I find it disappointing that the Federal Government is dragging its feet when it comes to repowering Australia with clean, cheap renewable power, especially considering recent survey results that show that 84% of people back renewables over coal-fired power generation.
My name is Hyacinthe Uwizera and I’m an intern at Solar Citizens. I am here through a program from my school, the University of Pennsylvania, and I am Rwandan. I care about the decisions that are made here in Australia because, with so much sun and wind potential, Australia could show the world how it’s possible to transition to clean power.
The Federal Government’s energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), is an anti-renewable plan that will be negotiated at the next COAG Energy Council meeting on August 9-10 in Sydney. The policy will directly affect the future of renewables across the country, which is why a range of groups in the Repower collaboration held an action outside of Parliament House in Canberra called the Race for a Renewable Energy Future.
To support renewables and a brighter future, I got up at 4am on a cold winter morning to set off from Sydney to make it to the action. At 8:30am, as the action was about to begin, there were people who dressed up as Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, coal to represent fossil fuels, and solar to represent renewable energy.
In the stunt, solar and coal were racing. In the beginning of the race solar was ahead, but after some time, solar got trapped in Malcolm Turnbull’s red-tape net. Coal continued but fell down after some seconds. Tony Abbott then injected a $16 billion adrenaline injection into coal. Coal then limped towards the finish line and won the race. The scene was surrounded by a crowd of renewable supporters, like me, and was watched by some politicians too.
The action was highlighting that renewables with storage are the cheaper and better option for Australia, but under the NEG they will be held back with a very low national renewable target. We were there to get our voice heard, and speak for other Australians, asking for a safe environment for the future generations.
As a young person, I care about the environment and my future. We should all care about our environment. We either choose a clean, efficient and cheaper source of energy or the opposite. We should care about our health and the health of the generations to come.
Solar just makes sense. We could power the entire world by harnessing just 1% of the solar energy we get from the Sahara desert. A national plan that holds renewables back is bad for power bills and the planet.
Written by Hyacinthe Uwizera, Solar Citizens intern.
Article courtesy of www.solarcitizens.org.au
