Welcome to the website of the Adelaide Hills Climate Action Group (AHCAG)

                                                                                                                                                    Mark Butler, Federal MP and Shadow Minister for the Environement, Climate and Water joined AHCAG's April meeting this year. We enjoyed an invigorating discussion on the RET negotiations with the Government and future plans for the next election.

The National GreenPower Accreditation Program is being reviewed and Tim Kelly has prepared a submission (attached). GreenPower is the poor cousin of the RET, being the market pull mechanism rather than the RET market push requirement for renewable energy. Ultimately we need market pull to work and succeed the RET as carbon priceing and carbon constraints come back into play.

Tim Kelly explores issues surrounding the GreenPower Program and describes why leagal accounting standards and pricing reforms are absolutely necessary and overdue. Tim argues that GreenPower reform is extremely important and urgent, particularly in advance of the roll out of electric vehicle infrastructure.

Some details from the website:-

The public consultation paper can be found here

Written submissions are due by 5pm, Friday March 27 2015 via email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Please ensure the email subject heading for your submission is GreenPower Program Review Submission.

Attachments:

Tim Kelly - Submission on GreenPower 2015

[Tim Kelly - Submission on GreenPower 2015]

675 Kb

In early June twenty two people enjoyed soup and nibbles and viewed Do the Math in the Stirling Library. This inspiring movie, featuring Bill McKibben from 350.org, touches on social movements, environmental, economic and social change and has a strong focus on building a community movement for divestment from fossil fuels.

In the energised discussion following the movie many people requested a copy to show others and the link to the Go Fossil Free campaign in Australia.

The Do the Math trailer gives a quick impression of the issues involved.

This site for the Go Fossil Free campaign in Australia has tools and resources, including some rather nice templates for letters to your super fund, and more resources will be added in coming months. To give an idea of the significance of fossil industry investment from super funds here is a quote from the site:-

"Over 55% of the world’s superannuation is invested in coal, oil, gas and other high-carbon assets whilst less than 2% is invested in climate solutions like renewable energy. If super funds switched even a fraction of their investments to renewables, it would completely transform the energy industry. We have the opportunity to radically transform superannuation from the world’s biggest fossil fuel investor to a climate change champion.

Globally, over $30 trillion is invested in superannuation, making it the largest single source of wealth on the planet. At $1.3 trillion, Australia’s super pool accounts for a large portion of the pie.

Australian super funds are currently investing billions in an unsustainable future on our behalf. Chances are that when your employer puts money into your super account, a significant percentage of it is invested in coal, gas and other fossil fuel projects. In fact, a recent analysis calculated that if the proportion of super invested in climate solutions was increased from 2% to 5%, nearly $3 trillion would be leveraged for clean assets globally – that’s a third of the total cost to fix climate change (according to the International Energy Agency)!

Your super fund has a legal obligation (“fiduciary duty”) to respond to your concerns if you’re unhappy with the way they’re investing your money. So, if each of us acts together, we could shift billions of dollars out of carbon-intensive investments and into climate solutions like renewable energy."

The federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) has recently moved towards abandoning principles of open and transparent Goverrnment by not publishing submissions on important policy documents.

Where this is the case, AHCAG can provide the opportunity for such submissions to be published. On Australia's biggest economic reform being the Clean Energy Legislative Package released on 28 July 2011, the Federal Government has allowed just four weeks for submissions and has not indicated whether the non-confidential submissions will be made public on its website.

AHCAG's own Tim Kelly, who last year published a Customer Choice Model for carbon pollution and renewable energy, has lodged submissions with two public consultation processes being conducted by DCCEE. The Department has decided that it will not publish these submissions, so AHCAG has decided to publish them here.

Attachments:

Tim Kelly - Submission on Carbon Pricing Architecture[1].pdf	[ ]	101 Kb
Tim Kelly- Submission on the 2011 draft NGER_ Determination[1].pdf	[ ]	158 Kb