Community leaders, businesses and influentials have their say on Mission Zero
Community leaders, businesses and influentials in Cairns tell us if they think it is possible to achieve a net zero carbon emission target by 2050. What do you think?
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COMMUNITY leaders, businesses and influentials in Cairns have their say on achieving a net zero target by 2050.
FR Ireland joint managing director Richard Ireland
My personal view is the only way to really get there is with nuclear. All the so called green sources of energy have an enormous carbon footprint in their construction. Looking at the range of them, nuclear is the most efficient of them all. It really comes down to a mistake from the democrats 20 years ago. They were the ones that encouraged the government on the day to put a ban on nuclear power. It is something that needs to be revisited, if you want to be truly effective, you need to have nuclear. Our business was an early adaptor of trying to reduce our emissions. We put in $300,000 in solar 10 years ago.
Cairns Activist Geoff Holland
We will not achieve the target at the rate we are going nationally. Locally, the council has been conducting community consultation with their climate strategy which is fantastic. I know there are some good people in council working on this but I am cautious because the council refuses to declare a climate emergency. We need them to do that to send a strong signal to the community. We want to clarify we are in a climate emergency, it’s real and we need to dedicate resources to it. The Council must lead the way in measuring total community emission. When they were doing it for City for Climate they were obliged to show their own emissions. If they were serious they have to measure total emissions. In my view they are disingenuous if they don’t, why would they not want to measure otherwise?
Tina O’Hagan Food Service Consultancy owner Tina O’Hagan
We need to start somewhere to reduce emissions. What I am trying to do is eradicate the waste of food waste into landfill. The majority of people don’t know what they are wasting. The key area of food waste is one of the things that contributes to methane in landfill. This is a solution that eradicates the needs for any of these things to go into landfill at all. Everything is completely and utterly recyclable.
President of FNQ Growers Joe Moro
I think net zero is achievable, at the end of the day it’s all about new technology coming online. As long as farmers are not expected to bare the brunt of it and we can get some relief and not be put in the same situation as the Kyoto agreement when lands were tired up. A number of players in the region are doing things already. They are looking at using alternative power sources. Some farmers are not doing a lot at this stage and have burdened the cost of previous policy settings.
13-year-old activist Molly Steer
We need to act now because most of the bigger countries in the world have been working on it a lot longer. We have been lagging behind a bit, but now it is time for action. Just to start and do whatever we can. The choral and marine life can’t keep suffering through water temperatures increasing and bleaching. We need to stop pollution and focus on zero emissions.
Each of us have a role to play in this, we can’t just sit back and think someone else will be able to fix it and that means everyone. From the highest level to the government, to the adults and all the kids like me.
Reef and Rainforest Research Centre managing director Sheriden Morris
The big thing for this region, what is extraordinarily important is our long-term sustainable management of the Reef. Now clearly when we have situations like we did in 2016 and 2017 where we had mass bleaching of the Reef area up here and 2020 when there was a smaller bleaching down further south, this really knocks our Reef systems around and we can’t continue to do that. So what we need to do is slow down the pace of change to enable the Reef to adapt. It will play out in the same way for the wet tropics. One of the very frustrating things about climate is its very hard to think about what you can do individually or what real things you can do.
North Queensland Recycling Owner Ian Kermide
All I can say at this time, sure we have to reduce carbon emissions. Anybody who says there is not a problem has his head buried in the sand. Because no body wants to lose creature comforts, you must consider nuclear. And the centre of Australia is the most stable rock of anywhere in the world. People have got to think about this nuclear power. I have solar power on my sheds here for what we use during the day, I have solar power in my home. So I am a believer and if we had more turbine power it would be a great thing but we don’t.
Down under Cruise and Dive managing director Peppi Iovannella
The discussion is irrelevant because it is inevitable due to the cost benefit of the new technology. We are moving that way, we are currently investigating down the road to get hydrogen compulsion or electric. The next design would be incorporating that. The next step won’t be diesel it will be either hydrogen or electric. I am heavily invested into battery technology in shares. I get regular updates of the progress and it is only three years away at most.
Stay-at-home mum Gloria Finau from Mount Sheridan
The hope for me is that we will achieve it but the realist in me says probably not. Because of the things you need, you’d need electric motor vehicles by that time. Everything would have to change by energy source. I sometimes try to conserve energy but that is more to bring the energy bill down. When I use my car and stuff I should probably be more conscious. I think there is not much education in terms of what the public should do.
Co-owner of Divine Gelato Claudia Martius
If everyone put in the effort we can do it. We consume a lot of energy in the shop, so we are very energy conscious anyhow because of costs but also sustainability. We would like to get more solar energy. Where I come from (Germany) we have companies that sell green energy and it is not much. We are trying to shut down our airconditioning when not necessary. For a long time we have had paper cups and I am chatting to the people who provide the cups as we still get everything in plastic. I sent out an email because we are trying to get away from that.
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