In response to Abbott’s announcement of a 26% emissions reduction target, Australians have responded much like Iceman to Maverick in Top Gun.
The Monthy’s Nick Feik elaborates on the nationwide bullshit cough:
So how will the new 2030 target be met? The question’s irrelevant. Political opponents, world leaders, climate scientists and environmentalists are already lining up to decry the target for its inadequacy and lack of ambition but they miss the point: this government won’t even try to meet its target. It’s an exercise in sheer duplicity.
This government has killed carbon pricing, reduced the renewable energy target, gutted the Clean Energy Finance Corporation by instructing it not to invest in wind power or small-scale solar projects; it has presided over the destruction of the large-scale renewable energy industry in Australia; de-funded the Climate Council and tried to disband the Climate Change Authority; pulled financial support from the Environmental Defenders Offices, the Caring for Our Country, Low Carbon Communities and Energy Efficiency Opportunities programs, and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
Unsurprisingly, power sector emissions in the past year grew by more than they have in a decade, reversing gains made as a result of the carbon tax.
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So what are the chances now of it taking genuine action on climate change? About as high as Tony Abbott standing up in front of the media and owning up to the fact that everything he said and done on the issue in the past five years is, to paraphrase, absolute crap.
Well said.