Climate council Media Release
Australians want budget measures to help electrify their homes and transport, and the government to prioritise renewable energy sources rather than fossil fuels, a new poll has found.
As people seek clean energy solutions to the fuel crisis, with 60 percent of people driving less, Aussies are looking for budget measures to back their efforts.
Almost two thirds of people (65%) want support to purchase an electric vehicle, with almost five million Australians now more likely to consider buying one. Three quarters of Australians support household battery incentives and 79% want help to make homes more energy-efficient.
To secure our energy future, almost two thirds of people (62%) want the government to prioritise investment in renewable energy, not coal and gas.
The nationally-representative poll of 1,501 Australians, conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Climate Council and the Sunrise Project in April, found that in response to the fuel crisis:
- An estimated 12.8 million Australians (60%) have reduced how much they drive or use fuel due to spiking costs.
- Almost two thirds of people (65%) want support to purchase an electric vehicle, with almost five million Australians now more likely to consider buying one.
- Australians want the Federal Budget to support them to have more control over their energy and bills, with 79% wanting help to buy more energy-efficient appliances and insulation, and 75% wanting support to purchase home batteries.
- About one third (32%) of people report using public transport more often.
- To build our energy security, 62% of people want the government to prioritise investment in renewable energy, rather than coal and gas.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said the polling showed Australians were doing what they could to shift to clean energy solutions and wanted the government to support them.
“Australians are resilient and are doing what they can, but as people struggle with huge petrol price rises they want the government to back them in to electrify their homes and transport,” Ms McKenzie said.
“Australians can see that relying on foreign oil has left us exposed to supply shocks and price spikes. This Budget is a critical chance to take back control of our energy supply and move to a cleaner, safer electric future powered by our own renewable resources – the wind and the sun.”
Climate Council Councillor and former BP executive Greg Bourne said Australia was already a world leader in renewable power and was well positioned to electrify on a large-scale, with close to 45% of the power in our main grid already coming from renewables.
“Powering our cars, homes and businesses with more of Australia’s wind and sun is a no-brainer to build energy resilience and cut costs,” Mr Bourne said.
“Relying on coal, oil and gas leaves our energy security at risk, while expanding renewables protect us. This Federal Budget should double-down on what’s working, and accelerate the shift to powering the nation with clean energy, now and in the future.”
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There is no such thing as “clean energy”, the provision and use of all forms of energy leaves a residue that has to be cleaned up.
jonangel:
True. But some are worse than others. So we do the best we can.
Or is that too logical for you?
There are people here who leave a residue that has to be cleaned up. Hmmn.
I find it far from “logical” to tie our nation to electricity reliant on wind and solar!! Do you really believe that’s “the best we can” do?
jonangel:
It’s the best technology we currently have. And it is cheaper than any alternatives.
What’s your problem with it – are you worried than the sun might bugger off or the wind stop blowing?
If as you claim it’s the “best technology” and it’s “cheaper”, why are we paying such a high price for it?
@ jonangel: Silly question!! Because the present polices established by the previous COALition misgovernment gave private industry the opportunity to screw voters with a essential service.
When important services, like energy generation, are returned to government ownership then there will be better value for voters because the profiyts will remain in the lower charges.
A more important matter is ”Why have the local councils where solar & wind energy is generated have no reserved power to attract manufacturing industries into their region to provide jobs and economic oppportunities for the residents??”
Every now and then someone says something online that is so spectacularly stupid that I need to go bush for a long walk to allow my synapses to recover. It’s amazing how often that happens when encountering a certain poster here; and I only got back from the last outing Sunday arvo …
I fail to see what is “silly” about the question, what is silly, is the fact that people keep electing Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
But the fact is, humanity will never be free of fossil fuels and I’ll accept the fact that renewables are the cheapest form of power, when in fact it demonstably is.
jonangel says, confidently, that humanity will never be free of fossil fuels. This topic has been covered at depth. Apparently, the facts of the matter are yet to sink in. There’s no great logical step involved in parsing between the words ‘finite’ and ‘infinite’. Solar and wind-powered energy sources are essentially infinite, and once past startup costs, practically free.
Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are finite resources and will eventually run out. Essentially, all coal, gas and oil reserves still untapped have been accounted for. In 2012, American environmentalist Bill McKibben outlined the scenario in a Rolling Stone article, available here as a pdf file, in which he referenced a figure of 2,795 gigatons across all three fossil fuel sources. A big number for sure, and yes, we’re not about to run out any time soon, but the fact remains, they’re finite.
Compounding the issue, and something jonangel never refers to in his ongoing championing of fossil fuels, is the consequence of pouring billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, where the gas effectively traps reflected infrared radiation, thus contributing to the inexorable rise in temperatures globally. This outcome as an artefact of the burning of fossil fuels is beyond debate… the facts are well known to anyone who pays attention to these matters, and the use of hyperbole is appropriate, with adjectives like disastrous, catastrophic, apocalyptic, devastating and other similar terms accurately depicting the burgeoning outcomes due to cooking the planet.
There is something sad, when people like yourself have to keep regurgitating the same crap. Every few years we go through this “end of days” and I don’t doubt we will go through it yet again.
Fossil fuels have burnt or been burnt since the dawn of time, either as the result of a natural incident or human created and the environment has adapted.
Will oil and gas run out? Who knows, society is still searching for it and finding it.
I’ll leave it to Canguro and his fatalist friends to worry, but humanity will still walk the the earth long after worry guts and his mates are long gone.
What an unusual conversation.
@ja. I get your point that from actual startup and construction nothing can be built without something else being destroyed, or at the very least polluted.
Humankind has been seeking the “eternal flame” of an endless, pure power source since we first crawled out of the swamp, but to consider wind, sun, and geothermal energy sources as being equivalent to fossil fuels when it comes to both post generation emissions and operational costs is plainly false.
Please consider. I can build a power source from what I can scavenge from the upcoming hard garbage collection where I live.
Option A. A few old bikes, some leftover wiring, a washing machine, old batteries and some other random bits and pieces, and with a bit of effort and some rat cunning I can generate electricity and store it. It won’t be as efficient as I might like, but it is a beginning. It would cost almost nothing to construct, and cost nothing to run.
Option B. I can score a discarded backyard barbeque, gas or wood fired, and fit the reqired ducting or piping to run the same washing machine motor to the same batteries. So far so good, and it would run at night too, but I still require a fuel source for the barbie, the choice here being bottled gas or firewood. Both of which will cost more than the electricity I can generate will save me, and create pollution.
In your opinion, which jerrybuilt contraption would be I be best to attempt?
For everyones enlightenment, I already run the 12V backyard lighting and pond on a home-made solar/wind contraption that has run for about five years without a hitch, and cost me nothing but a couple of weeks of buggerising around with it, and about $20 in nuts and bolts and connectors from the great green foolshed.
For what my input on the article is worth, I just want the guvvm’nt to dump their “transition fuel” bullshit about gas, and then stop approving more fossil fuel projects. And tax ALL the exported fossil fuels so that ALL Australians earn some decent coin.
Meanwhile the RBA governor, Michelle Bollocks has determined that the best way forward in these trying times is to sink the slipper into all the struggling peasants with another rate rise.
Who does she work for?
It is definitely not us shitkickers.If we don’t bail out of this neoliberal horseshit soon, we’ll all be rooned.Fossil fuels or no.