WA watchdog abandons carbon-neutral push after oil and gas industry criticism

Western Australia’s environmental watchdog has abandoned a recommendation to the state government that new emissions-intensive projects should be carbon neutral following widespread criticism.

 Western Australia’s EPA has abandoned a recommendation
that new emissions-intensive projects should be carbon
neutral after criticism from the oil and gas industry.

The Environmental Protection Authority last week released updated guidelines on mitigating emissions from new or expanding projects, suggesting proposals with emissions higher than 100,000 tonnes a year should be fully offset.

Read the story from The Guardian by Australian Associated Press - “WA watchdog abandons carbon-neutral push after oil and gas industry criticism.”

Queensland smashes myths about renewables, and South Australia

Queensland fancies itself as a coal state, and the Labor government’s support of the huge mega coal projects in the Galilee Basin has attracted widespread criticism from environmental groups. But it has done a fantastic service to Australia’s clean energy debate with the release of the draft report into its planned 50 per cent renewable energy target.

The report – prepared by an independent panel drawn mostly from the banking and energy industries – smashes so many renewable energy myths it is difficult to know where to start.

But broadly speaking, it attacks the underlining assumption that renewables are expensive, unreliable, require huge subsidies and threaten the stability of the electricity system.

The Queensland report says this is simply not true: it says the state can reach what the Coalition (and many in the mainstream media) dismiss as an expensive and reckless target with little subsidy, and no impact on reliability. At the same time, renewables can reduce costs to consumers, create jobs, add new industries and add to economic growth.

Read Giles Parkinson’s story on RenewEconomy - “Queensland smashes myths about renewables, and South Australia.”