The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Independent Review of Australia’s Carbon Credits (the Review) and we would be pleased to engage directly with the Review in the coming weeks. We understand that other stakeholders have been sought out for direct consultation already.

The Australia Institute made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications regarding the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Climate Trigger) Bill 2022. This bill would fill an important gap in Australia’s environmental laws and would complement proposed changes to the Safeguard Mechanism.

The Safeguard Mechanism has to date safeguarded polluters. Extensive reforms are required to ban new gas and coal entrants, limit the use of carbon credits and develop an alternative fixed price payment to be directed by the Commonwealth to build climate solutions.

uComms conducted a survey of 901 residents in the federal seat of Boothby on behalf of The Australia Institute during the evening of 7 September 2022 using self-completed automated voice polling methodologies. Key Results: A majority of voters in the seat of Boothby (53.5%) believe that Australia has some responsibility for the pollution from Australian

The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Climate Change Bill 2022 and Consequential Amendments Bill 2022 (hereafter ‘the Bills’). The Bills are a valuable framework to ensure transparency and accountability of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, including by ensuring the provision of evidence-based advice from the Climate Change Authority to inform

The Australia Institute made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics Inquiry into the Treasury Laws Amendment (Electric Car Discount) Bill 2022 [Provisions]. The Bill is a welcome first step to reducing transport emissions in Australia, but much more needs to be done.

The technological shift away from coal to renewable energy for electricity generation is also a spatial shift. We are moving electricity generators to new dedicated Renewable Energy Zones (REZ) in parts of rural Australia that have not hosted energy utilities at this scale before. This report presents the first significant analysis of the spatial aspect

The government defines ‘clean hydrogen’ as “hydrogen produced using renewable energy or using fossil fuels with substantial carbon capture and storage.”

Despite being labelled as ‘clean energy’, none of the emissions HESC has produced in its pilot phase have been buried through Carbon Capture and Storage.

Australia has never hosted a United Nations climate conference (COP) and the recent proposal from the Labor Party to bid for the 2024 COP in partnership with the Pacific could shift Australia’s reputation from climate laggard to regional leader. This shift should be accompanied by substantive changes to Australia’s climate policy, including on Australia’s climate

Emissions have increased under Australia’s only climate policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF).

The Australia Institute’s Research Director Rod Campbell was an expert witness in the precedent-setting case against Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal Project in the Galilee Basin. The case was brought by Indigenous-led Queensland group Youth Verdict, who were represented by the Environmental Defenders’ Office (EDO).

The Australian Government has identified carbon trading as a means to “work together to bring down emissions” across the Indo-Pacific region and to “help countries meet and report against their NDCs” through the use of carbon markets. It is unclear how Australia’s plans for fossil fuel expansion and pursuit of cheap abatement overseas will bring down emissions or help countries meet their climate targets.

Tasmania hosts some of the highest marine diversity and endemism on Earth, world’s best practice expertise in marine science and governance, and punches above its weight in economic contributions, thanks to our ocean.

In 2021-22, Australian Federal and state governments provided a total of $11.6 billion worth of spending and tax breaks to assist fossil fuel industries. This is a 12% increase on last year’s figure and 56 times the budget of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency. Over the longer term, $55.3 billion is committed to subsidising gas and oil extraction, coal-fired power, coal railways, ports, carbon capture and storage, and other measures.

Freedom of Information documents show that when designing the ERF CCS method, the Clean Energy Regulator consulted almost exclusively with fossil fuel companies and big emitters, while actively excluding independent researchers.

Government efforts to increase the supply of carbon credits in Australia suggest that proposed administrative changes to the Carbon Farming Initiative Regulations may be used as an opportunity to allow excluded projects to participate in the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF).

Allowing carbon credit projects on land that has been recently or illegally cleared would both incentivise land clearing and undermine the purpose of the ERF in reducing emissions.

The proposed REDD+ project in Oro Province of PNG covers an area twice the size of London and is expected to generate a huge 800 million carbon credits over its lifetime.

However, the available evidence fails to provide any assurance that this project has integrity, raising broader concerns about the types of carbon credits that Australia, other countries, and the private sector may use to meet their emission reduction commitments.

The Low Emissions Technology Statement 2022 should measure progress based on achieved and potential emissions reductions for each priority technology, undertake proper consultation and elevate technologies that do not enable fossil fuels.

The Tasmanian Government’s proposals to strengthen the response to the climate crisis are a step in the right direction, but the proposed new law does not go far enough. The legislation still leaves Tasmania with rising emissions, reliant on carbon accounting to continue to achieve net zero emissions. Given Tasmania’s success in already reaching net-zero and 100% renewable energy, far more ambitious emission reduction targets than net zero by 2030 are warranted and achievable.

This synthesis report was conducted by Freddie Daley of the University of Sussex in collaboration with the Fossil Fuel Non- Proliferation Treaty Initiative, as well as key partners in each of the five countries analysed – Greenpeace Norway, The Australia Institute, Stand.earth, Uplift UK and Oil Change International. The scientific consensus is clear: limiting global

The Morrison Government’s ‘technology not taxes’ approach to climate change policy is little more than new branding for an old strategy – a strategy pioneered by the Howard Government back in the 1990s. Rather than introduce a carbon price, mandatory energy efficiency standards or restrictions of fossil fuel consumption or extraction, the Howard Government pursued

While COP26 this November is focused on ratcheting up short-term ambition it must also finalise the ‘Paris Agreement rulebook’ including on carbon markets, climate finance and adaptation. The Australian Government will face growing pressure to not just increase its 2030 target but act in good faith on other key negotiating priorities like markets, finance and

The Morrison Government has released a ‘whole of economy plan’ to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. While they are yet to reveal the underlying economic modelling on which the plan was based, it is still possible to consider the plausibility of the results of the modelling even when the assumptions behind the modelling remain

Far from being a national leader in electric vehicle uptake, South Australia is already lagging other States and Territories across the country. While it is true that South Australia is a significantly smaller state than New South Wales, it is also true that the $36.3m in funding that has been offered as part of the

While it has been widely rumoured that the cost of securing National Party support for Scott Morrison’s commitment to net zero could be up to $20 billion in in budget spending for projects in National Party seats, the real cost of the deal is, according to an analysis of various recent climate change modelling done

The draft offsets policy undermines the NT Government policy of adopting Fracking Inquiry Recommendation 9.8 – that all life-cycle emissions from onshore gas projects be offset. The draft policy also proposes ‘indirect emissions offsets’ that are not utilised in any other jurisdiction and would be entirely without integrity. Indirect offsets would undermine other offset markets