Boom! Here’s the climate section – the explanatory memorandum goes out of its way to highlight that the reporting of emissions does NOT cover scope 3 emissions (our fossil fuels burnt overseas) and that it is “an information provision only and not a balancing consideration for decision making”.
That means it’s a transparency measure that can’t be used to alter what the approval decision otherwise might be.
It is, as the government had already said previously, most definitely not a climate trigger.
Here’s the full section of the EM dealing with this:
“Climate
The Reform Bill would introduce a provision requiring proponents to disclose estimates for Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions as part of the assessment of a controlled action.
Proponents would also be required to disclose associated emissions mitigation measures and abatement targets along with the estimated emissions. This supports the effective operation of the Safeguard Mechanism and supports Australia to meet its climate targets.
The Safeguard Mechanism is the Australian Government’s mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at Australia’s largest industrial facilities. Under the Climate Change Act 2022 the Environment Minister is required to give certain emissions estimates they have received to the Minister for Climate Change, as well as the Climate Change Authority and the Secretary of the Climate Change Department.
Requirements for disclosure will be aligned with requirements under other government legislation with requirements to be set out in regulations. This is an information provision only and not a balancing consideration for decision making.”
2 Comments
The government is losing credibility on attacking the causes of climate change at an incredibly fast rate. Whether it's the so-called Safeguard Mechanism of the hugely compromising new Watt bill or the recently announced piss-weak emission targets, they are only slightly better than the Coalition, perhaps not surprising since both get huge donations from the non tax-paying fossil fuel pushers. Anyone with a concern about any aspect of the environment cannot vote for either the Liberals or Labor (National and One Nation are irrelevant). Have to choose whether you can trust a party with good principles, but nonetheless, a party (the Greens) or Community Independents. They mean what they say on the climate.
What a cop-out! Also an evasion of global responsibility. It completely undermines any little thing that the government is doing on climate at home. We are the second (?) largest exporters of fossil fuels. We are like the vegetarian who runs a sheep or cattle but exports all of their animals live overseas so is not prepared to take responsibility for either their slaughter or the ill-effects that the resultant meat may have on such effects of eating meat as colorectal cancer that occurs elsewhere. Actually, it's worse because we all share an atmosphere and some of the global heating resulting from burning "our" fuels overseas will come back to warm us.