Australian Carbon Traders AFAR

News in brief from AFAR ... 14 December 2009

(become an AFAR member for more detailed news items)

CPRS - Politics

It has been quite a month in politics and in the business of climate change and emission trading. It's hard to keep up. Here are just a few of the highlights:

The Government and the Opposition came to an agreement on the CPRS legislation. There was a divide in the Liberal Party over the CPRS and the Leader of the Opposition survived a challenge to his leadership. Twelve Liberal senators crossed the floor to vote for a delay on the CPRS legislation which was defeated. Three shadow cabinet ministers resigned their cabinet positions so they could vote against the scheme. The Senate was due to rise for the summer break but then scheduled extra days and hours to debate the CPRS. The Government needed seven Liberals to vote for the scheme to get it passed.
Liberal frontbencher Tony Abbott resigned from the front bench to join Senate leader Nick Minchin, Deputy leader Eric Abetz, Sophie Mirabella and Tony Smith, all of whom have also resigned their party (not parliamentary) positions. Junior Liberal frontbenchers Mathias Corman, Mitch Fifield, Brett Mason and Stephen Parry (opposition Senate whip) resigned their party positions.
Some of the concessions made have been an increase in compensation to heavy emitters and the coal industry, and most importantly the exclusion of agriculture from the scheme.
The Opposition has since dumped pro ETS leader Malcolm Turnbull and elected Tony Abbott as leader. Tony Abbott has immediately re-neged on the Opposition's deal with the Government and blocked the ETS with support from the Greens (who blocked the deal as it was not strong enough) and the independent Senators Xenophon and Fielding. Two Liberal senators crossed the floor to vote with the Government but it was still not enough to get the vote over the line.
The Government has now made the amended legislation including the increased compensation to coal miners and heavy emitters as policy and will reintroduce the amended legislation to parliament in February. So we wait until February for the next instalment in the ongoing saga.

Agriculture excluded

The exclusion of agriculture effects most AFAR members. This means you will not have to account for your emissions and, coupled with the NCOS (see below) there is greater scope to make additional revenue.

National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS)

The Department of Climate Change released the National Carbon Offsetting Standard (NCOS) which includes scope for creating offset credits from agricultural and forestry activities not covered by the CPRS or our Kyoto accounts, so things like forest management, soil carbon and non forestry revegetiaon will be able to create credits. ACT will be working on methodologies to bring these services and products to you. The credits generated will not be useable in the CPRS market, they will only have value within the voluntary market. The Department of Climate Change will be accepting methodologies for voluntary projects from 1 July 2010.