This paper links energy and climate change with disadvantage in Australia and explores the dual disadvantage of steeply rising electricity prices and increasing climate change impacts. It reviews the potential of energy policy and climate policy to alleviate disadvantage, over the short and longer term, and suggests that renewable energy in particular has a role to play. However, the prospect of renewable energy policy advances in Australia is constrained, it is found, by the politicised nature of climate policy more broadly, the influence of the fossil fuel lobby, and the predisposition of current governmental policy. Drawing upon the policy streams and advocacy coalition theories of policy change, the paper assesses the political and ideological bases of this constraint, and the prospects for improved policy that could alleviate energy disadvantage. It finds that, whilst renewable energy does have an important role to play in achieving energy affordability, it needs to be supported politically, and complemented, in practical terms, by a range of policies and measures at all levels of government.
History
Publication title
Energy Procedia
Volume
121
Pagination
284-291
ISSN
1876-6102
Department/School
School of Social Sciences
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Place of publication
Netherlands
Event title
IREE 2017 Conference
Event Venue
Wollongong, Australia
Date of Event (Start Date)
2017-02-16
Date of Event (End Date)
2017-02-17
Rights statement
Copyright 2017 the Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/