Australia won’t meet the Paris targets despite what recent research claims.

The Australian National University has been making headlines for its analysis that, with the current rate of renewable energy growth, Australia will achieve its Paris agreement targets five years early – by 2025. Unfortunately, after a careful review, we find their analysis doesn’t stack up.

The government's policies are aimed at slowing renewable energy rollout.

The ANU briefing note has surprised, if not shocked, many in the expert and analytical community with detailed knowledge of Australia’s climate and energy policy.

Numerous international and national efforts to examine Australia’s climate and energy policy have all concluded that the government will not reach, on present policy settings, the 26-28% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030 it has put forward under the Paris agreement.

Read the story from The Guardian by Bill Hare - “Australia won’t meet the Paris targets despite what recent research claims.”

(Lead author of the ANU report, David Balkers, discusses his work on the "Climate Conversations" podcast - Robert McLean)

British MPs push for plastic bottles tax and non-recyclables ban

London: British politicians will be asked to tax plastic bottles and eliminate all non-recyclable plastics by 2025 under a radical bill proposed by cross-party MPs.

 British politicians will be asked to tax plastic bottles
 and eliminate all non-recyclable plastics by 2025,

Geraint Davies, a Labour backbencher who represents a coastal constituency in Swansea, Wales will publish his bill on Monday.

t will call for plastic bottles to be taxed at a rate of 15 pence (about 20 cents) to force plastics producers –  instead of councils – to pay for recycling.

Read Latika Bourke’s stopy from The Age - “British MPs push for plastic bottles tax and non-recyclables ban.”

Nation’s biggest wind farm could be built between Geelong and Ballarat

The biggest wind farm in the southern hemisphere will be built about 130 kilometres west of Melbourne, powering an estimated half a million homes a year by 2025, if the Andrews government gives the project the green light.

Graphic: Stephen Kiprillis

The proposed wind farm would sprawl across 167 square kilometres of farmland near the small town of Rokewood in south-west Victoria, about 40 kilometres south of Ballarat.

It would have 228 wind turbines, each 230 metres tall at their highest point. By way of comparison, just four skyscrapers in Melbourne are taller.

Read Adam Carey’s story from The Age - “Nation’s biggest wind farm could be built between Geelong and Ballarat.”