Climate action now, please, Prime Minister

The climate change measures announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard today are too slow and not equal to the scale of the problem, the Australian Conservation Foundation said.

“The approach outlined by the Prime Minister this morning is a slow way to address the urgent problem of climate change,” said ACF Executive Director Don Henry.

“Labor will have to deliver much more before Australians can have confidence that our pollution levels will stop going up and start going down.

“A citizens’ assembly would take 12 months to tell us what we already know – that the majority of Australians want action to cut pollution.”

An Auspoll survey in June found 79% of Australians support “a price tag on pollution”.

“We’ve got community consensus for action – the thing we need is leadership to transition Australia from a pollution-dependent economy to a cleaner economy,” Mr Henry said.

“The money for grid infrastructure is important, but we need solar power stations to connect the grid to. Today’s announcement will not see any additional solar power stations built.

“The Government is already supporting the construction of two solar power stations; we should be building 30 of them.

“Government should be investing heavily in a cleaner economy, putting a price tag on pollution and making clean energy cheaper.”