MUA media release -
Govt fails to invest in clean, green shipping
Despite the Costello budget's $23 billion dollar investment in Auslink transport infrastructure and a few million towards combating global warming, the Howard Government has missed the boat on climate change. Not a penny is earmarked for what is already the cleanest and greenest form of transportation available - shipping - much less the much heralded new innovations in solar and wind powered vessels which are capturing the public imagination worldwide.
Shipping supports 28.15 per cent of Australia's domestic freight task, but contributes to just 2 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector, according to a report published by the Australian Shipowners' Association "Sea Transport Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions".
Yet shipping remains the missing link in each successive federal budget and does not even feature in its Auslink national transport infrastructure program. Nor is there any money invested in innovation despite visionaries here and abroad already investigating a return to sail - such as the German Skysails technology harnessing parachutes to traditional freighters to cut reliance on fossil fuels or the award winning sun and wind powered tankers proposed by Australian innovators Solar Sailor.
"As always the government has failed to invest the budget windfall and global resources boom in any serious infrastructure innovations and missed the boat in creating a low emission economy," said National Secretary Paddy Crumlin.
"How can you have a national transport scheme called Auslink with no shipping component? And how can you pretend to be concerned with global warming when you only put money back into the highest carbon producing transport mode - roads and ignore the more environmentally friendly options? "
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