Greenpeace to 'Coal Pact': Prove how you'll reduce

Greenpeace to 'Coal Pact' delegates: Prove how you'll reduce emissions

Sydney Wednesday, 11 January, 2006 : US and Australian delegates attending today’s Asia-Pacific climate conference in Sydney are trying to ‘hoodwink’ the public by claiming that voluntary agreements to make coal cleaner would be all we need to tackle climate change, Greenpeace said today.

Greenpeace clean energy campaign leader, Catherine Fitzpatrick, said “It appears that, as we had feared, this conference is all about protecting the coal industry and not about taking serious action to tackle climate change.

“From the little anyone has been told of the details of this pact, there will be no binding arrangements to reduce pollution, no targets and no timelines.”

“Minister Macfarlane's claims that this pact will reduce emissions three times more than Kyoto will are impossible to justify when the pact currently requires no action whatsoever. Anyone tempted to believe the Minister must ask him to prove how the emissions reductions will be achieved.”

“Talk is cheap and the price of inaction is expensive. Voluntary measures have been demonstrated to be utterly ineffective. Simply relying on the good will of industry and promoting business-as-usual cannot ensure that we will reduce pollution at all, let alone enough to tackle climate change.”

“The dirty black fingerprints of the coal industry all over this pact. The pact's focus on 'technology' to tackle climate change seems to mean only the dangerous and unproven 'geosequestration', not clean renewable energy technologies such as solar, geothermal, wind and energy efficiency.”

“Even if geosequestration can be proven to work, it will still cause greenhouse pollution, meaning it cannot be used to meet growing energy needs if we are to cut emissions.”

“Conference delegates are well aware that renewable energy technologies already exist, are ready to be implemented on a massive scale, will generate jobs and investment and is already growing fast around the world, thanks to the Kyoto Protocol.”

“By setting targets, Kyoto has already encouraged investment in cleaner technologies and is already reducing greenhouse pollution. The Australian and US Governments should stop this PR exercise and join the world in the Kyoto Protocol.”

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