Future Energy

Australia is Recognizing Aboriginals in its Constitution ... I Think

Source: Thriving in the Desert blog

With repatriation of our Constitution in 1982, Canada took the step of ensuring recognition of Aboriginal rights.  With Section 35 of the Constitution Act, the country provided constitutional protection to the existing aboriginal and treaty rights. 

35. (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.

(2) In this Act, "Aboriginal Peoples of Canada" includes the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.

(3) For greater certainty, in subsection (1) "treaty rights" includes rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.

(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the aboriginal and treaty rights referred to in subsection (1) are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.

From an energy development point of view, Aboriginal recognition was and is significant because of the string of court cases that followed, establishing an Aboriginal role in the development of natural resources.  In particular, a series of landmark court cases have established the responsibility of the Crown to "consult" with Aboriginal peoples and, where appropriate, accommodate Aboriginal rights or interests when considering development proposals. (A position paper by Weyerhaeuser does a particularly good job of articulating the issues and ways of addressing.)

In practical terms, the Crown's responsibility is frequently effectively handed-off to industry and others proposing to develop resources and rarely does it seem to be done well.  Evolving understandings of what constitutes consultation and how to consult have been huge factors in the complication of regulatory processes for approving projects.

Now Australia seems to be stumbling towards similar accommodation of aboriginal peoples rights and interests (See Coalition to put Aboriginal Recognition to Referendum, August 10^th). 

I say stumbling because, in 2007 John Howard's government committed to holding a referendum on whether the preamble to the Australian Constitution should be changed to explicitly recognize aboriginals.   The promise was then reiterated by Kevin Rudd in 2008. 

Now as a national election approaches, the current Labour government under Julia Gillard has suggested that it would form an expert panel to build support for the constitutional recognition of indigenous people.  And, needless to say, the conservative Coalition thinks it has a better idea.

As indigenous people across remote Australia began casting their votes in mobile polling booths for the federal election on August 21, the Coalition's indigenous affairs spokesman, Nigel Scullion, said there was no need for another committee and he would guarantee a timeline for constitutional recognition to be delivered to Australia's first people.

"We are not only committed to it, we certainly aren't going to flick this very important matter to an expert panel," he said.

"There's been a lot of conversation with the wider community about it. I haven't met anybody who doesn't think it should be reflected in our Constitution and it is down to words and there's not a great deal of angst in the community about the words."

Its hard to see the difference between the two positions beyond a knee-jerk bias against "committees".  Both say they are going to referendum, with Labour suggesting a need to build support among voters, presumably to ensure the issue doesn't blow up in their faces (i.e. get rejected by Australians). 

I wish them luck as they proceed down this path.  Australia has done a lot of interesting work developing innovative regulation and reducing regulatory barriers to development.  I would hope to see some lessons for Canada to come out of this.

Australian Energy on the Path to Sustainability????

Source: Clean Energy Council

Australia's New Government Takes a Leading Role to Address Climate Change

I spent the past four weeks travelling in Australia and while the trip was for fun not business, it gave me a chance to follow some of the current energy related discussions while I was there.  I’m going to try and do several posts that recap some of what I saw, read and discussed during my travels.

The starting point to this journey has to be Australia’s new found commitment to addressing climate change.

Elected late last year, the country’s new Labour government, under Kevin Rudd, committed itself to adopting the Kyoto targets a previous government negotiated in 1997.  And then it went further and promised to reduce the country’s emissions by 60% by 2050.

Even before the election, the then opposition Labour Party together with the State & Territorial governments had asked Ross Garnaut, an economist, to look at Australia’s climate change related challenges and opportunities.  In a February 25^th article, the Economist suggested that Mr. Garnaut’s findings, which recommend that Australia should really be adopting a 90% reduction target for 2050, were causing the government some embarrassment (see Money Meets Mouth: How Green is Australia Prepared to Get?).

Even before Mr. Garnaut gave his report, as part of its election promises, the new government announced an increase in the country’s Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) to 45,000 GWh per annum by 2020 (i.e. 20% of the forecast electricity demand in 2020). 

Together with existing renewables generation, the Victoria RET program and NSW’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme, Australia expects to see 60,000 GWh’s per annum in total by 2020.

JPMorgan looked at the target as well as state programs in Victoria and New South Wales (see JPM Renewable Energy Day, February 6^th, 2008).  Their focus, as may be expected, was on the utility scale renewables developers and how the targets were likely to affect them.  JPMorgan’s review looked at three companies, each of which appear to have substantial project pipelines in place (primarily wind):

·         AGL Energy (ASX:AGK)

Australia Gas Light Company, is Australia’s largest gas and electricity retailer and has recently invested in windfarms and a Victoria state based hydroelectric generator.  AGL Energy has been operating in Australia for 170 years and was one of the country’s first listed companies.  JPMorgan identifies 496 MW of wind capacity under development by the company.

·         Origin Energy (ASX:ORG)

Created in 2000 from the energy assets of Boral Limited, an Australian materials and energy company, Origin is involved in oil & gas exploration, retail electricity sales, electricity generation and gas transportation and distribution.  The company has assets involved in renewable energy generation (wind farms and geothermal) and manufacture of solar systems and is currently developing a further 590 MW of wind capacity according to JPMorgan.

·         Babcock & Brown Wind Partners (ASX: BBW)

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners is a subsidiary of Babcock & Brown, a specialty investment advisor and asset management firm founded in 1977.  The Company owns and operates 76 wind power facilities totalling 3,187 MW capacity in six countries including Australia, France, Germany, Portugul, Spain and the U.S.

Driving along the country’s west coast, small wind power developments were frequently seen near the not too numerous small communities, suggesting the country has a variety of wind power developers that fall outside the scrutiny of JPMorgan.  More on those later.