The Climate Action Summit took place in Canberra last weekend. Prior to the summit the Climate Action Centre prepared a climate action reader, Talk Climate, for the Summit. In this election year with the stakes higher than ever, it is a particularly thought provoking read. Included in the reader is a piece penned by Damien Lawson from the Climate Action Centre and Taegen Edwards from Yarra Climate Action Now dealing with the upcoming campaign currently to be driven by a coalition of Victorian climate action and environmental groups to replace Hazelwood power station with a mix of less polluting or non polluting electricity generating capacity.

Hazelwood is of course Victoria’s oldest, least efficient, largest and dirtiest, brown coal fired, power generating facility. Hazelwood was due to be closed in 2005. Unfortunately, and against the advice of a raft of environmental groups, the State Government decided to extend the operating license of this obsolete facility until 2031. Alone it is responsible for 15% of Victorian annual green house gas pollution and 3% of the Australian total.

The summit reaffirmed the climate movement’s opposition to the government’s trading scheme and set out key policy goals for clean renewable energy, green jobs and the need for an immediate carbon levy. The coal industry was made a key target. Among the agreed goals of the summit was the replacement of Hazelwood, with clean energy by 2012.

As Yarra Climate Action Now is one of the groups supporting this campaign you can expect to hear much more about this as the year passes. Watch this space.