Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government has moved to revive its climate change credentials with a new pre-election climate policy, pledging $2 billion for projects it says will bring down Australia’s carbon emissions.
The rebranded Climate Solutions Fund, launched today by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is an extension of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) and it received an almost universal thumbs down from those who should know.
A range of academics, the Clean Energy Council, Smart Energy Council and Farmers for Climate Action, were all quick to dismiss the proposal as nowhere near enough to meet Australia’s obligations under its United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement undertakings.
Launching the policy Mr Morrison said; “It’s important to have a balance in your emissions reductions policies. You’ve got to have the cool head as well as the passionate heart.”
“Our Government will take, and is taking, meaningful, practical, sensible, responsible action on climate change without damaging our economy or your family budget.”
The Prime Minister has repeatedly said Australia would meet its Paris Agreement commitment of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 “in a canter”, despite recent government projections casting doubt over that figure.
Mr Morrison said the ERF had delivered 193 million tonnes of emissions reductions so far and the new scheme would play a “key” role in meeting the 2030 target.
“It’s been an incredibly successful program, both improving the economy and supporting the environment,” he said.
“It was always our intention that we would need to extend that out to ensure we met our 2030 targets, which we will.”
Meeting the 2030 commitment also relies on counting old credits, left over from the UN’s Kyoto Protocol targets, a move criticised by some experts but defended by Environment Minister Melissa Price.
Mr Morrison also announced $56 million to fast track the development of a second Bass Strait interconnector as part of an extra $1.5 billion package of measures.
Further details are yet to be announced, but Mr Morrison said the measures would include improving energy efficiency standards and developing an electric vehicles strategy.
The opposition Labor Party’s shadow Climate Change Minister Mark Butler said a Labor government would scrap the Liberal-National policy.
“What he’s doing is again making taxpayers foot the bill for something that big polluters should be doing,” he said.
“The question really here is whether people would trust a government that has spent five years trashing climate policy, trashing climate science, led by a Prime Minister who brought a lump of coal into the parliament, suddenly to have had some last-minute conversion in the shadow of an election campaign to take climate change seriously.”
Labor has set its own emissions reduction target of 45 per cent by 2030, a figure Mr Morrison said was “reckless” which would put a “wrecking ball” through the economy.
The Clean Energy Council said the Climate Solutions Package would do little to reduce emissions across the energy sector or provide the policy certainty needed to continue momentum in clean energy investment.
Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said today’s announcement was no substitute for strong energy policy.
“Any policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that ignores the need to transition our emissions-intensive energy sector, the largest source of emissions in the Australian economy, to clean energy, is not taking the matter seriously.
“It also misses a golden opportunity to incentivise further private investment, further lower energy prices and create jobs,” Mr Thornton said.
Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes said: “We saw Scott Morrison deliver the speech, but clearly heard Tony Abbott’s words.
“Scott Morrison has topped up Tony Abbott’s Emissions Reduction Fund, maintained Tony Abbott’s emissions reduction target and continued Tony Abbott’s contempt for action on climate change.”
“We are facing a climate change emergency and we need to do whatever we can to increase our solar and renewable energy generation.”
“Renewable energy increases competition, slashes costs, and delivers clean energy.”
“Instead of fast tracking the connection of renewable energy, Scott Morrison’s answer is to lock in failed policy, and say we will meet our targets ‘in a canter’”.
Farmers for Climate Action CEO Verity Morgan-Schmidt said while the program included welcome support for farmers via the Climate Solutions Fund, it lacked detail and failed to recognise the importance of reducing emissions across the economy, particularly in the energy sector
Ms Morgan-Schmidt said any credible economy-wide climate policy must take into account emissions from the energy sector.
Associate Professor Iain MacGill ifrom the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets at UNSW Sydney said; “They have chosen to extend and expand one of Australia’s most questionable climate policies to date: the Emission Reduction Fund.
“The ERF delivers one of the worst possible carbon prices: a price not on measurable carbon emissions but instead ‘imputed’ carbon emission reductions from what would have happened otherwise.
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rofessor John Quiggin, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Economics at the University of Queensland said: “The minimal scale of this commitment ($200 million a year) pales into insignificance compared to the government’s proposal to subsidise new coal-fired power and indemnify the owners against any future carbon price, at a potential cost of many billions.”
Associate Professor Ariel Liebman Director of the Monash Grid Innovation Hub at Monash University said; “Australia is not currently well placed to meet it’s Paris commitments given current government policy.
“The coalitions proposed $2 billion fund is simply an extension of the previous two coalition governments policies which mostly rely on carbon sequestration in the farming sector.
“However this does nothing to ensure an orderly transition away from coal and natural gas in the power sector and towards renewable energy which are now the cheapest form of new generation.
“In fact large scale solar and wind will shortly be cheaper than grid power currently produced.”
