Scott Morrison announces $2b Climate Solutions Fund to reduce Australia's emissions

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will today launch a new pre-election climate change policy, pledging $2 billion for projects to bring down Australia's emissions.

Scott Morrison - 'dog whistler' extraordinaire.

The Climate Solutions Fund is an extension of former prime minister Tony Abbott's Emissions Reduction Fund.

The 10-year program will provide funding for farmers, businesses and local governments for projects such as revegetating land, reducing bushfire risk and replacing lighting and refrigeration systems.

Mr Morrison is expected to unveil the policy in Melbourne this morning.

Read the story from ABC News by Jade Macmillan - “Scott Morrison announces $2b Climate Solutions Fund to reduce Australia's emissions.”

(This is ‘dog whistling’ in the extreme. PM Scott Morrison is telling his supporters he is acting on climate change, when in fact he is doing nothing but staying true to the ideology of the coalition party and so pumping more public money into private enterprise while doing nought about countering climate change. 

Those conscious of what Australia needs to do to meet its Paris commitments, targets PM Morrison claims we will meet in a “canter”, point out, using reliable and convincing numbers, that Australia is actually galloping in precisely the opposite direction. 

Mr Morrison and his acolytes are deluded and Australians who believe what he is saying are equally deluded - Robert McLean)

CEFC launches first large-scale farm deal to cut emissions in agriculture

As we wait for the Coalition to come up with a workable energy policy through its new National Energy Guarantee, there are growing calls for more work to be done to cut Australia's emissions in other sectors like transport and agriculture.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has announced its
first equity investment in the agricultural sector. 

The government's green investment bank, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, is announcing its first equity investment in the agricultural sector.

It's teaming up with Macquarie Group and the CSIRO on a new project to cut farming emissions, with the aim of establishing new efficiency standards for agriculture.

Listen to the Radio National Breakfast interview with Hamish McDonald - “CEFC launches first large-scale farm deal to cut emissions in agriculture.”

Climate review: Turnbull government will allow companies to purchase foreign carbon credits.

The Turnbull government will reverse course and allow businesses to buy overseas carbon credits to meet Australia's emissions reduction targets, a policy long questioned by climate experts and once labelled "dodgy" by Tony Abbott.

Backed by industry and some climate change observers, the move allows big businesses to purchase emissions reductions in other countries - most likely at lower prices - to offset their own carbon production.

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age by Michael Koziol - “Climate review: Turnbull government will allow companies to purchase foreign carbon credits.”

NSW sets net-zero carbon emissions goal by 2050 as Australian pollution climbs

Hunter Valley's Bayswater coal-fired power
plant is earmarked to close by 2035.

NSW, home to Australia's largest economy, will set a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and allocate $500 million over five years to help spur the transition to renewable energy.

The aspirational target comes as new analysis of Australia's emissions point to national pollution far overshooting the 2030 goals committed to by the Turnbull government at last year's climate summit in France. The Paris agreement comes into Australia's emissions on Friday.

By releasing a goal for NSW to be carbon neutral by mid-century, the state is falling into line with states such as South Australia but also federal Labor's target.

A draft NSW strategic plan will be open to public feedback ahead of formalising policies by mid-2017. Potential spending includes $200 million from the Climate Change Fund to accelerate the take-up of emerging energy technologies such as renewables and batteries.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in The Sydney Morning Herald - “NSW sets net-zero carbon emissions goal by 2050 as Australian pollution climbs.”

Government off target for its carbon emissions inventory

Greg Hunt - "astonished
and angry".

The latest federal government carbon emissions inventory shows Australia has increased its emissions and has come under fire for allegedly vastly underestimating the amount of land clearing that has occurred, and its associated emissions.

The Quarterly Update of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, which counts emissions in Australia up to September 2015, says greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing have fallen to record lows.

But Guardian Australia reported last month that a report commissioned by the Wilderness Society showed a land clearing surge in Queensland since 2012 has been so big that it would create emissions roughly equal to those saved by the federal government’s emissions reduction scheme, where they paid other farmers more than $670m to stop cutting down trees.

Read The Guardian story - “Australia's emissions rising and vastly underestimated, says report.”

(“Astonished” is closest to how I feel (although “angry” probably should go ahead of that) when Australia’s Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, can blithely claim that Australia will “meet and beat” its carbon dioxide emissions targets. Either he is telling outright lies or he is totally misinformed, but whatever the case, it does not become an Australian Government Minister.

His mantra of “meet and beat” is sufficient information for those not prepared, or unable, to delve into the whole climate change conversation.

Mr Hunt’s populist “meet and beat” chorus is about him and his party being re-elected and not about genuinely caring for the future of Australia, and Australians – Robert McLean).