climate change

While Governments and business have been slow to progress action on climate change some communities are putting their money into action by financing and establishing community owned and operated utility scale wind farms. Hepburn Wind is arguably the first Australian community owned wind farm located at Leonards Hill, near the town of Daylesford in central Victoria. When completed this year its two wind turbines, each producing 2 megawatts power for the grid, will supply enough for 2,300 homes, most of the demand generated in the Daylesford and Hepburn Springs area.

Statement from Rising Tide 7: Magistrate Elaine Truscott has today (March 3rd) dismissed a $525,000 victims compensation claim brought against 7 climate change protesters on behalf of Port Waratah Coal Services in Newcastle Local court. We are relieved that the claim was rejected but have our concerns that the Magistrate’s decision was based on insufficient evidence, rather than rejecting it as an abuse of NSW Victims Compensation laws.

New analysis done by the Australian Conservation Foundation shows that while funding and subsidies for solar power and climate change related programs has increased by $500 million per year, subsidies and concessions for fossil fuel carbon pollution related activies soared by $1.5 billion per year, 3 times as much.

Australia is to get a carbon tax from 1 July 2012 as one cornerstone policy for tackling the challenges of climate change, announced Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Greens leader Senator Bob Brown, and Independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor in Canberra yesterday. The interim carbon tax is proposed to run for 3-5 years, rising by a set amount each year, to be followed by a full cap and trade emissions trading scheme linked to international markets. There would be no international offsets allowed for the interim mechanism and agricultural emissions would initially be excluded from the tax.

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