the first instalment of Australia's pledged $100 million, this morning with the flags of all six AP6 countries - Australia, Japan, China, India, South Korea and the United States - flying behind him.

In the shadow of a two-storey high prototype for the mobile carbon catcher, Mr Howard said he was taking practical action to clean up the use of fossil fuels.

"What could be more practical than to find a way of capturing carbon emissions from existing power stations, separating them out and burying the carbon?" Mr Howard said.

"I think what the AP6 will do is to demonstrate to other countries that practical collaboration is the most immediate way of getting dividends in reducing greenhouse gas emissions because people can relate to that.

"They see that and they understand, well this is going to clean up that dirty smoke that comes out of the generators and that's terrific."

But Australia Institute executive director Clive Hamilton said AP6 was in danger of collapse.

Dr Hamilton said the US Congress had twice rejected White House requests for $US46 million to fund commitments to the pact and that lack of support was mirrored in the other AP6 countries.

"There has been no political engagement and the process has been left to the bureaucracies," Dr Hamilton said.

"Australia is alone in putting money into AP6."

But Mr Howard said he was confident the other countries would meet their obligations soon.

Mr Howard will discuss climate change with the other AP6 countries, except India, at this month's APEC meeting in Vietnam.

"I know that Australia's contribution of $100 million towards projects under the partnership is the first, and I know that that contribution will be followed very rapidly by contributions from other countries that are part of the partnership," he said.

But the Wilderness Society pointed out that China, India and Korea would receive $5 billion to reduce greenhouse pollution as a result of their membership of the Kyoto Protocol.

It said $16 billion of projects were already in the pipeline for Kyoto countries, while AP6 had only been promised $169 million in projects.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today's projects, while worthwhile in themselves, would be next to worthless if they were not within a global emissions trading regime.

Mr Beazley said Labor's plan to join the Kyoto Protocol and join an emissions trading scheme were the most comprehensive way to solve global warming.

"Unless you're prepared to commit yourself to ratification of Kyoto, to emissions trading and the establishment of targets, you do nothing," he said.

"That is what has been made amply clear by the Stern report and by what the scientists have to say to us."

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, released in London, warns of economic and climatic disaster if urgent action is not taken to tackle global warming.

In his report, Sir Nicholas Stern slated Australia for not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for reducing emissions.

But Mr Howard was unrepentant.

"It's all very well to have the international meetings and the conferences and try and reach treaty arrangements and everything, but what has made AP6 work is that we've put that aside and we've focused on practical partnerships," Mr Howard said.

AAP