Vaunted plan to cut power emissions will have 'negligible impact’

New analysis has found the Turnbull government’s plan to tackle climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power generators is superfluous because the pollution cuts would be achieved regardless, largely due to state policies.

The national energy guarantee aims to cut pollution from the electricity sector..

It means the government’s much-heralded national energy guarantee will force an administratively complex overhaul of the national electricity market without applying targets ambitious enough to tackle global warming beyond action already being taken.

But Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg says the analysis does not consider the need to make electricity supplies more reliable, which is an aim of its proposed policy, along with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Read Nicole Hasham’s story from The Age - “Vaunted plan to cut power emissions will have 'negligible impact’.”

New Zealand Will Shut Down Its Last Large Coal-Fired Power Generators in 2018

The last of New Zealand's coal-fired
power plants will be gone by 2018.

New Zealand electricity company Genesis Energy has announced that it will shut down its last two coal-fired power generators by December 2018 - a bold step towards the country's goal of being powered by 90 percent renewable energy by 2025. 

The decision means that, with the exception of a few small-scale industrial plants, the country will no longer be burning coal to generate electricity, and will stop pumping around 1,600 kilotonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere within three years. 

“Its closure marks the end of coal-fired power generation in New Zealand," the Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges said in a press release.

Read the Science Alert story - “New Zealand Will Shut Down Its Last Large Coal-Fired Power Generators in 2018.”