NSW slams federal Coalition over “extraordinary” refusal to reinstate emissions in NEG

Relations between one of Australia’s last remaining Coalition state governments and the Morrison government continue to go south at a rapid rate, after NSW energy minister Don Harwin slammed his federal counterpart’s “out of touch” energy policy at the 21st COAG Energy Council meeting in Adelaide today.

In a brief, but stinging rebuke, Harwin said he was “very disappointed” by the federal government actions at the meeting, in particular its continued refusal to restore the emissions component of the National Energy Guarantee, after it was dumped from the policy in August.

“The refusal, on procedural grounds, to let the vital matter of restoring an emissions obligation into national energy policy be discussed is extraordinary,” Harwin wrote in an emailed statement.

Read the RenewEconomy story by Sophie Vorrath - “NSW slams federal Coalition over “extraordinary” refusal to reinstate emissions in NEG.”

From irrelevant slowness to lightning speed

Climate change is moving at a human time scale that makes it almost irrelevant to most people.

The reality, which they can’t see in a way that people understand and so judge most things, is moving, in a geological sense, like lightning.

That creates manifest difficulties, not the least being the bringing to the public findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The need for even-handedness, fairness, agreement on complicated wordings, and the constant review and revision of findings takes so long, a delay worsened by procrastination and debate, can make reality and the actual report seem like only remote relations.

A story published by the World Resources Institute headed: “9 Significant Scientific Findings too Recent to Be Included in the New IPCC Report” highlights that difficulty.