ancestor_tags_list: #
Skip navigation
ancestor_tags_list: #

Pages tagged "policy"

Northern Territory policy overview highlights current environment for First Nations and clean energy

The Northern Territory has some of the strongest solar radiation in the world and there is clearly much potential to develop clean energy projects on First Nations titled lands. 

Read more

Northern Territory Policy Overview: First Nations and Clean Energy

This paper was prepared to support conversations at the Mparntwe (Alice Springs) roundtable for the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy. The Northern Territory has some of the strongest solar radiation in the world and there is clearly much potential to develop clean energy projects on First Nations titled lands. 

 

 

Special thanks to Christian Bass for use of the photo.


First Nations, risks and opportunities, and Australia’s energy transition

Enabling and empowering First Nations to play a key and central role in Australia’s renewable energy transition goes beyond just social licence issues.

With new regulatory and policy systems being designed by governments across Australia to facilitate a rapid transition to renewable energy, access to and engagement with First Nations Country and Sea Country for renewable energy infrastructure will be essential and inevitable. The Jukaan Gorge tragedy has demonstrated to us all that these sorts of standards — whereby the law passively permits destruction, or leaves protection of cultural heritage and native title rights and interests to corporate social responsibility policies — as ineffective and wholly inappropriate.

Across the globe, First Nations are moving beyond minimal corporate social responsibility and tokenistic approaches to demand a new realism. In this new reality, First Nations are no longer just the passive hosts of projects or mere regulatory hurdles to clear. The finance sector too is increasingly engaging with this new realism, and the foundations on which the myth of terra nullius was established are rapidly eroding.

The two examples highlighted in this paper demonstrate recent Government failure to fully engage with this new reality. 

Stalled progress on projects attests to the growing urgency of including rights of free, prior and informed consent, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in legislation, and to design processes to fully include First Nations in the early planning, design, execution and management of projects. 

Despite the increasing recognition of the need for FPIC in an international context, our current legislative and policy systems that set the rules for engagement with First Nations do not contain this principle or standard — formed as they were either in an atmosphere of concocted hysteria following Mabo and Wik and the 10-point plan, or in a bygone era when First Nations’ proud culture and accompanying, rights, interests and responsibilities were conveniently made invisible and so rendered silent by the myth of terra nullius

If we perpetuate historical approaches to the development of projects that require access to land based on a dispossession that has always been unjust we will invite legal contestation and delay. Alternatively, by engaging with First Nations as partners in the design of systems, laws and policies, we will decrease uncertainty and project risk, resulting in a range of additional cultural, economic, environmental, social and political benefits to all parties. 

By including and embedding First Nations as partners in the energy system transition, and the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in policy, legislative, project approval and financing systems and processes, we can ensure the transition is fair and just for First Nations, can occur at the pace necessary, will avoid unnecessary legal contestation, and will deliver ongoing mutual cultural, social, economic and environmental benefits to people and country.

If governments continue to perpetuate the fiction of terra nullius, Australia will miss opportunities for the development of a renewable energy sector that best ensures First Nations as active participants and supporters.

 

By Jonathan Kneebone, First Nations Clean Energy Network

 

This is an excerpt from the paper, which can be found in the Australian Environment Review.

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Izzy Gibson for the image!


Taking action - A national framework and best practice

Australia can be a world leader in clean energy if First Nations, governments and industry work hand-in-hand. The First Nations Clean Energy Network will work with the Federal Government and State and Territory energy ministers to develop a framework that guarantees First Nations participation and ensures everyone shares in the benefits of renewables. In this session, we’ll expand on key best practice principles we are asking the industry to commit to, and hear a response from Ministers and the industry.

Speakers:

• Kane Thornton, Clean Energy Council
• Jenny McAllister, Assistant Minister - Energy and Climate Change
• First Nations speakers on principles and policy


Energy insecurity during temperature extremes in remote Australia

Indigenous communities in remote Australia face dangerous temperature extremes. These extremes are associated with increased risk of mortality and ill health. For many households, temperature extremes increase both their reliance on those services that energy provides, and the risk of those services being disconnected. Poor quality housing, low incomes, poor health and energy insecurity associated with prepayment all exacerbate the risk of temperature-related harm. Here we use daily smart meter data for 3,300 households and regression analysis to assess the relationship between temperature, electricity use and disconnection in 28 remote communities. We find that nearly all households (91%) experienced a disconnection from electricity during the 2018–2019 financial year. Almost three quarters of households (74%) were disconnected more than ten times.

Households with high electricity use located in the central climate zones had a one in three chance of a same-day disconnection on very hot or very cold days. A broad suite of interrelated policy responses is required to reduce the frequency, duration and negative effects of disconnection from electricity for remote-living Indigenous residents.

 

This paper was written by Thomas Longden, Simon Quilty, Brad Riley, Lee V. White, Michael Klerck, Vanessa Napaltjari Davis and Norman Frank Jupurrurla.