01/09/2016

Josh Frydenberg Plays Down Climate Change Authority Call For Tougher Emissions Limits

The Guardian - 

Environment minister says government has no plans to introduce emissions trading schemes and claims Australia is on track to meet target
Josh Frydenberg, right, and the finance minister, Mathias Cormann. Frydenberg has attacked a Climate Change Authority report calling for tougher climate policies. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Coalition's energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, has hit back at a report from the Climate Change Authority calling for Australia to toughen its climate policies.
Frydenberg said the government had no plans to tighten limits on emissions by the biggest polluters and the Climate Change Authority's advice to introduce two emissions trading schemes was a "report to, not by, government" and committed only to a review of its policies in 2017.
On Wednesday the Climate Change Authority advised the Australian government to institute two emissions trading schemes and strengthen regulations in order to meet Australia's 2030 emission reduction targets and to allow it to lift those targets in line with international climate change obligations.
The review, commissioned by the former environment minister Greg Hunt, recommended the government strengthen its "safeguards" policy, which sets limits on how much greenhouse gas Australia's biggest polluters can emit but is now so generous it doesn't act to reduce emissions.
Speaking with Radio National on Thursday, Frydenberg noted the report was commissioned as part of a deal with the Palmer United party to scrap the carbon tax.
"This report does underline the fact the world needs to work together to reduce emissions to meet the challenge of climate change," he said.
Frydenberg said Australia was on track to beat its 2020 emissions target by 78m tonnes. He said the government would review its climate policies in 2017.
Although Australia is on track to meet its 2020 target of a 5% cut by 2000, the government's emissions reduction fund has been criticised as insufficient to the task of cutting emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030.
Asked how Australia would achieve the "hard work" of more dramatic cuts to emissions after 2020, Frydenberg said: "The hard work is going on now, to be honest, and there will continue to be hard work going forward."
On Sky News, asked about the CCA's recommendation for an intensity-based emissions trading scheme for the electricity sector, Frydenberg said electricity generation was one third of Australia's emissions.
He said the government had "no plans to change the baselines on the safeguard mechanism".
"We'll see where the [2017] review goes, we're a long way from that, it's next year."
On Radio National he said his job as environment and energy minister required him to get "affordable energy, because households and businesses are very vulnerable to higher electricity prices".
He noted that coal is falling as a proportion of Australia's electricity mix, being replaced by gas and renewables.
Frydenberg defended the government's decision to cut $1.3bn from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. The move is supported by Labor but opposed by the Greens.
"We'll continue to support Arena and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation," Frydenberg said.
He said, "We have transitioned the grant program to a loan program", although he conceded this included a $1.3bn saving to the budget bottom line.

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