: Renewables will power the economy better than gas disallowed/national/nsw/renewables-will-power-the-economy-better-than-gas-20200809-p55jxw.htmlIf the Prime Minister is serious about "adjusting the way Australia does business" he would do well to instruct his COVID commission to consult a wider range of experts ("PM puts gas at forefront of recovery plan", August 8-9). World-leading experts in climate science, economics, business and technology are proposing larger scale projects in renewable energy that will produce good and secure jobs to reboot our economy and reduce our carbon emissions at the same time. Many countries now make substantial investments in climate-smart recovery approaches.
Is a gas-led plan that will saddle us and our young people with a backward-looking recovery and worsening climate change really what we want? Maree Nutt, Newport
Scott Morrison needs his head read if he chooses to back polluting gas to rebuild the economy. New gas projects are expensive and duds for job-creation. Solar and wind are cheaper, cleaner and now the educated choice of governments around the world. Alison Orme , Marrickville
This is such a short-term fix. Continuing to depend on fossil fuels, such as gas or even coal, is wrong.
Depending on fossil fuels leads to economic contraction, because aside from destabilising the climate, they are depleting non–renewable resources: what's left of them will be increasingly expensive to get. Meanwhile renewable energy from wind, solar and hydro is cleaner and already more affordable and more immediate than gas or coal. None of this is rocket science, so why do the politicians keep looking the other way? Peter Foster-Bunch, Avalon Beach
Nothing should alert us to corruption in our democracy more than the PM's gas-led recovery plan . However he spins it, a recovery led by renewables would be cheaper, cleaner, more employment-intensive and more popular with the electorate. But, hey, the influential National COVID Co-ordination Commission is top-heavy with hand-picked fossil fuel company executives. Need I say more? Thea Ormerod, Kingsgrove
If you ask fossil fuel executives what to spend money on, what answer would you expect? The "energy challenges" should have been a factor in running the economy for the past seven years, but the Coalition hasn't had an energy policy since Tony Abbott scrapped the carbon tax. Chief among those energy challenges is scrapping our reliance on carbon-producing fossil fuels in a rapidly warming climate. Our future cannot lie with new gas extraction or burning. Angela Michaelis, Balmain
You would think the government had woken up to the need to follow advice from science and other experts, but no. Science says gas is worse than coal for climate change impacts; economists say there are more jobs in expansion of renewable energy; renewable energy is cheaper and faster to implement than fossil fuel systems, and Australia could become an exporter of renewable energy instead of contributing to the pollution of the atmosphere and climate. Richard Swinton , Clunes
Should we trust the Prime Minister's conflation of pumping billions of dollars into the gas industry, another non-renewable fossil fuel, and a "COVID-safe" future? No. It's camouflage, not co-dependence. More than ever, the world needs to look to the future, not the unsustainable past. Andrew Scott, Pymble
The Coalition is to be renamed the Gasolition. Ian Catt, Surry Hills
