Greens threaten to derail emissions clamp

Duncan Murray, Dominic Giannini and Marion Rae | January 30, 2023

The Greens are spoiling to block proposed government changes to lowering the ceiling on carbon emissions for some large companies if, at the same time, new fossil fuel projects are ticked off.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has threatened to use the party’s balance of power in the Senate to derail the proposals and accused Labor of being as “wedded to new coal and gas” as the former Liberal government.

“Every single new gas project championed by Scott Morrison is now backed by Anthony Albanese,” Mr Bandt said in a speech at the Smart Energy Council summit in Sydney on Monday .

“Saying and legislating net zero by 2050 is one thing, but doing it requires staring down coal and gas companies and telling them their expansion plans are incompatible with life on our planet.”

Climate-focused independent MP Zali Steggall said she would support a version of the safeguard mechanism but also called for tighter restrictions on companies.

Ms Steggall told AAP the government was still “playing nice” with industry as it worked through proposals for the updated mechanism.

“We know that discussion this year will be very much centred around the safeguard mechanism,” she said.

“I support it, but it’s got a few loopholes that could be closed.”

Ms Steggall said the problem was there was no other lever for the government to pull to achieve it’s target of a 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030.

Allowing new fossil fuel projects wouldn’t be a dealbreaker for the “teal” independent, but she says they risked undoing emissions reductions elsewhere and suggested new entrants should have to fall under existing caps for their sector.

A spokesperson for federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the government’s safeguard mechanism reforms were carefully designed so all large facilities, whether existing or new, were required to reduce their emissions.

“New coal and gas projects covered by the policy will be required to keep their emissions below their baseline from their first year in operation and their baselines will reduce over time, on a path to net zero emissions by 2050,” the spokesperson said.

“This recognises that new facilities have the opportunity to use the latest technology and build world’s best practice emissions performance into their design from the start.”

Mr Bandt wants legislation to phase out coal and gas production.

“We are open to negotiating in good faith with the government about the safeguard to ensure we get real cuts to pollution and not just hot air,” he said.

“However, Labor’s plans for new coal and gas mines will be the biggest sticking point.”

Decarbonisation policy expert and Rewiring Australia founder Saul Griffith told AAP he was more in the “Bandt camp” when it came to overhauling the safeguard mechanism. 

He said a fundamental flaw with the mechanism was companies were able to buy “dubious offsets” to continue polluting. 

“We have a very big industry with very heavy thumbs on the scales and we don’t have representatives for Australian households in the mechanism. That’s why it’s tilting a certain way,” Dr Saul said.

“We could find a compromise – basically we should have those companies underwrite Australian households electrifying.

“So instead of getting a carbon credit for a tree maybe growing somewhere on a farm in Queensland, why don’t we help a low income household in Dapto get an electric stove and a battery solar system? Then that’s a guaranteed emissions reduction that’s occurring.”