A National Renewable Energy Grid

Australia should set an international example by implementing the plan designed and fully costed by Beyond Zero Emissions environmental organisation and The University of Melbourne Energy Research Institute.

In the absence of any agreed plan to rapidly phase out the burning of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions are set to go on increasing for decades. This will prevent any chance of restricting global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius.

As James Hansen of NASA bluntly states "The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for two degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster." The current Australian target of 5% reduction of emissions by 2020 is dangerously inadequate. A target of 40-60% by 2030 is needed and may still be within reach if we begin construction of a national renewable energy grid over a ten year time frame without more loss of time.

With accelerating release of methane from permafrost and the ocean floor, a positive feedback effect we could do nothing to slow could lead to runaway and irreversible warming, causing temperature rises of three to four degrees or more above pre-industrial. This would be disastrous for all life on the planet. We must stop burning fossil fuels. A national and international wind and solar transition scheme is urgently needed, technically achievable, and humanly possible.

Ref: Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan – http://bze.org.au/
I believe Australia’s great resource of sunlight should be the opportunity for the country to lead the world in exploiting this renewable energy. – David Suzuki
“The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean-energy future.” - Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, June 2010

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