It will take a while to go through Victorian Government’s climate change white paper, so I won’t try to pronounce judgement the quality of the individual actions proposed. At first glance, shutting down part of Hazelwood is a good start. Replacing it with new-build coal – even if the emissions intensity of the replacement is half that of Hazelwood – not so great.
One thing that seems clear from the document, though, is that Brumby and Victorian Labor have come to a rather different judgment to federal Labor on the politics of climate change. Aside from targeting a headline reduction in CO2 emissions greater than the national average (which is, admittedly, easier to do when your electricity is currently generated by burning carboniferous mud and running the resulting lukewarm steam through National Trust classified turbines), the document strongly calls for a price on carbon.
It seems odd – given that Victoria is ground zero for job-displacing action if there’s a carbon price – that the Victorian government is keener on stronger action than federal Labor, which we’ve agreed is particularly concerned about New South Wales and Queensland in the upcoming election. And it’s not like Victoria doesn’t have prominent denialists – Andrew Bolt, possibly the single most prominent explicitly denialist voice in the mainstream media, is a Victorian. Why the difference?
