Gas Information
Electrification will help protect our health and our climate
Victoria has started the process of moving away from gas
However:
- Victoria is still going to subsidise gas hot water for another 18 months, until “the end of 2023“
- There no time table for “an orderly and equitable retirement of Victoria’s leaky and polluting gas transmission network.”
- Victoria has not ruled out “dirty hydrogen made with methane gas.”
- Victoria supports new gas drilling including close to the Twelve Apostles ecotourist area
If we moved households and industry to cleaner, cheaper and safer electricity, there would be no gas shortage
- Science-based climate targets are at least 75% reduction by 2030
- Fossil gas (methane) creates a huge fraction (17%) of Victoria’s emissions
- Fully electric households with EVs will save around $5,000 pa before 2030
Victoria must accelerate the transition away from fossil gas and commit to no new gas infrastructure
Find out more about why moving away from gas is so important!
Check our gas facts in a nutshell blog here:
- Natural gas is a fossil fuel (methane)
- Methane leakage rates can make gas as bad as coal
- Methane contributes 25% of global heating
- New gas will not produce more manufacturing jobs
- New gas is not needed and will not lower prices
- Gas is not a transition fuel, we can move straight to renewables and storage
- Gas cooking is responsible for 12% of childhood athsma
- There are safer and cleaner alternatives domestic heating, cooking and in industry
- Green hydrogen is on its way – zero emissions with a wide range of industrial uses and export potential, and will help decarbonise difficult sectors like steel.
Fossil gas damages our health and our climate
- People know burning coal damages our climate, but the impact of ‘natural gas’ is less well known
- Burning gas is bad for our health right now.
- The government plans for massive gas expansion could supercharge our climate crisis, further threatening a safe, clean sustainable future.
We have good affordable alternatives right now
We have the solutions, they just need to be scaled and implemented
The gas industry has poor medium and long term prospects
- Gas is no longer seen as a transition fuel
- More gas will not lower prices or bring many new jobs
- Gas exports may well “fall off a cliff” in the decades after 2025
- Building new gas infrastructure will accelerate Australia’s emissions and waste public funds
Five reasons why gas is already becoming superseded from our blog on gas impacts and campaigning:
Where should Australia be headed?
We have the technology to move away from coal – it’s renewables and storage with improved grids
We have the technology to move away from gas – it’s electrification (heat pumps) and development of green hydrogen
We have the technology to move away from oil – it’s a move to electric vehicles and green hydrogen for heavy transport
Renewables will increase our energy self sufficiency and help us avoid carbon tariffs as the world pivots away from fossil fuels
Australia can be a renewable energy superpower – exporting electrons, green hydrogen and clean manufactured goods
Lighter Footprints is supporting ongoing Victorian and national gas campaigns
You can read more here!
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