Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: Hi Folks and thanks for all those who contributed to the Prime Minister's blog, that's my blog, on climate change. We had nearly a thousand posts, a few people got in there and contributed more than one and, thanks for all those ideas, some of which we can take on board and others of which simply prod us in the right direction and others of which obviously we can't travel with. But the whole point of having this blog and having an online discussion is that we actually get the best ideas for the country and for the future.
Then of course, for the online discussion, we had some 20 or 30 participating in the last 24 hours and that's been good. Range of topics that were raised included what we do on energy efficiency, what we do also on Biosequestration as a means of reducing our carbon emissions. Domestic emissions targets, the role of land transport, in particular urban transport and urban rail as a way of bringing emissions down; also the use of home conferencing or the use of video technology to reduce the overall need for people to travel interstate or internationally for conferences and certainly a greater prospect of working from home and, finally, the importance - the paramount importance - of getting a first class outcome from Copenhagen.
Now one of the big topics raised, of course, was energy efficiency and I just thought I'd run through a few of the things that the Government's doing at present, but I'm up for ideas about what more things we do. The Energy Efficient Homes Package, we're providing insulation to be installed in up to 2.9 million homes, basically ceiling insulation, which as you know, will bring down your electricity costs for the house itself, but more importantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to provide for people's home-heating.
The other thing we're doing is solar hot water heaters being installed in over 300,000 homes - this is a big, big package. It's part of the Government's economic stimulus strategy and it runs to some $4 billion, but we thought this is a practical way of generating jobs now, while also bringing down greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. I'm told here that we've got 150,000 homes have installed insulation already and 57,000 solar hot water systems as well; so progress being made and progress underway as far as all that work is concerned. Insulation can save households up to 40 per cent in heating and cooling costs while installing a solar hot water scheme can save up to $700 a year on running costs; so practical for the budget but most critically, given our discussion on climate change, critical for bringing down greenhouse gas emissions.
There's another thing as well: the Green Loans Program, which will provide home sustainability assessments for up to 360,000 households across the country and up to 75,000 interest-free loans for identified energy efficiency improvements. The idea of the audit is to help people know what they can do at home and if we can do that with 360,000 households that's one big step in the right direction.
The expanded and accelerated appliance energy efficiency program is also expected to deliver a greenhouse gas abatement of around 19.5 million tons per year - that's the equivalent of taking about 5 million cars off the road, so we think that's a useful way forward as well.
Finally, the Government's $100 million National Energy Efficiency Initiative -Smart Grid, Smart City also to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy by encouraging innovative, smart grid technology.
So here are some very practical measures on the energy efficiency front when it comes to homes, the use of appliances, the use of solar hot water systems, the use of energy insulation and also audits to help people know what they can do better themselves.
Renewable energy was also raised by a number of people in the online discussion. In the area of renewable energy we're providing $4.5 billion of investment in a range of clean-energy technologies, including $2 billion plus for carbon capture and storage flagship programs across the country and, critically, a $1.4 billion investment when it comes to solar flagships that will include what we hope to be the single largest solar-generating project anywhere in the world, up to a thousand megawatts and the biggest one around the planet at the moment is in California with only about 300 megawatts. As you know, Australia has loads of sunshine, the key thing is working out at what cost we can generate this solar energy and doing it at scale so that we can work out how we can expand this into the future.
Finally on Copenhagen, this of course is a big one for everyone and it's a big one for governments to show leadership across the world. I was recently with President Obama and others at the G8 Plus Summit in L'Aquila in Italy. This is, frankly, the challenge which now presents itself for us to wrestle with right through until December. There are a couple of staging points in between, including next month at the UN in New York and the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, but we've got to narrow the gap between the major emerging economies on the one hand and the developed economies in the other. This is critical; otherwise this great, historical opportunity will pass us by and as the Australian Prime Minister and many people asked me about this in the online discussion today: we are exerting every effort, diplomatically, to try and bridge the gap between all these participating countries. It will be very hard, but I've got to say that it will be a task made even harder if we can't go to the world and say that we're using our own Emissions Trading Scheme, our own Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, to bring down our own greenhouse gas emissions in order to give effect in a practical way to the targets we talk about embracing internationally as well.
So energy efficiency, also on the question of renewable energy, also our international diplomatic strategy around Copenhagen, the Government's active. But I'd really encourage you, if you've got further ideas about what we can be doing: get them in; contribute again to what the Government's saying and we would like to hear from you as soon as possible.
In the meantime, thanks for participating in the blog and thanks for participating in the online discussion as well, I really appreciate it.