Oh, the irony.  Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced yesterday that she needs to find $5 billion for the cleanup of the floods.  The floods disaster is, of course, exactly the kind of catastrophe that scientists predict will occur more and more often due to climate change.  Where will she find cash? By cutting back on climate change programs.

Drip drip drip.

The Solar Flagships program, CCS Flagships program, Green Car Innovation Fund, solar hot water and heat pump rebates, household environmental assessments, LPG conversions, solar PV rebates, and other initiatives, will all be cutback.

The solar industry has been particularly hammered.  There were 52 entries to the Solar Flagships program.  Everyone knew that only 4 would actually get to build anything, but they proceeded with the expensive and lengthy proposal process anyway.  Now, only two of those will be selected before 2015.  Another little twist of irony is that five of the eight projects which have been shortlisted by Solar Flagships are based in Queensland.

While the Australian Government’s solar programs have suffered cutbacks and spending deferrals, last week the US Department of Energy guaranteed a loan of almost $1 billion to build a large scale solar project in Arizona.  This is one of over 17 loan guarantees from the DOE so far, totalling over $17 billion in support for clean energy projects.

The news isn’t all bad, as this is an opportunity for the Government to ‘clean house’ a bit. Giles Parkinson writes,

The closing of some of these programs will not be lamented. Clunkers was a dumb idea and was destined to be cut anyway, and Green Start had already been canned. Many wondered why the coal industry couldn’t throw a bit more of its own money to develop technology that could supposedly save its future, and there were doubts about whether the money in either flagships program would ever be spent. But was there really nothing imperfect about the subsidies that fossil fuels enjoy – the FBT scheme that sends drivers out on endless road trips so they can qualify for a tax break; the diesel fuel rebate; the petroleum exploration rebate – that they couldn’t be touched for these purposes?

[...]

Gillard’s obsession with producing a surplus in 2012/13 is one thing, but the symbolism of slashing $675 million from climate change policies to pay for a natural disaster in the hope that it is a “one-off” is quite another. Climate change programs are suddenly luxury goods. What happens if there is another disaster?

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2 Comments

QIS Solarwise

This is interesting. cutting back on climate change programs for the clean up. I think that it is hard to say when disaster like that happen but if you do not prevent it from coming, you will have to face it again

Jamie

Imagine if the US had responded to Pearl Harbour by announcing that they were going to cut a bunch of defense programs in order to fund the reconstruction of Pearl Harbour. That is essentially what the Australian Government is doing here on climate change.