Another group backs action on the climate crisis

Like the Greens, Engineers Australia, representing Australia's engineering profession, has called on the Australian Government to take action on the climate crisis. Their full Policy Statement on Climate Change and Energy is on the web and reproduced below.

Policy Statement on Climate Change and Energy
Engineers Australia believes that Australia must act swiftly and proactively in line with global expectations to address climate change as an economic, social and environmental risk.

Our role has been, and will continue to be, in leading capacity building to innovate for more sustainable, eco-efficient and less polluting outcomes in engineering practice.

We believe that addressing the costs of atmospheric emissions will lead to increasing our competitive advantage by minimising risks and creating new economic opportunities.

Engineers Australia:

- Believes the Australian Government should ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

- Strongly encourages the direction of energy policy reform, recognising that there is some way to go before achieving the stated policy objectives of:

providing efficient, reliable and competitively priced energy;

responsibly developing Australia’s energy resources, technology and expertise; and

mitigating environmental impacts of energy production, transformation, supply and use.

- Strongly encourages actions to address the on-going growth in energy demand. It is essential that the rate of growth is minimised, if not reversed, and clearly linked to improvements in efficiency and demand management.

- Agrees with the position taken by the Stern Review that climate change is an economic, social and environmental problem.

- Believes that it is in Australia’s interests to move quickly to limit greenhouse gases.

- Strongly urges the Australian Government to move quickly to introduce a carbon trading scheme, including the use of appropriate penalties, so that emissions of greenhouse gases are no longer costless and that the costs of greenhouse gas emissions be borne by emitters of greenhouse gases in proportion to their relative discharge.

- Believes that energy policy should favour as wide a portfolio of measures as possible. Market forces should determine the most effective measure for particular situations in most cases. Where market forces are not a complete answer to the choice of climate mitigation options, government should assist newer options to develop their maturity through regulation and other non-market activities.

- Believes that it is vital that the potential for synergy between emerging energy options that can be deployed in Australia and the development of new export markets should be thoroughly explored.