White Paper: Framing Australia’s Energy & Climate Policy to 2030

Following the release of the Climate Change Authority’s Special Review, which proposed a ‘toolkit’ of measures to meet Australia’s emissions target - but made few detailed recommendations - in this White Paper, we examine Australia’s abatement task through to 2030 and the policy settings needed to meet Australia’s emissions target. IN SHORT: As state and federal policymakers begin to explore policy development, we present the RepuTex 2030 Energy & Climate Policy (ECP) Tool, an interactive web tool enabling users to build a customised policy pathway to meet Australia’s 2030 target. The ECP Tool is available in four versions, including a free edition for public use and three subscriber versions. We apply the ECP Tool for illustrative purposes below. Accounting for updated economic assumptions and state and federal policy, including new state RETs in ACT, SA, QLD and VIC, we estimate an Australian greenhouse gas abatement task of approximately 1 billion tonnes of CO2-e (2020-30), a 55% downgrade on government estimates (2,215 Mt). National emissions will need to be reduced by 8 to 9 million tonnes of CO2-e (Mt) annually to meet Australia’s 26 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030. Should industry be relied upon to deliver emissions reductions