After a Decade of Debates we Must Act Now on Climate Policies

After a Decade of Debate we Must Act Now on Climate Policies

Australia's leading renewable energy company, Pacific Hydro, today urged the Senate to vote for both the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and the 20% by 2020 Renewable Energy Target (RET) this week as once implemented, these policies will deliver investment certainty for business and tens of thousands of new jobs.

"The debate over the most appropriate way to price carbon in Australia has been going on for a almost a decade with the former Howard Government moving towards a cap and trade system not unlike the CPRS put forward by the Rudd Government", said Pacific Hydro Chief Executive Officer, Rob Grant. "Clearly there
has been substantial debate and it is now time for action."

"Australia's long-term economic interests depend on the introduction of both the CPRS and the RET policies", added Mr Grant. "The longer we delay the introduction of these climate change policies, the greater the cost will be to ultimately meet our targets. This will also result in more investment being diverted overseas where policies exist."

Over the last five years Pacific Hydro has invested in projects to the value of around AUS$2 billion in Chile and Brazil. This differs significantly to its Australian investments during the same period of around $450million.

"We know emissions trading schemes work as the European Emissions Trading Scheme has been the key driver of our significant investments in Latin America", added Mr Grant "Without polices in place in Australia to price carbon and encourage investment in zero emissions energy, investment will continue to go offshore."

"The RET policy, which will require around $25 billion of investment and create tens of thousands of jobs across the country, most of which will be in regional areas, will begin to decarbonise our electricity sector straight away, while the CPRS will transform our entire economy in the longer term", explained Mr Grant.

"Australia has an opportunity to create a new sustainable industry, new jobs and unlock significant investment both now and in the long term, but we need both the CPRS and the RET in place to do this."

In Australia Pacific Hydro currently operates wind energy hydro projects and is investigating geothermal opportunities. The company estimates that the RET policy will unlock around 600MW of its projects worth around $2 billion.