Use our poll widget (right hand of this post) to help us send a clear message to Federal Candidates. To help with comparison, ORCA asked Federal Candidates for responses to the following questions:

1. Do you agree that human induced Climate Change requires urgent action?
2. Do you endorse the Beyond Zero Emissions stationary energy plan for 100% renewable energy by 2020?
3. Do you endorse a <350ppm target for Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere?
4. What support will you offer local Community Groups in transitioning to a low carbon economy?
5. What is your position on setting a price for carbon or introducing a tax on carbon dioxide emissions?

Responses are in order of receipt:

Greens Candidate, Mike Lawrence response:

1. Do you agree that human induced Climate Change requires urgent action?

Yes

2. Do you endorse the Beyond Zero Emissions stationary energy plan for 100% renewable energy by 2020?

Yes

3. Do you endorse a <350ppm target for Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere?

Yes

4. What support will you offer local Community Groups in transitioning to a low carbon economy?

Yes

5. What is your position on setting a price for carbon or introducing a tax on carbon dioxide emissions?

A carbon pollution tax based and applied to the source of CO2 and at a rate of $23 / ton and increasing to $70 / ton by 2015 is essential to attract the investment required to build base-load industrial renewable energy supply and ongoing energy security.

Liberal Candidate, Sarah Henderson’s response:

The Coalition respects the environment because we only have one planet to live on. We all want to hand down a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable Earth to our children. But we believe you don’t help the environment by damaging the economy. According to our calculations, the Rudd/Gillard ETS will saddled Australian families with annual cost increases of around $1,100 per household, while Australian businesses will face electricity cost increases of around 58 per cent over three years after its introduction in 2013. We are of the view that such policies would have a devastating effect on the Australian economy.

By contrast, Tony Abbott’s climate action policy provides incentives for Australian families and businesses to reduce their carbon emissions and focuses on meaningful, effective and direct action to improve Australia’s environment. This includes an Emissions Reduction Fund to provide direct incentives to industry and farmers to reduce CO2 emissions and a Green Corridors Initiative that will see 20 million trees planted by 2020 All in all, We think our incentive-based approach will reduce emissions as well as address some of Australia’s serious environmental problems.

Our economic dependence on oil is problematic in several respects. Much of the world oil market ends up subsidizing autocratic regimes in non-democratic countries where support for terrorism and the repression of women is common. We would be doing ourselves a favour, both in terms of national security and environmental sustainability, to develop cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuels. I believe that the solution to our problem of oil dependency will come from the private sector, and the best way to encourage the development of next generation fuel efficient technologies is through policies that promote entrepreneurial innovation.

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Take Action yourself – postcards for pollies:

The idea is that on or before Walk Against Warming day (August 14 or 15, depending on where you are) as many people as possible from across the country send a ‘postcard from home’ to BOTH the parliament office and electorate office addresses of the Prime Minister – and likewise to the addresses of the local electorate representative for those participating. Show them where you live and that you want action on climate change!

So, a Citizens’ Plea for action – on a postcard from home.

This call for action has been out to 60 other climate action
groups across the country; if only 10 people from or associated with
each group send cards, that’s 600 cards for each politician at each of
their two addresses; if 50 people join in that’s 3000 postcards! Hard
to ignore.

It would be fantastic if we would get at least 150 from each CAG
region – a real community consensus demonstrated with a citizen’s
assembly of 150 or more postcards for each region.

Sending to both offices increases the chance the message is heard at
least once. The arrival of several hundred post cards at the electorate office could result in a media event.

So ideally participants would each send out 4 four signed postcards,
each card carrying a quickly read message urging immediate action to
address climate change. The postcards show where the message is coming from – Ballina, Perth, Yarra Valley, Darwin etc.

Participants obtain or make their own cards. If four cards is too much, then please focus on the two for the PM.

A message suggestion is given below, with a bit of an explanation for
it below that. Ideally the cards would convey the same message, but
different groups and individuals may well have different priorities.
The main thing is make it clear that Labor is not doing anything like
enough to tackle climate change.

Anyway, further below we’ve given the parliamentary address for the PM and her electorate office address, as well as a link to addresses for
local electorate representatives.

Hon. Julia Gillard MP
PO Locked Bag 14 Werribee Vic 3030

Darren Cheeseman MP Federal Member for Corangamite
PO Box 625 Belmont 3216

Apologies for pointing out the obvious – you can get cards from newsagents, tourist info shops, hotels/motels etc – maybe even make
your own.

So please join us in sending postcards from home to the people we
employ to actively work in our interest. It won’t take much of your
time and will have impact.

Please forward this ‘call to cards’ to others in your network. Where
appropriate, please ask your family, friends and colleagues to send
cards.

Please also forward to activists you know in other climate and
environment groups. Our list of CAG addresses is not comprehensive.
Please spread the message as widely as you can – a ‘call to arms for
cards’.
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EXAMPLE
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Dear Julia,

Sincerely ORCA.
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This is a statement from the Climate Emergency Network and other campaigners for circulation within the climate movement. Please use the ‘have your say’ box below to voice your support or reservation.

Sign on statement:

The undersigned groups and individual climate campaigners support an inclusive campaign to urgently Replace Hazelwood with 100% renewable energy, including baseload solar thermal energy (as presented in the Beyond Zero Emissions, Zero Carbon Australia 2020 report).

The undersigned:

* strongly support the Replace Hazelwood campaign;
* support using renewable energy sources and increased efficiency to replace 100% of energy currently supplied by Hazelwood;
* particularly support the use of proven baseload Solar Thermal technology; and
* reject the use of fossil gas as an alternative fossil fuel.

When CEN members and other groups who support this statement use the Replace Hazelwood campaign logo, we will make it clear in our statements that Hazelwood must be replaced with unequivocally clean renewable energy by inclusion of wording such as “with 100% renewable energy”.

The undersigned urge others who support this position to do likewise.

Background to the statement

Safe climate technology: The melting of the Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet show that we are already out of the safe climate zone. Politicians talk about the two degrees ‘guard rail’. However, there is clear evidence that with less than one degrees of warming so far, we already in the realm of dangerous climate change. The earth is already too hot. To restore a safe climate, we need to cool the planet as quickly as possible to pre-industrial temperatures, which are the only ones known to be safe for civilization and all species. This means reducing levels of green
house gases in the atmosphere to below current levels. Carbon dioxide (CO2) lasts in the air for
thousands of years (unless deliberately removed). We need to minimise our ‘overshoot’ into the
danger zone and to remove the excess CO2 that is already in the air.

There is no choice but to move quickly to zero net emissions technologies, so that we do not
continue adding to the problem with more emissions. We cannot afford to wait for Carbon Capture
and Storage (CCS) to save the fossil fuel industries. All the evidence to date is that safe and
reliable, large-scale CCS will not be economically viable, and may not even be technologically
feasible. Renewable energy works now and can be built quickly. Spain installed 3000MW of solar
thermal energy in 18 months, enough to replace Hazelwood more than twice over. Solar thermal
with storage provides baseload electricity day and night, with close to zero emissions. We can,
and must, rapidly move to close down fossil fuel power stations, starting with the dirtiest of them -
Hazelwood. We must ensure that no more are built. The only safe place for fossil fuels is in the
ground.

No time for a false start with gas: There is a growing recognition that the social licence of coal is fast being eroded. However, there is an emerging expectation among leaders in corporate and government circles that coal-fired generation will eventually be replaced by a large scale transition to gas and wind in combination, not to zero emissions technologies. Over the last five years, vast reserves of unconventional fossil gas have been discovered in Australia and around the world (in coal seams and shale formations). The fossil gas reserves are now thought to be large enough to allow a wholesale shift from coal-fired to fossil gas-fired power stations – 100 years of coal seam gas reserves according to Martin Ferguson

APPEA 50TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE

Unlike coal-fired power stations, gas fired power stations can vary their electricity output easily
and can therefore complement the fluctuating energy supply from wind power. Fossil-gas-fired
electricity plus wind power is the cheapest option for replacing coal. But if we move in this
direction, we risk being stuck with gas for a long time – gas turbines can last 40 to 60 years.
Shifting to a mix of fossil-gas-fired electricity generation plus wind power may cut CO2 emissions
substantially, once-off, and per power station. But over the 40 to 60 years that this technology
paradigm lasts, economic growth would most likely push up energy demand up so much that total
annual emissions of CO2 are likely to be similar to now or even higher.

We have no time for a ‘false start’ detour via low emissions technologies. We must stand firm
against it right from the outset. We cannot afford to dilute our message by saying that a bit of gas
here and there is OK or that fossil fuel power stations that are “carbon capture ready” can be built.
If we promote fossil-gas plus wind and energy efficiency to Replace Hazelwood as the fastest
way to cut emissions, we will also promote a fossil-gas plus wind paradigm that will divert society
from restoring a safe climate as fast as possible.

Starting the zero emissions transition now: So how can we prevent this ‘false-start’ from
happening? The best way is to promote net zero emissions renewable energy sources. We need
to advocate for this solution consistently throughout all our campaigns, including the Replace
Hazelwood campaign.

Concentrating solar thermal power with storage is an essential part of the mix, because this is the
most promising commercially available, zero net emissions option for flexible dispatchable power
to complement fluctuating wind power. Despite advice from Beyond Zero Emissions, Martin
Ferguson has set up the tendering process for the Solar Flagships project in such a way that
companies with expertise in building concentrating solar thermal plant with storage have been
eliminated from the final round of tenders.

Concentrating solar thermal plants, and other zero emissions alternatives to fossil fuel baseload
power, will not be built unless we campaign strongly and consistently for this.