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Smart Energy Summit 2020 worth watching

October 21, 2020

Global Smart Energy Summit 2020 Event Summary

On Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 September 2020 the Smart Energy Council and partners the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and Zoom delivered an amazing lineup of international and local industry and political leaders in exploring ways to tackle the economic and climate crises simultaneously.

some of the stand out speeches from both days include:

More details at https://www.smartenergy.org.au/global-smart-energy-summit-2020-event-summary

 

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Climate

Critical mass in Canberra puts nuclear dump in doubt

September 17, 2020

Kimba radioactive waste plans faces challenge in parliament following release of Senate inquiry report
Plans for a nuclear waste dump in the South Australian outback could still be derailed as opposition against laws clearing its path run into opposition from multiple political players.  Michelle Etheridge, Regional Editor, The Advertiser, September 14, 2020
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/kimba-radioactive-waste-plans-faces-challenge-in-parliament-following-release-of-senate-inquiry-report/news-story/5f0c57845cb063a6eed2003673350f78
The Federal Government faces a challenge to pass its radioactive waste bill through Parliament, amid dissent from a Labor Senator, the Greens and Independent Senator Rex Patrick.
A Senate committee probe into the draft legislation paving way for a radioactive waste site at Napandee farm, near Kimba, has recommended it be passed. However, dissenting reports from Labor’s Jenny McAllister, Greens Senator Sarah-Hanson Young and Mr Patrick have raised a raft of concerns, including it preventing the community from seeking a judicial review of the site selection process.

 

Under the plans, the Government will store low-level waste at Napandee permanently, and intermediate level waste for several decades.
Senator McAllister said the traditional landowners, the Barngarla people, were worried the new legislation specifying the site would override their right to a judicial review that would normally apply if Resources Minister Keith Pitt declared the location.   She said the Government had given “no compelling reason” for the change.
Senator Patrick said the bill emerged because “the Government botched its own site selection process to such a degree that it would almost certainly have seen a site selected through a ministerial decision overturned on judicial review”. The Government wanted the Senate to “fix up its mistake”, he said, but it could not do that “without serving up the majority of the stakeholders … with a plate of Government-cooked injustice”.
A Kimba Council-run ballot found 62 per cent of respondents supported the waste facility in their region. The Barngarla people lost a court battle to be included, later holding their own vote, which rejected the plans.
… Read more >>

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Nuclear

One Million Jobs suggested by BZE under Govt Consideration

September 17, 2020

the Expenditure Review Committee is considering a pre-budget submission on “The Million Jobs Plan” for a green recovery from climate think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, a consortium backed by heavyweight investors including tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, former Origin Energy and Macquarie Bank chair Kevin McCann and First State Super chief executive Deanne Stewart. Independent modelling by economist Chris Murphy suggests that the plan would boost private investment by an average of $25 billion annually over the next three years, generate 124,000 jobs next year, add 1–2 per cent to GDP, and lift real wages by one per cent in 2022–23. Launched in June, the Beyond Zero Emissions plan is a cracker – it’s the culmination of a decade’s work – and the pre-budget submission proposes that the government fast-track 15 priority projects, including transmission lines to link renewable energy zones to the grid, the massive Star of the South offshore wind-farm proposal off the Gippsland coast, the Walcha solar and storage project in NSW, and the Central Queensland Power Project in Gladstone.

—  Paddy Manning, The Monthly Today, Sept 17th “A million jobs “

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures

GreenCities

September 10, 2020

Reprinting the Adelaide Green Cities Handbook

The original Green Cities Handbook was first published at the end of May, 1991 by FoE Nouveau.

It as meant to be a discussion starter on how we might change cities to be better for people and the environment.

It was published a year before the Ecocity 2 conference held in Adelaide, and was inspired by ideas from Peter Berg (Planet Drum Foundation), Richard Register (from Urban Ecology in the US, convenor of the first ecocity conference), and Peter Newman, who identified the benefits of a low energy, car-free city.

Paul Downton, architect of Christie Walk, a fragment of eco-city, was involved with the Green Cities Project team, comprised of students from the Mawson Graduate Centre of Environmental Studies at the Uni of Adelaide.

The Handbook has been out of print for the last two decades, and the only copies available were photocopies of photocopies. Adelaide Friends of the Earth decided they would reprint the original, as a start to revising and updating the handbook for the new millenium. We scanned the original copies, OCRed the scans, then edited and corrected the resultant text. We’ve tried to format it similar to the original, as close to the 1991 version as possible. Some things have changed since it was published, but a lot of the information in the Handbook is still relevant.

We invite you to peruse the original, and share your thoughts on how we might improve and update it. Adelaide FoE will be holding a number of workshops to discuss the update: let us know if you’re interested in getting involved.

View the reprint here: GreenCities Adelaide draft

Clean Futures, Climate, FoE, Green Cities

Principles for a Just Recovery from the COVID-19 crisis

September 3, 2020

from FoE International 25 August, 2020

The COVID-19 crisis is the result of an economic system that prioritises profits over peoples’ rights and the environment.

The systemic, inter-related socio-ecological crises we face — climate, biodiversity, food, water, economic and care — and this global coronavirus pandemic share the same root causes: a capitalist, patriarchal and racist system designed for capital accumulation and neoliberal, corporate-led globalisation.

This is why Friends of the Earth International believes that a “just recovery” built on environmental, social, gender and economic justice is urgently needed to comprehensively address the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.

Recovery does not mean going “back to normal”. This is the time to prioritise the sustainability of life, peoples’ rights, and the protection of livelihoods and the planet.

We propose four principles for a just recovery:

1. Abandon neoliberalism and austerity and immediately put in place policies and measures founded on justice, recognising ecological limits.

The State must play a fundamental role in guaranteeing peoples’ rights and environmental justice.

Public recovery packages must:

  • Support people directly, first of all indigenous peoples, black and afro-descendant communities, people of colour, migrants, women at the grassroots, and the working class.
  • Include policies for the redistribution of wealth, women’s autonomy, tax justice, and specific support for small businesses, as well as pathways away from extractive industries and fossil fuel dependence, including support for workers to transition to new jobs.
  • Not pay for corporate financial loss with public money or bailout transnational corporations, especially those most responsible for systemic crises such as fossil fuel and mining companies, agribusiness, airlines and companies based in tax havens.

Governments must:

… Read more >>

Clean Futures, Climate, FoE