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State and territory Labor environment ministers will meet with United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres today in Adelaide as part of a push to promote climate initiatives in what ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell said was "the absence of cohesive federal government actions," Fairfax Media reports.
According to the news service - whose report did not confirm whether Coalition environment ministers had been invited - Mr Corbell will join Queensland's Steven Miles, Victoria's Lisa Neville and South Australia's Ian Hunter at the meeting being hosted by SA Premier Jay Weatherill.
The group will be briefed by Ms Figueres on a new global agreement on climate change set to be agreed in Paris in September, before moving onto discussing state policies to boost climate action.
"There is a significant opportunity for state and territories to collaborate to drive support of large-scale renewable energy and respond to climate change in the absence of cohesive federal government actions," Mr Corbell said, according to Fairfax.
The ministers plan to discuss policies including feed-in tariffs for large and small projects as well as energy efficiency measures, the news service said, with Mr Corbell saying of the latter - which already sees schemes in NSW and Victoria: "There's the opportunity to establish common operating arrangements for mandated energy-efficiency schemes across jurisdictions."
Meanwhile, the ACT minister announced $1.2m in grants for renewables projects as part of the state's clean energy strategy.
Focussing on solar, wind and energy storage, the Renewable Energy Industry Development Strategy will bring together a range of existing government renewable energy initiatives and facilitate the next generation of renewable energy technologies, including the creation of a renewable energy precinct and test berth facilities, the minister said.
"The strategy includes the $1.2m Renewable Energy Innovation Fund, which was developed as part of the ACT Government's 200MW wind auction," he said.
"This fund could be used in the future to provide competitive, project-specific grants or small-scale contracts to emerging ACT-based renewable energy businesses."
