The Federal Parliament on Tuesday night passed legislation to reduce the target to 33,000 gigawatt hours, down from the original 41,000. 

But the change has granted some certainty for current projects, as it ends more than 18 months of limbo, but not without the contentious clause to burn native wood waste as a renewable fuel source. 

Fotowatio RenewableVentures (FVR) Australian manager Andrea Fontana is overseeing one of the nation’s largest solar farms, under construction near Moree. 

“The reality is that (the RET uncertainty) had almost killed the project in the past,” Mr Fontana said. 

He said despite the “risky decision”, stakeholders had been convinced to invest and commit to the project, so the Moree solar farm would not be hit by the reduced target. 

“We are happy to have finally some visibility and guidance and certainty on the RET,” Mr Fontana said. 

“We thank the government for abolishing the two-year review (of the RET), which was detrimental for the industry.

“The reduction of the target, of course, is no good – there will be less requirement for new renewable energy products.” 

Moree mayor Katrina Humphries said she had no concerns for the fate of the present Moree solar project as it was already under construction. 

Mercurius Goldstein, who stood as a Greens candidate in the last election and  resides in Glen Innes, where at least three wind projects have been proposed, said more than 250 jobs lay in renewable energy locally. 

“It’s incredible that the federal government has decided to set the renewable industry backwards when it promises so many job opportunities in Glen Innes and out west to Moree,” Mr Goldstein said. 

“The best thing about those jobs is they are local and close to home. A lot of people in Glen Innes work 300 km south in coal mines – it lets our local workers come home and work here in the community.

“A decision that damages our local area is that deal Labor and Liberal made to feed our native forests into a furnace and to call that somehow renewable.

“There is nothing renewable about burning our native forests.”

Mr Goldstein urged the government to adopt a Greens plan to transition logging away from native forests to sustainable timber sources. 

The slash to the target comes almost a week after Pope Francis released a passionate encyclical calling on the world’s rich nations to take stronger action on climate change in a bid to end the suffering of the poor. 

“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods,” the papal statement reads. 

“It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”