Thread by @pollyjhemming

The Safeguard Mechanism is not a good climate policy. It is not designed to drive emissions reductions. If implemented the Safeguard risks locking in INCREASED emissions. Not implementing it will actually have negligible impact.
🧵 #auspol #insiders

https://twitter.com/pollyjhemming/status/1621060739325894656

The overwhelming impression seems to be that the Safeguard is designed to drive decarbonisation. It's not. It's an industry policy designed to give regulatory cover to fossil fuels and to channel private funding to carbon offset developers. 1/

The government NEEDS the carbon offset industry to be successful and has said it WILL be successful. Carbon offsets are a way to say that farmers, Indigenous rangers and conservation groups are being funded without the govt having to fund them itself. 2/ minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/speeches…

Commentators say that the Safeguard will drive decarbonisation b/c the price of offsets will become prohibitive & decarbonisation will become the cheaper alternative. I don't believe they have been watching the policy changes that will keep the price of carbon offsets low. 3/

Under the coalition the supply of carbon offsets was turbocharged. It was made easier to generate offsets, register offset projects & changes to contracting arrangements mean that there will be a ready supply of offsets on the market for industry. 4/

https://twitter.com/pollyjhemming/status/1614138035788222466

The govt review of offsets showed that there were no problems with them. This means that those millions of offsets are still on the market, their projects will keep generating them and NEW projects will be able to generate new offsets. 5/ law.anu.edu.au/sites/all/file…

Leaving aside the issues of integrity of these offsets the sheer quantity that will be immediately available and that are in the pipeline are going to be enough to keep the price of offsets suppressed and a cheaper/more appealing alternative to decarbonisation. 6/

Yes there will be some decarbonisation that happens under the safeguard but its not fundamentally designed to do that. Yes there will be another type of below baseline credit available, but the supply of these will be limited. This is what commentators seem to be missing. 7/

I don't think there is a full appreciation for how the Safeguard Mechanism actively *incentivises* offsetting (as opposed to just allowing it). Govt has two industries it is trying to support - fossil fuels AND carbon farming. Safeguard is the way to do that. #auspol #insiders

If you look at who is trying to rush this policy through its: fossil fuel industry; recipients of fossil fuel donations; industry groups representing fossil fuel companies and carbon offset developers; and recipients (gov & non-gov) of carbon offset industry donations.