89% of Australians Want More Renewable Energy Target

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) survey released on Tuesday, almost 90 percent of Australians want more Renewable Energy Target (RET).

MOSCOW, December 2 (Sputnik) — Australians voted overwhelmingly in favor of increasing the Renewable Energy Target (RET), challenging Prime Minister Tony Abbott's recent moves to scale back environmentally friendly policies, a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) survey revealed Tuesday.

"Australians overwhelmingly think the Renewable Energy Target should be increased or stay the same, and not face cuts as currently proposed by the Government," WWF-Australia climate change manager Kellie Caught said in a press release.

According to the poll, 89 percent of Australians think the current RET of 41,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) for 2020 should either go up or remain unchanged, reflecting Caught's sentiment that they "want their children to enjoy Australia's environment just as they did."

Mandatory RETs are designed to cut carbon emissions through allocating a proportion of electricity sales toward renewable energy sources. The current requirement represents 24 percent of Australia's solar, wind and hydro power by the decade's end.

However, the Abbott administration has outlined plans to reduce the current target back to the "real" 20 percent, which represents about 27,000 GWh. According to Caught, if that proposal was to go through, pollution in Australia would increase, and that "sustainable energy jobs [would be] lost and investment [would be] shut out."

Since coming to power in 2013, the Abbott government also repealed a tax on carbon emissions and eliminated the post of science minister. An independent Climate Council study released in November revealed a 70-percent drop in Australian renewable energy investments. Another study conducted in 2011, the Garnaut Climate Change Review, revealed that Australia led the world's developed countries in per-capita carbon emissions.