Australian energy expert: “I have no future in Abbott’s Australia”
Climate scientist Ian Berryman paints a dim picture for the future of Australia’s renewable industry. Reading for a DPhil in engineering science at the University of Oxford and finishing a thesis on solar power, he fears for his future in Australia as a researcher and renewable energy expert.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government have recended the carbon tax, abolished the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, broken their “Million Solar Roofs programme”, and most surprisingly is making efforts to dissolve the Clean Energy Finance Corporation despite it making a profit last year.
Seemingly the appointment of self-proclaimed climate sceptic Dick Warburton to the RET review board has not gone unnoticed:
A sceptic is someone who doubts accepted opinion; a denier is someone who refuses to accept fact. Scepticism is healthy, denial is dangerous, and intentionally dismantling the entire renewable energy industry of a country that is not only wealthy, sun blessed and windswept but also has the highest per capita CO2 emissions in the OECD is criminally reckless.
Juxtoposing Australia’s climate stance with that of other countries, he points out advancements of 25% for wind power and 30% for solar power last year alone. Recently Germany, a notable world leader for installed solar power, achieved a world record breaking 74% of their energy supply from renewable sources.
I study solar power at Oxford University and despite the incredible potential of my industry I have no future in Abbott’s Australia. Instead I will be welcomed home to a non-existent industry, no unemployment benefits and an ever-increasing HECS debt. I don’t want the only carbon emissions I save Australia to be the flight I never take home.
Berryman points out that Joe Hockey’s budget and commented that he finds the very sight of wind turbines “disgusting” shines a light on the darker motives of the government. Despite their promise of a Direct Action Plan, the only action taken thus far is directing renewable investment overseas.
