Zali Steggall says India is doing more to combat climate change than Australia
Warringah MP Zali Steggall has revealed how Australia can learn from India – the world’s third biggest polluter – on how to reduce its carbon emissions after a recent trip to the developing country.
Manly
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Self-proclaimed climate leader Zali Steggall says Australia could learn a thing or two about how to combat climate change from India – the world’s third biggest polluter – after she spent four days there with a parliamentary delegation.
The Warringah MP, who won her seat on the back of her campaign on the environment, visited Delhi and Mumbai with the Environment and Energy Committee, as part of an investigation into nuclear energy, as well as looking at how they deal with water and waste.
The delegation was in Delhi when the pollution was so bad it was rated by the Air Quality Index to be in excess of 1000 – over 400 is regarded as hazardous – as a result schools were closed and people wore masks.
However, Ms Steggall said despite India having a lot of issues, including a huge amount of poverty, at least the politicians agree they need to tackle climate change and are doing something about it.
“They have a policy and are progressing with it,” Ms Steggall said. “We have a government that does not have a policy.”
Chairman of the committee Liberal MP Ted O’Brien also said the trip to India was inspiring particularly on how they are using nuclear energy to increase crop production, but he disagreed with Ms Steggall on the issue of Australia not having a policy on climate change.
“The Australian Government accepts the science on climate change,” he said. “We have objectives and targets.
“We have the highest investment in renewables on a per capita basis in the entire world.
“Unashamedly there is still a role for coal and there will be in the future.
“People who are opposed should not turn their lights on.
“We have smashed our Kyoto targets and will achieve our 2030 Paris targets way in advance.”
Ms Steggall – who wants to put forward a climate change bill similar to that of the UK in the New Year – said India had bigger goals.
She said it was looking at replacing all its vehicles with electric ones, has already met its Paris agreement targets and has set itself ambitious new ones, including increasing solar energy use from 22,000 megawatts to 100,000 megawatts and wind power to 70,000 megawatts by 2022.
Ms Steggall said many deniers of man-made climate change use the argument that because Australia’s carbon emissions are insignificant compared with India’s that there is no point in trying.
She said many also complain that in the Paris agreement India was given easier targets because it is still going through industrialisation and its carbon emissions will worsen before they get better.
“They say what is the point of doing anything if China and India aren’t?” she said.
“Let’s get to the facts here. Where is India going? It has set itself very, very ambitious targets,” she said.
Ms Steggall said she was also impressed at how India was looking at forward planning on issues such as what will happen to the sewerage system if flooding increases?
The Environment and Energy Committee met with ministers and the CEO of the largest India energy company, who was looking at expanding micro grids where solar generating electricity can be shared among the community.
“There’s a misconception that India is really dragging the chain on renewables,” she said.
“That’s not my impression.”
Mr O’Brien said India had very different challenges from Australia including providing enough electricity for its people, with estimates that 100 million people still do not have reliable power.
The committee — which has also been to every Australian capital city except Darwin to get feedback on the pros and cons of nuclear energy — will submit its report shortly.
Ms Steggall said her personal views on nuclear energy is that it would be many years in the planning, when they needed solutions now.
