An effective response to climate change can only be mounted if the necessary policies are put in place and only if governments throughout the world are prepared to drive them.

These policies within the energy sector are clear cut and can be divided into three broad areas: energy efficiency; new energy related technologies; and structural market mechanisms which promote zero or low emission energy sources, substantially including renewable energy sources.

Governments around the world are at different stages of driving this trio of policy objectives and many of the technologies promoting low greenhouse gas emissions are decades away.

One aspect is very clear - unless the proportion of renewable energy sources in the total energy mix is increasing now, then the task of an overall climate change response in the energy sector becomes increasingly difficult with each passing year.

The United States, Europe, China and India have already recognised this and have substantial policy positions to promote renewable energy options.
The International Energy Agency in its 2007 Report on renewables in the global energy supply, proposed a number of necessary scenarios to achieve 2003 CO2 emission levels by 2050.

In one of its realistic and necessary scenarios, an increase of between 250,000 and 300,000MW of wind energy outputs over the next four decades is proposed. This amounts to five to six times Australia’s current total energy output and highlights the fact that wind energy will be at the forefront of renewable energy development over the next 40 years.

Hydro Tasmania produces around 50 per cent of the electricity generated from renewable sources in Australia, is the nation’s largest renewable energy business and is fully owned by the Tasmanian Government. We are therefore well positioned, particularly with our joint ownership in Roaring 40s, to grow the business and, in the process, contribute to solving the greatest environmental challenge of our time.