Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following legislative instruments, made under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 and the Industry Research and Development Act 1986, be disallowed:

(a) the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment (Carbon Capture and Storage Projects) Rule 2021 [F2021L01378];

(b) the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative—Carbon Capture and Storage)

Methodology Determination 2021 [F2021L01379]; and

(c) Industry Research and Development (Carbon Capture, Use and Storage Hubs and Technologies Program) Instrument 2021 [F2021L01593].

The Greens are seeking to disallow the rule and the methodology for carbon capture and storage under the Emissions Reduction Fund. Of course, those instruments are hangovers from the Liberal government climate policy—if you can even call it a climate policy. For clarity: Senator Pocock is seeking to disallow the plantation forestry method, and we'll be supporting him in that disallowance motion, but I'll speak primarily to the carbon capture and storage instruments.

Last year, the Australia Institute released a report demonstrating how this carbon capture and storage methodology was developed. Mr Angus Taylor, hand in hand with the fossil fuel industry and the big emitters, who are growing increasingly reliant on offsets to justify their lack of a transition plan, got together and agreed upon it. This CCS methodology would allow Australia's biggest gas companies, like Santos, Woodside and Chevron, to generate credits for burying just a tiny proportion of the gas they extract. This instrument is just another in a very long line of fossil fuel subsidies that should not be supported by the parliament, which is precisely why the Greens are seeking to disallow this Morrison hangover con of a climate-burying methodology.

We know that carbon capture and storage is a con. It's used as a distraction by the coal and gas barons while they keep on extracting more of the products that are destroying our children's future, and, frankly, barely paying any tax while they're doing so. To date, governments have committed over $4 billion on this technology, and there is almost nothing to show for it. There is only one commercial-scale carbon capture and storage project in Australia—that is, the Gorgon LNG complex—and Chevron have had exemption after exemption from their pollution obligations from the Western Australian EPA. This technology has continued to break down on virtually an annual basis and will never sequester anywhere near as much pollution as was claimed by Chevron when they sought to get their environmental approvals.

The third instrument we're seeking to disallow was a good old cash handout for coal and gas donors. The Industry Research and Development (Carbon Capture, Use and Storage Hubs and Technologies Program) Instrument 2021 gave $250 million to companies who invested in carbon capture and storage projects. In November 2021 we moved to disallow a very similar fund, a $50 million CCUS development fund, a motion which the big parties joined together to oppose. I'll note that since this disallowance motion was lodged Minister Bowen has reclaimed the $250 million from this program to put into the government's Powering the Regions Fund. So why not kill the other two instruments, which give yet more cash to coal and gas and which credit dodgy methodologies, while you're at it?

I will speak just briefly to Senator Pocock's motion for the disallowance of the commercial forestry method. We are taking the position of supporting the disallowance because under this method it's easy to credit false abatement or overcredit actual abatement. In other words, it means that one tonne of so-called avoided emissions doesn't always equal one tonne of actual avoided emissions.

Under the government's safeguard mechanism the expansion of coal and gas will be enabled through the purchase of credits like this and, frankly, this method does not provide us with high enough confidence that the emissions abatement will be real or additional. This is important because basic science says that there is no better abatement than leaving coal and gas in the ground when we are in a climate crisis and all the relevant scientists and international bodies are begging us not to open new coal, oil or gas fields. If this parliament were to allow credits like this, we would simply be allowing coal and gas to be extracted while these big tax-dodging and polluting companies greenwash their way to net zero.

So, for these and numerous other reasons, we are moving to disallow the three CCUS methodologies listed in the motion and will also be supporting Senator David Pocock's disallowance of the forestry methodology.