Budget brief: what’s in the budget on climate change and renewables? Not much was announced in last night’s budget on climate change and renewable energy. However, a total of A$400 million was announced for drought assistance and tax breaks for farmers to implement water infrastructure, which could become increasingly necessary given we are seeing possibly the biggest El Niño – a phenomenon often linked to drought in Australia – since 1997-98. Although not badged as such, this could be considered as climate-related finance to deal with increasingly extreme drought, and flood, climatic conditions in Australia. ….Unfortunately, the rest of the budget doesn’t show much change in the current rate of climate change investment. Read More here
Category Archives: Australian Response
How will the reduced Renewable Energy Target affect investment? After months of uncertainty over the future level of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET), the federal government and opposition have reached a compromise agreement to scale back the target. The deal will see the RET wound back to 33,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy by 2020, down from its previous level of 41,000 GWh. The government had earlier sought a target of around 27,000 GWh, but the new compromise was reached after the Labor opposition and the renewables industry each indicated they would be willing to agree on a level in the low-30,000s to end the stalemate. Read More here
Q&A with Ross Garnaut: ‘we’re not there yet’ on climate policy. Following the repeal of the carbon tax, the Australian government has implemented its Direct Action climate policy, centred on the A$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund. The results of the fund’s first auction were released on April 23. So far, the government has signed contracts for 47 million tonnes of carbon emissions for a total of A$660 million. However, questions remain about the long-term adequacy of the fund and its ability to achieve Australia’s unconditional emissions target of 5% below 2000 levels by 2020, and larger cuts beyond. The Conversation asked Ross Garnaut, Professorial Research Fellow in Economics at the University of Melbourne and architect of Australia’s carbon tax, what Australia needs to do to build an adequate climate policy. Garnaut was a keynote speaker at the recent Emissions Reduction Summit held in Melbourne. Read More here
6 May 2015, The Conversation, UN climate chief: other countries are ‘further ahead than Australia’:As the world heads towards the pivotal United Nations climate summit in Paris in December, this was a gentle but pointed signal from Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Her message was that Australia will be expected to put an ambitious offer on the table to tackle climate change. And if that does not happen, the world will take notice, and some powerful international players will put pressure on the government. Read More here