Critics of the Coalition’s discredited Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) have welcomed the review of the fund announced today by Energy Minister Chris Bowen — and particularly its comprehensive nature.
The review, by former chief scientist Ian Chubb, will not merely examine the likelihood that 80% of the credits issued by the fund — and paid for by taxpayers — have major integrity problems, but will look at the governance of the scheme.
The review follows ANU professor Andrew Macintosh blowing the whistle on the fraudulent nature of credits generated by the ERF, especially in relation to the lack of additionality for many of the credits (i.e., they were credits for things that would have been done anyway, or for things that weren’t permanent).
But the “review” doesn’t need a former chief scientist, it needs a judge. This should be a judicial inquiry to investigate a billion-dollar fraud on taxpayers, who have been paying for these worthless credits for years.
The ERF was born as a fraud, based on fraudulent science, it was implemented as a fraud and it has generated billions in fraudulent credits. The fraud was an ingenious three-way scam: it served as cover for Tony Abbott’s climate denialism after the right-wing putsch that removed Malcolm Turnbull the first time, and then again as cover for Scott Morrison’s climate denialism after Turnbull’s second removal; it funneled hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in pork-barrelling to Coalition mates; and it gave big carbon emitters an out for exceeding emissions caps under the Safeguard Mechanism, despite the lack of any actual carbon emission offset.
We don’t need Ian Chubb reviewing it. We need Greg Hunt, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor in a witness box being forced to answer questions about the fraudulent nature of the scheme.
The government wants to properly apply and toughen up the Safeguard Mechanism as part of its more ambitious climate targets. Perversely, this creates an incentive for it to retain the ERF, even if in modified form, and the flow of credits it potentially provides for large emitters to offset their emissions above the Safeguard cap. Earlier this year, the Angus Taylor-appointed Clean Energy Regulator intervened to ensure the price of carbon credits in Australia fell significantly just as Chevron was facing the prospect of having to buy hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth.
Effective climate action requires genuine emissions offsets. For governments and large emitters, the incentive is instead for lots of offsets to be readily available. Where will Labor come down?
Correct this scam needs to be exposed. The four coalition blokes you mention need to be in the witness box facing hard questions. The beneficiaries need to be named as well.
Mother nature is coping the actual CO2 load, not the made up one the LNP have scammed us with.
I would really like to see thos 4 in jail for this and all the other stuff they have perpetrated.
Mother nature is only recycling CO2 at the preindustrial rate. All fossil emissions are a mounting burden on top of that vanished equilibrium. In particular, the amplitude of the seasonal oscillations of the northern forests has remained unchanged. See “NOAA CO2 graph”
I’m not sure that Mother Nature is coping the actual CO2 load, I think it’s more the case that Mother Nature is copping the actual CO2 load.
Mr Clifton’s description of Mother Nature continuing to recycle CO2 at the pre-Industrial rate and that all fossil emissions are a mounting accumulation on top of that now-gone equilibrium is a far more succinct description than my own garbled attempts.
The best way to lower CO2 emissions is a tax. The best way to sell the tax is to give the money raised equally to all Australians. All the money, given to everyone. And $50/ton is a good start. Prices would go up, CO2 would come down, and we would each get $1,000. A family of 5 would receive $5,000. Taxing CO2 is the fastest way to get to net zero. Board room action would be phenomenal. One human generation would see the job done. Everything electric and all electricity generated by renewables. As we seem to have locked in a 3°C rise already, and as that equates to at least a 5 metre rise in sea level, then the sooner we get our act together the better. And cheaper.
Carbon credits and offsets are a scam and a waste of time we don’t have. The carbon tax will get everyone of their arses and force change, fast.
Sorry to go on – preaching to the converted.
The applied science of thieving and associated institutional crookedness of conservative conmen like A Taylor, under orders from backstage string pullers, is a sickening act or series of acts, a parasitic evil of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison era.
Considering the enormous amount of money involved in positive fossil emissions, we must expect that large amounts of money will be invested in illusions of negative emissions to offset them. In other words, we can confidently label any “emissions offset scheme” as fraudulent. Technically, every offset scheme has been debunked as impermanent or negligible.
Anyone who includes the word “net” in “zero emissions” is indulging the wishful thinking that we can tolerate small positive emissions. Even on the Left, many of us desperately want to permit a nominally small amount of gas burning so that renewables are always backed up.
We should be taking a moral position, not of permissiveness, but of condemnation. Any emission of fossil carbon anywhere in the world is then a criminal act. Fossil energy of any form should be eradicated from the face of the earth so that we can stabilise the global climate. Any permissive use of the word “offset” weakens our capacity to call out on crime.
Another excellent article Bernard. While the treasury benches may be having discussions about this at wine and cheese gatherings after COB (if COB happens in the world of politics), they would also be discussing, or not, the implications of (all) politicians being held accountable for their policies and actions in a court of law. As far as a federal ICAC goes, how long and sharp will its teeth be? Will that be decided by the caucus or a parliamentary committee?