Media

Our op ed in today’s Canberra Times on the deal struck yesterday between the Labor federal government and the Greens with the support of the Teals and David Pocock, which will see an improved Safeguard Mechanism, designed to cut emissions from Australia’s biggest polluters, finally signed into law. Read more

“Industry is broadly supportive of the [incoming NSW ALP government’s] energy transition plan, but experts told The Fifth Estate more detail was needed on how cities will be fully electrified in coming years. ‘We’ve seen talk from the federal and state energy ministers that we need to do an electrification of everything and we haven’t seen any detail. The property sector is the obvious starting point,’ said Tim Buckley.” Read more

SMH reviews the deal struck between the government and the Greens to ensure passage of the Safeguard Mechanism through parliament: “Tim Buckley calculates the cost of offsetting rather than reducing emissions to be $5 billion annually by 2030. ‘Industry can’t just afford a hit like that,’ he says. ‘Solutions once considered unviable are now immediately financially inevitable’.” Read more

Tim Buckley breaks down the deal struck today by the federal government with the Greens to support its proposed Safeguard mechanism legislation, with some amendments – including a hard cap on emissions, and some significant advances on limiting and reporting methane, a key driver of climate change and 70% of the emissions covered by the SGM. Read more

Tim Buckley refute assertions by the opposition that the safeguard deal struck today will raise energy prices, noting any price increases arising from the mechanism would be “immaterial”: “The impact of the safeguard mechanism on the Australian consumer is almost immaterial in terms of the overall impact of energy prices and resulting wider inflation. Extreme weather events have a much greater impact on businesses’ bottom line than any costs they would incur under the legislation, with the $8.5 billion in losses caused by flooding in 2022 alone exemplifying how the costs of inaction on climate far exceed any “costs” of decarbonisation. Read more

Professor Ian Lowe’s op ed on his new methane report (release supported by CEF) throws a spotlight on the elephant in the room of the Safeguard Mechanism debate currently at the pointy end in federal parliament: the outsized contribution to our emissions budget of the climate-wrecking greenhouse gas methane, and the need for increased ambition and rigour in the SGM framework to account for and reduce it. Read more

In this Safeguard mechanism explainer across News Corp papers, Tim Buckley notes that “any price increases arising from the safeguard mechanism would be “immaterial” in terms of the overall impact of energy prices and resulting wider inflation, with extreme weather events having a much greater impact on an Australian business’s bottom line than any costs they would incur under the mechanism”, citing the “$8.5 billion in losses caused by flooding in 2022 alone”. The story further covers the findings of Professor Ian Lowe’s report that the legislation for the safeguard mechanism radically underestimates Australia’s current and future methane emissions, and its massive climate impacts. Read more

Across Canberra Times and 100+ mastheads, Tim Buckley comments on the new report by Professor by Ian Lowe revealing that methane comprises the 70% of emissions from fossil fuel facilities under the Safeguard mechanism: “The report highlights the critical need to differentiate between methane and carbon dioxide, and endorses an emissions budget as an additional safeguard. Setting a maximum limit on emissions for this decade would mean new entrants would be determined within that budget, and not freely added to national emissions.” Read more

A new report from Professor Ian Lowe, commissioned by Lock the Gate, shows that the vast majority of emissions from fossil fuel facilities covered by the Safeguard Mechanism are climate-wrecking methane when calculated over 20 years – 85 times more potent than CO2 in the near term. Tim Buckley comments: “We have a global climate emergency that needs critical attention this decade and next. As such, applying a global warming potential assessment of 100 years to emissions (as the CER does) dramatically understates the destructive cost of methane. We need to evaluate its global warming potential over 20 years as Woodside Energy, our biggest methane producer and exporter, advocates. On a 20 year basis, methane represents 69% of all emissions from the 215 facilities covered by the Safeguard Mechanism and over half of all Australian domestic emissions.” Read more

Tim Buckley speaks with Sky Breakfast on the new report finding that 70% of emissions under the SGM are methane from fossil fuel facilities, and the blindspot in the legislation that fails to differentiate between CO2 and methane – which is 85 times more damaging to climate in the short term. Tim discusses key solutions, principally a high, rising price on carbon to drive new cleantech and decarbonisation, and potential developments to cut methane such as asparagopsis to reduce emissions from ruminant cattle. Read more

A new report by eminent environmental scientist Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, commissioned by Lock the Gate, finds that direct methane emissions from fossil fuel facilities make up ~70% of total greenhouse gas emissions covered under the federal Safeguard Mechanism (SGM), when the global warming impact is calculated over 20 years. The report also finds that the use of carbon credits to offset methane, as allowed under the safeguard, is not technically feasible, and more rigour is urgently needed, such as Zali Steggal’s proposed cap on methane within the scheme, Read more

Meanwhile, Xuyang Dong, a China energy policy analyst for Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance, said the Australian media’s hand-wringing over a possible war with China has clouded the country’s focus on the greater threat of climate change. “Diversifying Australia’s security strategy to encompass these concerns is inarguably important because China is no longer the only, or major, threat to the world, or to Australia,” Dong said on Tuesday. “Climate change and the energy crisis are clearly endangering Australia’s national interests now, and require more nuanced conversations to tackle.” Read more