Green plan may turn blue and white
THE Government’s policy for a clean energy future could see a flurry of joint business activity between Australia and Israel.
THE Government’s policy for a clean energy future could see a flurry of joint business activity between Australia and Israel.
Already, the Australian Securities Exchange-listed Greenearth Energy, which has an exclusive agreement to distribute CO2 conversion technology developed by Israel’s Weizmann Institute, has released a statement outlining how the carbon plan will benefit its business.
The Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, Mark Dreyfus, confirmed the Government’s $13 billion investment in renewable energy could see closer ties between Australia and Israel.
“I know there is tremendous effort being made in scientific research in Israel, not just because of export reasons but because Israel, being an economy without any natural resources of its own, relies on research and development,” the Jewish MP said.
“Israel has got a whole lot going on in renewable energy, particularly with scientific work into solar, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if at some point we see Israeli technology being employed here in Australia in the renewables area.”
Dreyfus, a QC, said negotiating as part of the multi-party committee on climate change was a “novel way of doing politics in Australia”.
“There was a cooperative spirit at each of the formal meetings,” he said.
Those negotiations – which brought together senior members of the Government, plus two independents and two Greens – have led to Opposition accusations that the Government is beholden to the Greens, but Dreyfus rejected that depiction in the strongest terms.
“We shared a common interest with the Greens party, as we did with Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, in taking effective action on climate change and that’s why we worked with them in good faith on that subject,” he said. “On a range of other matters, including some social issues and foreign policy issues, we are very far apart from the Greens party.”
The Member for Isaacs expressed a sense of satisfaction with the carbon plan presented by Prime Minister Julia Gillard last Sunday.
He conceded, though, that the carbon tax alone will not take enough harmful gases out of the atmosphere in the short term.
“In order to meet the target [five per cent reductions on 2000 levels by 2020] on the way in which this plan is presently assessed, we are going to have to purchase international
permits,” he said.
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