The Australian government took a major step toward implementing a key climate policy that would force chief greenhouse gas polluters to reduce emissions, with the Australian Greens party yesterday pledging their support.
The center-left Labor Party administration said the so-called Safeguard Mechanism reforms are essential to Australia reaching its target of reducing its emissions by 43 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
The reforms would create a ceiling on the nation’s emissions and force Australia’s 215 biggest polluting facilities to reduce their emissions.
Photo: AP
The reforms would be the first Australian legislation in a decade that would regulate greenhouse gas pollution, leading climate communicator the Climate Council said.
With the support of the Greens’ 11 senators, the government only needs the backing of two unaligned or minor party senators to get the reforms through the upper chamber.
A “hard cap” on emissions would mean that half of the 116 new coal and gas projects proposed in Australia would not go ahead, Greens leader Adam Bandt said.
The amount of greenhouse gas emissions allowed under the cap has not been made public. The cap would be reduced over time as polluters scaled back their emissions.
“The Greens, through the negotiations, has secured a big hit on oil and gas,” Bandt told reporters as he confirmed his party’s support for the reforms.
The legislation was passed yesterday by the Australian House of Representatives, where Labor holds a majority of seats.
The Safeguard Mechanism “is the vehicle to achieve our commitment for 43 percent reduction by 2030,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
Without the mechanism, Australia would only reduce its emissions by 35 percent by the end of the decade, Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said.
“Today we’re a big step closer to passing the Safeguard Mechanism reforms through parliament,” Bowen said.
The reforms would reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 205 million metric tonnes by 2030, equivalent to taking two-thirds of Australia’s vehicles off the road at the same time, Bowen said.
Big polluters could buy carbon credits to achieve their emission reduction targets.
However, polluters that use carbon credits to achieve more than 30 percent of their abatement would have to explain why they were not doing more to reduce their own emissions.
Australian Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Ted O’Brien rejected the reforms, saying capping emissions would drive Australian industrial investment offshore to China and India.
“This is not a plan to decarbonize the Australian economy, but rather a plan to deindustrialize it,” O’Brien said.
The conservative opposition created the Safeguard Mechanism when it was in power in 2016, but the emission limits were so high that the 215 major polluters, which account for 30 percent of Australia’s emissions, were able to increase their emissions by 4 percent.
The previous government had set a less ambitious target of reducing Australia’s emissions by only 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The Climate Council welcomed the Greens’ deal with the government as a historic agreement.
“This will be the Federal Parliament’s first reform to genuinely cut pollution in a decade,” Climate Council chief executive officer Amanda McKenzie said in a statement.
The Australia Institute, a left-wing policy think tank, was critical that the reforms would allow some new fossil fuel projects to proceed, although fewer than under the current mechanism.
The most important task for the Australian parliament is to rule out new fossil fuel mines in favor of clean, future-proof industries, Greenpeace Australia Pacific spokesperson Glenn Walker said.
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