“We are eternally grateful to the Member for New England, Tony Windsor for calling on the Government to undertake a Productivity Commission Report into the extent of climate action in Australia and other key economies,” Senator Boswell said.

“The Productivity Commission report has clearly pointed out that Australia is more than pulling our weight and that only Germany and United Kingdom are doing more.

“We are doing better than the countries that Wayne Swan lauded in his address at the National Press Club.  Australia is spending more as a proportion of GDP than China, Japan, the US and South Korea.  This report makes Wayne Swan’s address on Tuesday look pretty ordinary,” Senator Boswell said.

The report found that Germany allocated more resources than other countries to abatement emissions.  A report released in 2009 titled A critical review of Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act found that Germany had pursued ‘a massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits’.

“Germany quite mistakenly has been lauded by some for its renewable energy efforts and jobs.  In the case of Germany’s photovoltaics scheme, worker subsidies were as high as €175,000 or $US 240,000.  The amount of electricity produced through solar photovoltaics was a negligible 0.6 per cent despite it being the most subsidised renewable energy source.

“The enormous cost of policies encouraging small-scale renewable generation and biofuels was not lost on the Productivity Commission which found that they generated little abatement despite the substantially higher costs.

 “Despite these findings the Greens are determined to push for feed in tariffs.

“All the countries that were mentioned as shining examples by Wayne Swan at his press club address are doing less than Australia.  This completely destroys Wayne Swan’s argument that Australia risks falling behind when the truth is that we are doing more now than most countries,” Senator Boswell said.

ENDS