Carbon Alert - May 2011

A monthly resource round-up of recently released reports and upcoming events and training opportunities.

Climate Change Policy and Legislation

Learning the Hard Way: Australia’s Policies to Reduce Emissions. This report, released by the Grattan Institute, considers the experience of past and existing policies to indicate which policies are most likely to meet an emissions reduction target of 5% below 2000 level by 2020. In particular it seeks to identify policies that are both reasonable in cost and likely to be able to deliver the scale of emissions reduction required by 2020. The accompanying publication provides supporting analysis (April 2011)

Low Carbon Growth Plan for Australia: 2011 Update. This report provides an update to Climate Works Australia’s Low Carbon Growth Plan for Australia which identified 54 opportunities to reduce Australian emissions in 2020 to 25% below 2000 levels at an annual average cost equivalent to $185 per household. The update looks at whether the 2020 targets can still be met and how much delaying action would cost (April 2011)

National Press Club Address: Tackling Climate Change is in the National Interest. This is the transcript of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency's address to the National Press Club (April 2011)

Submission Guidelines for the Creation of New Activity Categories to Cover Small and Medium Enterprises. This guideline, released by the Victorian Government, provides information to allow interested parties to propose new energy efficiency activities relevant to small and medium enterprises, for potential inclusion in the Energy Saver Incentive Scheme (March 2011)

The Industries that Cried Wolf: An Analysis of the Claims Made by Australia’s Big Polluters of the Impact of a Carbon Price. This paper, released by the Australia Institute, places the claims being made about the likely impact of the introduction of a carbon price into a broader context and concludes that such claims are presented in such a way as to exaggerate their significance (April 2011)

MPCCC Carbon Price Mechanism – Clean Energy Council Submission. This submission to the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee by the Clean Energy Council outlines the Council’s position on a carbon price, complimentary measures for clean energy and energy efficiency and the management of carbon revenue. It also includes a policy proposal paper on establishing a national energy savings initiative (April 2011)

Carbon Farming Initiative Preliminary Estimates of Abatement: Discussion Paper. This document, released by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, provides a Departmental preliminary indicative view of the abatement from the Carbon Farming Initiative in 2020. This work is separate from the Treasury modelling exercise regarding the Government’s carbon pricing mechanism and its relationship to land sector abatement. The document is being released for the purposes of discussion with stakeholders regarding the Carbon Farming Initiative and estimates may change going forward (April 2011)

Institutional Arrangements for a Carbon Price: Discussion paper. This paper, released by the Clean Energy Council, assesses the merits of establishing independent carbon agencies to support the implementation and management of a carbon price and complimentary measures (May 2011)

 

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Carbon Management and Accounting

National Greenhouse Accounts. The latest national greenhouse accounts have been released by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. The accounts outline Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions as a nation, by state and by industry (April 2011)

Revised NGER Determination. The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency has released a draft revised version of approved methodologies for measuring and estimating greenhouse gas emissions. The exposure draft of the NGER determination – which will replace the existing version introduced in 2008 – is open for comment until 31 May. The final revised determination will come into force on 1July.

The department has also published a response to submissions on its 2010 call for comments on possible changes to the 2008 determination (May 2011)

 

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International Climate Change News

Corporate Sustainability: A Progress Report. This research paper, by KPMG, reviews the importance of sustainability within business today and executive attitudes towards this issue. It is based on a global survey of 378 senior executives, encompassing a range of industries (April 2011)

National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation 2011. This national policy statement, released by the New Zealand Government, sets out an objective and policies to enable the sustainable management of New Zealand’s renewable electricity generation under the Resource Management Act 1991 (April 2011)

Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 – 2009. This is the 16th annual US greenhouse gas inventory released by the US EPA (April 2011)

UK-China Collaborative Study on Low Carbon Technology Transfer. This report, released by Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, sets out the results of the UK-China collaborative project on low carbon technology transfer. The aim of the project was to identify new empirical evidence about the development, transfer and deployment of low carbon technologies in China, and to help inform national and international policy developments – particularly within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (April 2011)

 

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Energy, Technology and Renewables

Facilitating Renewable Energy Development. This audit report, by the Victorian Auditor-General, examines whether the development of renewable energy in Victoria has been facilitated effectively (April 2011)

Accelerating the Uptake of CCS: Industrial use of Captured Carbon Dioxide. This report, released by the CCS Institute, investigates existing and emerging uses of CO2. It reviews the potential to capture and reuse CO2 for industrial applications in order to accelerate the development and commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage (March 2011)

Strategic Directions for the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy. This report, prepared by the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy, provides the design outline of a funding strategy to support the development, commercialisation and deployment of renewable energy and enabling technologies (March 2011)

Clean Energy Progress Report. This report, released by the International Energy Agency, analyses progress in global clean energy technology deployment against the pathways needed to achieve shared goals for sustainable, affordable energy. It provides an overview of technology deployment status, key policy developments and public spending on RDD&D of clean energy technologies (April 2011)

Electricity Prices: The Facts. This policy brief, released by the Climate Institute, attempts to ‘set the record straight’ by highlighting and discussing the key factors behind rising electricity costs in Australia (April 2011)

Lighting Efficiency. This publication, released by the Pew Centre, briefly describes ways to reduce the amount of energy consumed by lighting systems. It looks at the emission reduction potential of lighting efficiency, the costs and the obstacles (April 2011)

 

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