Recent polling has shown that nearly three-quarters of Australians want to keep or increase the current national Renewable Energy Target. This result comes as the federal government is considering axing or reducing the target.
The Guardian has reported that polling conducted for the Climate Institute by JWS research has shown that 72% of Australians would like to keep or expand the existing renewable energy target of 20% renewable energy by 2020. The sample size was 1,145 people, and the margin of error is said to be 2.9%. The result of 72% is up from 69% last year.
During that year, government politicians have been constantly positing that the Renewable Energy Target has been responsible for increasing power prices. This has been easily debatable, and many in the community see that the target is also helping to create a lot of new jobs in the climate-friendly renewable energy sector.
Indeed, by the beginning of this year Australia had almost reached 2 million small-scale solar systems installed. Over the past couple of years, Australia has emerged as a world leader in the uptake of rooftop solar power, and it has even been suggested that the sunburnt country could become the world’s first mass market for solar.
The present government did promise to keep Australia’s Renewable Energy Target when it was campaigning for office, but afterwards announced it would be reviewing the policy because the target was looking like it could exceed the goal of delivering 20% renewable energy by 2020, partly due to falling electricity demand. However, such “problems” with exceeding targets have not troubled the likes of Denmark, which recently reached its 2020 solar development goal 8 years early. Denmark is aiming for 50% renewable energy by 2020.
Image CC licensed by Michael Coghlan