Independent

Stephen Jolly is the Socialist Party candidate (on the ballot paper as an independent), running for the seat of Richmond. This is a summary of what he said at the climate change candidates forum on 22 October in Clifton Hill:

Steve started off by discussing the latest climate science, which shows that there is already too much carbon in the atmosphere to avoid runaway climate change, and so we need to go from around 390 parts per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere today, to around 300-325ppm as a matter of urgency (280ppm being pre-industrial levels). This means getting to zero emissions and taking carbon out of the atmosphere.

In line with this his policy is for zero emissions by 2020. In the area of electricity generation, he seemed to be using the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan as a basis for how to get to 100% renewable electricity – this plan advocates a roll out of wind and baseload solar thermal, which has been shown to be capable of replacing fossil fuels. He proposed a nationalisation of electricity infrastructure and public transport in order to achieve this transition. Unfortunately there were no further details provided on how zero emissions could be achieved outside the electricity sector.