Extract from AUST front page today: Coalition plan to abolish...

Extract from AUST front page today:
Coalition plan to abolish ‘carbon price by stealth’

EXCLUSIVE Rosie Lewis Political Correspondent
The Coalition will abolish or overhaul what it calls Labor’s “carbon price by stealth” in a bid to boost fossil fuels under its energy plan, saying the new emissions reduction objective is making Australia’s coal fleet “look really expensive”.
As Peter Dutton prepares to announce his long-awaited nuclear costings this week, The Australian can reveal the Coalition will reset or scrap altogether the Value of Emissions Reduction, which regulators consider when making decisions about projects.
The VER, which the Coalition and conservative think tank Centre for Independent Studies refer to as a “shadow carbon price”, is set at $70 a tonne of carbon and is expected to increase to $420 a tonne of carbon in 2050.
The Australian Energy Regulator looks at several criteria – reliability, affordability and now emissions reduction – when assessing whether a project stacks up, whether it should be built and how much should be paid for it.
A gas asset may be marginal as an emissions reduction proposition, given the $70 a tonne of carbon value placed on emissions, but may get a tick of approval because of its reliability and affordability benefits.
“One of the problems with Labor’s approach to electricity is that it’s been secretly applying a shadow carbon price, which acts like a carbon tax in system modelling to make coal look far more expensive than it really is,” opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said. “Once you add that in, you make uneconomic projects look economic and our existing coal fleet looks really expensive.
“As prices soar and the lights go out, the government says ‘coal is too expensive, it’s driving prices up’ yet this is Labor relying on theoretical models which include a carbon price which is set to go from $70 today to over $400 per tonne by 2050.”
Government sources said Mr O’Brien had “swallowed the climate denying cordial” and was seeing carbon prices where there were none, noting the VER was not used for modelling in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s plan to transition to net zero by 2050.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and his state and territory counterparts adopted a VER in May 2023, integrating emissions reduction as an objective in the national energy laws. Government sources said it was not a carbon price or carbon tax and did not require energy producers or anyone else to pay for or offset their emissions.
The Coalition would need agreement from the states and territories if it was to change or get rid of the mechanism.
“If Ted O’Brien doesn’t understand the energy market, he can’t be minister for energy,” Mr Bowen said.
Former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard’s carbon price was $23 a tonne of pollution.
The Coalition wants to keep coal-fired power stations burning as part of its “coal-to-nuclear” transition plan, with the first nuclear reactors expected to be built in the mid-2030s at the earliest.
……