Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Treasurer, upon notice, on 18 August 2011:

With reference to the Treasury Carbon Tax modelling, Strong growth, low pollution: Modelling a carbon price:

(1) Is it correct that in 2020, under the medium global action scenario, Treasury modelling foresees that the 'rest of the world' bloc will be purchasing over 800 million tonnes per annum of CO2-e abatement from other countries, more than the total abatement being purchased in that year by the United States of America, the European Union, Japan and Canada combined.

(2) To the nearest percentage point, how much would these purchases represent as a share of the projected 2020 Gross Domestic Product of this bloc of countries, which includes some of the poorest in the world (countries like Papua New Guinea, Somalia, Malawi, Pakistan and Mongolia).

(3) What probability does Treasury attach to this actually occurring.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) The global economic modelling undertaken for the Strong growth, low pollution (SGLP) report indicates that it could be cost effective for the Rest of World (ROW) to sources 805 Mt CO2–e of abatement from other countries in 2020. This result is dependent on the abatement costs within the ROW and the amount to which they choose to contribute to any global emission reduction target.

(2) The sourcing of abatement from outside the ROW group represents a cost of 0 per cent to the ROW economy, rounded to the nearest percentage point.

(3) The scenario modelling provides a projection of what could happen in the future, given the structure of the models and input assumptions, as acknowledged in page 24 in the SGLP report.