With the ACT Budget already very much at the printers it’s a little late to be making helpful suggestions.
But that hasn’t stopped the Greens’ Shane Rattenbury pointing out increasing concerns about the ACT Government handling of climate action.
“The new climate targets legislation requires the ACT Government to set a renewable energy target within 6 months of the Act commencing, and yet still we have not seen the Government’s energy policy – it’s almost impossible to see how they can do one without the other.”
“When asked about the Energy Policy in the Assembly in March, Energy Minister Simon Corbell indicated that it would be released with the climate change strategy Action Plan 2. Further questioning revealed that Action Plan 2 wouldn’t be coming until the Federal Government had settled on a carbon price – date unknown!
“It’s just been delay after delay by the Government on climate change over the past 2 years, and now we are increasingly concerned that the delivery of a comprehensive and coordinated climate strategy is still months away.“The ACT Government made a legislated commitment to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020 – as time passes, meeting that commitment is just going to get harder.
“The Government needs to prioritise delivering these measures – one can only assume it’s either lack of political will, mismanagement or lack of resources at this stage – why else would it be taking so long?
“The Minister hasn’t even gotten around to appointing the Climate Change Council, which is astounding seeing as he asked people to rush their applications into the Department in the 3 weeks before Christmas. Months later, no one has been appointed.
“Action Plan 2 was also supposed to have been out for public consultation in the first quarter of 2011 – yet still we are waiting.
But hey, nothing needs to actually be done until after the next election and then they’ll have four years for you to forget about it.
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