Submission to RET Review - retain RET and don't burn native forests for fuel

13 May 2014

Via https://retreview.dpmc.gov.au/online-submissions

This is my brief submission to the Renewable Energy Target review that you are conducting.
The whole purpose of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) is to address climate change and reduce carbon pollution by bringing more renewable energy into our electricity supply in a gradual and predictable fashion that encourages investment.

The Coalition has promised at the two most recent Australian elections to retain the target. I expect the Government to honour all its climate promises.

I would like the target of 41,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy by 2020 retained, or preferably be increased to 60,000 gigawatt hours, so that we can move faster to address climate change.
I understand that the present target is costing the average household about an extra dollar a week for electricity.  I am more than happy to pay this small charge to clean up our power generation and reduce carbon pollution.

Native forest wood products must not be classified as an eligible renewable energy source as there are significant net total carbon emissions resulting from logging native forests.  Forest destroyed by logging is not “waste”.  The natural value of forests, their biodiversity, the water they produce and the carbon they store is far more valuable than woodchips and the small proportion of sawn timber produced by logging them.

Burning logging residues resulting from logging native forests will increase carbon emissions and further encourage ongoing logging, destruction and degradation of Australia’s native forests, some of which have been found to be the most carbon-dense in the world.

Peter Campbell
Surrey Hills, Victoria

Rob Oakeshott: native forest biomass is bad for koalas and bad for the climate

An open letter to Rob Oakeshott; federal MP for Lyne (NSW)
via email Robert.Oakeshott.MP@aph.gov.au

Dear Rob,

I have liked your contributions to the Australian parliament to date.

However, I do not support your recent attempts to re-instate burning native forests under the MRET. This is unacceptable. I strongly oppose it.

Our native forests are still being destroyed in NSW, WA, TAS and VIC mostly for woodchips. The export markets for woodchip has collapsed so this destructive industry is about to halt.

But allowing the burning of native forest woodchips in forest furnaces will create a new and perverse "market" for the woodchips, and encourage ongoing destruction of our forests.
The are huge net carbon emissions from logging our native forests. Burning the woodchips m for electricity generation would be also result in significant carbon emissions.

Our native forests, and the carbon they store, should be protected, not turned into woodchips and burnt.

Regards,

Peter Campbell

What is the political definition of renewable energy?

Labor's grubby political maneouvre to link the long overdue Australian Mandatory Renewable Energy (MRET) target with the failed CPRS has now thankfully been reversed.

An MRET of 20% renewable energy by 2020 was an election promise by Labor in 2007 - it is an indictment of their lack of action on clean energy that it has taken two years to get to this point.

Unfortunately, Labor is now bending and redefine what renewable energy is, in a breathtaking display of yet more political maneouvring. The draft MRET legislation deal between the Govenment and the Opposition now includes as "renewable energy" sources:

• Burning woodchips from native forests, including old growth forests.
• Coal seam methane as a 'renewable' gas

Both are quite obviously not renewable. This is scam.

Our forests should be protected as carbon stores rather than woodchipped and burnt.

And coal seam methane is no more renewable than coal itself.