More And More Australians Want To Keep Or Increase Renewable Energy Target
New results from recent polling shows that Australians are increasingly willing to keep or even increase the Renewable Energy Target, despite the political shenanigans currently being played out between the two major political parties.
Negotiations surrounding the Renewable Energy Target have been an ongoing source of conflict for the two main parties in Australia, the Liberal and Labor parties (both of which, ironically, are conservative). I won’t rehash what has been going on politically, but rather direct you to the fantastic coverage being done by Giles Parkinson, friend of the site, over at RenewEconomy.com.au.
However, new polling from Essential Media Communications, conducted from the 20th to the 23rd of March, has found growing support for the Renewable Energy Target to either be kept as is, or increased.
There is an obvious political bias at play here, but even that bias shies away from supporting the RET being too high.
The question, asked of the 1,782 respondents, reads as follows:
The Renewable Energy Target scheme encourages investment in renewable energy by requiring electricity retail companies to purchase a certain amount of renewable energy each year. By the year 2020, at least 20% of electricity must come from renewable resources. Do you think this target of 20% renewable energy by 2020 is too high, too low or about right?
As shown below, the numbers siding with the Liberal Party at the moment is declining each time such a question is asked:
There are some additional interesting results regarding concern over climate change (52% total are more concerned) while only 54% of respondents believe that “climate change is happening and is caused by human activity.”
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Unlike many other countries there is very little information out there in the Australian public about the benefits of renewable energy, although that is changing slowly. The climate in Australia is very conducive to solar, wave and wind power and we really should be on the leading edge of this technology. Unfortunately our current government is from the ’50s and think coal is our future. Hopefully new governments will see the benefits of RE and start with government car fleets being changed to electric where possible. That will spark huge interest.
Not only this but More And More Australians Want To Keep Or Increase the sodomization of kangaroos.
We need more sand’ cries Abbot & Co;)