Welcome to the Flame's new series on the issues that unite us in the energy transition. Part 2 features new group Responsible Future, who – like Surfers for Climate – are calling for independent research. Tomorrow, Sea Shepherd Australia also calls for urgent research and shares the reasons for its stance
Environmental studies should be undertaken before a zone is declared, said Alex O’Brien, media spokesperson for Responsible Future.
“Both sides would agree that the environmental impacts are an area that needs to be studied first,” he said. “We’ve completed internal polling with our supporters and by far the number one issue was the impact a wind farm would have on the environment.
“It wasn’t the view, it wasn’t a NIMBY attitude, it wasn’t that they didn’t like renewables or didn’t believe in climate change – it was simply the impact on the environment. That’s why this community is fighting so hard to protect it.”
Responsible Future (Illawarra Chapter) Inc. is a new advocacy group that brings together people concerned about the proposed offshore renewables zone. The association has a committee of nine volunteers and about 250 people attended its first public meeting at Wests Illawarra in Unanderra on April 30.
“We are supported by 16,000 people across multiple social media pages as well as stakeholders in the community including impacted businesses and further supported by politicians across the political landscape,” Alex said.
“These include family-run businesses in commercial fishing and tourism operators that employ hundreds of locals, whose jobs are at risk.”
The group’s vice-president, local teacher Amanda De Lore, said: “As an association with extensive research, clear values, and a strategic approach, we have strong credibility in the community.
“We’ve been made out to be all sorts of ridiculous things – coal lovers, Trump supporters; that we’re funded by coal and gas. We are funded by the people and businesses that live in this area. Because they want transparency, they want truth. They want to know what is actually going to happen out there and how it’s going to impact them, their environment and their economy.”
Of the three choices of funding for research – industry, government or philanthropy – Amanda said “philanthropy would be wonderful but the reality is government needs to be the one to fund the research and it should not be the developers”.
Alex said: “You have got to take the conflict of interest out of the environmental impact studies. Allowing profit-making developers to fund and choose the environmental groups will not result in truly independent, thorough environmental assessments. Developers simply don’t spend $200 million in the feasibility phase and choose environmental groups that would risk that sort of money with an unfavourable report. This is why they cannot be involved in any part of the environment review process.”
To choose trusted researchers, Alex suggested a panel that represents community and independent environmental groups rather than industry or special interests. “We need to get the right mix of experts on a panel to choose who’s going to undertake those studies. We need to get this right and it’s the community, our wildlife, not these developers or billionaires that bear the risks.”
Responsible Future does not see university research as always being independent. Amanda said: “It depends on who funds the research and whether there is enough funding and time for them to undertake an appropriate study.”
Alex would like to see sustainable fisheries and conservation groups, like Sea Shepherd, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Birdlife Australia, involved in research. “It’s got to be independent environmentalists, there has to be conflict-free funding and a process approved or structured by the community.”
Standing for “unconditional opposition” to offshore wind turbines in highly sensitive marine ecosystems, like the Illawarra, the group doesn’t trust developer-funded research.
“How is that going to be accurate if their main aim is profit?” Amanda asked. “Many of the interested developers are overseas companies which team up with a newly established Australian company and they simply don’t have a vested interest in this country or our environment.
“They’re driven by profit for their shareholders and it wouldn’t be the first time we have seen a company promise to take care of the environment and then destroy it on the other hand. They’re not driven by caring for the Illawarra because they don’t live here like we do.
“All the locals are custodians of this place.”
Alex – who works in wealth management – said greenwashing is rife in the investment world and some projects labelled green are disastrous for the environment. “For example, Greenpeace have accused Equinor (formerly Statoil) of greenwashing and called out their poor environmental record on multiple occasions. This is the same foreign fossil fuel giant that Oceanex plans to team up with to build wind farms in the Illawarra, so we are right to have concerns.”
Of the research ahead, Alex said: “We need to look at this in a mature way and say, there are clearly unknowns with floating offshore wind, which is a new technology. We need the time and to take care with properly assessing the impact before we make a catastrophic decision.”
Amanda added: “Why is this being rushed through with such breakneck speed? People think everything renewable has to be good. That’s not always the case.”
For more information on the new group, visit responsiblefuture.com.au
Read more in our 'Common Ground' series:
