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Illustration: John Spooner
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The chief executive of the Carbon Market Institute has spent much of the past 30 years working for not-for-profit organisations dedicated now to the goal of helping business and government achieve the net zero emissions goal.
He doesn’t think the present policy is necessarily optimal but “it’s one that can easily evolve”.
“One of the dirty little secrets in this whole debate in Australia is that it already has an effective working system to establish a carbon price but it’s largely set by government action through the Emissions Reduction Fund reverse auctions,” he said.
“What we want is to have business driving the market and for that we need proper guidelines and clear pathways to decarbonisation, clear signals for investment to reinforce what we already have, and the level of business enthusiasm for the process,” he added.
State governments have made valuable efforts, including NSW’s electricity road maps and Queensland’s land restoration projects.
The Climate Market Institute has the simple aim of helping “business manage risks and capitalise on opportunities in the transition to a net-zero emissions economy”.
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The Carbon Market Institute’s John Connor.
Picture: Supplied
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Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor will address the institute’s Emissions Reduction Summit in Sydney on June 25, so he has the opportunity to explain where his government is coming from.
The previous day his state colleague, NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean, will speak, with a chance to outline his plans for electric vehicles in the state.
The institute aims to speak for business leading the transition to net zero emissions by sharing knowledge, building capacity and looking for opportunity.
It claims to be “the stewards of Australia’s carbon markets and related effective policies”.
The Australian market, Connor argues, has integrity but is missing liquidity and hasn’t exploited the linkages.
As someone who has worked on climate policy for his entire career, Connor thinks “net zero emissions” is one of the great motivating phrases that has helped drive both private and public policy.
The institute’s base highlights the degree of business interest, with membership growing by 36 per cent last year alone to more than 100 including BHP, Aurizon, Qantas, Wesfarmers, Westpac, AGL, Coles, ANZ and Ampol.
The institute is aiming to help development by improving the market’s operation through modifications like the recent industry code of conduct.
Connor said “this increases trust, accountability, transparency and consumer protection in the sector”.
The sector is 10 years old with 971 carbon farming projects around Australia registered with the Clean Energy Regulator, while 94 million Australian Carbon Credit Units have been issued, offsetting Australia’s entire transport emissions.
Transport is Australia’s third-largest source of emissions.
“Australia’s domestic carbon industry must at least triple by 2030 to help keep global warming to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Connor says.
The industry is seeking government changes to its rules to make it easier to measure soil carbon creation and project stacking to allow different methods on the one project, among other developments.
The Carbon Markets Institute was established a decade ago formally by Ted Baillieu, the then Victorian premier, after leadership from his predecessor John Brumby.
Connor is in his third year at the helm of institute after a stint helping Pollination’s Martijn Wilder advising the Fiji government for its term as chair of the UN climate change conference in 2017.
Working with Fiji was a pivotal moment for Connor in confronting the practical impact of climate change as its land disappears.
He said it was a “powerful reminder about just what we are confronting”.
Connor was born in the NSW country town of Yass. Later the family moved down the road to Wagga Wagga for his father Vince’s job with the NSW Electricity Commission.
After school in Wagga he completed degrees in arts and law at Macquarie University. He was attracted to public law and the law school’s critical approach.
One of his first jobs was with then prime minister Bob Hawke’s roundtables on economic sustainability. Connor’s brief at the time was with fisheries.
His parents figured it was a phase he was going through and not a real job but they now realise that there is more to it than they first thought.
A stint with the then independent member for Manly, Peter Macdonald, continued his education before some time with the Nature Conservation Council landed him a job with the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Then based in Melbourne, Connor worked with Tim Costello at World Vision on its Make Poverty History campaign.
In 2007 he moved to the Climate Institute, funded by Eve Kantor and her partner Mark Wootton and aimed at economic modelling and evidence-based climate research policy.
Connor says the institute occupied what was called the radical centre of Australian politics backing a climate price.
This was a heady time in the climate debate with the election of the Rudd government and ratification of the 1998 Kyoto protocol, and many in the carbon club were prepared for the revolution.
Ironically Rudd’s election took the heat from the debate, according to Connor, because “concern dropped after the election because people thought they had voted for someone who would deal with it (climate change)”.
Connor adds: “People have lived off the red meat of climate culture wars. It took too long to get the pricing mechanism in place and the climate issue became an effective wedge issue.”
Rudd, he said, did some good things but he didn’t do well in supporting a price on carbon, and then it became a “great wedge – is your policy a carbon price?”.
The irony is “the Morrison government has such a policy, and while its safeguard mechanism is very weak, the government is spending $2.5 billion through the Emissions Reduction Fund to establish a carbon price”.
“Business has realised it’s time to change and their investors and customers are pushing them towards a carbon price, market and net zero emission targets,” Connor says. “The private policy issue is really revved up.”
For Connor it’s been three decades of policy work to get here, but now it’s time for federal leadership. The opportunity for Australia to develop a new industry is the goal.
Links
- Carbon Industry Code of Conduct One Step Closer to Fully Operational
- Budget21: Taxes for technology and carbon markets, no stronger climate commitment yet
- Climate action ambition increasing, timeframes for taking action shortening
- Emissions Reduction Auction signals new chapter on climate policy
- Australian corporate climate interest and activity surges
- New Chairman Climate Change Authority marks "further resuscitation of an important independent institution"
- Update reveals 80% of the value of Australia’s major exports will be entering jurisdictions with carbon pricing mechanisms implemented or in development
- Christiana Figueres Oration at the 7th Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit
- Opening Address to the 7th Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit | John Connor, CEO
- Set bigger climate goals in economic recovery: Business tells government in national survey
- Biden win means time for Australian climate step-up
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