The Abbott government's energy white paper is "wilfully deluded" for failing to put climate change at the centre of Australia's future energy policy, say climate groups.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The government released the paper on Wednesday with recommendations including the privatisation of remaining state-owned electricity assets and the rejection of a proposal for a domestic gas reserve, despite rising gas prices.
But it is the suggestion that future energy policy should be "technology neutral" that has raised concerns among the Greens and environment groups, which want policy that focuses on ceasing fossil fuel use.
Similar to last month's intergenerational report, which devoted just three and a half pages to global warming, the energy white paper mentions climate change just once.
It has drawn the same criticism as an issues paper the government published last month before public consultation on Australia's post-2020 emissions reduction targets, which will be set before global climate talks in Paris in December.
That paper was criticised for using a global energy scenario that would put the world on track for nearly four degrees of warming instead of the internationally agreed level of two degrees or less to avoid catastrophic climate change.
The Climate Institute described the energy white paper on Wednesday as a "fantasy of climate ignorance" but acknowledged the report did recognise the risk Australia's fossil fuel industries posed in "an emissions constrained future".
"But the white paper doesn't think through the challenges and opportunities of a world seeking to remove carbon pollution," chief executive John Connor said. "There's no recognition that helping achieve the internationally agreed goal of keeping global warming to 2°C requires a plan for an energy sector with net zero pollution by mid-century," chief executive John Connor said.
The paper argues that no single energy source should be prioritised over another and such decisions should be left for the market to determine.
It says electricity from fossil fuels, particularly coal, will continue to play a "vital role" in "providing low-cost energy around the world" and that investment support for low emissions technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, will be important for Australia.
The paper acknowledges the problem of an oversupply of electricity in the Australian market but says the government will not help pay for the shutting down of old, mothballed coal-fired power stations.
"Investment decisions on future generation assets, including choice of technology, are best made by industry, given its insights into market needs," it says. "The Australian Government will seek to maintain stable and predictable policy settings across the range of areas that affect such investment decisions, while taking a technology-neutral approach."
At a media conference on Wednesday Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane was asked why the paper did not discuss climate change as a driver of energy policy.
"Climate change is going to be discussed as part of our submission to the Paris conference at the end of this year," Mr Macfarlane said.
"The paper is flexible enough to accommodate a range of options and, in terms of the specifics of that discussion, that will take place within a cabinet working group, which I am a member of, as we work our way through the preparation for that Paris conference at the end of this year."
Greens leader Christine Milne said the paper should be "binned along with the Warburton review into the RET [renewable energy target]".
"All we're getting from this report is a commitment to business as usual for the big old polluters, and a promise to cut the renewable energy target, abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and close down the revenue-raising Clean Energy Finance Corporation," Senator Milne said.
