Climate Change Forums

Climate Change and our response to it is one of the major issues facing state and federal Governments in Australia.

Last Thursday night I attended a community forum "A Critical Look at Nuclear Fuel and Australia's Future Energy Needs" hosted by the Uniting Church.

There was a great turnout and it is very exciting to see environmentalists and church members working together on this critical issue.

Dr Mark Diesendorf, from the University of NSW, had some concrete proposals to produce energy from renewable sources and raised the following concerns about the possible use of nuclear energy
- nuclear facilities provide great targets for terrorists
- there is the potential for nuclear materials to be used in weapons
- the potential for catastrophic accidents
- the management of nuclear waste
- low-level radiation can produce cancers for up to 100 000 years into the future
- nuclear power generation will produce CO2 - it is not clean
- nuclear power is very expensive to produce

Dr Wayne Reynolds, from the Universtity of Newcastle, speculated that John Howard has opened the nuclear energy debate in Australia with an ulterior motive. Dr Reynolds presented a convincing case that Howard's support for a nuclear debate is linked with US nuclear policy.

Today I attended a forum on climate change hosted by Jill Hall member of the ALP and Federal member for Shortland and Bob Phillips of Newcastle Greens.

While it was encouraging to see the ALP and The Greens co-host such an important community event, the party's policy positions become irreconcilable when it comes to the issue of coal.

Anthony Albanese, Shadow Minister for Environment, spoke for 30 minutes on the topic of climate change without once mentioning COAL. When questioned on the ALP's position on coal, Mr Albanese admitted the ALP has no intention of phasing out coal or coal exports.

In fact, the ALP joins the government in it's chorus of 'Clean Coal' as the solution to the CO2 emissions produced by coal fired power stations. So, we are being asked to entrust this critical component of our future energy equation to an as yet unproved (and potentially very expensive) technology.

The only sensible alternative is to invest in renewable energy sources - bioenergy (using crop waste), wind power, solar power. The development of these industries will create jobs and economic growth well into the future - a future which we can only confidently bequeth to our children and grandchildren if we deal with the reality of climate change NOW.

I look forward to the National Day of Climate Change Action on November 4th - watch this space for details.