Garnaut review sets action stage

The Queensland Resources Council has welcomed Professor Ross Garnaut’s strong endorsement of a concerted research, development and commercialisation program to accelerate the introduction of low-emission energy generation technologies.

The Garnaut Climate Change Review, commissioned by state and federal governments, is evaluating the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation in Australia, which is expected to result in the introduction of a national emissions trading scheme in 2010.

The scheme is expected to put a price on carbon emitted into the atmosphere from industry and domestic sources including power stations, transport, industrial processes and agriculture.

Mr Roche welcomed Professor Garnaut’s support for coal-fired low-emission technology development as being ‘a strong national interest’.

‘With coal exports the backbone of the Queensland and national economies, it’s in all our interests to accelerate the progress of low-emission power generation,’ he said.

‘As Professor Garnaut correctly observes, it’s also in our interests to have developing Asian economies access new technologies under development in Australia because effective international action is required to address the threat of climate change.’

Mr Roche cited the joint coal industry and government funded Callide oxy-fuel and ZeroGen coal gasification pilot projects as examples of where Queensland would remain at the centre of national policy action in the years ahead.

Mr Roche said that while the minerals and energy sector considered an emissions trading scheme the best way to price carbon, ‘trade-exposed emission intensive industries’ were also a fundamental component of the Queensland economy.

'Just yesterday, the National Electricity Market Management Company released projections for a more than 30 per cent increase in electricity demand in Queensland over the next decade, more than three times the projected rate of growth in New South Wales,' Mr Roche said.

'This demand outlook is being largely driven by export-focused industrial development that is underpinning the state’s economy and the bright economic outlook for regional Queensland in particular.

'An effective emissions trading scheme is the first step towards identifying how Australia can make the change from a carbon-intensive economy to a low-emissions economy without sacrificing the economic growth that will pay for these reforms.

‘Professor Garnaut’s recommendation that additional mitigation policies should only be undertaken where they lower the overall cost to the economy is a strong acknowledgment that a mandatory renewable energy target is not in the country’s long term interests alongside an effective emissions trading scheme.

'Australia's emissions trading scheme will be the second largest in the world as well as the most comprehensive.

‘The challenge is to implement these reforms in such a way that we provide a positive example for the rest of the world to follow our lead,’ he said.

Media contact: Jim Devine 3295 9560 or (0412) 190 021

‘The Review’s first aim is to lay out the issues for policy choice in a transparent way. We will have done our job if Australian governments and the community make their choices in full knowledge of the consequences of their decisions.’

Professor Ross Garnaut, Canberra, 4 July 2008