The energy minister has issued an ultimatum to parliament to accept the federal government's signature policy to reduce carbon emissions or risk "squandering" the chance.
A bill to impose emissions limits on the 215 largest-polluting facilities in the country is before parliament that would require those facilities to cut or pay offsets to reduce their emissions by 4.9 per cent each year to 2030.
The Greens are adamant that the proposed laws won't work unless new coal or gas plants are banned, saying that allowing new projects would erase any potential emissions reductions, and independent senator David Pocock — whose support is necessary for the legislation to pass — labelled it a mediocre plan.
Speaking to ABC Radio this morning, Mr Bowen flatly rejected any prospect of blocking new coal and gas projects.
"The opportunity before the parliament over the coming weeks is either to seize the opportunity to reduce emissions by 205 million tonnes or to squander it," Mr Bowen said.
"The choice for the parliament is: Do you want business as usual — which is seeing emissions from these facilities go up, existing and new — or do you want a constraint in place [that] will see emissions go down?"
Mr Bowen said he was confident that the safeguard mechanism dealt with existing projects and new projects effectively to ensure the government hits its target of cutting emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.
"We've factored in a reserve of 17 million tonnes to cater for what we need," he said.
Late on Tuesday, the Senate compelled the government to table the modelling underlying its emissions projections. The government has until Thursday afternoon to table the documents but has previously refused to, citing market sensitivities and cabinet confidentiality.
The Greens argue that Labor will not meet its 43 per cent emissions target if new coal and gas projects are approved and have withheld support for the bill.
Its party leader Adam Bandt suggested on Monday that if the government was not prepared to ban coal and gas outright, it could also write a "climate trigger" into environmental protection laws that would require the government to consider climate impact before green-lighting projects.
"We’ve put an offer, not an ultimatum," Mr Bandt said.
"We are prepared to give a bit and the government has got to be prepared to give a bit as well."
Mr Bowen said that was not something the government was prepared to consider.
The minister said he and Mr Bandt continued negotiating in good faith, but that "saying no to new coal and gas is frankly a slogan, not a policy".
He said that, for now — with gas supply shortfalls forecast and falling production of gas in southern states — new projects were needed to continue fuelling gas-fired plants.
Bowen holds firm on unlimited carbon credits
The safeguard plan would mandate facilities reduce their emissions by 4.9 per cent each year, but it would also allow them to buy an unlimited number of carbon credits from other facilities to meet that requirement, which in theory would still bring total emissions across the sector down by the same amount.
In a parliamentary committee report handed down yesterday, Senator Pocock said that such a crediting scheme posed significant risks, and that a simpler cap-and-trade scheme that did not rely on credits would be better.
Environmental groups say facilities could be able to generate credits for actions they would have undertaken anyway, while others would purchase those credits to continue polluting.
Mr Bowen explained that it was necessary to give the sector flexibility in how it reduced emissions as it adapted.
"We're requiring 4.9 per cent in emissions each year, that does require some flexibility [for facilities] … particularly in the shorter term, while we're waiting for that technology, be it cement or steel, to come on," he said.
"Take cement, for example. It's complicated and difficult to reduce emissions without reducing production or reducing staff. We don't want that, so we do need to provide some flexibility.
"Offsets are the 'net' in 'net zero'."
