Australia: new NSW Minister for Climate Change takes over

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Whether it is called energy efficiency or, in clumsy bureaucratese, demand management, Firth's task is to get all of us to slash our electricity use in the home, the office, at school, in shops, hospitals, factories, clubs, pubs, courtrooms and prisons over the next three years. If she fails the political fallout will hit every Labor member as electricity bills soar in the new carbon-constrained economy just around the corner.

Right now the public is with her. But her success or failure is likely to be influenced by the Government's leading climate sceptic, the Treasurer, Michael Costa.

There are a legion of fallen heroes in the NSW climate change battle who have gone before the fresh-faced new minister. Many were passionately committed officials and advisers who were encouraged to join the same fight under the former premier Bob Carr, only to leave the field disillusioned despite some shining achievements.

Insiders have told the Herald of a decade of warfare with the state's two dominant treasurers, both of whom questioned the reality of climate change, promoted a reliance on cheap electricity from coal-fired power and downplayed the effectiveness of cutting electricity use.

A lack of money and, most importantly, a lack of political will to tackle energy efficiency at senior levels left the boldest program to wither. Ambitious targets were quietly forgotten and results suppressed after they became too embarrassing to publish.

Over the same decade greenhouse gas emissions from electricity in NSW rose steadily along with electricity consumption, which increased 2.5 per cent each year.