The reluctant transformation AGL Energy was forced to go through last year, due to shareholder actions and climate campaigns, may have prompted the new AGL leadership to consider it had done enough to allay customer and community concerns. Yet at the annual CEDA Economic and Policy Conference on Friday 18 Feb in Sydney, health workers are stressing that pressure on the energy giant won't let up until its climate plan meets global scientific recommendations.
AGL released its Climate Transition Action Plan (CTAP) late last year announcing a decarbonising strategy that would meet a 1.8 degree warming target and retire coal power stations by 2035. This isn't good enough, according to Healthy Futures, a network of health professionals passionate about climate change.
"A 1.8 degree target is reckless," said Sydney-based psychiatrist Dr Cybele Dey. "Anything above the 1.5 degree Paris Agreement risks thousands more Australian deaths each year due to escalating extreme heat, bushfires, floods and severe allergic and infectious diseases" [1]. The World Health Organization advises that countries like Australia should end coal use by 2030 [2]. The health workers today are urging AGL executives, notably conference keynote speaker Chief Customer Officer Joe Egan, to commit to 100% renewable energy by 2030.
"As an energy retailer with nearly 4 million customers in Australia, AGL has the capacity to make a huge difference for our energy future, our environment and for health," said Dr Dey. "We are calling on the new greener leadership of AGL to deliver a better climate plan that replaces polluting fossil fuels with renewable energy by 2030".
Health workers will hand out flyers to conference attendees which illustrate the inadequacies with AGL's current CTAP and provide suggestions as to how it could be improved to meet the demands of its growing customer base who ask for carbon-neutral products.
The financial losses AGL is dealing with, due in part to its ageing coal-fired power stations, highlight that the renewable energy transition could not come fast enough for AGL shareholders. Yet the detail on how AGL is planning to get there is lacking; doing nothing to quell concerns that climate statements are mere greenwashing.
"Due its size and position in the market, AGL should be seizing the opportunity to lead this electrification revolution that is taking storm," Energy Transitions Campaigner, Bronwyn McDonald said. "AGL's Jo Egan is talking at the CEDA conference about how to improve energy performance. We have a suggestion that will not only improve reliability, it will benefit the community's health and our climate: quit coal by 2030."
References
Parise, I. (2018). A brief review of global climate change and the public health consequences. Retrieved from:https://www1.racgp.org.au/ajgp/2018/july/climate-change-and-the-public-health on
'The Health Argument for Climate Action' © World Health Organization (2021). Retrieved from: https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1378263/retrieve
About us:
Healthy Futures is a network of health professionals, students and community members concerned about climate change and air pollution. www.healthyfutures.net.au
