Energy and Carbon
CCS made the following comments in response to the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Scheme 2007.
VRET requires that energy retailers buy a mere 10% of energy from renewable resources by 2016. This falls short of achieving carbon neutrality by 2020, which is the target many people are hopeful of achieving.
For example, in 2006 households caused 25 million tons of CO2 projected to grow by 27.2 million tones by 2010.
What has been the regular yearly increment?
What changes have occurred in this time that may affect outcomes.
It is suggested that a rebate scheme be used to retrofit or replace old appliances, if this is the preferred method, it will take quite some time for changes to come into play. What about making a policy that prevents manufacture or import of new equipment without lowering the energy use of standby mode? Too many of our appliances have extraordinarily high level energy use in this mode, this is something that needs public education to effect change also.
The 5 star energy award for new housing is in our opinion, out dated. It allows for a developer to use Water Sensitive Urban Design OR Solar panels, to achieve this rating. It needs to be both of those and most importantly, include sufficient space for planting so that natures own shade devices are used to maximum benefit. Trees, are not only natures lungs but also are an environment moderator, providing temperature modification, and have a humidifying effect on air.
The statistics provided for the last study of energy use, indicates that of household energy use, 59% of the total, is for temperature modification, heating and cooling, the importance of trees is paramount. Other vegetation is important for water quality, with vegetation being used as a form of filtration as water is carried off to retarding basins and storm water. The Government should be incorporating these design principles into urban design guides, locally and state wide.
CCS is not at all in agreement that encouraging “shifting households from electricity to gas use” is a useful method of reducing environmental impact. How can swapping from one fossil fuel to another be anything but dodging around in the dark? We need strong leadership to encourage sustainable change, reduce dependence and replace fossil fuel with green energy forms.
We need encouragement to adopt fast uptake of new sustainable technology. If solar panels provide input back to the grid, this should be rewarded in a way that makes consumers keen to adopt ownership of the problem and keen to make individual contributions to the solution.
Lastly, a scheme needs to be mindful of the effect on energy retailers, given that this service is now in private hands. It would be quite ridiculous to find ourselves in a situation where as individuals we pay more for less, while contributing to the solution.
The Queensland water authority has found itself in this situation, since the wider community is doing their bit with water conservation, tanks and water saving techniques. The water retailer is now struggling for profit, since demand is reduced, and has recently announced a price increase, due to consumers frugality with that resource.
This monumentally highlights the ridiculousness of the “supply and demand theory of economics” when applied to society sustaining commodities, like water, energy, food, public transport, education and health social welfare.
CCS recommends that in general this Target scheme, does not go far enough, nor take the issues seriously enough to implement and sustain effective change in the time frame that the public expect to see occur.
