CCA’s great expectations
The AFR’s award-winning reporter Marcus Priest has revealed that the Climate Change Authority, headed by former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser, is likely to recommend a target of reducing emissions by 15 per cent by 2020 and 40 per cent by 2030. It says the new targets will be outlined in a report out early October, and is being driven in part by expectations the cost of international carbon permits will likely remain low over the medium term.
The paper says CCA CEO Anthea Harris has told business groups that lifting the target from 5 per cent to 15 per cent will create little additional economic cost, and falling power demand is also creating more opportunity to reduce emissions further. Some groups such as WWF have suggested an even higher target – of 25 per cent – is already justified on the cost issue. The paper quoted a spokesperson as saying that the authority is still undertaking detailed analysis for its “Caps and Targets Review” and no decisions has been made.
California’s carbon ambition
The AFR report said one of the key metrics on any recommendation would be the extent of global action, and said it understood there is disagreement among board members about how much action is being taken by other countries to reduce emissions. A different perspective has been provided this week by Mary Nicholls, the head the California Air Regulator, which runs the cap and trade emissions scheme in the world’s 8th largest economy. It currently has a carbon price of just over $US14/tonne.
Nicholls said the carbon scheme in California had not attracted the same notoriety as in Australia because they had sought to keep it as “dull” as possible. The California scheme is also accompanied by a 33 per cent renewable energy target, an ambitious energy efficiency program, and numerous other initiatives. That level of ambition is also likely to increase, as we reported here. Nicholls said recent polls suggested 65 per cent of the population was happy with California’s initiative, which is the most ambitious in the US. “There is a sense that we should be doing whatever it takes – regardless of what’s happening elsewhere in the world,” she told a breakfast forum on Friday.
Rebound in cleantech stocks
The Australian Cleantech Index rose strongly in July, posting a 7.2 per cent gain to outperform even the benchmark S&P ASX200 Index over the month (5.2 per cent). The index has outperformed the S&P Small Ordinaries Index over the last three, six and twelve months, and has also outperformed the S&P ASX200 over the last three months, John O’Brien said.
He said the latest rise was underpinned by a jump in the geothermal index, which rose 51 per cent, thanks mostly to good news from the pilot plant run by Geodynamics. The Biofuels Index also performed well with a 39% gain. The two weakest sector was the Water Index.
CEFC busy, busy, busy
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been busy with a range of small-scale investments, many centred around bio-energy and self generation. In the latest, it is financing an upgrade that will see AJ Bush, Australia’s largest renderer, double the size of its biogas project at Beaudesert in Queensland to 2MW. CEFC CEO Oliver Yates said bionergy is a cost-effective means of reducing emissions, and “a dollar invested in a biogas project can produce five to 10 times the CO2-e savings of some other technologies.”
Earlier this week, the CEFC said it would work with New Forests to finance new bioenergy and biofuel developments that could include combined heat and power projects or renewable fuels projects featuring biodiesel or syngas associated with forestry investments in regional Australia. In keeping with its theme of “gumboot” investments, the CEFC is also working with National Australia Bank to co-finance a $2.6 million waste to energy project, using a biodigestor at Queensland poultry business Darling Downs Fresh Eggs. The new plant will cut its grid electricity usage by 60 per cent. The CEFC is also co-financing street lamp upgrades for councils with a $1 million project in Victoria’s Baw Baw council to help reduce emission levels by 18 months.
