'Conversation' marathon shows Australians want 100% renewable energy

The Greens today congratulated the 100% renewable energy campaign for their tremendous work conducting 14,000 conversations about renewable energy and putting a price on pollution across the Australian community.

"These conversations show that the Australia community wants to move to 100% renewable energy and they want the government to make that happen,"
Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.

"This is a clear message to Prime Minister Gillard that she is not doing enough to support renewable energy and the community is behind the Greens' push to make sure that the carbon price package delivers strong policies and funding for renewables.

"I really congratulate the huge team of volunteers behind this 100% renewable energy campaign.

"They have shown that, if you engage people in sensible conversations instead of feeding them misinformation and attack campaigns, they swing strongly behind both renewable energy and putting a price on carbon pollution.

"The Greens are determined to ensure that, alongside a price on pollution, we finally put in place well-designed policies and funding streams that will create a flourishing industry and start building here in Australia the industrial-scale baseload solar power stations that are already operating in Europe and America."

The summary of the 14,000 conversations shows that:

• 77 per cent believe the government is not doing enough to support renewable energy;
• 91 per cent believe the government should be implementing strong policy to support new jobs and investment in renewable energy;
• 86 per cent believe Australia should be developing a plan to move to 100% renewable energy; and
• 75 per cent believe that Australia should put a price on pollution to ensure that businesses are made responsible for their pollution.