We are entering the great era of carbon fraud.
The Australia Institute pointed out this commitment is a fraud while the government remains committed to its plans to massively increase coal and gas production.
These are not just false solutions – CCS has missed every target ever set for it globally – they are part of the great carbon fraud that in the short term will divert over $2 billion in taxpayers’ money to the gas and coal industry, and in the long term increase the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change.
It never captures the gases that leak out of the ground during extraction or those that are produced from burning the fossil fuels themselves.
However, rather than investing in wide-scale renewable-powered hydrogen, the government is investing over $1 billion in hydrogen made from burning gas and coal and proposing that the resulting emissions be stored with CCS.
To start with, last year it announced that CCS projects would be able to earn carbon credits allowing even more public money to go to the fossil fuel industry.
Designed to incentivise abatement by industry and landholders, the ERF scheme gives carbon credits to projects carrying out emissions reduction activities such as regenerating land, planting trees and capturing methane from landfill.
Over the last two years, the government has been working to increase the supply of affordable carbon credits available to big emitters needing to offset their emissions for compliance or corporate reasons.
Australia Institute research has shown that at least one in five carbon credits in Australia are “hot air” – having not produced any additional emissions reductions – with the real figure likely to be much higher.
There are now huge questions about the integrity and direction of the whole of the government’s central climate fund , the carbon credits it is generating, and the way the gas industry intends to use it to offset and continue polluting.
Renewable hydrogen and quality carbon credits have a role to play as part of a legitimate net zero plan that simultaneously requires a dramatic and urgent reduction in fossil fuels.
Public money for gas expansion, yet more for CCS and dirty hydrogen combined with carbon credit markets with no integrity are all designed to allow the fossil fuel industry to expand.