The Rudd Government today released an exposure draft of legislation to implement an earlier start to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Earlier this month the government announced it would terminate the carbon tax and bring forward an ETS to July 1, 2014.
Based on current market conditions, the price is expected to be around $6 in the next financial year, 75 per cent lower than under the current fixed price arrangements.
An earlier start to emissions trading will lead to a cap on the carbon pollution of Australia's largest emitters one year earlier, helping to meet reduction targets.
The draft amendments have been published to enable consultation with businesses, other carbon market participants and interested parties about how the early move to emissions trading will occur.
Submissions on the draft legislative amendments can be made to the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education by 5pm on Thursday, August 15, 2013.
This deadline is exactly one week after the CCN Live Conference when the Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Greg Hunt, will outline the Coalition's plans for the abolition of a carbon tax - if, elected to government in the wake of a federal election.
Hunt will deliver the presentation at Doltone House, Darling Island Wharf, Sydney, on Thursday, August 8, 2013.
"The Coalition will get rid of the carbon tax, lock, stock and barrel," Hunt said.
"Australia needs a clear direction, an end to Labor’s policy chaos, and certainty for business to invest and employ.
"Our scheme will deliver that stability."
Hunt said the Direct Action Plan provides the opportunity for innovation in reducing emissions to ensure
Australia meets its Kyoto targets but without a carbon tax.
To register for the CCN Live event go to: https://secure.twodeforce.com.au/ccn-live/register
Announcing the removal of the carbon tax and the commencement of an ETS earlier this month, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said most Australians want to see their nation doing its bit, to protect the environment from the effects of climate change.
Rudd said the government has decided to terminate the carbon tax, to help cost of living pressures for families and to reduce costs for small business.
"From July 1 next year Australia will move to an emissions trading scheme, one that is used around the world including in countries like Britain, like Germany and soon in China itself," Rudd said.
"We expect the change that we are bringing in will see the price on carbon fall from an expected $25.40 a tonne by next July to around $6 a tonne. This is a big change."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said that under a European ETS, the price of permits tripled in the first six months of the scheme then collapsed by half in 2006 before declining to zero at one point in 2007.
"Recently, the permit price has fallen by 20 per cent in just a week, including a fall of 11 per cent on just one day," he said.
Abbott said that this kind of volatility fatally undermines the argument that an ETS will provide “certainty” for emitters.
He said it's hard to see how the government could count on such a novel market to deliver the “certainty” that it says people need.
"Participants in a carbon market could never be sure that the government wouldn’t grant free permits to some struggling but politically sensitive industry, causing a collapse in the permit price and wiping out the value of investments," Abbott said.
"This is why direct action, as the Coalition proposes, is actually a more practical market?based approach to emissions reductions than an ETS,
"A tender process for emissions abatement is as real a market as a water buy-back scheme. It is in fact a more transparent and direct way of establishing a carbon price than the establishment of a carbon exchange."
