Fri, Mar 31, 2023 page6

• Australian carbon polluters to face huge reductions

  • AP, CANBERRA
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  The Australian Parliament created landmark new laws yesterday that are to make the nation’s largest greenhouse gas polluters reduce their emissions or pay for carbon credits.

  The Australian 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.

  Set to take effect on July 1, the reforms create a ceiling on the nation’s emissions and force Australia’s 215 most-polluting facilities to reduce their emissions by 4.9 percent a year or reach the target with carbon credits.

  

  Bayswater Power Station near Muswellbrook, Australia, is pictured on Nov. 2, 2021.

  Photo: AP

  The laws create Australia’s first price on carbon since a former Labor government created a carbon tax in 2012.

  A conservative government repealed that tax in 2014 and has since rejected any climate policies that would make polluters pay.

  The bills passed the Australian Senate yesterday by a vote of 32 to 26, with Labor senators supported by the Australian Greens Party and unaligned legislators.

  The Greens, who represent 11 senators, began negotiations with Labor with a demand that no new coal and gas extraction projects be allowed.

  However, the Greens are satisfied that an agreement to strictly cap emissions would mean that half of the 116 new coal and gas projects proposed in Australia would not go ahead.

  The Australian Liberal and National parties, which formed a conservative coalition government that was voted out of office last year after almost a decade in power, opposed the legislation.

  Opposition climate change and energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien said capping emissions would drive Australian industrial investment offshore to China and India while increasing costs for Australians.

  Emissions cannot exceed Australia’s current pollution level of 140 million tonnes a year, and that cap is to decrease over time. Big polluters would be able to buy carbon credits to help achieve their emission reduction targets, but those 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.

  The government said that without the mechanism, Australia would only reduce its emissions by 35 percent by the end of the decade.

  The reforms would reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 205 million tonnes by 2030, equivalent to taking two-thirds of Australia’s vehicles off the road during the same period, the government said.

  The conservative parties created the Safeguard Mechanism when they were in power in 2016, but the emission limits were so high that the 215 major polluters, which account for almost 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 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

  The Climate Council, a leading climate communicator, described the reforms as the first Australian legislation in a decade that would regulate greenhouse gas pollution.

  The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, which represents oil and gas producers, said the reforms make it harder for gas to be used to transition Australia away from more harmful coal and provide reliable backup for renewable energy.
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