Coalition wants to boost emissions reduction fund – but what did voters get for $2.3bn?

With Scott Morrison’s new environment minister, Melissa Price, flagging a boost in support for the emissions reduction fund – the centrepiece of the Coalition’s much-derided Direct Action climate policy – it is worth revisiting just what taxpayers have pocketed for the $2.3bn that has been spent on their behalf.

The new environment minister, Melissa Price, wants to push
 for increased funding for the emissions reduction fund.

The summarised view among those who have looked into the scheme ranges from “difficult to know” to “not much we wouldn’t have had anyway”.

Designed by the then environment minister, Greg Hunt, to fit the needs of the former prime minister Tony Abbott, the emissions reduction fund pays farmers and businesses to cut carbon dioxide pollution to below what it would otherwise be. It works as a reverse auction: bidders nominate how cheaply they think they can deliver reductions and what are assessed as the cheapest viable projects win contracts. The government buys carbon credits from the successful projects once the cuts are verified.

Read the story from The Guardian by Adam Morton - “Coalition wants to boost emissions reduction fund – but what did voters get for $2.3bn?”