RenewEconomy - Michael Mazengarb
The Morrison government has delivered another federal budget that offers little
support for Australia’s rapidly emerging clean energy sector, choosing instead
to double down on its ‘gas fired’ agenda and pay major emitters to reduce their
emissions.
It’s another budget from the Coalition that will channel further public funds to
the fossil fuel sector, particularly helping to grow the gas industry while
letting major emitters off the hook, while almost entirely ignoring burgeoning
wind, solar and storage technologies and entirely ignores electric vehicles.
The government’s second post-Covid budget can largely be characterised as more
taxpayer support for the fossil industry, as well as allocating more money for
preparing for the symptoms of climate change.
The Morrison government had already announced most of its budget measures
relating to energy and emissions reductions, but further details were outlined
in the budget handed down on Tuesday night.
As had been announced last week,
the government will spend a further $58.6 million supporting new gas
projects, as part of its ‘gas fired recovery’, to support the construction of new gas
storage projects and gas pipelines.
Morrison had also already committed,
ahead of a major international leadership summit, $275.5 million for the creation of five new hydrogen hubs across Australia
and a further $263.7 million to fund new carbon capture and storage projects –
which mostly focus on supporting projects at a range of gas facilities.
Funding that had previously been earmarked for a
since abandoned upgrades at the Vales Point power station
appears to have been re-purposed as part of a $24.9 million commitment to help
gas-fired generators become ‘hydrogen ready’.
The total package of funding, provided under the government’s Technology
Investment Roadmap, will total $1.6 billion over the next ten years, with the
Morrison government committing a further $279.9 million over the next decade to
pay major industrial emitters to reduce their emissions as part of a new ‘below
baseline crediting mechanism’.
The new mechanism was a recommendation of former Origin Energy CEO Grant King –
who was recently appointed as the new chair of the Climate Change
Authority
– and will see major industrial emitters awarded offset credits for reducing
emissions below their historical levels.
The scheme is likely to operate in a similar way to a baseline-and-credit
mechanism but will likely see the government itself – and by extension,
taxpayers – serve as the major purchaser of the emissions credits.
The headline figure also includes $59.6 million in funding committed to a new
National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge and a trial of agricultural feedstock
trial to test feed
additives that can reduce emissions from livestock.
No new funding has been awarded to clean energy projects. While the budget
outlines a new initiative to be managed by the Australian Renewable Energy
Agency – to establish a new early-stage seed capital investment arm – the $50
million allocated to it will be drawn from ARENA’s existing funding allocations.
Other measures include a $10.4 million expansion of the Climate Active carbon
neutral certification program, $26.4 million to support business adoption of
energy efficiency measures and $14.4 million to streamline reporting under the
National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme.
However, there is no funding included in the budget for electric vehicles, which
have yet again gone ignored by the Morrison government, but ailing fuel
refineries will receive an undisclosed amount to “maintain refining capability.”
The government will spend $1.2 billion over the next five years to improve
Australia’s ability to prepare and respond to natural disasters – most of which
are being fuelled by climate change. The funding includes a previously announced
commitment of $209.7 million to
establish a new Australian Climate Service.
The budget includes $615.5 million over six years from 2021-22 for the Preparing
Australia program, to support “disaster risk reduction and resilience.”
Federal energy and emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor said the budget had
focused on the development of new technologies under the government’s Technology
Investment Roadmap.
“Our 2021-22 Budget measures will provide reliable, secure and affordable energy
to all Australians, and increase investment in technology solutions to reduce
emissions in a way that supports jobs and economic growth,” Taylor said.
“Australia is focused on investing in commercialising technologies, not harmful
taxes, in the global effort to reduce emissions. Our 2021-22 Budget measures
continue this approach while strengthening our energy security and supporting
the growth of new industries and jobs into the future.”
But Greenpeace Australia’s Dr Nikola Čašule said that it was clear that the
Morrison government was spending more on treating the symptoms of climate change
than addressing the cause.
“In this budget, the Coalition Government is putting on a show of taking action
on the symptoms of climate change, without doing anything to tackle the root
cause: the burning of fossil fuels,” Dr Čašule said.
“What’s worse, it’s throwing money at fossil fuel infrastructure and false
solutions like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) that only entrench the use of
coal, oil and gas.”
It was a sentiment echoed by national director of the Australian Youth Climate
Coalition, Alex Fuller.
“Gas is fuelling the climate crisis but our Government is pouring billions of
dollars into subsidising and expanding the gas industry. The Government should
use public money to fund solutions and a clean energy transition, not making the
problem worse,” Fuller said.
The lack of funding for clean energy and climate change measures continues to
see the Morrison government contrasted with the leadership being shown by
international peers. Both the United States and the European Union have signed
off on multi-trillion-dollar economic recovery plans that embrace clean energy
and low emissions infrastructure in their Covid-19 economic recoveries.
The Clean Energy Council described the budget as a missed opportunity.
“A clean recovery from COVID-19 could have delivered over $50 billion of
investment, more than 30,000 MW of capacity in renewable energy and more than
50,000 new jobs in constructing these projects, along with many more indirect
jobs, revitalising economic activity in regional and rural communities across
Australia,” Clean Energy Council Chief Executive, Kane Thornton, said.
“This is the way we get Australia’s economic engine to roar back to life and how
we build a more resilient and secure Australia.”
Links
