Direct Action Plan falls well short of emissions reduction target

T

he government’s Clean Energy Regulator yesterday announced the results of the second “reverse auction”. It spent A$557 million to buy emissions cuts of some 45 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Australia needs to cut its CO₂ emissions by 236 million tonnes to meet its current 2020 mitigation target of -5% below 2000 levels. The Direct Action Plan and its Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) is the Turnbull government’s major program for doing so.

The first auction, in April this year, spent A$660 million for 47.3 million tonnes.

So far, then, almost half of the A$2.55 billion allocated to the ERF has been used and some 92.8 million tonnes of emissions reduction “bought” at an average rate of almost A$13.12 per tonne of CO₂. The ERF will also form part of efforts to achieve Australia’s 2030 climate target.

Read today’s piece about this on The Conversation - “Australia’s climate targets still out of reach after second emissions auction.”