Australian Clean Energy Industry Needs Investment  

The SMH has an article on a Climate Institute report on the investment required to create an Australian cleantech industry - Clean energy needs investment: report.

Creating a commercial-scale clean-energy industry in Australia will cost more than $5 billion annually over the next 10 years. That's the finding of a Climate Institute report that has costed what it will take to move to a low carbon economy.

The report says $5.4 billion a year until 2020 will be needed to build a commercial-scale clean-energy industry. It will also create thousands of new jobs and enable Australia to cut emissions by 25 per cent below 1990 levels, the report says.

Climate Institute CEO John Connor said the federal government's commitment to start an emissions trading scheme by 2010 was a good first step, but more is needed. "Building a clean energy economy requires significant, but not unrealistic levels of investment. The investment is significant, but not unrealistic," Mr Connor said.

A separate report, by international aid agency Oxfam, has also called on the Rudd government to do more to lower emissions. It warns that climate change will increase global poverty if governments fail to act at this week's climate change negotiations in Poznan, Poland.