Queensland cuts

Here in my home state of Queensland, the new government elected in March has taken a number of actions to slow action on climate change, energy efficiency and renewable energy.

1. Practically every program with the word 'climate' in it was shut down.

2. The new electricity pricing system which rewarded energy efficiency was cancelled in favour of the old system.

3. The Climate Smart Home program, which helped households save hundreds in electricity, was closed.

4. The funding to build a solar farm in one of the sunniest areas of the 'sunshine state' was retracted.

5. The rebate for households to install solar hot water was removed.

6. The solar panel incentive for excess power produced (encouraging both solar power and energy efficiency) was reduced from 44 cents to 8 cents (less than the price of buying electricity).

7. The standards requiring new homes to install efficient hot water systems was loosened to allow inefficient expensive ones - bizarrely pitched as a cost-cutting measure, despite my analysis.

Hopefully, positive things still happen despite these negative actions, but it's quite disappointing.

PS. I've also heard a rumour that already the future school curriculum has been changed to remove references to climate change - but that hasn't been confirmed. Meanwhile there's still a petition going to Keep Science in Schools.

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