Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong said "The analysis shows that the Opposition policy will actually see emissions increase by 13 per cent from 2000 levels."
However, Frontier Economics has said that the Government's analysis does not provide sufficient detail on the calculations and assumptions it employed in order to arrive at the abovementioned conclusions.
The analysis is based on the experience of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (GGAS), upon which Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the proposed climate change policy was closely modelled.
According to Government analysis, the GGAS achieved around 4.7 million tonnes of additional abatement at a cost of around $200 million - meaning that each tonne of abatement cost around $40.
Article continues below…“The analysis finds likely abatement of around 40 million tonnes of abatement in 2020 – well short of the 138 million tonnes required to meet a 5 per cent target” said Ms Wong.
In addition to the analysis, a briefing note prepared for the Department of Climate Change said that the Emissions Reduction Fund, which is part of the proposed Opposition climate change policy, was subject to “very large margins of uncertainty over both cost and abatement with the amounts and costs claimed by the Opposition very difficult to support on the basis of relevant experience”.
