[Greens-Media] Renewables target: Government must ignore short-sighted agenda of big polluters

[Hollo, Tim (Sen C. Milne)]

Renewables target: Government must ignore short-sighted agenda of big
polluters

Brisbane, Monday 18 August 2008  The Rudd Government must ignore the
short-sighted agenda of Australia's big polluters and stick to its
commitment to lift the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, Australian
Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, said today.

Senator Milne said, "It is no surprise that Australia's biggest
polluters are lobbying the Government to protect the status quo under
which they can keep raking in the profits and pay nothing for the carbon
pollution they pump into the atmosphere.

"The Australian Industry Group, the Business Council, Cement Australia
and the Aluminium Council are all hard at work in Canberra trying to
lock Australia into a resource economy which will soon be in the past,
and deny us all the benefits of moving swiftly into the clean, clever
future.

"The greenhouse mafia claims that the renewables target will undermine
our export industries, coming on the same day that we are seeing new
concerns that the resource boom is coming to an end, reveal just how
much these people are locked in the past.

"Policies to boost renewable energy are about making sure that Australia
will be in a position to achieve the serious emissions cuts we will need
to make. Without bringing on the alternatives to polluting coal, we face
far higher costs in the future. A high renewables target substantially
reduces the cost of cutting emissions over the medium term.

"With the proposed emissions trading scheme compromised, and early
indications that the scheme's cap will be far too weak, the Mandatory
Renewable Energy Target is the Rudd Government's only remaining scrap of
credibility on climate change. If Rudd and Wong bow to pressure from
polluters on this vital issue, they will pay the political price for
abandoning those Australians who voted for climate action in 2007."


Senator Milne is in Brisbane today in hearings for the Senate Inquiry
into the tax treatment of carbon sink forests. She is available for
interviews on either issue.


Tim Hollo
Media and Communications Adviser
Senator Christine Milne
+61 (0)2 6277 3063
+61 (0) 437 587 562
www.christinemilne.org.au

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