I must be missing something here. Why would they be up in arms about reducing CO2 emissions, Smurf?
It's the means of achieving it they won't like. With the technology and overall economic paradigm we have today, it basically comes down to two options if we're going to achieve meaningful CO2 cuts quickly.
1. Nuclear. Convert as much energy use as possible to electricity and embark on a crash course in nuclear plant construction. Plus we'll need more transmission lines etc too.
2. Renewable. Again switch energy use primarily to electricity. But this time build vast numbers of wind farms (primarily in coastal regions in the Australian context) whilst also getting all we can from biomass (think scaled up agriculture, land clearing and so on) and a bit from hydro (the debate that literally started the Greens).
It all comes down to what is practical. Solar, wave, tidal, geothermal, thorium reactors etc all sound very nice and they do fix the CO2 issue. But they're not ready for large scale use yet and won't be for years to come - if we're going to do it
now then we're stuck with the established non-fossil energy sources (nuclear, hydro, biomass) plus wind. Everything else just doesn't stack up either technically or economically beyond small scale niche applications.
Now think about what this means in the Australian context. Either we're going nuclear in a very big way or we're about to dot the coast with wind turbines, burn everything we can grow and dam everything we can dam. I can't see conservationists being overly happy with either scenario.
Personally, I very much accept that we need to go to renewables and/or thorium in the long term. But given the
environmental consequences, deciding to rush ahead with phasing out fossil fuels isn't a decision to be taken lightly.
Acting "just in case" is a bit like turning the fire sprinkers in a building on "just in case". Sure, you've eliminated any reasonable chance of a fire, but you've caused a lot of other damage in doing so. Same goes with the CO2 issue.
Thinking back to the environmental debates surrounding energy over the past 4 decades in Australia, basically all of them came down to conservation in the traditional sense versus CO2. Save the rivers, keep city air clean, don't risk nukes, save the birds and so on - ALL of them at the direct cost of higher CO2 emissions in order to deliver some other environmental benefit. Until very recently, conservationists have
always been on the side arguing
against things which would have reduced CO2 emissions from the energy industry be it in NSW, Qld, Vic, WA, SA and of course Tasmania.
That's a very consistent pattern over the years. Against nuclear. Against hydro (not just in Tas). Against gas. Against wind. That leaves coal as the default option and one of the reasons we're so reliant on it now is as a direct consequence of these past debates.