States urged to do a carbon copy of gas scheme -

AUSTRALIAN states would do well to copy the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (GGAS) set up by NSW, pending the creation of a national carbon market aimed at reducing carbon emissions, according to one of the plan's advisers.
The focus on the mandatory reduction of greenhouse gas emissions meant GGAS was getting companies to cut pollution, an approach that other states including South Australia and Victoria were considering, said Rob Fowler, director of Sydney-based advisory firm Abatement Solutions Asia-Pacific.
"If you're a company executive, and you're looking to distribute your constrained resources across various activities, you're probably not going to give much to … emissions reductions unless you really have to," Mr Fowler said.
As Australia and even the US — both yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change — edge closer to legislating lower emissions, participants in GGAS are best placed to benefit from new market opportunities.
"If Australia ratified Kyoto, then all these projects that have been under way under GGAS would become joint implementation projects and we'd be able to sell the credits overseas," Mr Fowler said. "We'd be instantly integrated into the international carbon market as a nation."
State and territory governments are working on a national emissions trading scheme, while the Federal Government has set up a taskforce of its own, due to report on a preferred market by the second half of this year.
The GGAS effort has some 180 projects under way, according to its website. Its operation has been extended until 2021, from an original 2012 time frame.
The US Congress, under Democratic Party control since this month, may seek to override the Bush Administration's opposition to greenhouse gas controls.
The Energy Information Administration, part of the US Department of Energy, earlier this month released a report on the likely cost of a carbon cap-and-trade system at the request of six senators.
The plan would initially reduce emissions per dollar of output by 2.6 per cent a year between 2012 and 2021, and then accelerate the cuts to 3 per cent. Depending on how the emission allowances are auctioned, the EIA estimated the plan's cost to be about 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product over the 2009-30 period.
Mr Fowler said companies often overestimated the cost of reducing energy use.
"That's the quandary of energy efficiency," he said. "It's really cheap to do, and pays back in a year."
http://www.greenhousegas.nsw.gov.au
http://www.eia.doe.gov