ONE MILLION JOBS/ ZERO CARBON COMMUNITIES

25th May 2020. 

Produced remotely by Vivien Langford and Andy Britt

Guests: 

Heidi Lee - Business and Industry lead at Beyond Zero Emissions

Dr Heidi Edmonds- Communities investment lead BZE 

Eytan Lenko- Interim CEO at Beyond Zero Emissions

Imogen Jubb- National manager Zero Carbon Communities

Ursula Hogben - Zero Emissions  Sydney North

Michael Copsey- Banyule Clean Energy Group

Music "Failed State" by David Rovics

" Only a crisis produces real change. When that crisis occurs the actions that are taken depend on ideas that are laying around"*

Post pandemic  there are so many ideas laying around.Will the old  ideas based on coal oil and gas receive stimulus spending? Will retrofitting buildings to require zero heating and cooling receive a boost? The French are doing that for 500,000 buildings per year.

What ideas will underpin the transition to clean energy?

How will heavy industry reduce its emissions to zero?

Why are communities helping solar orphans?

We take a look at the One Million Jobs plan which BZE launched at the Smart Energy conference. Heidi Lee tells us about Heavy Industry in Newcastle as they leapfrog gas. High energy users can actually become better citizens and make money out of balancing the grid.

Dr Heidi Edmonds talks about  jobs on the land and the training in fire and water management  that Indigenous people are leading.

We hear part of Eytan Lenko's talk at the Smart Energy Conference.He shows how one million jobs can accelerate positive trends already emerging.

Behind the One Million Jobs plan are communities that BZE is assisting in the quest for zero emissions. Imogen Jubb find that COVID 19 has not slowed momentum. She tells us about the Snapshot you can find of your community's emissions.     

https://www.snapshotclimate.com.au/

Two of the communities on the Zero Carbon path are in Sydney's  northern suburbs in NSW and Banyule in Victoria.

Ursula Hogben and Michael Copsey are practical people. They talk together with Vivien on zoom about how they reduce confusion and lift confidence in making the transition.They both draw on the goodwill and expertise in their communities so that no one needs to feel that reducing emissions is just too hard.

Many people have had an unhappy experience with solar power. Michael calls these the solar orphans and both groups are committed to connecting households and businesses with well regulated installers.

* Naomi Klein on the Intercept uses Milton Friedman's comment to show that this i s no time to lose our nerve.

 As many of you would have seen, our friends at BZE released their "Million Jobs Plan" today and the detail can be seen here:

https://bze.org.au/the-million-jobs-plan/

Great Guardian article here too....