The news story that prompted this interest was the recent rise in the polls of Tony Abbott and the recalculation Kevin Rudd is having to make about whether to call a double dissolution over climate change. The BBC reporter suggested that the combination of the faliure of Copenhagen to agree a coherant post Kyoto policy; the loss of Massachusetts and Obama's loss of his filibuster proof 60th Senate seat and the frankly ridiculously overblown claims of "Climategate" and the doctoring of climate change data had taken the wind out of climate change proposals around the world. The BBC reporter went on to link these events with the apparent resurgence of Abbott in the opinion polls.
Please tell me the Australia isnt going to be so stupid as to get behind Toxic Tony. Please tell me that it is only a vocal minority of conservative farmers that are raising up a dust storm; that common sense will prevail and Australians will get off the bloody fence and take a political stand for once.
Despite the political equation regarding climate change having changed in recent weeks, the uderlying issues haven't. We still need to do something about it and we still need political leadership on the issue - now more than ever. Knee jerk populist politicians like Abbott need to be taken on - not on popularity contests but on leadership and statesmanship.
Interestingly over here where there are just as many climate change issues to confront as in Australia, one of the huge issues that is about to burst like flood over the complacent populace is the steeply rising energy bills they will soon face. The issue here is how to improve the woeful energy performance of the typical English home. In the last 10 years the energy performance standards that new homes are required to be built to over here has been rachetting up exponentially. To the point where now homes built today use nearly 45% less energy than they did just 5 years ago let alone compared with a solid walled Victorian semi detached house like ours. The trouble however is that the vast majority of homes are woeful as far as energy usage.
One of the most promising developments is a new scheme caled Pay As You Save in which institutional investors like pension funds loan money to upgrade the thermal performance of old homes and the loan is paid back through the energy companies levying an additional charge on top of their energy bills. The funders secure their loan with a charge on the property so that if the property is sold it passes onto the new purchaser. The energy companies collect the loan repayments as part of the current billing arrangements so that no new debt enforcement options are required. This is all possible because recent trials have shown that the improvements save more in reduced bills than it costs to pay back the loan. The two kickers that makes this work is the fact that energy bills have risen so much that the potential savings have now become significant and getting the institutional investors on board who can take a suitably long term view about yields and repayments
What we dont need is people like Abbott deluding everybody into thinking that all we need to do is plant a few more trees.
I trust everyone will be mobilising to mount the rebuttal demonstrations to those red neck farmers they showed congregating on the lawns in front of Parliment House! I await glued to the box for the coverage
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