Keywords: Clean Energy Future
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ENVIRONMENT
It was as if Australian politics had regressed four years overnight. No sooner had Labor released its new climate change plan than the Coalition was resuscitating Tony Abbott's 'carbon tax' line. The Coalition's attempt to revive the defining debate of the 2013 federal election won't work. As other commentators have noted, Labor's plan has been carefully crafted to avoid the carbon tax sledge. More importantly, external factors have changed to make a scare campaign less potent.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 25 January 2016
22 Comments
Hailing from Argentina, Francis puts his trust neither in ideological Communism nor in unbridled capitalism. We need to enhance international security, building the rule of law within multilateral organisations, and fostering the climate for investment sensitive to the triple bottom line - economic, social and environmental. I return from Rome grateful that we have a pope prepared to open these questions, accompanied by senior prelates happy to mix it with business and community leaders.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Fatima Measham
- 18 December 2015
5 Comments
It has been an exercise in managing optimism and reality in the week after the Paris Agreement on climate change. One thing that can be certain is that COP21 is pivotal in terms of the model it offers for solutions to global problems. The Paris summit departed from a top-down approach, enabling the 43-member Climate Vulnerable Forum, led by current country-chair the Philippines, to work persuasively. 'We were more united,' says Tony La Viña, dean of the Ateneo School of Government in Manila.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 27 July 2015
15 Comments
The Federal Government's ethical argument for coal is that it is the most readily available and cheapest resource for generating electricity for the development of poorer countries. The structure of this argument based on our duty to the poor is significant. It assumes that governments, mining companies, banks and the people who invest in them a duty to consider the effects of their actions on people both in their own nations and in other nations.
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RELIGION
- Jill Sutton
- 12 November 2014
3 Comments
There has been an avalanche of divestment, including from the Rockefellers and the ANU, as they discern a lack of concern for environmental, social and governance issues. Shareholders attending Wednesday’s Commonwealth Bank AGM will hear a resolution requesting more transparency about the bank’s fossil fuel investments. But the bank’s response can seem like a game whose rules only become clear to its participants as they play it. Banks and other powerful organisations can still exploit any lack of clarity.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Megan Graham
- 02 April 2014
3 Comments
Just a few days after we marked the annual observance of Earth Hour, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, emphasising the likelihood of an increase in extreme and irreversible damage. In light of this, the fact that we deem Earth Hour to even be necessary seems akin to prompting a dog to notice its kennel is on fire. Unless the dog is in very bad health, it would do what it needs to do to save itself.
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AUSTRALIA
- Brian Toohey
- 02 July 2012
16 Comments
For most Australians, Government compensation for the carbon tax won't cover the steep rise in the cost of electricity caused by unrelated investment in infrastructure. That was not its intention. But the carbon tax will still not ensure the price of 'dirty' electricity is high enough to make coal-fired generators uncompetitive and force a 'clean energy future'.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Tony Kevin
- 17 October 2011
29 Comments
Abbott will face a worsening dilemma. If he continues to rage about revoking the carbon tax, he will alienate industry groups that want stability above all. If he goes quiet, he will validate Labor's portrayal of him as a cynical opportunist who stands for nothing but gaining power.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Lin Hatfield Dodds
- 11 July 2011
22 Comments
The Government has crafted a historic package of reforms: driving long-run reductions in carbon pollution, simplifying personal tax and making it fairer, and reducing poverty traps and barriers to work. It's exactly the kind of smart and gutsy approach we want to see from this Government.
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ENVIRONMENT
Our lives will change forever as we face the creative challenge posed by the carbon tax. We will pay the real cost of producing food, and cheap and frequent overseas trips will slow. But we must not let a grasping spirit hold us from imagining an economy and lifestyle that can thrive on alternative energy.
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AUSTRALIA
We have just experienced a Shakespearean moment. There is real excitement in the land, a sense of new beginnings, as the Elizabethan figure of Julia Gillard takes the reins as Prime Minister. Rudd, to his credit, has accepted the inevitable with grace and dignity.
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ENVIRONMENT
The Howard years made me feel ashamed to be Australian, and I felt about his electoral defeat the way East Germans felt about the Berlin Wall coming down: as a kind of cleansing. Rudd disappoints for a different reason.
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