The results of the first Emissions Reduction Fund auction released today clearly prove that the Coalition’s climate change policy is delivering real and significant abatement – just as we always said it would.
The Clean Energy Regulator has awarded contracts for 47 million tonnes of abatement at an average price per tonne of $13.95.
In just the first auction alone, the Emissions Reduction Fund has contracted approximately four-times the amount of abatement than the emissions reductions achieved during the entire two-year lifespan of the carbon tax.
At most, the carbon tax helped reduce emissions by less than 12 million tonnes. The first ERF auction will deliver 47 million tonnes of abatement.
And this has been achieved at a fraction of the cost.
Labor’s $15.4 billion carbon tax reduced emissions at over $1,300 per tonne. The Emissions Reduction Fund auction price averages $13.95 per tonne.
That’s right – Labor’s failed carbon tax was more than 93-times more expensive.
The result today is a complete and total repudiation of Labor’s failed policy – yet Bill Shorten wants to bring back the carbon tax and hurt Australian families and business once again.
Critics of the Coalition’s climate change policy have been proven wrong time and time again – and today their misleading claims and falsehoods have been categorically rebuked once again.
The Emissions Reduction Fund is a policy that provides positive incentives and will assist business in delivering long-term changes to reduce emissions.
We are well on track to achieve our target of reducing emissions by five per cent from 2000 levels by 2020.
Earlier this year the Department of Environment confirmed that Australia’s abatement challenge between now and 2020 is 236 million tonnes. The first ERF auction alone has achieved 47 million tonnes of abatement and there will be multiple more auctions between now and 2020. We will achieve our target and we’ll achieve it easily.
And the first auction is only the beginning. More ways of taking part in the Emissions Reduction Fund are being developed to cover agriculture, commercial buildings, industrial energy efficiency, coal mining, oil and gas, waste, small energy users, avoided land clearing and fertiliser use efficiency.
Labor and critics of the Emissions Reduction Fund have no choice but to accept that the policy works. It achieves more than the carbon tax and it does so at around one percent of the cost.
We are cutting Australia’s emissions and doing our part to combat global climate change – but we’re doing it without a painful carbon tax that hurt business and pushed up the cost of living for Australian families.
(ENDS)