New South Wales will be the first state in Australia to start treating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants, which will eventually require polluters to develop plans to cut emissions.
The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) on Thursday launched an eight-week consultation period for its draft climate change policy and related action plan. It marks the first step to require that polluters are on a trajectory towards net zero emissions by 2050.
“The big issue here is that an Australian government is moving to comprehensively cover [carbon dioxide] and equivalent emissions as a pollutant,” the new EPA chief executive, Tony Chappel, said.
“[The plan would] give regulatory teeth to its net zero commitment to ensure that the whole economy moves on that path efficiently and effectively.”
The EPA’s approach was modelled in part on the US EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases, with fines and criminal sentences among the penalties. It was designed to complement the Albanese government’s safeguard mechanism that will set a cap on carbon pollution on 215 large industrial facilities responsible for about 28% of national emissions.
NSW’s approach was triggered by a case brought before the state’s land and environment court last year by the Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action. They argued the EPA had a duty under the Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991 to develop objectives, guidelines and policies to ensure environmental protection from climate change, and won.
The state’s environment minister at the time, Matt Kean, ordered the EPA not to appeal the mandamus order that an agency perform mandatory duties correctly. The EPA’s approach could also prove a template for other states.
Chappel said the state’s 50% emissions reduction goal by 2030 was an important step on the route to mid-century carbon neutrality. “Happily that’s the NSW target but this is really a science-based approach,” he said.
A carrot in the policy will be the “huge opportunities” offered by the transition from fossil fuels, such as new forms of farming or lower cost energy.
The state could “have a new wave of prosperity and another sort of … mining boom in that we’re mining the sun and the wind, and producing hydrogen, ammonia and green steel, and regenerating the landscape to produce agriculture sustainably”, Chappel said.
The impacts of global heating, whether in the form of worsening bushfires, floods or other extreme weather, meant “business and the community are already paying a very high price for our emissions intensity”, he said.
“There’s also a real financial cost businesses are already paying in terms of access to insurance, access to capital markets, and access to export opportunities, as our trading partners transition very quickly to requiring low-carbon products.”
The EPA has planned eight weeks of consultation. The findings are due to be considered before a policy is formalised before Christmas. The agency would then begin detailed engagement with each sector of the economy on how each would cut emissions and demonstrate they are preparing for future climate impacts.
“It’s just too early to say what the suite of tools will be because we do want to quite genuinely engage with each industry sector, and understand how they are already acting to reduce their emissions and where the opportunities are,” Chappel said.
The approach was “very much informed” by the lived experiences of disaster-hit regions. Chappel recently visited Lismore in the state’s north to examine repairs for the region’s sewage works.
A barrier to protect against one-in-100-year floods was exceeded by several metres, wiping out all the pumping stations, treatment ponds and all the site’s electronics. Landfills in the area also suffered “huge damage,” Chappel said.
“Ultimately, it’s about limiting the environmental impact when these disasters happen,” he said. “The best remediation is prevention.
“We just anticipate a continuing worsening of these threats, obviously, as the climate continues to warm.”
