2017-02-09
WA Labor ‘spineless’ on climate change: Greens
Thursday, 9 February
The Greens have labelled WA Labor as ‘absolutely spineless’ for bowing to pressure from the Barnett Government and stepping away from a renewable energy target in WA.
Longstanding Greens MLC Robin Chapple said Labor had a responsibility to take a stand on our energy future after it was reported they would introduce a 50 per cent Renewable Energy Target in WA, before distancing themselves from the announcement just hours later.
“Anthropogenic global warming is one of the biggest issues facing our industry-reliant state. Labor had an opportunity here to come out strong and show that WA has the potential to be a policy leader in dealing with this challenge, but they’ve blown it,” he said.
“After eight years of Colin Barnett and the Liberal National Government palming off responsibility to an equally inadequate Federal Government – a period of unsustainable increases in our state’s carbon footprint - the people of Western Australia deserve real leadership on our future energy security and real action on climate change.”
Greens Candidate for East Metro Tim Clifford said the WA Greens were the only party with a real plan to transition to a clean energy economy, achieving 100 per cent renewable energy, within the next term of government.
“New modelling has shown it would be cheaper than business as usual for the South West Interconnected grid system to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030 through a mix of solar PV, wind power, solar thermal, biomass and battery storage,” he said.
“This would create up to 12,000 jobs a year for West Australians through construction, installation and ongoing maintenance and in particular deliver much needed long-term investment and economic security into regional WA.
“Promising to sit down with industry and the community after the election is an absolute cop-out by Bill Johnston and WA Labor, and the people of Western Australia will not buy it.
“Transitioning to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030 is both affordable and achievable, and I challenge WA Labor to come up with a real promise to the people of Western Australian that says they are serious about climate change.”
For more information about the WA Greens plan, visit http://energy2030.org.au/
Media contact – Tim Oliver: 0431 9696 25