The Australian Government is delivering on its commitment to tackle climate change without Labor’s painful carbon tax, with the first Emissions Reduction Fund auction to open on 15 April 2015.
This is the first in a series of opportunities for businesses across the economy to undertake emissions reduction activities and bid their reductions into an auction.
The Government, through the Clean Energy Regulator, will buy the lowest-cost emissions reductions at auction.
A total of 29 methods are available now for the agriculture, commercial building energy efficiency, forestry, landfill gas and waste sectors.
In the pipeline are further methods covering emissions intensity in transport, coal mine waste gas and aggregated small energy users. Future methods for the land sector will include soil carbon sequestration (storage), herd management, savanna fire management and fertiliser use efficiency.
The Government’s $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund builds on the Carbon Farming Initiative, expanding the success of carbon farming to all sectors of the economy.
Carbon farming has a proven record of reducing emissions in Australia, with more than 14 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions avoided from the land and waste sectors since the Carbon Farming Initiative began. That’s the equivalent of taking more than 3.5 million cars off the road for a year.
The Government has consulted widely on the design and implementation of the Emissions Reduction Fund, and has developed methods in collaboration with technical working groups that include key representatives from relevant industry bodies and business.
We will achieve our emissions reductions targets and we’ll do it without Labor’s painful carbon tax.
It’s time for Bill Shorten to come clean about his plans to hurt families with higher electricity prices as part of his commitment to bring back the damaging and ineffective carbon tax. Mr Shorten needs to answer – what will be the mechanism? When will it commence? What caps will you put in place? And importantly, by how much will electricity prices rise?
Information about the auctions and about making an application for an emissions reduction project is available online at http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/Carbon-Farming-Initiative/
(ENDS)