The emissions reduction target in the national energy guarantee needs to be scalable, the Victorian energy minister says, a demand that could scupper Josh Frydenberg’s hopes of settling an issue that has dogged the Coalition.
Lily D’Ambrosio signalled at a clean energy conference on Tuesday that she was unconvinced by the federal energy minister’s recent olive branch of a review of the Neg’s emissions reduction target in 2024 to deal with concerns the states have about a lack of ambition in tackling pollution.
She said the scheme envisaged by the commonwealth locked in an emissions reduction target for electricity that would “effectively be met within a year or two of the national energy guarantee being in place”, a development that “really does leave open a massive question mark”.
Victoria was concerned about allowing “ourselves to be locked into a target that is not moveable, is not improved, before 2030” when Australia would at the same time be reviewing the commitments it made in the Paris climate agreement.
“We want resilience. We want scalability,” D’Ambrosio said.
If Victoria persists with that demand, it will put Frydenberg in a difficult position because opponents of the scheme within the Coalition are already resisting the 26% target, and have a close eye on any concession on a ratchet mechanism that would make the target easier for a future government to increase.
That demand could scuttle agreement on the Neg.
With the make or break conversation between the commonwealth and the states in a fortnight, Frydenberg has redoubled efforts to keep the states at the table.
He has offered state ministers the 2024 review of the target, and a two-step process before sign-off which will include showing them the federal legislation giving effect to the emissions reduction components of the scheme on 14 August, after the package clears the Coalition party room.
D’Ambrosio said Victoria still had not resolved its position. The question she faced in negotiating over the Neg was: “Is something better than nothing, or is nothing better than something?
“We continue to have major concerns. Transparency, a lack of ambition [and] the inclusion of a review mechanism – all of those are still critical issues for us.”
The “elephant in the room” was the “recalcitrant flat-earthers” in the Coalition party room, and the influence in deciding the fate of the Neg “looms larger and larger”.
“Energy council members are being asked to make a decision ahead of the federal government party room decision-making process,” D’Ambrosio said.
“Each of us as states have our own internal decision making [and] we will all be coming to the next energy council meeting knowing what our government’s positions are.
“That cannot be said for the federal government ... It’s important because we only have to look at the most recent set of examples of policy failure to make us all very, very nervous that the goodwill we are showing will not simply end up being another massive leap of faith that takes us nowhere.”
At the same conference, the opposition climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, foreshadowed a “furious debate” in the federal parliament over emissions targets built into the Neg.
Butler called the proposed 26% emissions reduction target “pathetic”, saying it would “smash investment” in the renewable sector and “fail to achieve any significant cut” in pollution.
Reinforcing the Victorian positioning on scalability, Butler said Labor would “fight any attempt by the government to seek to tie the hands of future governments in ratcheting the emission reductions obligations ... up in the future”.
The summit also head from NSW energy minister, Don Harwin, who has broadly supported the goals of the Neg, and the leader of the Greens, Richard Di Natale.
Di Natale called the policy a “a fifth-best option”.
“We are better off with nothing than the Neg in its current form,” he said.
“In consultation with my colleague, the climate minister in the ACT, Shane Rattenbury, the Greens will be pushing that the Coag energy council should not sign up to this compromised energy policy until after the federal legislation has run like Indiana Jones through the Coalition party room and through the national parliament.
“That’s the only way that Coag can be sure they are not signing a blank cheque.
“Any agreement by Coag before that will be handing over all their power to the coalition party room to determine targets, reviews, offsets and what subsidies for coal generators will be bolted on to the agreement.”
