Coal is centre stage for action on climate change

The four Greens MPs in NSW will work together to make climate change the theme that underpins everything the Government says and does. Climate change must not become a single issue ­ sidelined into a portfolio or a Ministry.  It must be placed centre stage in every Government policy, every major development, in every budget and every piece of legislation in NSW.

When the new Parliament begins we will resume work on the Greens' Climate Futures Bill which addresses the NSW Labor government's failure to take on the coal industry as part of their climate change strategy.

The Greens Climate Futures Bill will place a moratorium on new coal projects. It will direct the NSW government to provide a transition package of retraining and jobs for coal communities, and to fast track the development of a renewable energy industry in NSW.  The bill also raises the NSW mandatory renewable energy targets to at least 20% by 2012, and 50% by 2020.

The 22 new coal projects proposed for NSW would have a combined capacity of 56.9 million tonnes of coal a year. This would result in the emission of 136.56 million tones of carbon dioxide every year.

The Stern Review estimated the social cost of every tonne of carbon dioxide at about $105 ($85 US). Applying this formula, each year's emissions from the new proposals alone would  do more than $11.6 billion damage.

The climate change election promises made by Labor and the Opposition were flawed and next to useless as neither took into account the staggering financial impact of global warming on the NSW budget.

The Greens are pushing the Government to factor climate change into every economic projection so that the NSW Budget takes into account the cost of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

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