Page 2606 - Week 07 - Thursday, 2 August 2018
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the inclusion of a provision which allows the emissions reduction target to be increased in the future while ensuring that it cannot be wound back. Essentially once a target is set it should become the permanent floor, and a future government would not be able to wind it back.
This would at least make the current government’s 26 per cent target an absolute floor for Australia’s reduction efforts. This is necessary to give industry certainty when making long-term investment decisions about energy-generating assets. Leaving open the possibility of a future government dramatically cutting back the target will provide no more certainty than we have today.
We simply cannot have yo-yoing targets that go up or down according to the various views, some more valid than others, holding sway within the government of the day. There must also be a review mechanism built into the scheme so that we can assess Australia’s progress against the level of emissions reduction necessary to meet our Paris agreement commitments at reasonable intervals. The commonwealth initially said the target would be locked in for five years, increased this to 10 years and then reverted to five years. Five years is still too long a period to lock in a target. It simply must be possible to ramp up the target, to flexibly adjust and ensure that we are making adequate progress on cutting our emissions and preventing harmful climate change.
Importantly, too, the NEG design must make clear that nothing constrains states and territories from pursuing their own renewable energy generation targets for other renewable energy and energy efficiency schemes that exceed the emissions reduction targets set by the commonwealth. These more ambitious renewable electricity and emissions targets need to be additional. They need to be additional to the national emissions reduction target for the electricity sector.
This links into the Energy Security Board’s framework. Currently the framework proposes a mechanism through which the voluntary emissions reduction effort by consumers who choose to buy green power can be recognised, but it assumes that all voluntary effort by state and territory governments that have already set more ambitious renewable energy and emissions reduction targets will be subsumed into the national effort. So in effect the ACT, Victoria and Queensland will be doing all of the heavy lifting on national emissions reduction through our ambitious schemes, leaving states like New South Wales to freeload off our efforts. That is not fair, and it is not good enough.
Frankly, if the ESB framework can accommodate additional voluntary action through green power, there should be no technical reason why it cannot also accommodate additional state and territory effort. Canberra households have put their money where their values are in supporting our transition to 100 per cent renewable electricity. We will not let our community’s leadership on renewables become the excuse for other parts of Australia doing less.
If the commonwealth agrees to incorporate these adjustments, whether at the next COAG meeting or in further consultation with jurisdictions over the months to come, this will go a long way towards securing the ACT’s agreement to sign on. These are
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