All of these renewable energy targets, at whatever level, presupposes the need to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere. There is an unproven theory that increased levels of CO2 to say 1000 ppm will be harmful to world climatic temperatures/conditions.
Ask any tomato grower how good CO2 at 1000 ppm is for their productivity.
People, increased plant food in the atmosphere is good. Actual 'data', as opposed to 'models', would indicate we should be striving to increase atmospheric CO2 levels.
I was once admonished that "clean coal" was an oxymoron. Modern latest generation coal plants have reduced sulphur and carbon particulates etc (pollutants) by 98%. That's why I refer to 'clean coal'. CO2 is NOT a pollutant. Very simple really.

Australian coal, oil and gas companies receive $4b in subsidies
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-11/coal-oil-and-gas-companies-receive-4-billion-dollar-in-subsidie/5881814
IMF says energy subsidised by US .3 trillion worldwide
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2015/05/20/4239153.htm

Robert LePage,

There are three problems with the numbers you quoted from the ABC and Conversation:

1. You haven't given the numbers for renewables, so it's meaningless - it's simply cherry picking factoids.

2. To compare subsidies across technologies they have to be normalised so they are comparable. You have to divide by the amount of electricity supplied.

3. The quote "IMF says energy subsidised by US .3 trillion worldwide" is irrelevant. It's for all energy and all technologies. To make a sensible and valid comparison with renewables you have to compare just the subsidies for technologies that generate electricity and you have to normalise it so it is $/MWh.

Labours renewable energy promises are about as likely as the funding of Gonski, NDIS and NBN. We all know its a game where the likes of Mr Shorten will blab anything knowing that dumbed down people who can't think will vote for Labour believing that somehow money does grow on trees. Probably more deceitful than Labour itself is left wing journalist who love to fly around living the high life getting on their moral bandwagon and failing totally to ask any questions to Labour/Greens in regard to funding. Conservatives including Tony Abbott are partly to blame by pretending to go along with the idiotic gw scam which has seen billions wasted in supporting fraudulent Climate authorities here in Australia and overseas. Science has been replaced by pseudo science just like morality has been replaced by pseudo morality. The gw religion often demonstrates violence and bigotry.

Aidan,

What happens when "the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine"?

As usual, you write only in theoretical terms.

And, more significantly, you ignore the monstrous cost of putting in place enough wind and solar power to meet demand - cost to construct and install and maintain, cost in economic terms, cost in alienation of land, cost in impact on people.

And for what? There's been no warming for 18 years and even if we reduced Australia's CO2 emissions to zero the impact on warming would be hilariously negligible. Ideologies of the Left are great for developing theories, but do nothing at all beneficial and a lot that is unaffordable and useless.

Quote Article

" Building enough solar and wind power to meet Labor's new target would cost the country 80 to 100 billion dollars."

To put that into perspective In a few hours last week the Australian share market lost 52 billion dollars.

http://www.gci.uq.edu.au/factcheck-would-labors-renewable-energy-plan-cost-consumers-60-billion

In NSW they pay 1/3 of the coal export price in Victoria they pay nothing for brown coal, It is not clear to me that they pay for the water they use and certainly not what the consumer pays. They don't pay tax on diesel fuel, and in nearly all cases the coal generators were built by state governments with tax money, and then sold off to private companies at a discount. To top it all off the coal generators will probably demand to be paid by the government to close down rather than admit they are a major source of pollution and really should not get 1 cent of subsidies, nor are they likely to want pay for the mess they have left behind, from digging the coal out of the ground. For example the Victorian brown coal mines are a continuous sources of problems whether it is the Latrobe river breaking into the mine, causing the closure of the nearby freeway or the company refusing to pay for the cost of putting out the fires in the mine. The cost to health of digging it out of the ground and burning coal is horrendous. The only sensible choices are renewables if we care about our health, the environment and even the economy.

http://environmentvictoria.org.au/media/coal-costing-victorians-billions-health-and-environmental-damage

In Europe 24.3% of the total electric power is generated by renewables
Europe generates a total of 3101.3 TWh electric power from all sources.
:. Europe produces 753 TWh renewable power
Total generation in Australia was 235 TWh
:. Europe with a smaller land area than Australia produces 3.2 times more renewable power than Australia uses in a whole year from all sources and obviously you can double that figure if you only want to get 50% renewables.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/getting-to-50-per-cent--building-australias-renewable-future-20150723-gijcmv.html

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/government-modelling-shows-power-prices-will-fall-if-ret-stays-20140624-zskbd.html

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/invest-now-to-achieve-50pc-renewable-energy-target-20150729-gimx1k.html