 News > Policy News All about the natural refrigerant ammonia (NH3) in cooling & refrigeration: News, Products, Jobs, Events, Knowledge, Forum, B2B Networking.Australia proposes regulating HFCs through Kyoto  2009-06-19 - ammonia21.com     Shortly after having announced a delay of 1 year in phasing in its national scheme to reduce GHG emissions, but also having put forward a new, ambitious 25% by 2020 target, the Australian government is now proposing an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol whereby HFC emissions will also be covered.  This comes about a month after the Australian government announced a package of new measures related to its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), its national framework for meeting the climate change challenge. The measures included:
The scheme will cover synthetic greenhouse gases from its commencement. Measures in relation to synthetic greenhouse gases, which will be applied to entities that import or manufacture 25,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent a year or more, include:
According to the Green Cooling Council (GCC), the green cooling advocate that recently resumed its work in Australia under the name Green Cooling Association, CPRS will put in place powerful incentives to drive the use of climate friendly solutions in the refrigeration and air conditioning industry. The White Paper acknowledged the persuasive force of the GCC submission and substantially delivered on the recommendations. Arguments put forward by fluorocarbon proponents that HFCs should not be covered by the scheme were rejected.   2009-06-20 06:25:29 - Klaas Visser I agree with everything Stefan says about the past performance of this Australian labour government and can add to Stefan's true list of woe. By and large it has been a case of: "Do as I say, but don't do as I do!" There is too much lipservice being paid to environmental issues in our beautiful country and that is a very poor substitue for action. In my State of Victoria government approval has been granted to build another coal fired power station. The State of Queensland has given approval for an ethanol plant consuming 50,000 tonnes of grain annually, whilst one in six people in this world suffers from chronic malnutrition and the number is increasing. I truly wonder what the nett energy balance of grain derived ethanol is when one considers all the energy inputs of fertiliser, farm machinery, transport, processing and distribution transport. Furthermore, the process is water intensive needing 5 litres of water per litre of ethanol. And we suffer from the severest drought in history! The message to the less fortunate in this world is: "For all we care, you can all starve to death, so long as we can ride in our motor cars!" Cogeneration is actively discouraged because the existing grid supply system considers cogeneration as a competitor that will interfere with and erode its revenue base. I know of a number of 4 - 6 MW cogeneration opportunities which would reduce emissions by 13,000 to 18,000 tonnes per year and save between $ 1m to $ 2.5 million per annum. The existing electrity supply industry is the tail that has been wagging the government dog to dilute the carbon emission targets. Australia is now endeavouring to lead from the front two steps behind by offering the rest of the world to set higher targets if the rest of the world will do the same. In essence they are trying to get the ammunition against the local electrical energy supply industry by saying: "Sorry guys, the rest of the world is forcing us to do this to you!" How is that for abdicating government resposibilty! Like some other Australian State Goverments, our Victorian State Government is proceeding with the construction of a $3 billion reverse osmosis desalination plant. It will produce 150 Gl of water per year, consume about 720 million kWhrs of electrical enery and generate about 1.12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. It would cost considerably less than $3 billion to convert all of Australia's inland power stations to adiabatically assisted air cooling saving the nation about 175 Gl of cooling water. Even one large privately owned power station built on the Queensland seashore at Gladstone uses fresh water and cooling towers for steam condensation! Sorry, I am riding my hobby horse again. But I cringe every time I hear the dulcet tones of our ostrich politicians when they have just pulled their heads out of the sand, stare around themselves in wonderment, blink at the glaring sunlight and speak like the oracle of Delphi! Fotunately for them, they can still put their heads in the sand, but if global warming makes the sand any hotter, they will have to stop sticking their heads in the sand and face up to reality. Hopefully there will still be time to take corrective action, but I am very pessimistic this will ever happen. Societal changes will have to be so big from the present politics of growth to zero or negative growth, that democratic political systems where nearly 50% has to say No! to what the slightly more than 50% in government wants to do! Communism died 20 years ago and capitalism is motally wounded. Capitalism should have been left to die in peace, rather than propping it up with such huge debt, that only future growth can pay for it! To my mind this has inflicted a deadly wound on the environmental movement. Zimbabwean style inflation would fix the problem quickly though. As Stefan has referred to below, one of the worst, self serving stunts of the previous government has been -at the eleventh hour- to claim carbon credits from a reduction in the rate of deforestation at the 1997 Kyoto protocol meeting. Big deal! By then 80% of Australia's forests had been chopped down since the white man's invasion of this continent. The way it is going it will soon be an inconyinent! Australia signed but never ratified the Kyoto protocol untill this government came in to power in November 2007. So far we have heard a lot, but seen precious little meaningful action. We can only hope this changes. I believe we should all try outside this forum, where we by and large preach to the converted. As Stefan knows, I have written to Australia's prime minister about these issues about 15 months ago. On behalf of the prime minister,the minister for energy tcongratulated me for being a citizen concerned about the welfare of the nation and thanked me for going to the trouble to write to him about. I was also provide a list of things the goverment was doing. It never dawned on him , that at 67 years old I had no worries about the future, but that I was being motivated what the future held for my two grandsons. So I ask you all to assist and head the following cry to arms. "Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de marche est arrivee!" With best wishes for a bright environmental future and kind regards to you all Yours sincerely Klaas Visser. 2009-06-19 22:32:41 - Stefan Jensen Sounds good. However, let us not forget that it was the same Australian Federal Labour Government that slaughtered the Green Cooling Council and substantially withdrew Government support for the installation of solar panels. It is also the same Federal Labour Government which during the first months in Office failed to reach an agreement with the States in relation to plastic bags forcing South Australia to go it alone. As as a result 4,000,000,000 plastic bags still enter the environment every year courtesy of the Australian Environment Minister Mr. Peter Garrett. Coming from a position of the highest per capita CO2 emission in the world, some of us here in Australia are wondering how the ambitious GHG emission reduction target of 25% by 2020 will ever be reached given the Federal Labour Governments actions so far. Our socalled reductions have up to now in the main been achieved by reducing land clearing. |             |
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