BREAZE

No More New Coal – go on, lend your voice.

Tell our state cabinet ministers to reject plans for brown coal exports new coal allocations. Let's make sure the ministers understand that the community wants a clean energy future, not more coal.
http://www.environmentvictoria.org.au/content/tell-our-state-cabinet-ministers-reject-expansion-coal-industry

Switch off Hazelwood - Sunday, 13 September 2009

A merry band of BREAZErs made the trip down to Hazelwood power station for this historic event. We joined with the group of 500 protesters to make the call "Switch off Coal and Switch on Renewables". And the best thing was - it was a hoot!

Keep reading for Andrew Bray's report and see the video...

24 June 2009

The power of BREAZE members to cut greenhouse emissions by purchasing GreenPower and other abatement measures is in real jeopardy under the CPRS as it currently stands.

BREAZE attended a Department of Climate Change workshop to help frame the section of the CPRS that sets out what voluntary action will be counted, how it will be measured and where on earth the data will come from.

The amendments to the CPRS that cover voluntary abatement were presented.

The main issue raised was the plan to only count GreenPower purchases above 2009 levels and then only to apply those emission reductions 5 years after it is counted.

This leads to the following bizarre outcomes:

• Potential GreenPower purchasers can no longer be sure their outlay will cut emissions because it depends on whether enough other people are till buying it to get the total over the 2009 baseline.
• The department modelling assumed that GreenPower purchases post-CPRS would carry on as before even though pre-2009 purchases were clearly additional and post-CPRS they would no longer be additional.
• The only way for GreenPower customers to tighten the emissions reduction cap is to increase their power usage! Truly bizarre.

29 June 2009

BREAZE and a few buddies from MASG met with Shadow Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, Greg Hunt and Liberal Senator, Julian McGauran. Greg must have enjoyed himself as he followed up with us later, saying 'I have to say I think you are doing a fantastic job.'

While the federal coalition are not proposing anything substantially new with regard to climate change action, it is significant that they are supporting the 20% Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) target, and urging the Government to enact this legislation immediately, to give some certainty to the renewable energy industry. We expressed our disappointment at the weak targets of the CPRS, and also the urgent need to transition to a low carbon emission economy by 2020. It is once again obvious that it will take enormous social pressure to get our leaders to take the radical action that is required to achieve this outcome! We will continue our work to build the awareness and motivation to create that pressure.

See the Courier article on the meeting here