The Energy and Emissions Reductions Minister in Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government, Angus Taylor, will be paying close attention to debate around the concept of “carry-over credits” in relation to the country’s carbon emissions when he arrives in the Spanish capital, Madrid, for the latest United Nations climate conference.
Mr Taylor is in Spain for COP25, the 25th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention of Climate Change.
The world is there to work-out the rules for implementing the historic UN sponsored Paris Agreement, which aims to hold global warming at well below two degrees Celsius.
Among those rules to be worked out, is whether or not Australia will be allowed to use “carry-over credits” to meet its pledged emissions reductions.
These are credits claimed by Australia for having come in below earlier emissions targets, and other countries in the same position have decided not to use the carry-over.
On the weekend, the Liberal-National government released its latest emissions projections.
They showed that in order to meet the promised target of 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, Australia is relying on a large number of carry-over credits, 411 million tonnes to be precise.
Despite repeated claims by Mr Taylor and the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, that Australia would easily meet in emissions target Australia’s actual emissions over the period to 2030 are set to drop by only 16 per cent below 2005 levels.
Back in 1997, Australia signed the Kyoto Protocol, and as part of that, it was one of only a small number of developed countries allowed to increase its emissions.
Australia set a target to limit increases to eight per cent above 1990 levels throughout the period 2008-2012.
That was incredibly easy to achieve, and by not doing much, mostly by limiting land clearing in Queensland, Australia never got close to that ceiling.
As a result, the Liberal-National government claims to have saved up 128 million tonnes of credits.
In the next period, Australia agreed to an emissions budget, which was equivalent to dropping emissions to five per cent below 2000 levels by 2020.
Again, that was a very conservative target, and again, Australia will beat it by so much that it claims to have banked another 283 million tonnes in credits.
Australia’s next period is 2020 to 2030, and under the Paris Agreement we’ve promised to cut our emissions to 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels.
That amounts to a reduction of 452 million tonnes over the period, 411 million tonnes of which the Liberal-National government hope is going to be made up of credits.
Critics argue this goes against the spirit of the Paris Agreement.
Using those credits does not change the actual emissions emitted by Australia and does not help the world get closer to net zero emissions in the second half of the century, which was agreed to at Paris.
ABC News reports the Climate Council argues it’s a very creative form of accounting.
For one thing, the Paris Agreement period is not under the Kyoto Protocol, so it is not clear why credits from the Kyoto Protocol would count towards the Paris Agreement.
To Australia’s consternation last weekend, it was revealed there was a chance the use of Kyoto Protocol credits would be banned.
An option, currently on a draft agenda for debate at COP25, is a rule that will completely ban the use of such credits.
If that happens, Australia would need to actually lower its emissions to meet the target.
Mr Taylor has called the credits an “overachievement”.
“I look forward to showcasing Australia’s enviable record as a world leader in renewable energy investment, our 411 metric tonnes of CO2 overachievement of our Kyoto 2020 target, and our fully costed plan to meet our Paris commitment,” he said in a statement.
ABC News reports Australian Greens Party MP Adam Bandt called the “carry-over credit” idea “dodgy accounting”.
“The rest of the world does not want Australia to use this dodgy accounting trick to meet its already pathetically low targets,” he said.
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