Budget 2018: Funding Cuts Put Paris Climate Goal Further Out Of Reach

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australia's 2030 Paris climate pledge will be harder to achieve after the Turnbull government ended funding to its "centrepiece" emissions policy and omitted spending on new carbon-cutting programs, analysts say.
Spending on climate issues is projected to drop from $3 billion in the current year - or 0.6 per cent of total spending - to $1.6 billion for 2018-19.
By 2021-22, the outlay will shrink further to $1.25 billion, or just 0.2 per cent of the budget for that year, the government said.
The $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund [ERF], which was set up by the Abbott government to substitute for the carbon tax, was not topped up in this year's budget.

Australia signed up to the Paris climate accord in 2015, pledging to cut emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. Photo: AP

The lack of climate funding "is really, really distressing", Tim Baxter, a research associate at Melbourne University's Climate and Energy College, said. "This isn't the trajectory we need to be having right now - we need to be amping up, not winding down."
Climate change was also absent from Treasurer Scott Morrison's budget speech, save for a mention that Australia would "maintain our responsible and achievable emissions reduction target at 26-28 per cent [versus 2005 levels by 2030], and not the 45 per cent demanded by the opposition".
Labor's climate spokesman Mark Butler, said the government's climate and energy policies were "nothing short of a disgrace", and that Australia's emissions "will keep rising all the way to 2030".
"This budget delivers zero new policies or funding to drive down pollution and combat climate change," Mark Butler, Labor's climate spokesman said. "They are not even continuing their wasteful direct action program" he said, referring to the ERF.
Fairfax Media sought comment from Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg.
The onus to find fresh sources for emission cuts has increased, given the government's insistence that the electricity sector - accounting for about one-third of total carbon pollution - should only meet a 26 per cent reduction out to 2030.

The electricity sector accounts for about a third of Australia's greenhouse gases.

That target, embedded in its signature National Energy Guarantee, is considered to be unnecessarily low even by major electricity companies because of the availability of increasingly competitive renewable sources of power.
"To reach our Paris goals we're going to need to see considerable investment elsewhere in the economy, " Mr Baxter said. "This budget has done nothing to provide for that."
Under Paris, Australia has agreed to reach net-zero emissions by the second half of this century as part of the international pact to avert dangerous global warming.
"There are certain areas of our emissions that will be considerably more difficult to deal with, whether it's fugitives or transport," Mr Baxter said. "We don't actually have a road map to getting to zero in those sectors of the economy."
Most of the ERF money has been allocated, with much of it going to the rural sector to encourage carbon sequestration in vegetation and soils.
Large-scale land-clearing in Queensland and an increase in NSW will most likely have increased emissions from the land in recent groups, the Queensland government and environmental groups say.

Links

• Budget 2018: Climate Change Denial And Conservation Jobs Slashed
• Budget Strategy and Outlook Budget Paper No. 1 2018-19 (pdf)
• Turnbull’s Election Budget Dumps On Climate And Renewables
• Rare Australian species could slip into extinction as jobs axed at environment department
• Budget 2018 Was Old News For Energy Policy – The Next Big Headlines Won’t Come Until July
• A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills
• As the Libs claim South Australia, states are falling into line behind the National Energy Guarantee