A Labor-led committee has recommended the government consider changing a controversial law classifying electricity from burning native forest wood waste as renewable energy after the Senate votes for its climate change legislation.
The Senate committee inquiry into Labor’s climate change bill also recommended the Albanese government consider how to help with “transition arrangements” for fossil fuel workers affected by the shift to a cleaner economy.
The recommendations were backed by the Greens, which described them as “good steps forward”. The party’s leader, Adam Bandt, said the committee had supported the need for work on “stopping burning native forests for energy and establishing a transition authority for coal and gas workers”.
Labor and Greens senators called on the Senate to pass the bill, which enshrines national targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 43% by 2030 (compared with 2005) and to net zero by 2050, requires the climate change minister to make an annual parliamentary progress statement and beefs up the role of the Climate Change Authority.
The independent senator David Pocock, who has indicated he believed the bill should pass and whose vote would be enough for it to clear parliament, said he would introduce several amendments. They included a joint amendment with the Jacqui Lambie Network that would require an emissions outlook report to be tabled with the federal budget to show how its measures would affect action on the climate crisis.
Bandt said the Greens had “improved a weak climate bill and we will pass it, but the fight to stop new coal and gas mines continues”, pointing to the resources minister, Madeleine King, last week announcing the release of nearly 50,000 sq km of new exploration areas for the oil and gas industry.
The use of wood left over from logging for power generation is opposed by conservation groups, which say it is an incentive to keep felling native forests. The introduction of a transition authority to help communities affected by emissions cuts has been strongly by backed by unions and the Greens.
The Greens’ forests spokesperson, Janet Rice, said the committee heard evidence that “shredded the false claim that native forest biomass should be classified as renewable energy”. She said the party would introduce amendments to reverse a Tony Abbott-era change that had allowed it.
Coalition members of the committee released a dissenting report that said the government’s consultation process had “failed to properly account for rural and regional perspectives” and the bill would “invite green activists to abuse our legal system for political purposes, challenging what they class as high emissions projects”.
But, in separate comments, the Liberal senator Andrew Bragg emphasised the importance of bipartisanship to provide industry with policy certainty. He pointed to comments by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, suggesting the Coalition would have a more ambitious climate target at the next election than in government.
Bragg called for Australia to become a “first mover” in legislating a comprehensive emissions disclosure regime in line with calls from the Financial Services Council and the Investor Group on Climate Change, which would require companies to disclose emissions across all scopes, including indirect “scope three” emissions.
While Bragg previously indicated he may cross the floor on the bill, he is expected to vote with the Coalition. He said the legislation was an “empty bill” and not necessary to drive emissions reductions.
The committee report coincided with the release of the national emissions data for the first quarter of the year. It showed carbon pollution increased 1.5% over the year to March, mainly due to the easing of Covid-19 restrictions.
Emissions across the year rose by 7.4m tonnes, reaching 487.1m tonnes, due to increased pollution from transport, manufacturing industries and agriculture.
Pollution from electricity generation continued to fall as coal power was displaced by renewable energy, but that drop was more than cancelled out by increases elsewhere.
The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said it showed the Coalition had no climate or energy policies and had relied on the pandemic and drought to cut emissions.
National emissions were 20.6% below 2005 levels. Most of that fall was due to changes in the pace of land-clearing and the decline of the forestry industry.
Emissions across other parts of the economy – particularly fossil fuel industries, but also farming and waste management – were down only 1.4% since 2005.
