Australia is a world leader in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution. Pro-coal, pro-gas Australian PM Julia Gillard has an appalling record of climate change inaction falsely dressed up as the opposite. The biggest and most outrageous untruth of Gillard Labor is that it is “tackling climate change” for a “clean energy future”, as systematically set out below.

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Earlier this week a group of Greenpeace activists, including the actress Lucy Lawless, scaled an oil drill ship that was due to travel to the Arctic. After spending over 76 hours onboard the ship, Lucy Lawless and the five other activists have now been arrested by the police.

The ship was scheduled to travel to the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska yesterday to drill three exploratory oil wells for the global oil and gas company Shell. But the activists successfully managed to stop and delay the ship from leaving the port of Taranaki in New Zealand. Greenpeace is critical of Shell’s planned exploration for oil in the Arctic which the environmental organization says “signals the beginning of an Arctic oil rush” that could potentially cause “irreparable harm” to the fragile nature and its inhabitants.

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Great piece by the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) Switchboard blog on efforts afoot in Latin America to step up on green in anticipation of Rio+20, which will be held here in the region this June. The goals and standards being contemplated, however, fall far too short. They’re too green-as-usual.

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The global economy grew 3.8 percent in 2011, a drop from 5.2 percent in 2010. Economists had anticipated a slowdown, but this was even less growth than expected, thanks to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, unrest in oil-producing countries, the debt crisis in Europe, and a stagnating recovery in the United States. As richer economies struggle to recover from the financial crisis of 2008–09, poorer countries are facing high food prices and rising youth unemployment. Meanwhile, growing income inequality and environmental disruption are challenging conventional notions of economic health.

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Iberdrola Renewables recently announced that it had sold 50 Megawatts to the City of Santa Clara Silicon Valley Power (SVP) from its Manzana Wind Power Project that is still under construction. According the contract Iberdrola will provide 50 MW to Santa Clara for a period of twenty years starting from the commercial operation of the Manzana plant which is expected to be in the last quarter of 2012. SVP is Iberdrolla’s repeat customer according to Martin Mugica, an executive vice president of Iberdrolla renewable, who added that the company was delighted to be of help to SVP in meeting its renewable energy portfolio goals. The Purchase will supply the Santa Clara community with clean cost competitive energy whilst creating jobs.

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