Climate Council Media Release
Please find below Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie’s response to today’s communique from the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC) meeting:
“It’s encouraging that most states and territories agree that we need additional renewable energy to power data centres, and that the Albanese government plans to legislate imminently. It is vital that data centres are powered with additional renewables to protect consumers from price and pollution spikes.
“But, there was no agreement on the time frame. Data centres are coming on line very quickly, so the National Electricity Rules must ensure that they are required to source additional renewable power from the get-go.”
“Unfortunately, the Queensland and Northern Territory governments continue to put the interests of big tech and fossil fuel corporations first, failing to back strong rules that protect Australians from rising power bills and pollution.
“Unless these hold-out governments get on-board, Queenslanders and Territorians will be left paying higher power bills, and we will all pay the price of higher climate pollution.
Background:
Australian Energy and Climate Change Ministers, with the exception of the Northern Territory and Queensland, have today:
- Supported the Commonwealth’s commitment to legislate national standards to ensure that new large-scale data centres underwrite new renewable power supply, and that consumers face no price impacts from data centres entering the grids.
- Agreed to develop changes to National Electricity Rules, to ensure that data centres can offset their electricity demand with new renewable generation.
- Agreed that a nationally consistent approach to data centre regulation is preferred.
Proposed legislation and rule changes are expected to be developed over coming months.
The details of these changes, including the timeframes and accepted methods to demonstrate compliance, will be critical to ensure Australians are protected from increases in power prices and climate pollution.
Also by the Climate Council
Climate Council offers to bring Littleproud up to speed on net zero
New coal approval undercuts 2035 climate goal, before it’s even set
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Labor is pulling yet another three card trick with this AI announcement – keep your eyes on the standards whilst Labor sells out Australia yet again.
Michael Pascoe, writing for MWM, is not the least bit impressed with Anthony Albanese’s AI announcement – rightly so, in my opinion.
“In a sad example of successful media management, dropping parts of the speech ahead of its delivery ensured plenty of coverage of just what the government wanted people to read and the circus moved on without much thought about whether it really meant anything.
Yes, the rush to build massive data centres, Hoovering up electricity and water and construction workers, was and is a problem. It’s also a game, a little boom, that will see various potential sites played off against each other to extract the best deal for those spending the money.
Governments want to host the build, the short term economic boost of construction activity.
Already the electricity side is being fudged – no, Virginia, the data centres will not simply build their own renewable energy, they’re using the carbon credits ruse to push such concerns out to a time to be negotiated, when the flash money has gone elsewhere.
The game is moving faster than Albanese can hire people for the little AI desk within his office.
And the copyright? Sure creative types are concerned that their material will be used without payment to train machines that will then substantially replace creative types. Don’t worry – Albo will look into making sure you will be paid, albeit less than you get for a song played on Spotify i.e. SFA. “
Not sure who Virginia is; Virginia Trioli perhaps?? The ‘little AI desk within his office’ would be the ‘Office of AI’.
Hadn’t seen the “they’re using the carbon credits ruse to push such concerns out to a time to be negotiated,” argument before, but it seems very likely to be the case.
Michael then moves on to the crux of the issue. There’s a two-year-old line from somewhere on social media: “The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.”
The trillion-dollar investments in the AI rush only pay off if pretty much every business is prepared to pay a lot of money for AI to save them a lot of money by having fewer workers.