Adelaide Joins Global Race To Become First Carbon Neutral City

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As part of the state’s overall climate change initiatives, South Australia’s capital Adelaide has joined the race to become the world’s first carbon neutral city.

AdelaideThe South Australian State Government has a series of strategies categorized underneath the climate change banner, but a recent program intended to attract $10 billion worth of low-carbon investment into the state’s capital of Adelaide has put Australia’s most environmentally progressive city back on the global map again.

“South Australia has led the nation in renewable energy assets by setting policy frameworks and regulatory and approvals processes to provide greater consistency, transparency, and certainty needed by investors,” write Jay Weartherill, the Premier of South Australia, and Tom Koutsantonis MP, the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy in the introduction to a strategy paper recently published by the State Government. And this leadership has been sorely needed in a country that has been so regularly making headlines for its atrocious environmental policy and strangling renewable energy policy.

South Australia already generates 38% of its electricity from renewable energy, which according to the State Government “translates into $6.6 billion in investment in renewable energy generation in South Australia,” of which “around 40%, or $2.4 billion, of this was realised in regional areas.”

Unsurprisingly, such investment has had a dramatic impact on job creation and regional economic development. Therefore, in an effort to build upon their “position of strength,” the South Australian State Government has set an investment target of $10 billion in low carbon generation by 2025.

“We need a next step because the jobs and industries of the future is renewables and clean tech,” said Ian Hunter, South Australia’s climate change and environment minister to The Guardian. “We know we need to decarbonise our economy and we know there is $4bn already in the pipeline for low carbon economic activity. We can’t rest on our laurels.”

Commenting on the overall position of Australia, Mr Hunter added that “the federal government’s emissions targets are appallingly low, it means they are giving up on the world staying below a 2C temperature rise.”

“Investors have been spooked a bit by pronouncements from Canberra on renewable energy, especially by Tony Abbott on wind energy, but we can have a bipartisan approach here. I think Liberals in the states are a little bemused and even embarrassed by their federal counterparts.”

The $10 billion in low carbon generation investment is also expected to help the state achieve its own target of generating 50% electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025.


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Joshua S Hill

I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

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