A new report published this week has declared that Australia’s flagship climate policy, the Safeguard Mechanism, “is failing miserably” to achieve its goal of reducing dangerous greenhouse gas emissions due to its “overwhelming reliance on carbon offsets.”
The Australia Institute report, Safeguarding the Fossil Fuel Industry, has been published in advance of the federal government’s review of the Safeguard Mechanism, planned to get underway in the next financial year.
The Safeguard Mechanism, which applies to facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) in a year, was first legislated in 2014 and has been in place since 2016, before being reformed in 2023 to reduce emissions at the country’s largest industrial facilities.
Australia’s highest greenhouse gas emitting facilities are required under the Mechanism to reduce their emissions in line with Australia’s emission reduction targets of 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050.
In 2023–24 there were 219 Safeguard facilities covered across the mining, manufacturing, transport, oil, gas, and waste sectors, which together produced around 31 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
