For Mr Rae, one of the major roles of leaders in the clean energy sector is to educate; centring upon the need to recognise the importance of sustainability.

He says that to do this is simply to recognise that you cannot continue “consuming (and damaging)” without working out how to replenish the pot.

“There is no justification for an affluent world to proceed in that way. We’ve got the funds to be able to provide for the future; we ought to be doing it.

“We need education [to send a message] that it’s about sustainability; it’s not about climate change. Climate change is one aspect. If we cured climate change tomorrow, we still have to come to terms with sustainability.”

In short, we need to identify that sustainability and renewables are a pair and they are the desirable end objectives.

“In the meantime, we may have to rely upon cleaning up some of the existing forms of generation to make them cleaner. But they will never be sustainable and they will never be clean.”

He says a distinction needs to be drawn between clean energy and renewable energy.

“A lot of clean energy is cleaner than the dirtier energy, but it’s not really clean and it’s not really sustainable. ‘Clean-er’ would be a more appropriate title.”

As Chairman of the International Renewable Energy Alliance, Senior Vice President of the World Wind Energy Association, and former Chairman of Hydro Tasmania, Mr Rae has watched the industry – as well as the surrounding rhetoric regarding it – change, and he believes Australians have only come part of the way in recognising the distinction. What’s more, he says that much of the discussion is taking place under a fog of confusion and disinformation.

Questioning an emissions trading scheme

Mr Rae became concerned about environmental issues in the 1950s, not long after leaving school. From 1968 until 1986 he was a Senator, and spent six and a half of those years as a Senior Shadow Minister.

Reflecting on this, he moves on to one of the major focal points of the sustainability discussion – the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation, which was voted down for a second time in November 2009.

During his time in government, Mr Rae was a member of the Senate Select Committee on Water Pollution.

The publicity and report of the inquiry gave some momentum to the introduction of Environmental Protection legislation at a Commonwealth and state level, which now underpins Australia’s environmental policy.

Polluters were required to either stop polluting or find a way to do it in a clean and non-damaging way. But Mr Rae says that this principle seems to have been lost in the current debate around an emissions trading scheme (ETS).

“I’m rather surprised to find that people are arguing that the polluters in the energy industry ought to be compensated for polluting.

“I don’t recall, that when the horse was replaced by the tractor and the motor vehicle, that the horse breeders got compensation. I don’t remember that the typewriter manufactures were compensated by anybody when the computer took over.”

Acknowledging that a scheme that penalises polluters needs to be phased in over time, he argues that Australia is providing more than just adjustment assistance.

Levels of compensation aside, Mr Rae would prefer to see a renewables development scheme in place, instead of an ETS.

“My concern with an ETS is that you create a new financial industry in which the cream is skimmed off by the people who are the traders, and therefore you’ve removed a whole lot of the funds that might otherwise be development funds for renewable energy, or for carbon capture and storage, or for other ways of cleaning up our act.”

He says that Australia ought to first ensure new energy demand is met by renewable energy, so that the balance begins to change between high emissions energy generation, and clean, renewable energy.

As for the policy that was intended to do just that – the Renewable Energy Target – Mr Rae acknowledges that the legislation has led to “all sorts of barriers”, and that the market is not currently giving the necessary encouragement for the development of renewable energy. But he says that this is a matter of amending the legislation to cut out the distortions.

Australia in the global context

Mr Rae believes that with each day an international agreement is increasingly likely. However, he is doubtful about Australia’s ability to participate as a leader on the international stage as its sustainability policy has regressed.

“I’m not sure the Australian public and the Australian Parliament are as far advanced as most other countries. And I become concerned when I go to a conference in China, or to Johannesburg, and hear what they’re doing. Then I hear in Australia that we should wait until the others have done something! Actually they’ve done a lot more than we have.”

“When Australia introduced the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target scheme and the Australian Greenhouse Office, we were leading the world. Gradually that was paired back, and now we’ve become the retarding influence.”

He says that one of the things causing this lack of leadership is that – at least in public terms – Australia hasn’t begun to come to grips with the fact that world governance is a fact of life. Moreover, it is where Australia’s views and Australia’s interests can be best looked after in that world governance.

After Bali, with the new government ratifying Kyoto, Australia had the chance to be regarded as having seen the light and to catch up.

“Instead of that, we’ve now fallen further and further behind. And when the opportunity to participate in the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) – the body that will in many ways govern the development of renewable energy, which is the major new investment area in the world – we stood back [and were subsequently one of the last to join in June 2009].”

Directions for the future

Mr Rae points to some main objectives to ensure Australia does not remain the retarding influence in the global sustainability solution, cautioning that these need to be executed with a long term view in mind.

“You’ve got to look at tomorrow, and the next election – democracy works that way – but you also need to have enough people who are taking the long term view and who can see it in perspective and balance, and develop the policies which will achieve the objectives that we need for 2050.”

He reiterates that education is key as well as the “real responsibility” of the media to “answer disinformation”.

Secondly, practical renewable energy implementation policies need to be developed, which encourage domestic manufacturing of renewables, and divert adequate funds to these projects, as well as research and development.

He says that the technology exists to deploy huge amounts of renewable energy generation capacity around the world, pointing to the example of the US, who accelerated to become the second highest wind generator in approximately three or four years.

Energy efficiency also has a substantial role to play, including more research into systems such as hydrogen systems and battery development.

On solar power, he says that the answer is within reach. He applauds the work that has been done by a number of Australians in this field, though regrets that most of them have been moved overseas – a consequence he attributes to Australia’s attitude toward renewable energy.

He hopes geothermal power will provide answers, and believes ocean power needs to be developed at a much greater rate.

As for CCS, while he is hopeful that it could provide a stop-gap (and is able to achieve all that its proponents suggest) it still would not ever qualify as being either sustainable or clean, not to mention the real but often unstated costs involved.

And nuclear also has significant drawbacks – particularly costs – placing it out of the race when competing with wind, hydro or many forms of bioenergy.

Disclosing his business interests in wind power, Mr Rae highlights that of all the renewables, wind power technology is proven, and can be deployed very rapidly onshore and offshore.

“It doesn’t take a huge percentage of Australia’s GDP to take us from a country which has fallen behind, to a country which has resumed a leadership position.

“What we need is the will, and this, will come out of a fair and proper public education program of what are the issues, and how can they become overcome.”

Tasmania’s leading role

Tasmania has long been using renewable energy, with an established hydro power system. Mr Rae is the chair of the newly established Tasmanian Industry Development Board, and hopes that Tasmania will continue to develop and lead in the renewable energy sector, not only Australia, but the world.

“When it became necessary to modernise the approach to hydro development, it was Tasmania who led the way with the development of the Sustainability Guidelines and the Sustainable Development Protocol. That enabled the International Hydro Power Association to answer and satisfy the United Nations, the World Bank and others in relation to a responsible approach to the development of hydro.”

According to Mr Rae, hydro power already provides 17 per cent of the world generation, and is capable of more than doubling that, probably tripling it.

Jumping aboard

The lessons learnt from Tasmania’s century of renewable energy are many, but for Mr Rae, sustainability remains the key.

“It’s absolutely vital that we recognise that management of water, management of generation in its various forms, management of agriculture, management of the whole of what goes into providing for life, is an integrated matter, and not simply one of looking at what your energy , irrigation or water policy is.”

“I hope Australia can catch the boat before it has disappeared over the horizon.”