“The opportunity to influence such fundamentally significant legislation should not be squandered particularly given the level of effort and thought that the Coalition has put into possible design improvements,” said Belinda Robinson, chief executive of the natural gas industry’s peak body, the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA).
There is a narrow window of opportunity for the Coalition to influence a more environmentally effective and economically efficient emissions trading scheme.
The natural gas industry supports the passage of legislation underpinning an emissions trading scheme with amendments that lock in the full potential of Australia’s natural gas endowment to assist Australia and the world move to a substantially lower greenhouse emitting future.
When used to generate electricity, natural gas produces between 50 and 70 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal. As such, a test of an efficiently operating emissions trading scheme will be the extent to which it stimulates, rather than frustrates, the full growth potential of the sector.
“In working with the government, the Coalition has the opportunity to secure an emissions trading scheme that delivers substantial environmental outcomes, protects the international competitiveness of Australian industry and avoids the unintended consequence of increasing global emissions by constraining the growth of the very industry that has the most to contribute to the solution,” said Ms Robinson.
