Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was a great interjection but it did not make any sense!

In terms of the decarbonisation issue, the other argument that has been put forward by the Greens is about research and development. I was in Spain a couple of years ago. I went there to have a look at carbon capture and storage technology. I went to the UK and spoke to some of the experts there. Let me tell you, everywhere around the world the green groups are starting to understand that carbon capture and storage is important—except here, in Australia, where carbon capture and storage is not accepted as a technology that needs to come into place to ensure the future of many countries and many industries.

You see, you cannot continue to produce cement without carbon. These issues are being dealt with by trying to get the technology in place for carbon capture and storage. I know it is difficult. I know it is expensive. I know it will mean a high price on carbon before it becomes competitive. But the International Energy Association argues that 15 per cent of all power produced in the world will have to be produced by power plants with carbon capture and storage either bolted on to the plant, or a new carbon and capture storage plant built with new power stations. So nowhere around the world are people saying we have to walk away from coal-fired power. What they are saying is there are huge problems with coal-fired power but we need to deal with those through technology and through research and development.

I am not sure what the Greens will say if the AEMO starts looking at the issue of carbon capture and storage. That would be a horror for them. But it is a practical thing that some of the major corporations around the world are looking at because without carbon capture and storage our steel and other industries that are reliant on carbon for processes will be in real trouble. I do not accept the pontification and the lecture that we get from the coalition.

The other issue is that the AEMO report says that 100 per cent renewable energy is possible—but at a cost. The estimated cost—and they said these are hypothetical costs because there is a range of costs that you would have to add on to it—in 2030 would be between $219 billion and $285 billion, and in 2050 from $252 billion to $332 billion.

The report also says one of the big issues is the distribution network. Spain—as every senator here would understand—is a much different nation to Australia in terms of where its cities are, how big the cities are, the small size of the country and where they can actually do this work. The big problem for us is we would have to run from some of the areas where we could actually get some of the thermal power capacity. We would have to have huge distribution networks and that has not been costed in to those figures that I indicated. I am not saying this to say why we should not do it. I am saying that these are the challenges that we have to face. I totally agree that climate change is real. But for us it is not like going from Malaga in the south of Spain up to Seville and up to Madrid where there are major centres, big cities with thermal power available. You just cannot do that in Australia so easily. The cost of transmission is much easier in Spain because they can get some of the networks close to the big cities. The other issue, as outlined by the AEMO, is the cost of securing land to do all of this. What is the cost of biofuels? How much land do we need to get the biofuels?

I am a big supporter of doing something about climate change. I think it would have been much better if back in 2009 the ETS had been picked up by the Greens. They did not have their eye on a double dissolution. They did not have their eye on trying to get more seats in the Senate if a double dissolution came up. Because the ETS would have been in place, the arguments that we are still facing now about pricing carbon would have been long gone and we would have been on the road to making any changes we could have made because the public would have accepted that we were in this place. The Greens, because of a mixture of purity and political expedience, just ignored what was in the interests of the nation. I am not going to be lectured by the Greens on this. I do not think it is reasonable that the public should ignore some of the costs involved in moving to complete decarbonisation, what the job impacts are on complete decarbonisation and how we can bring the public with us. I think the big problem for the Greens is a coalition whose leadership could not agree that carbon is causing a problem in the atmosphere. So it is a job for Labor and the Greens to educate the public about why we need to do this, because it will be a strongly contested political debate. To simply say that we are going to move from where we are now to decarbonisation gives those in the opposition who are opposed to action on climate change—those who do not believe in climate change—an easy attack point against communities and people who rely on coal and on carbon for their jobs.

We must educate. We must organise around this issue. We must get out there and make sure the public understands all of the realities and problems that the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology are informing us of—and not just say there is going to be a magic wand of decarbonisation and everything will be okay. This will be a hard political battle and it will go on after the election. It is a battle about how we can make sure that we do not see global warming that destroys the capacity for people to live in some areas around this country. I think some sense from the Greens and less pontification and less purity would be good for this parliament.