Two Choices For Australia To Cut GHGs - Coal and Coal

ANY chance of Australia significantly cutting its greenhouse gas emissions was called into question yesterday as the Federal Opposition joined the Coalition in endorsing coal as a long-term source of power.

In a blueprint to protect Australia from the threat of climate change, the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, also placed confidence in unproven clean-coal technology. He committed a federal Labor government to a 60 per cent cut in Australia's 2000 emission levels by 2050. Mr Beazley stressed the need to act within the next few years and said Labor would invest in clean-coal technology and solar power.

He did not want cuts in coal exports or in the use of coal as a domestic source of power, however, and provided no funding commitments for energy research and development. Nor would he say by how much Labor would raise the Government's mandatory renewable energy target, which gives some support to solar, wind and biomass power.

The ambitious greenhouse gas target came as state Labor governments continue to issue coalmining licences. In NSW, the Government and industry are spending hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading railways and ports in the Hunter Valley to cope with a coalmining boom.

EDIT

http://www.ecoearth.info/articles/reader.asp?linkid=53517

Doesn't this fit the classical description of insanity?

It is indeed most odd.

Howard will do whatever it takes to keep the big corporations happy.

And this line tells you just what is wrong with Labor in Australia: "The Leader of the Opposition,
Kim Beazley, also placed confidence in unproven clean-coal technology.....".

There is no effective opposition in this country.