Chief scientist Alan Finkel hits back at electric car doubters

Affordable electric vehicles that can drive up to 600 kilometres on a single charge will help bring a motoring revolution to Australia, predicts Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, in an intervention that defies naysayers of the technology.

In praise of the transport revolution: Chief Scientist Alan Finkel with an electric car. 

In an interview with Fairfax Media, Dr Finkel said the onus was on the federal government to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, but predicted electric cars “will be a significant element” of policies considered.

Read Nicole Hasham’s story in The Age - “Chief scientist Alan Finkel hits back at electric car doubters.”

(I repeat, personally owned privately operated cars, electric or otherwise, should not be considered a part of what is needed in an energy restrained future as a method of moving people about. We need, rather, a sophisticated public transit system, which we can build just as soon as we break our addiction to the profit motive and privatisation - Robert McLean) 

Finkel review: Government backbenchers question clean energy target report

Pro-coal backbenchers within the Liberal Party have already begun undermining a report from the chief scientist Alan Finkel, as Labor foreshadows pulling support for the proposal if new coal-fired power stations are built.

Alan Finkel's report proposes a clean energy
target to help reduce carbon emissions.

Dr Finkel's report proposes a clean energy target (CET) to help reduce carbon emissions and lower electricity prices for households by about $90 per year.

Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz is accusing the chief scientist of using "creative assumptions" to come up with his recommendations for a CET.

Western Sydney Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly is calling for another report to be done into the economic effect of setting aggressive emissions reduction targets.

Read the ABC News story - “Finkel review: Government backbenchers question clean energy target report.”

Chief Scientist's report paves way for end of climate plan war in Australia

The review of the Australian energy market presented on Friday to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the leaders of the states and territories is driven as much by politics as it is by policy. The report by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel might thus disappoint science and economics purists, but it has the potential to break an impasse that has for a decade shackled this nation's ability to respond effectively and efficiently to the existential threat of global warming caused by human activity, particularly through the burning of fossil fuels.

So, while much remains unclear because the government will need time to respond to the report and to seek cross-party support for any measures, Dr Finkel has provided a path out of a quagmire of vested interests and political opportunism.

The key to mitigating the risk is to put a price on carbon that reflects not only its energy generation benefits (which create private profits), but also the associated environmental costs (which lead to public losses). The most efficient and effective way to set such a price is via a market mechanism – a cap and trade system, for example. Then prime minister John Howard took such a policy to the 2007 election, as did the eventual victor, Kevin Rudd. But that bipartisanship unravelled in 2009 after then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull lost a party room ballot by one vote to climate-sceptic coal champion Tony Abbott.

Read the Editorial in today’s  Melbourne Age - “Chief Scientist's report paves way for end of climate plan war in Australia.”